There are a lot of people running for office in Houston already

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

If you regularly check the houstonchronicle.com page, you may have noticed this article continuing to appear, even though it was originally published last November. The reason for this is that they are tracking who has officially filed for office, and are updating it weekly.

The campaigns for Houston’s November mayoral election are in full swing, with several contenders in the mix and millions of dollars flowing to candidates.

In Houston’s strong mayor form of government, the mayor acts as the chief executive of the city, presiding over City Council while also directly managing the city’s 22 departments. The mayor oversees a nearly $6 billion budget and manages more than 20,000 employees.

That means the next administration will have a chance to shape the city’s finances, and will have final say over the number of police officers patrolling the streets, how your garbage and recycling is collected, how streets are repaired and designed, and how the city manages its water system, among other issues.

Mayor Sylvester Turner is term-limited and will leave office in January. The campaigns to replace him in this year’s open election actually began years ago, an unusually early start for municipal politics. State Sen. John Whitmire, the longest serving member of the Texas Senate, announced his plans to run for mayor way back in November 2021.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee made her long-rumored campaign official on March 26, telling parishioners at City Cathedral Church she plans to run.

The congresswoman’s announcement shuffled the race: About a week later, Chris Hollins, the former Harris County clerk, said he would drop out and run for controller instead. And Tony Buzbee, the millionaire attorney who challenged Turner in 2019, said he is considering another run because he thinks he is the only candidate who can beat Jackson Lee.

The mayoral field includes former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards, attorney Lee Kaplan, Councilmember Robert Gallegos, and former Metro Chair Gilbert Garcia.

[…]

Candidates can file a document appointing a campaign treasurer, which allows them to start fundraising.

Dozens of candidates have filed those documents so far. Others, like outgoing City Council members, have announced campaigns for new posts.

We’ll update the list every week or so, as new candidates surface.

The 10 incumbent council members are included in this list. As of April 18, the candidates are:

You can click over to see, but I’ll provide a few highlights:

– There are now twelve Mayoral candidates, with the addition and subtraction of Chris Hollins, now a Controller candidate. Tony Buzbee, who has not filed a designation of treasurer, is not included. The list also includes a number of perennials and “who the heck is that” types. Be that as it may, there are six candidates – John Whitmire, Sheila Jackson Lee, Amanda Edwards, Gilbert Garcia, Robert Gallegos, Lee Kaplan – who can claim to be serious.

– Lots of action already in the open At Large races – four candidates for AL1, five for AL2, and seven for AL3. I expect all three of them to continue to increase in size.

– For District Council open seat races, there are three candidates so far in E, five in H, and two in I. Again, I expect these to grow, though probably not as much as the At Large races will.

– There are now four candidates for Controller, the two current Council members Dave Martin and Michael Kubosh, former Mayoral candidate Chris Hollins, and Chief Deputy Controller Shannan Nobles. My prediction that this race would attract at least one prominent Democrat looks pretty good right now.

– Several incumbents don’t yet have opponents. Tarsha Jackson in B has three opponents, Letitia Plummer in At Large #4 has two opponents, and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz in D and Ed Pollard in J each have one.

– Two people have filed to run for something but have not yet specified which office. There had been three when I looked about a month ago, but one either withdrew his candidacy or picked a race, I don’t remember. They have until the filing deadline to make their choice. Along those lines, anyone who has filed for one office can switch to another before the deadline. Nothing is written in stone until then.

– I’m already exhausted thinking about how many interviews I’m going to need to do.

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Ashby 2.0 cleared for groundbreaking

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s actually happening.

Did you miss me?

Along-embattled residential high-rise project in Boulevard Oaks is set to move forward, with one Houston City Council member calling the news “terrible.”

The Langley , a new luxury rental community jointly developed by El Paso-based Hunt Companies, Inc. and Dallas-based StreetLights Residential has just been given the green light to break ground by the City of Houston.

As neighbors are well aware, The Langley (1717 Bissonnet St.) is the new iteration of the hot-button mix-used development that was long dubbed the Ashby high-rise. A turf war between the Ashby’s developers and Boulevard Oaks residents and representatives dates back some 15 years. (The occasional “Stop Ashby High-Rise” bumper sticker can still be spotted in the Inner Loop.)

Locals filed a suit against Buckhead Investment Partners, a judge eventually sided with developers in 2016.

The Langley, a more intimate version than the original high-rise, is meant to appease residents who opposed the large development’s footprint and effect on traffic and flow. As the Houston Chronicle reported, the city of Houston approved StreetLights Residential’s permit for site and foundation work in March.

Now, it appears the The Langley is cleared to break ground. No word yet if Hunt Companies and StreetLights Residential hope to complete the project by 2025, the original target date.

City Council Member Abbie Kamin minced no words on Thursday, April 20. “This is terrible news and I won’t sugarcoat it,” she wrote in an email to constituents. “Residents and I have been fighting this grossly out-of-scale development – and its negative impacts on traffic, congestion, safety, and quality of life for neighbors – with both hands tied behind our backs.”

Hunt Companies and StreetLights Residential are “taking advantage of Houston’s lack of zoning,” Kamin continued. She added the developers are “using state vested rights laws to disregard new residential buffering standards, and other neighborhood protections that have been fought for and passed by City Council during my time and before.”

Kamin, for her part, vows to fight for residents. “Let me be clear: I stand strongly opposed to this development and others that do not incorporate and include the measures we have put in place to make development better for neighborhoods,” she wrote. “I will continue to advocate for and alongside our residents to mitigate the impacts this construction project is going to have on the neighborhood.”

See here and here for the background. It’s hard to know what CM Kamin and the rest of the opposition can accomplish at this point, but it can’t hurt to try. We know from the previous experience with this property that a vocal group of homeowners in a nice neighborhood can do quite a bit. As I’ve been on this train for a long time, I’ll ride it till it reaches its destination. Never would have thought it would still be going after all these years, and at this point clearly with some more to go, but here we are.

UPDATE: From the Chron story:

Pete Patterson, an attorney representing some neighbors who oppose the Langley, said the neighbors sill don’t think plans meet the requirements outlined in the 2012 agreement with the city.

“We’re very disappointed,” said Patterson. “We’re reviewing our options and we’ll be making a decision with respect to legal action in the near future.”

Litigation would certainly extend this ride even more. Who knows how much longer I’ll have to keep an eye on this?

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The future Las Vegas A’s

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I mentioned this story in passing in that post about MLB in Utah, but it deserves a closer look.

The Oakland Athletics have signed a binding agreement to purchase 49 acres (with an option for additional land) near the Las Vegas strip, according to Mick Akers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The A’s intend to build a stadium that seats at least 30,000 and that has a partially retractable roof, per team president Dave Kaval. They intend to have the stadium complete ahead of the 2027 season. (You can read a timeline of how the A’s reached this point by clicking here.)

It’s worth noting that the A’s lease in Oakland expires after the 2024 season. Kaval told the New York Times that it’s possible the club will then relocate to Las Vegas and play in the minor-league park that currently houses the Triple-A Aviators.

“For a while we were on parallel paths (with Oakland), but we have turned our attention to Las Vegas to get a deal here for the A’s and find a long-term home,” Kaval told the Review-Journal. “Oakland has been a great home for us for over 50 years, but we really need this 20-year saga completed and we feel there’s a path here in Southern Nevada to do that.”

The A’s relocation plan includes passing a bill through the Legislature, “to create a funding mechanism, including a special taxation district covering the stadium site, which would allow for sales tax proceeds to be reinvested in the area, along with an allocation of transferable tax credits estimated to be worth around $500 million,” according to the Nevada Independent. The stadium would be located near the homes of the NFL’s Raiders and the NHL’s Golden Knights.

The A’s have attempted to finagle a new stadium since 2009. At one point, it appeared they had made progress toward a ballpark in Oakland located at the Howard Terminal site. Obviously that deal never came into fruition. MLB had set a January 2024 deadline for a stadium deal. In the past, the A’s had also been weaned off revenue sharing as a means of forcing the issue.

“We support the A’s turning their focus on Las Vegas and look forward to them bringing finality to this process by the end of the year,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement to the Review-Journal.

If and when the A’s relocate, they’ll become just the second MLB team since the 1970s to do so. The Montreal Expos, of course, became the Washington Nationals following the 2004 season. The Expos were, at the time, owned by the league itself. The A’s have played in Oakland since 1968. The franchise had previously spent time in both Kansas City and Philadelphia, though both relocations took place before the 1970s.

Relocating has been a possibility for the A’s for awhile, more because of its stadium situation than anything else. Its ownership has done so much to alienate its fanbase and the local government that in some sense this was inevitable, but only if you accept the premise that the owners had no other way to act. Be careful what you ask for, Las Vegas, that’s all I’m saying. Yahoo and Fangraphs have more.

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SCOTUS halts the anti-mifepristone ruling

Posted on April 22, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday to pause lower court rulings that would have imposed restrictions on mifepristone, keeping the drug accessible while the case proceeds.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would not have granted the stay.

Despite the fact that the initial lawsuit rested on dubious standing grounds and was infused with anti-abortion myths, it was strategically placed to travel through a circuit of notoriously right-wing courts up to the far-right Supreme Court.

Even those pounding the alarm about the dangers this case would pose to the Food and Drug Administration’s functioning, drug approval process and the whole pharmaceutical industry harbored doubts that the Court wouldn’t take any opportunity to further restrict abortion rights.

But the widely panned lower court rulings proved a bridge too far even for the Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade.

In his dissent, Alito reels off a series of critiques lodged against the conservative majority for using the shadow docket to hand down rulings with no explanation.

“I did not agree with these criticisms at the time, but if they were warranted in the cases in which they were made, they are emphatically true here,” he huffs. “As narrowed by the Court of Appeals, the stay that would apply if we failed to broaden it would not remove mifepristone from the market.”

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision, at the least, would nix the FDA’s approval of generic mifepristone, potentially taking it off the market.

He then argues that nothing the court says really matters, since the FDA has enforcement discretion in which drugs to target.

“The FDA has previously invoked enforcement discretion to permit the distribution of mifepristone in a way that the regulations then in force prohibited, and here, the Government has not dispelled legitimate doubts that it would even obey an unfavorable order in these cases, much less that it would choose to take enforcement actions to which it has strong objections,” he writes.

[…]

The case will now proceed at the Fifth Circuit, which still has to rule on the merits. It’s on an expedited timeline there, with briefs due throughout May. The timing for a final decision from the appeals court is still uncertain; a likely return to the Supreme Court could come after that. The high court said the stay would remain in place until it either refused to take the case or issued a final ruling.

An initial 5th Circuit panel gave the anti-abortion group a favorable ruling, upholding challenges to mifepristone that the FDA had lifted in recent years and potentially removing the FDA approval of generic mifepristone altogether.

A coalition of blue states joined the docket, pointing out that any restriction of mifepristone enforced nationwide would impinge on their rights as states to determine their own abortion regimes — something the Supreme Court claimed was its intention in Dobbs.

See here for the previous update, and there’s a copy of the ruling at the link above. It must be emphasized that this is just putting the lower court ruling on hold while the appeals process plays out. In the end, the Fifth Circuit could rule as it did in partly staying the order, thus taking away mifepristone by mail and other things, on the same lack of evidence and hostility to the idea of abortion, with some unsubtle hints about the Comstock Act. And then SCOTUS could do whatever it wants to do, with some kind of “middle ground” between the completely lawless Kacsmaryk ruling and a full overturn as the goal. We are very much not out of danger. But at least for now, and probably until early next year when the SCOTUS ruling would be likely to be handed down, we’re back at the original status quo. That’s something. TPR, the Trib, Mother Jones, Vox, and Slate have more.

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How was there still an active lawsuit over the 2004 revenue cap referendum?

Posted on April 22, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I am gobsmacked.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday struck down part of Houston’s revenue cap, creating the possibility that the city may have to comply with an even more stringent cap in the future.

Elected officials in Houston long have blamed the city’s revenue cap for lagging services, keeping more than $1.4 billion from the city’s coffers since 2014. If Houston were forced to implement the stricter cap, current and former city officials have argued it would be “financially devastating.

“The ruling in the 19-year-old legal dispute stems from the 2004 municipal elections, when Houston voters passed two separate caps on the city’s revenues. Anti-tax activists proposed a measure that would cap increases in total city revenues to the sum of population growth and inflation. That initiative became known as Proposition 2.

Then-Mayor Bill White, in response, offered an alternative: The city would limit annual increases in property tax revenue to the sum of population growth and inflation, or 4.5 percent, whichever is lower. City Council put that measure on the ballot, known as Proposition 1, with language saying it would preempt Proposition 2 if it got more votes. Both caps allow the city to ask for voters’ approval to exceed their respective limits.

Houston voters passed both measures, and supported Prop 1 by a greater margin, 64 percent to 56 percent for Prop 2. The city implemented the White administration’s version and came up against the cap for the first time in 2014. It has cut its property tax rate eight times in the last nine years to comply with that measure.

“There is an impact on the services the city can deliver in the general fund with Prop 1,” said former Mayor Annise Parker, who served as city controller when the ballot measures passed. “It would be financially devastating to implement Prop 2.”

[…]

The city’s charter has a provision for when inconsistent amendments are adopted, saying “the amendment receiving the highest number of votes shall prevail.” The question for the trial court will be whether the two propositions are inconsistent.

“The trial court noted that aspects of the two amendments may be harmonized, but it did not undertake that effort because it gave effect to the primacy clause and disregarded Proposition 2 in its entirety,” Bland wrote.

Mayor Sylvester Turner’s office said the city has argued for nearly 20 years that they do conflict. He said Friday he is confident the trial court will agree, leaving the current cap in place.

“Houston has faithfully enforced one of the country’s most restrictive property tax revenue caps for almost two decades,” Turner said in a statement. “When Houston voters were presented with a choice of two competing caps, they clearly chose a restriction on property tax rates and revenue alone. I remain confident that the conclusion of this case will find the charter amendment revenue caps are inconsistent and apply only the limitations of Proposition 1 with which the City has faithfully complied — in addition to complying with the recently enacted State of Texas revenue cap.”

I couldn’t find anything in my archives relating to this lawsuit, so I have no idea what its history is. The city has prevailed in past litigation, but as with the neverending efforts to kill Obamacare the fringe lunatics who keep fighting this keep finding new ways to keep trying. I have no idea what happens next, but as I am waiting for news of a different Supreme Court ruling as I write this, I hope this is the worst news from any kind of Supreme Court we got on Friday afternoon. I’m going to go light a candle and toss some salt over my shoulder now.

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HCC approves its redistricting map

Posted on April 22, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

In the end, what was expected.

The Houston Community College Board of Trustees approved on Wednesday a redrawn voter map that made small changes to all nine single-member districts but failed to reunify a previously split Third Ward.

The trustees approved the drawing, 8-1, with only District 4 Trustee Reagan Flowers voting against. She sought to regain the north part of the historic Third Ward ten years after her district ceded it to District 3, a predominately Hispanic area in east and southeast Houston that had lost population in the 2010 U.S. Census.

Alternate maps that Flowers favored never gained traction. Latino communities came out in force to support the plan that was voted on and approved. and election lawyers said it also contained the most equitable changes across the districts and had the least potential of diluting voter strength.

“(The map) actually rebalances you as a system,” said Lisa McBride, a partner at Thompson & Horton LLP. “It’s a little bit of impact to every single member district but it’s not so much that it actually would change any election outcome.”

The redistricting effort occurred as HCC’s District 3 once again counted population losses in the 2020 U.S. Census. Districts have to be redrawn when the population of the most populous district — now District 6, in west Houston — exceeds the population of the least populous district by more than 10 percent at the time of major Census updates.

The population estimates led the HCC board to spend the last 14 months considering various redrawn maps – all with the intent of finding places for District 6 to shed population and District 3 to expand. The trustees needed to approve a new map by the summer, in time to plan for the November election.

In approving “map 1A,” District 3 Trustee Adriana Tamez said, the board succeeded in its goals of preserving existing boundaries when possible and preserving constituent relations.

“There were challenges, including population growth in the west side of the System,” she said. “Map 1A adheres to our agreed upon criteria, with as little disruption as possible, not only for district 3, but for all districts across the system.”

See here for some background. There was definitely some opposition from Trustee Flowers and residents of the Third Ward, but the challenge of keeping that part of town all in the same district when the adjoining District 3 needed to add population required bigger overall changes, and in the end that was not the consensus choice.

On a completely tangential note, HISD still has its redistricting to do. The most recent update I have on that is from January, and with the forthcoming takeover I have no idea what will happen. If they had had an easy update to make, they’d have done it by now, but these things are rarely easy. As we know, there are still HISD Trustee elections this November, and the districts right now are not in compliance with the law. Something will have to happen sooner or later.

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MLB in Utah?

Posted on April 22, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s on the table.

A Salt Lake City consortium led by the former owner of the Utah Jazz plans to pursue a Major League Baseball franchise in the coming years, touting the area’s population growth, strong economy and baseball history as draws for a coveted expansion slot, people involved with the project told ESPN.

Big League Utah, a group headed by longtime Jazz owner Gail Miller, will join Nashville’s Music City Baseball and the Portland Diamond Project in lobbying to join the current 30 MLB organizations. Las Vegas, considered a prime destination for a franchise, has emerged as a strong candidate if the Oakland Athletics relocate.

While sources said MLB does not plan to expand until it figures out the futures of Oakland and the Tampa Bay Rays — both of whom have considered moving amid struggles to secure new stadiums in their current metropolitan areas — commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN in July: “I would love to get to 32 teams.”

The Salt Lake City coalition includes the Larry H. Miller Company — the conglomerate founded by Miller’s late husband, Larry, an automobile magnate — as well as local business leaders and former major league players Dale Murphy and Jeremy Guthrie, both Utah residents. The group has targeted building a stadium in the Rocky Mountain Power District, a 100-acre mixed-use zone located between Salt Lake City’s new airport and its downtown core, an investment that would come on top of an expected $2 billion expansion fee.

“Salt Lake City is a major league city,” said Steve Starks, CEO of the Miller Company. “We believe that as a top-30 media market in the fastest-growing state in the country with the youngest population, that’s where our attention should be — and that we could accomplish bringing a team to the Wasatch Front.”

Starks said the group surveyed local fans about their favorite sports leagues for potential expansion and that MLB was the top choice, ahead of even the NFL.

“It would be, I think, a validation of everything that we’ve worked so hard to do,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told ESPN. “We’ve proven ourselves in a sports capacity with Olympics in 2002 and coming back in 2030 or, more likely, 2034. We’ve hosted two NBA All-Star Games. We know we can do this. It would just be meaningful for people who love this sport, who care deeply about it. We’re a baseball state.”

Already owners of the Salt Lake Bees — the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels whose average attendance last year was 5,873, the 18th highest in minor league baseball — the Miller Company is building a new stadium for the team set to open in 2025. The Jazz, who moved to Salt Lake City from New Orleans in 1979, regularly sell out Vivint Arena.

Conversations with MLB about the possibility of expanding to Salt Lake City began about a year ago, when Starks inquired about the viability of a bid, with Las Vegas; Nashville, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Montreal among the other potential candidates.

Leaders of the Salt Lake City group highlighted a media market larger than that of four current major league teams: San Diego, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Milwaukee. They stressed Utah’s significant growth, as its population of about 3.3 million swelled by a higher percentage than any state from 2010 to 2020, according to the Census Bureau, and the Wasatch Front population — stretching from Ogden to Provo — is around 2.7 million. On top of that, the group said, Utah’s 2.4% unemployment rate in February was the fourth lowest in the country, with an economy trumpeted in recent years as among the strongest in the United States.

I’m a proponent of MLB expanding, and I believe they should be thinking bigger than 32 teams. As such, I sometimes play a little game of “how many new MLB teams could I reasonably place somewhere in North America”. Salt Lake City has been on my list of fantasy destinations, so this possibility doesn’t come as a big surprise to me. SLC would not be on my short list for a two-team expansion, but if we’re talking six teams, or especially ten teams (yes, expand to 40 teams, and yes I see that SLC is not on that list) then it’s definitely a contender.

That said, there are some concerns, including the existing minor league team and a more existential problem, which Jay Jaffe notes in his overview of the Big League Utah proposal.

After decades of drying that have accelerated in recent years due to climate change and population growth, the Great Salt Lake reached a record low water level in November, dipping to 4,188.6 feet above sea level, having lost 70% of its water since 1850. A June 2022 report in the New York Times sounded a dire warning regarding the air quality if the lake continues to dry up: “Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, wind storms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah’s population.”

A January 2023 story in the Washington Post highlighted a report by researchers at BYU that showed that without dramatic cuts to water consumption — consumption driven by the same population growth that makes the area appealing as an expansion site — the lake was on track to disappear in five years. Since then, thankfully, the city has experienced its seventh-snowiest winter on record, with eight local ski resorts reporting record snowfalls. Already, the lake has risen three feet in five months, though it’s still six feet below “the minimum acceptable elevation for the lake’s ecological and economic health,” according to BYU ecologist Ben Abbott, the lead author of the January report.

The current snowpack and its runoff could raise levels another three or four feet, but the long-term sustainability of the lake remains in question, all of which would make for a thorny issue for MLB to consider in the context of a Salt Lake City bid. The likelihood that it will be a few years before the league makes up its mind about expansion — what’s the rush, right? — at least leaves time to see which way the wind is blowing, so to speak.

On the one hand, every city is already dealing with the effects of climate change, and some will have very big challenges going forward (Miami, anyone?), so we shouldn’t be too hard on SLC. On the other hand, any time you talk about arsenic in the air, that sounds like a problem. SLC is also at an elevation similar to Denver, so it would likely be a pretty offense-happy place. Assuming MLB can ever get the Oakland and Tampa situations resolved (which could be imminent for the A’s), we’ll see where we are with this.

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There were fewer voting sites with paper issues than we thought

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

That’s my takeaway from this.

On Election Day last year, an unusual problem occurred around 6 p.m. — the polling place at El Lago City Hall ran out of paper ballots.

Republican presiding judge Chris Russo, the election worker running the polling location in the far southeast corner of Harris County, said he had been calling the county elections office’s hotline for more than three hours to request more paper. Russo said he told the 40 or so voters waiting in line that they had a few options.

“If you stay in line, you will vote today,” he recounted telling them. “But if you think you can make it to another polling location that has ballot paper and you think that is a better use of your time, you are free to do so.”

When the county finally delivered more paper at 9 p.m., only a handful of people remained and were able to vote.

El Lago was one of about 20 polling locations in Harris County that ran out of paper on Election Day, according to a Houston Chronicle review of county data and interviews with dozens of poll workers. That is a tiny fraction of the 782 polling places across the sprawling county that day.

Now, the ballot shortages in Harris County are placing local election officials at the center of a legal showdown and a raging political debate in Austin as the GOP-controlled Legislature is trying to move urgently to strip local officials of the power to oversee elections. County election officials also face scrutiny from lawsuits filed by 22 local Republican candidates who lost and a separate suit by Houston furniture mogul Jim McIngvale. One of the lawsuits, involving a Texas House race was dismissed by Speaker Dade Phelan in January.

A Houston Chronicle examination of election data found that while there were problems and technical glitches, there remains no evidence voters were systematically disenfranchised. Nor is there evidence the Election Day issues prompted people not to vote in numbers great enough to change the outcome of any of the races being contested.

Nonetheless, without all the facts being known, bills filed in Austin this year could make it easier for the state to order new elections, strip the county’s oversight and authority to conduct elections. They would also add criminal penalties for running out of ballot paper, create a team of state marshals to investigate election code violations and file criminal charges, and abolish the county Elections Administrators office.

The remaining lawsuits filed by 21 local Republican candidates include one from Republican Alexandra del Moral Mealer, whose bid to oust incumbent County Judge Lina Hidalgo fell short by more than 18,000 votes. These candidates are asking judges to overturn the results and order new elections. Most of those candidates lost their races by 12,000 to 29,000 votes, according to official county results.

The argument made in most of those lawsuits is that Election Day problems, including ballot paper shortages and technical issues that delayed the opening of some polls, resulted in polling locations turning away thousands of voters whose ballots could have changed the outcome of those races.

It is impossible to know if or how many people at El Lago City Hall, let alone countywide, did not vote because of paper shortages or other technical or equipment malfunctions.

Harris County uses a countywide voting system, meaning voters could cast ballots at any of 782 polling locations on Election Day instead of being restricted to their home precincts. Voters turned away from one location could go to another polling place, typically about a mile away.

To win, the plaintiffs would need to prove that voting irregularities affected the election results.

That could prove a high bar to clear.

Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University, said the challenge will be proving that people intended to vote but could not.

“If they ended up voting, it’s clear that it wasn’t so onerous that they weren’t able to effectively overcome it,” he said.

Twenty locations is quite a bit fewer than what I had previously seen in mostly Chron stories. It’s also a lot lower than the 121 locations claimed to have had problems by a KHOU story that I missed, which according to this companion story is the basis for a lot of bullshit claims and bad bills. What continues to be missing from all of these articles are the names and stories of people who were actually unable to vote as the result of any paper shortages. Which is still the only thing that matters as far as the contested elections go.

Go read both stories, they’re well reported and quite informative. The first one does a good job of showing where voting slowed down or stopped as a result of paper outages; in all cases, there were just more people showing up at that location than there had been paper to begin with. That kind of missed guess about Election Day turnout is a tale as old as time, and had we still been using the old non-paper machines, no one would have noticed. This story has been blown so far out of proportion it’s hard to even recognize it. See reporter Jen Rice’s Twitter thread for more.

UPDATE: While I don’t think this bill to ban county voting centers on Election Day will get through the House, it must be noted that if it does and there are problems of any kind on Election Day that affects the ability to vote, the people at the affected locations will be well and truly screwed. It’s paranoid bullshit all the way down.

Posted in Election 2022 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

On vying for the 2028 RNC

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I get competing for this, but that doesn’t make me enthusiastic about it.

As part of Houston’s push to win the Republican National Convention in 2028, the George R. Brown Convention Center could be expanding.

State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, passed legislation out of the Senate this week that would allow Houston to use hotel occupancy taxes to make improvements and expand the convention center, though he did not detail what those plans might look like.

“Houston needs to modernize and expand the George R. Brown Convention Center to remain competitive and attract large conventions, such as the 2028 Republican National Convention,” Whitmire said in his push for the legislation.

[…]

If Houston were to win the convention, it would be in July or August 2028 with most of the activity at the Toyota Center and the George R. Brown Convention Center. However, when conventions are held in a city, there are dozens of offshoot events that can happen all over the region in hotels and at college campuses.

Holly Clapham, chief marketing officer for Houston First, didn’t detail plans for a potential expansion but said if the legislation Whitmire is pushing becomes law, “it would help ensure Houston remains a Tier 1 convention destination for years to come.”

Houston Republican State Sen. Paul Bettencourt is among those opposing Whitmire’s bill because of how it is allowing hotel occupancy tax revenue to be used for expenses that weren’t originally intended. Bettencourt said he doesn’t want the Legislature to set a precedent for taxes collected for one purpose to be shifted to some other use.

“I am concerned about the long-term implications of it,” Bettencourt told Whitmire.

Whitmire, who is running for mayor of Houston, said similar legislation was previously passed to allow Dallas and Fort Worth to use hotel occupancy taxes to expand their convention centers, and he just wants Houston to have that chance so it can better compete for big national conventions.

See here and here for some background. I survived the 1992 RNC, and as noted in those earlier posts my plan for the 2028 RNC if we get it is to be out of town. I support the idea of allowing the George R. Brown Convention Center to to expand and upgrade, so that’s fine as far as that goes. Maybe we can get that and also not get the 2028 RNC. That would be fine.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston, That's our Lege | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

I’ll help you pack, dude

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

This story about the furniture guy’s latest temper tantrum about Harris County took me a couple of hours to work up the mental energy to click on. Now that I have, my reaction is simply this: Just fucking move to Montgomery County already. Or Galveston or Waller or Chambers or wherever, I don’t care. I’m in what I suspect is a large group of people who used to have vaguely positive feelings about this guy, because of his goofy TV commercial persona and deserved reputation for offering financial aid to people who need it following a disaster. I always knew he had terrible politics, but people have layers and life is a rich pageant and all that. At this point, he’s just another obnoxious sore loser crybaby, and no one has time for that. Go be miserable somewhere else and leave us out of it.

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

Dispatches from Dallas, April 21 edition

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in Dallas-area news, two big stories: the Tarrant County election chief has resigned, and more on the Harlan Crow angle of the Supreme Court scandal as the man himself speaks. Plus a Texit-related lawsuit, the 50 fastest speeding tickets issued in Texas last year, and more.

Heider Garcia, the Tarrant County elections administrator, was hired out of California in 2018 and resigned this week, effective in June so he can finish out the May election cycle. Read the resignation letter. Like many election administrators in Texas and across the country, Garcia has been under attack since the 2020 election by proponents of the Big Lie that TFG won the 2020 election. Here’s a timeline of his work for the county administering elections (Archive link.) As mentioned in this Star-Telegram article (Archive link), Tarrant County judge Tim O’Hare was about to go after Garcia by calling both a public meeting and a “closed door executive session discussion” after the May 6 election. (Context: he mentioned it a a True Texas Project meeting on April 10; for those who aren’t clicking through, the headline is “Tarrant County judge says low voter turnout will help conservatives in municipal elections” aka saying the quiet part out loud.)

DMN coverage (Archive link) of this story points out that O’Hare’s goal in running for County Judge was to keep Tarrant County red. As I mentioned back in February, O’Hare was part of the group founding an “election integrity task force” in Tarrant County. Keeping Tarrant County red apparently means running a nationally-admired elections administrator out and installing a Republican-approved replacement, which in my experience means somebody who thinks “voter fraud” is too many Black and brown people voting. The Star-Telegram’s editiorial board (Archive link), which looks at this situation with a little more nominal belief in Tim O’Hare’s claims than I do, is alarmed. You should be too.

Last but not least, and not at all related to O’Hare hounding Garcia out of office: 5 years after voter fraud conviction, Crystal Mason pleads her case in return to Tarrant County court.

In Harlan Crow news, the man himself spoke to the Dallas Morning News in two articles earlier this week and I’m going to follow our host’s tradition and just quote extensively from them because sometimes you can’t say it better about a man than he says it about himself.

On the media.

I think that the media, and this ProPublica group in particular, funded by leftists, has an agenda to destabilize the [Supreme] Court. What they’ve done is not truthful. It lacks integrity.

On his friendship with Thomas.

A lot of people that have opinions about this seem to think that there’s something wrong with this friendship. You know, it’s possible that people are just really friends. It blows my mind that people assume that because Clarence Thomas has friends, that those friends have an angle.

Every single relationship — a baby’s relationship to his mom — has some kind of reciprocity

[In response to the question whether Crow would be friends with Thomas if he weren’t a Supreme Court Justice] It’s an interesting, good question. I don’t know how to answer that. Maybe not. Maybe yes. I don’t know.

On Thomas’ morals.

Justice Thomas is a man of integrity and the idea that he would do anything that’s not exactly correct is just not true.

On whether he inherited his money from his father.

Our company was also in distress … Our economic value had deteriorated. It’s hard to know if it was zero, but it was low. I spent about five years doing workouts. We negotiated with a large number of financial institutions over a long period of time doing all this and we tried to do it as honorably as we could.

On being a “Republican megadonor” (really pitched toward the DMN audience).

I have been a donor to moderate Republican individuals running for office, as well as groups that are involved in that kind of world to support more moderate Republican stuff.

On his collection of Nazi memorabilia, which he says is part of a larger collection of American history documents, including the “bad guys”.

So yeah, World War II was a fairly big event in American history. We have a bunch of stuff about World War II, including some of our enemies… For somebody to say that I like those guys would be a weird conclusion, but that’s been in the press recently … That’s exactly the opposite of what the truth is.

The DMN also fact-checked (Archive link) their interview, which may interest you. Meanwhile, the Washington Post has uncovered more information about Thomas’ undisclosed income (this one got my attention because of the name). And my favorite “yellow journalism” take on Crow’s Nazi memorabilia comes from Lyz Lenz’s newsletter last week: Dingus of the Week: People Who Think Owning Nazi Memorabilia is Defensible Actually.

Personally I don’t care to defend Crow’s memorabilia choices, but I certainly think he believes he’s just gathering a collection to do with American history and it has nothing to do with his own beliefs. His indignation that anyone could judge him for being an oligarch who supports authoritarians like Thomas and make a connection between his politics and his memorabilia is genuine. Privilege and wealth are often that kind of convinced of their own righteousness.

After all that, a few small notes on local and statewide news:

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Anti-mifepristone order still paused

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

SCOTUS needs a couple more days.

The Supreme Court extended its stay on lower court rulings on mifepristone until Friday just before midnight, meaning that the drug will remain accessible and available at least until then.

The order, written by Justice Samuel Alito, came “upon further consideration of the application of counsel for the applicants, the response and the reply.”

The Court’s initial stay would have expired just before midnight Wednesday, bringing restrictions to the drug into action.

[…]

While the Supreme Court mulls the case, action hasn’t stopped in the lower courts. In a new, separate lawsuit, the maker of generic mifepristone sued the FDA Wednesday to not revoke its approval or take it off the market without going through the mandated processes, including the Heath and Human Services Secretary declaring that the drug is an imminent risk. The company, GenBioPro, argues that court rulings don’t trump the required steps the agency has to take to remove its approval.

See here for the previous update. I didn’t see any speculation about What It All Means in the news coverage I read, but we do still have Twitter for some things:

Make of that what you will. In the meantime, there’s that other case that was just filed.

GenBioPro, the maker of generic mifepristone, made a bid to establish a backstop Wednesday, should the Supreme Court decide to restrict one of its primary products.

The company sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in federal court in Maryland, seeking assurances that the agency wouldn’t revoke its approval or try to remove it from the market.

This lawsuit, while separate, flows from the chain that started with Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas. That case is currently at the Supreme Court, which is due to hand down a ruling in the case, but which extended its stay on the lower court opinions until Friday just before midnight. As it stands, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to reimpose restrictions on the drug that the FDA had lifted in recent years — and to nix the agency’s 2019 approval of generic mifepristone altogether.

While that case unspooled, GenBioPro, per its Wednesday filing, has been deluging the FDA with letters in an attempt to make sure that its product won’t be yanked off the market. After getting unsatisfactory responses, the company turned to the government’s filings in the case, where it warned that “[t]he generic version of the drug would cease to be approved altogether.”

Now, the company is arguing that the FDA is prepared to illegally revoke its approval without going through the proper steps: A finding by the Heath and Human Services Secretary that the drug is an “imminent hazard” and an expedited hearing once the drug is suspended. These unprecedented court orders, GenBioPro argues, don’t trump the congressionally-delegated processes the FDA must follow to remove its product from the market.

“With the specter of criminal prosecution looming, GenBioPro may be obligated to undertake recalls, cancel contracted manufacturing and hold or destroy perishable inventory,” the company’s lawyers write. “And because of the FDA Decision and the enforcement risk and uncertainty it has created, GenBioPro is suffering irreparable financial and reputational harm, severely threatening its core business model and commercial viability.”

GenBioPro is asking that the FDA be forbidden from suspending or altering its approval, and from using its enforcement power to take it off the market, unless the agency goes through the established process to revoke the drug’s approval. It makes its arguments under a constellation of laws, including the Fifth Amendment, Administrative Procedure Act and All Writs Act.

This lawsuit is the legal equivalent of breaking glass in case of emergency. GenBioPro has its finger in the wind — and is clearly uncomfortable depending on the Supreme Court to maintain its drug’s accessibility.

Isn’t this fun? The Trib and The 19th have more.

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Sen. Gutierrez appears to be getting set to challenge Ted Cruz

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Very interesting.

Sen. Roland Gutierrez

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, a San Antonio Democrat who has become a fierce champion of the families impacted by the Uvalde school shooting, is likely to run against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024, The Texas Tribune has learned.

One source close to Gutierrez said he is “very likely” to run, while another said there is “no question he is seriously looking at it.” Gutierrez is not expected to make any announcements about the race until after the current legislative session, which ends late next month.

Gilbert Garcia, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, first reported Wednesday morning that Gutierrez is “nearly certain” to run.

The two sources close to Gutierrez declined to be named because they were not authorized to publicly discuss his deliberations. Gutierrez also declined to comment.

Cruz’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, is also considering running against Cruz, who has shifted focus to his reelection campaign in recent months after flirting with another presidential bid.

Gutierrez has served in the Texas Senate since 2021 after previously serving over a decade in the House. His Senate seat is not on the ballot again until 2026, meaning he would not have to give it up to challenge Cruz next year.

The Uvalde massacre happened inside his district, killing 19 children and two teachers, and Gutierrez has dedicated himself this legislative session to trying to address it despite GOP leaders’ resistance to considering any new gun restrictions. He has held several news conferences with families of victims and clashed with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick over the issue on the Senate floor.

Gutierrez got his biggest victory yet Tuesday when a House committee held a hearing on a slate of gun bills, including one that would raise the minimum age to purchase certain semi-automatic rifles.

This kind of comes out of left field. Sen. Gutierrez has been mentioned in various “who could run against Cruz” stories, but mostly in passing, in the “other names that have been mentioned” category in articles that focused on Julian Castro or Colin Allred. Indeed, in at least some stories in which Allred is touted as the likely candidate, Sen. Gutierrez isn’t mentioned at all. I don’t think there’s one correct way to road test a possible candidacy, but it’s fair to say that if this is for real, Gutierrez took a different path than Allred has.

That’s assuming Allred is still a potential candidate. We’ve discussed all the reasons why it would make more sense for him to stay put, at least until Texas becomes Democratic enough to not have to run as a distinct underdog. It’s one thing to give up your safe Congressional seat for an odds-against shot at Ted Cruz when you know you’ll be the nominee. It’s another thing altogether if you have to win a primary against a strong opponent first. The fact that Gutierrez, like Royce West in 2020, can run without ceding his current position is a big advantage for him. I won’t say this will put an end to the Allred speculation industry, but it certainly changes the calculus.

It must be noted that at this point in time, Allred has a significant financial edge over Gutierrez. I’ve got a Q1 Congressional finance reports post in the works, and Rep. Allred has about $2.3 million on hand after raising over $500K. Sen. Gutierrez has $309K on hand as of January, and can’t do any more fundraising until the session is over. If there are special sessions, that also puts his fundraising on hold. It would not be a surprise to see him get a surge of donations in whatever post-session days of May and June there are, but he has a ways to go to catch up.

Anyway. Sen. Gutierrez would be a fine candidate. He has been true to his word to be an advocate for Uvalde on sensible gun control measures, and that would surely be a centerpiece of his campaign against Cruz. As is always the case, I will want to hear the words from his own mouth before I commit to the belief that he’s running, but this is a strong clue.

There was a Trib story from a couple of weeks ago about the 2024 Senate race, mostly focused on Cruz, that I had in my drafts but hadn’t published. I’ve repurposed that post for this one, and you can find the original beneath the fold. Note the absence of any mention of Sen. Gutierrez in the piece, or at least in what I had highlighted from it.

Continue reading →

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Least-surprising headline of the week

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

From the Chron: “GOP donor tied to Clarence Thomas has given Texas lawmakers $19M”.

The Texas billionaire in the middle of the controversy around U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a long history in Texas politics, donating more than $7 million to mostly GOP causes over the last three years and more than $19 million over the last 20 years.

According to federal and state financial records, Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate, has donated more than $10.9 million to federal campaign committees and $8.4 million to state campaigns in Texas including to Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan.

Just last year, Crow donated more than $100,000 to Abbott, and he has given the three-term governor more than $316,000 since 2006.

But that’s not much compared with the $2.5 million he’s given to Texans for Lawsuit Reform over the last 20 years and the $800,000 he gave to Eva Guzman for her failed campaign for Texas attorney general against incumbent Ken Paxton.

Despite all his spending, Crow told the Dallas Morning News in an exclusive interview published Monday that he doesn’t consider himself a Republican megadonor.

“I have been a donor to moderate Republican individuals running for office, as well as groups that are involved in that kind of world to support more moderate Republican stuff,” Crow said.

I mean, “rich guy gives money to Republicans in Texas” is a tale as old as time, or at least of the last 40 years or so. It would have been real news if the only toy in his box was Clarence Thomas.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of April 17

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes you enjoyed the extra couple of days you had this year to file your taxes as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Anti-mifepristone litigants respond to SCOTUS appeal

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Today we find out what SCOTUS will do.

The anti-abortion doctors who first brought the case seeking to get mifepristone yanked from the markets filed a reply brief Tuesday, starting the clock on the Supreme Court’s response.

It’s the latest entry in the case that originated in Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s court in Amarillo, Texas. After he ruled to stay the Food and Drug Administration’s 20-year-old approval of mifepristone, the Department of Justice appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Fifth Circuit broke from Kacsmaryk on the initial approval (though without much conviction) but upheld challenges to virtually all the changes in the drug’s regulatory scheme since 2016, reimposing a slate of onerous restrictions on mifepristone including significantly cutting how many days into a pregnancy it can be taken on-label and barring the pills from being mailed.

The government, along with a manufacturer of mifepristone, asked the Supreme Court to stay or vacate the Fifth Circuit’s ruling while it appeals that decision. The Supreme Court granted an administrative stay last week, putting those old restrictions on ice for a few more days. That stay expires just before midnight on Wednesday.

One of the toughest barriers the anti-abortion contingent has to scale in convincing the Supreme Court to let the case continue to play out at the Fifth Circuit is the clear conflict between this mifepristone case, and another out of Washington state. There, a federal judge ruled — and reaffirmed — that the FDA needs to keep mifepristone available as usual in the states and district involved. Meanwhile, the Fifth Circuit ruled to bring back the years-old restrictions nationwide.

The anti-abortion group’s lawyers largely claim that the conflict is inconsequential in their Tuesday filing, since the Washington case is still at the district court.

“There is no current circuit split, and there may never be one,” they write. “In particular, the government has not even appealed the decision from the Washington District Court which, to date, is only potentially conflicting.”

The lawyers also minimize the disruption negating years of FDA changes and updates would cause.

“The agency need only go back to its preapproved 2011 regimen and label,” they write, immediately contradicting themselves: “The ‘threat’ of conflicting orders here is also illusory, as the Fifth Circuit’s order does not require FDA to do anything.”

The government has said that adjusting the drug’s labeling alone would take “months,” and that the Fifth Circuit’s ruling would also revoke the agency’s approval of generic mifepristone — which was only granted in 2019; the branded version of Mifeprex was approved in 2000 — permanently.

See here for the previous entry. It is expected that SCOTUS will rule by tonight, because that is when their administrative hold expires. Of interest, via Axios, is that a whole bunch of Republican members of Congress filed an amicus brief on the side of the mifepristone-banners.

Details: The 147 lawmakers, led by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to allow the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling reinstating mifepristone’s restrictions to take effect.

[…]

What we’re watching: The handful of signers facing competitive elections in 2024 should expect it to come up in attacks on the campaign trail, two Democratic operatives told Axios.

  • Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas) are top targets for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — which blasted Boebert last week for signing the 5th Circuit brief.
  • Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) are also seen as potentially vulnerable.
  • Rep. Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.) is also running to challenge Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), while Reps. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) are considering Senate bids against Democratic incumbents.

Meanwhile, 253 Democrats last week filed a brief urging the justices to block the lower court rulings, arguing that Congress has not allowed federal courts “to substitute their judgment for the expert conclusions of FDA’s scientists.”

As before, I appreciate them clarifying the stakes here. And I better see this be a big part of the 2024 campaigns against Cruz and de la Cruz. Either these pro-reproductive choice arguments work here in Texas, or we’ll find out that they don’t and we’ll need to figure it out from there. Slate has more.

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House passes bill to outlaw cities

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

That’s not literally what this does, but it may as well be.

In a major escalation of Republicans’ efforts to weaken the state’s bluer cities and counties, lawmakers in the Texas Legislature are advancing a pair of bills that would seize control of local regulations that could range from worker protections to local water restrictions during droughts.

A bill backed by Gov. Greg Abbott and business lobbying groups, House Bill 2127, would bar cities and counties from passing regulations — and overturn existing ones — that go further than state law in a broad swath of areas including labor, agriculture, natural resources and finance. It received initial approval Tuesday in the Texas House by a 92-55 vote but must come back before the chamber for a final vote.

The bill’s backers argue it’s needed to combat what they call a growing patchwork of local regulations that make it difficult for business owners to operate and harm the state’s economy. Texas’ economic growth and jobs are overwhelmingly concentrated in the state’s urban areas.

“We want those small-business owners creating new jobs and providing for their families, not trying to navigate a byzantine array of local regulations that twist and turn every time” they cross city limits, said state Rep. Dustin Burrows, the Lubbock Republican carrying the bill in the House.

HB 2127 is one of several bills that Republicans filed this session to prevent cities and counties from enacting new progressive policies. For example, the bill would block local ordinances designed to provide more benefits to workers such as mandatory paid sick leave — though the state’s courts have already halted such city rules — and eliminate mandated water breaks for construction workers in Austin and Dallas.

The bill’s opponents — which include Democrats, local leaders, advocates for low-income workers and environmental groups — see a major power grab in the making that would prevent local officials from responding to their communities’ needs.

Rep. Chris Turner, a Grand Prairie Democrat, blasted the bill as “unconstitutional” as House lawmakers debated it Tuesday.

“Texas is unique and our communities are diverse,” he said. “A cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach simply does not work for our vast and complex state.”

Labor leaders blasted Tuesday’s vote — with Rick Levy, head of the Texas AFL-CIO, calling the bill a “radical attack on our democracy and on the voices of local voters across our state” and a “strong message to workers … that they don’t deserve even the most basic protections.”

“Local leaders, who are best suited to pass policies that reflect the needs and values of their communities, have provided this protection,” Levy said. “Today, the Legislature got one step closer to stripping that all away.”

Critics argue the legislation would have far-reaching consequences and prevent cities and counties from combating predatory lending, responding to excessive noise complaints, enforcing nondiscrimination ordinances, creating invasive-species programs and more.

Gutting city regulations entirely instead of considering them individually short-circuits the democratic process, opponents said.

“The idea that we should, instead of having those debates, cut them off at the root and upend our democratic process to win fights that we aren’t even having is an affront to democracy,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said.

Because the bill is so broad, no one really knows the full extent of what it would do. Months after Burrows unveiled the first draft of the legislation, opponents still fear they’ve only scratched the surface of its potential impacts. Democrats on Tuesday sought explicit carve outs for local laws including nondiscrimination ordinances and protections against workplace sexual harassment but those measures failed. They warn of a flood of lawsuits against local governments should the bill — or its counterpart, Senate Bill 814, carried by Conroe Republican Brandon Creighton — become law.

“We’re just going to have to go to the courts to figure this out,” said Luis Figueroa, chief of legislative affairs at the left-leaning nonprofit Every Texan. “There’s going to be lawsuits filed all over the place.”

Everything I said about the slate of anti-LGBTQ+ bills applies here. I’m at a loss for what to do, and I feel like I’ve said everything I could say a dozen times. I have a hard time even writing this small amount because I just feel so demoralized by all this. I’m an optimist and a hopeful person by nature, and I’m having a hard time with that right now. I don’t know what else to say.

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Kacsmaryk’s disclosure problem

Posted on April 19, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

What is it with these wingnut judges and their inability to follow the law?

As a lawyer for a conservative legal group, Matthew Kacsmaryk in early 2017 submitted an article to a Texas law review criticizing Obama-era protections for transgender people and those seeking abortions.

The Obama administration, the draft article argued, had discounted religious physicians who “cannot use their scalpels to make female what God created male” and “cannot use their pens to prescribe or dispense abortifacient drugs designed to kill unborn children.”

But a few months after the piece arrived, an editor at the law journal who had been working with Kacsmaryk received an unusual email: Citing “reasons I may discuss at a later date,” Kacsmaryk, who had originally been listed as the article’s sole author, said he would be removing his name and replacing it with those of two colleagues at his legal group, First Liberty Institute, according to emails and early drafts obtained by The Washington Post.

What Kacsmaryk did not say in the email was that he had already been interviewed for a judgeship by his state’s two senators and was awaiting an interview at the White House.

As part of that process, he was required to list all of his published work on a questionnaire submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, including “books, articles, reports, letters to the editor, editorial pieces, or other published material you have written or edited.”

The article, titled “The Jurisprudence of the Body,” was published in September 2017 by the Texas Review of Law and Politics, a right-leaning journal that Kacsmaryk had led as a law student at the University of Texas. But Kacsmaryk’s role in the article was not disclosed, nor did he list the article on the paperwork he submitted to the Senate in advance of confirmation hearings in which Kacsmaryk’s past statements on LGBT issues became a point of contention.

Now, six years later, as Kacsmaryk sits as a judge in Amarillo, Tex., his strong ideological views have grabbed the country’s attention after his ruling this month that sought to block government approval of a key drug used in more than half of all abortions in the country — an opinion that invoked antiabortion-movement rhetoric and which some medical experts have said relied on debunked claims that exaggerate potential harms of the drug.

Kacsmaryk did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for First Liberty, Hiram Sasser, said that Kacsmaryk’s name had been a “placeholder” on the article and that Kacsmaryk had not provided a “substantive contribution.” Aaron Reitz, who was the journal’s editor in chief at the time and is now a deputy to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), said Kacsmaryk had been “our chief point of contact during much of the editing” and “was the placeholder until final authors were named by First Liberty.”

But one former review editor familiar with the events said there was no indication that Kacsmaryk had been a “placeholder,” adding that this was the only time during their tenure at the law review that they ever saw author names swapped. The former editor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, provided emails and several drafts of the article.

The circumstances surrounding the article’s authorship raise questions about whether a judicial nominee was seeking to duck scrutiny from a process designed to ensure that judges are prepared to interpret the law without personal bias, said lawyers who worked on judicial nominations in Republican and Democratic administrations — speaking hypothetically and not specifically about Kacsmaryk.

Adam H. Charnes, who worked on judicial nominations while the principal deputy in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy under President George W. Bush, said he would not have advised potential nominees to withdraw articles they had written or to publish them under others’ names.

“I’m pretty sure the Senate would expect you to produce something like that,” Charnes said.

The scenario “strikes me as problematic,” he said — and, he added, “a little shady.”

Ya think? The ludicrous thing is that this probably wouldn’t have tanked his nomination. Kacsmaryk was nominated precisely because he’s a foot soldier in the forced birth wars. Who was going to vote against him, or not want to have to vote for him, among those who supported him if this had come out? As to what happens now, I have no idea, but probably nothing. The story doesn’t suggest any likely consequences. Sure must be nice to be this guy – he’s making the law, and he’s above it. What else could you want?

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Harris County versus AG over when election records can be withheld

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

Christian Menefee

Harris County is battling Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office over its ability to withhold election records that have been requested under the state’s public information law.

In the case, filed last December, the county argues it should be able to reject requests for three types of information: voting records that are prohibited from release by state law for 22 months after an election, documents related to pending litigation, and working papers involved in ongoing audits.

The Texas Election Code, in keeping with the Civil Rights Act of 1960, bars officials from releasing anonymized completed ballots for 22 months after an election.

There has been a longstanding consensus that those election records are confidential during that period, according to Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee.

“And then, out of thin air, our current attorney general decided that those records were no longer confidential and had to be produced to the public for inspection immediately following the election,” Menefee said. “Again, this was a complete 180 from not only the law, but also previous opinions issued by previous attorneys general.”

Menefee said Paxton’s decision was driven by politics, not the law.

“It’s just a bad faith reading of the law to appease a certain part of his base,” Menefee said.

The county is asking a Travis County court to rule Paxton’s office wrongly concluded the county could not withhold those records, but others side with the attorney general’s interpretation. Williamson County also is suing the attorney general on the election ballots issue.

[…]

Chad Dunn, a longtime election lawyer based in Austin, said Harris County is doing the right thing by seeking a court ruling.

“There are good arguments on both sides on whether or not election records should be available within that period. And what I have found frustrating is that the state takes each side of that position depending on what the political stakes are at issue,” Dunn said. “So, getting a final ruling on it from the courts, to me, is the critical piece.”

Harris County also is fighting the attorney general’s determination that it must hand over records related to pending litigation.

The Texas Public Information Act includes that exemption to prevent the public from misinterpreting information before a case has had its day in court, which is particularly important when the litigation involves election misinformation, Menefee said.

“This is the quintessential example of people seeking to litigate something in the public sphere, and that’s why the Legislature passed the law allowing for documents to be withheld subject to the litigation exception,” Menefee said.

Menefee said the exception is standard practice at every level of government.

“In fact, just last week, the AG’s office notified us that they were asserting the litigation exception on something relevant to something going on in Harris County,” Menefee said.

See here for some background on the lawsuit, for which there are multiple counties as plaintiffs. The story also obliquely refers to the furniture guy lawsuit over election records, which is relevant to this litigation. I don’t have a whole lot more information here. As a matter of course, I’ll side with Harris County against Ken Paxton, but on a broader level I think Chris Dunn has this right. What we want is clear rules that are consistently applied, and we don’t want the state picking on its political enemies. We’ll see what we get, which I’m sure will eventually wind up before the Supreme Court.

One more thing:

The county has turned over some election-related documents to lawyers involved in the 22 election contest lawsuits filed by Republican candidates, Menefee said.

“To the extent that those cases end up going to trial, then all these issues are going to be litigated in public,” Menefee said.

Some of those lawsuits could go to trial by mid-June at the earliest.

Good to know.

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“Fort Worth is the new Austin”

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Hadn’t thought of it that way.

Who speaks for Fort Worth in the nation’s capital?

For more than 25 years the go-to member of the Texas delegation for Tarrant County has been U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth.

From securing funds for the Panther Island project to ensuring Pentagon funding for the F-35 fighter jet made by Lockheed Martin to saving the USS Fort Worth (she is the ship’s sponsor) from Navy cost-cutters, Granger has made her mark.

But will that still be the case?

There are now seven members of Congress who represent portions of Tarrant County after the most recent once-a-decade redistricting that realigned congressional and legislative districts in the 2022 elections.

There are two ways that the new lines divide Tarrant, and the most apparent is that the county is cut up so that there isn’t a singular voice for the region.

“Fort Worth is the new Austin,” said David Wasserman, the U.S. House expert for the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan analytical outlet. “It’s now been sliced up into a pinwheel.”

Austin, the 11th-largest city in the U.S., had been cut into six districts for nearly 20 years until the 2021 map created a concentrated “anchor” district that packed together Democrats and made Republican districts safer.

Tarrant County’s divisions carve up the county in such a way that Fort Worth, the 13th-largest city in the country, is also now the largest without an anchor congressional district.

In the second way the district divisions divide the region, there’s a twist highlighted by U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, who says the lines are drawn in such a way that four of the seven lawmakers who represent Tarrant County also represent Dallas County.

“That’s significant. There’s always been that rivalry between Fort Worth and Dallas,” said Veasey, whose district is almost evenly split between the two counties.

He and U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving, have represented both areas but as of the latest redistricting, there are two more: U.S. Reps. Jake Ellzey, R-Midlothian, and newly elected Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas.

It makes for a complex political landscape.

“The districts in Dallas-Fort Worth are more sawed apart than most districts in the country,” said Michael Li, a Texan who is a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.

Ginger noted this story in the April 14 Dispatches from Dallas. The re-creation of a single anchor district for Austin and Travis County was something I noticed during the 2021 redistricting process. It was clearly done in part because a whole lot of Republican Congressmen found themselves in far-too-competitive races thanks to the blueing of the I-35 corridor. I also suspect that after 20 years the Republicans were finally willing to concede that they could not kill off Rep. Lloyd Doggett and so they may as well quit trying. If you can’t crack ’em, may as well pack ’em.

I did not notice how Fort Worth and Tarrant County had been slotted to fill that role of being sliced into many pieces to disperse Democratic voters. It makes total sense, I’m a little miffed that I hadn’t picked up on it before. It should be noted that in the 2020 election, under the old map, all of the Republican districts that include a piece of Tarrant County except for CD12 were at least modestly competitive, and CD12 had trended Dem over the decade just like all the others had. The new map is far less competitive, though perhaps things may get a bit tighter in the Presidential year 2024. I still believe CD24 will be on the national radar sooner or later; beyond that we’ll have to see.

Honestly, the main difference between Tarrant County with this map and Travis County with the previous two maps is that all of the Congressfolk who now represent Tarrant and Fort Worth seem to be happy to do so, and the local leadership is happy with them. That was very much not the case with Austin and Travis County, which were treated like dog poop on the shoes of most of the delegation. Which is to say, the Republican members of the delegation. Perhaps if Fort Worth and Tarrant County start electing Democrats to those local positions, this will change. Enjoy it while you can, y’all.

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B-Cycle hits the brakes

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Unfortunate.

Hopes for a much-needed infusion of cash from a new partnership with Metro have yet to be fulfilled, leading Houston Bike Share to warn users that prices will increase and the number of available stations will shrink, starting May 1.

The nonprofit that operates the BCycle system of bikes available for checkout at kiosks around the city, “has been unable to complete a partnership agreement,” with Metropolitan Transit Authority, bike share board chairwoman and interim CEO Maya Ford said in an update. Specifically, Ford said Metro has confirmed it would not provide any of the $500,000 transit officials approved to transition bike sharing into the transit agency’s operations.

Metro officials said the intent never was a commitment to provide funds directly to the nonprofit, and instead intended for its own transition to create a system.

“This was not meant to be a bailout,” Metro board chairman Sanjay Ramabhadran said, noting transit leaders still want to work through the process and keep some bike sharing active as it transitions into the agency.

Absent the funding to continue operations as they are, with the once-robust system already only allowing use at half its stations, the number of open kiosks will shrink further, Ford said. Also May 1, prices will increase to $5 per 30 minute for single trips, $7 per 30 minutes for e-bikes, and $25 per month for monthly membership fees.

That is $2 more per half-hour for both conventional and electric bikes, and a $12 jump in the monthly membership.

The only stations in operation after further consolidation will be those in downtown Houston, in local parks where use has been popular and stations that have financial support from the Midtown Management District.

“We could potentially reduce the network to as few as 40 stations,” said Remy Vogt, community outreach manager for Houston Bike Share. “We are in talks with the city and neighborhood management districts to reopen currently suspended stations and maintain service to other stations in the network. Only the stations that are supported through ridership revenue or service fee agreements will remain open.”

[…]

“Our intent has been to work with Houston Bike Share on a transitional window as Metro creates a bike sharing program, and not simply hand over $500,000,” Metro spokesman Jerome Gray said in an email.

The first step in Metro paying for anything or reimbursing the nonprofit is having an agreement and the proper paperwork in place, Ramabhadran said, noting that Metro’s taxpayer-generated money comes with a lot of conditions.

“We have to dot the I’s and cross the T’s,” he said. “We cannot just hand over taxpayer money. It is not a blank check.”

Metro officials say they still are assessing the system and developing a plan for the new bike share program. Officials have said the aim, once it is a part of Metro, is to provide convenient connections to transit or small trips between where someone can easily walk and the choice of driving or transit.

“By no means is this conversation closed,” Ramabhadran said of the partnership with Houston Bike Share, including Metro covering some costs or assuming responsibility for some operations. “But it has to work within the limitations of what a public agency can do.”

See here, here, and here for the background. I suppose I had over-interpreted what the pending Metro partnership would mean. I’m still hopeful for what it can mean, and I still believe B-Cycle will be able to rebound, though it may take some time. We’re doing so much better on ways to get around by bike, I hate the idea that it will be available to fewer people. We need more of this, not less. But this is where we are right now.

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Rep. Jackson Lee makes her Mayoral candidacy official

Posted on April 17, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Here she comes.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee kicked off her campaign for mayor Friday night with a rally on the rooftop of Post Houston, promising to “unlock City Hall” for all residents and embrace their diversity while outlining a municipal agenda to tackle issues like housing, the wastewater system, crime and neighborhood lighting.

The rally came nearly three weeks after Jackson Lee first shared news of her candidacy with churchgoers. On Friday, the congresswoman made her case publicly for the first time.

“I want you to see in this campaign — no matter what stage of life you’re in, what age you are, there is hope in this city, and in this city there are results,” Jackson Lee said. “This is an international city. I proclaim this is a city for all people.”

Jackson Lee laid out her vision for city government, pledging to build on progress she said has been made under Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration. She vowed to use the political capital she has amassed in Washington, D.C., to continue bringing federal funds to Houston.

The congresswoman said she would use “public and private financing” to create a top-of-the-line water and wastewater system. Houston has struggled for years with sewer overflows and recently agreed with the federal government to spend $2 billion upgrading that infrastructure.

“I know where the money is, I know where the folk are, I know we can get this done,” Jackson Lee said.

Jackson Lee said the city and Metro would continue building out its rail system, including a promise to bring rail to both Hobby and Bush Intercontinental airports. She said she would use federal money to bring more neighborhood lighting to communities, and she promised to tackle street repairs and crime by sector, dividing the city into smaller parts to focus on more localized needs.

“We have got to get in front of crime. We cannot ignore it,” Jackson Lee said. “We cannot ignore Houstonians who don’t feel safe.”

And the congresswoman said she would use her experience on the budget committee to shepherd the city through difficult budgets, without sacrificing raises for employees, including firefighters, who have been locked in a contract dispute throughout Turner’s term.

On flooding, Jackson Lee vowed to bring mitigation money to the city. The state has proposed giving Houston none of an initial $2 billion allotment in Harvey recovery money for that purpose.

“There is an IOU outstanding. We’re going to cash on that IOU,” Jackson Lee said.

[…]

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, one of several speakers to endorse and introduce Jackson Lee, said the city faces difficult days ahead.

“We need someone who’s experienced in government and delivering things to Houston, and that is Sheila Jackson Lee,” Ellis said.

Other speakers included Amber Mostyn, Jackson Lee’s campaign treasurer; community activist Cesar Espinosa; Bishop James Dixon; and Ray Rodriguez, president of the Communication Workers of America Local 6222. Rodriguez said the union would endorse Jackson Lee.

The crowd also included state Rep. Ron Reynolds, [Controller candidate Chris] Hollins, Fire Chief Sam Peña and At-Large Councilmember Letitia Plummer.

Jackson Lee’s daughter, Erica Lee Carter, introduced the congresswoman.

See here for the background. The story notes the effect her entrance has had on the race, both with Chris Hollins moving to the Controller’s race (and endorsing SJL for Mayor; I can tell you from past interviewing experience that candidates for other city offices are usually reluctant to offer any opinion on the Mayor’s race) and Tony Buzbee opening his mouth. I will be very interested to see who endorses whom in this race – Rodney Ellis going with Sheila instead of his longtime former Senate colleague Whitmire is notable – and who stays out of it, at least until the runoff. There’s no mention in the story about whether SJL will remain in Congress or step down to run, which strongly suggests she will stay.

As for the substance of her speech, I like what she’s talking about. I don’t know how doable some of them are – what are the means to overcome the state’s resistance to giving Houston any flood relief money, and why haven’t we already taken them if they’re likely to work? – and of course it’s up to Rep. Jackson Lee to convince us that she is the person to make them happen, but her overall vision is appealing. This is what campaigns are about. I’m very much looking forward to the July finance reports, and I think this will be one of the more fascinating interview seasons I’ve gotten to do. What do you think?

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Lege may fix one particularly dumb aspect of its omnibus voter suppression law

Posted on April 17, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

A small bit of progress.

Texas lawmakers are trying to undo an expensive election problem they didn’t realize they had created in the first place.

In 2021, they passed a law that is set to require counties to purchase vote-counting equipment that does not yet exist and that would cost taxpayers more than $100 million. The measure, when it was proposed, went unnoticed and passed on a voice vote without debate.

After Votebeat reported in February on the unprecedented problem with the law and election officials’ deep concerns, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Republican, and other lawmakers filed legislation to ease the conundrum the measure had forced on Texas counties, which would be prohibited from using their current vote-counting equipment and required to purchase new equipment each election. Hughes said during a committee hearing last month that there had been a “misunderstanding on the scope” of the provision.

Hughes’ new proposal, Senate Bill 1661, would amend the language of that law to allow counties to continue to use the voting equipment they have without any additional costs to counties or taxpayers.

“When this became law, the hope was that it would get fixed this session, and we’re glad to see it’s getting addressed,” said Chris Davis, the Williamson County elections administrator. “We’re glad [lawmakers] recognize their mistake.”

Passed as part of the sweeping voting law known as Senate Bill 1 in 2021, this particular measure was proposed by Sen. Bob Hall and supported by Hughes, the voting bill’s author.  Both legislators at the time said the provision would prevent “cheating” and the “manipulation” of vote data stored in USB flash drives and taken from polling places to central counting stations — although there’s no evidence such malfeasance happened.

The law requires the use of equipment in which data “once written, cannot be modified.” That prohibits counties from using reusable storage devices, such as the USB flash drives, which are certified by the secretary of state. That requirement also prohibits the use of equipment such as ballot scanners and tabulating machines, all now used to count votes. The technology the law demands instead is often referred to as WORM, which stands for “write once, read many,” and generally refers to CD or DVD drives and the discs they burn data onto.

Votebeat reported that when the law takes effect in September 2026, in order to fully comply with it, counties will have to buy entirely new voting systems for each election, since the whole point is that the equipment can’t be reused. The secretary of state’s office estimates it will cost taxpayers more than $116 million to replace the eliminated equipment, plus an ongoing cost of more than $37 million every two years, since new equipment would have to be purchased for each election.

And that’s only if counties are able to find such equipment. Voting equipment that would match the requirements does not appear to have been invented by any election equipment company operating in the United States.

“I hope [legislators] review this and understand how much of an expense this is for counties and how much work it is for [election administrators],” said Terri Jordan, Angelina County elections administrator. Jordan added that if lawmakers have questions about the equipment, “they can come watch how we test the voting machines for accuracy. They can come see how it works. But they haven’t shown up.”

Hughes’ new proposal requires that counties use storage devices, such as the secretary of state-certified USB flash drives, that, if manipulated or tampered with, would become unreadable once they’re entered into the tabulating machines used to count votes. This is equipment counties already have accessible.

See here for the background. There’s a nice quote in the story from my buddy Dan Wallach, so do read the rest. Nothing is ever certain in the Legislature so this could still die a thousand ways before it gets passed, but making it out of the Senate is probably the harder part of the journey. I hope that the less stupid members of the Senate learn the lesson that they should never do anything Bob Hall wants to do. I’m not going to hope too hard, though.

None of the bills, including Hughes’, simply remove the WORM provision from the law. Rather, the bills seek to modify the language. That’s because, some experts say, lawmakers are using the bills to make a partisan and ideological point: that there’s cheating in elections and that changes must be made to “squeeze the corruption and dishonesty out of elections and make them pure,” said Cal Jillson, political science professor at Southern Methodist University.

“They tried to make that point with language that has now been shown to be impossible to implement, but they still have to make that point now,” Jillson said.

You build something out of lies and propaganda, it will eventually fall apart on you. Until we squeeze that out of the system, we’re doomed to repeat this cycle again and again.

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We wait to see how much harm the House will do to LGBTQ+ people

Posted on April 17, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s a very scary time.

Chants of “Protect trans kids” echoed across the Capitol as hundreds of LGBTQ Texans and their supporters gathered Saturday afternoon to express anger and fear over a slate of rapidly moving bills targeting queer people.

The mid-April heat matched the anger many felt toward Republican lawmakers who seek to ban transgender students from playing college sports, queer youth from accessing transition-related health care and other efforts to restrict LGBTQ rights.

“Welcome to the resistance,” Ricardo Martinez, CEO of Equality Texas, an LGBTQ advocacy group that organized the march, said as he implored protesters to do everything in their power to stop the legislation in the final six weeks of the legislative session.

After gathering several blocks north of the Capitol, chanting protesters marched amid drag queens and rainbow flags before rallying on the south steps to hear fiery speeches and offer consolation.

“Right now everyone’s upset, frustrated, speechless,” said Natalie Kennedy, an Austin resident who showed up Saturday to support the queer community.

The Texas Senate has already passed all of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s priority bills focused on LGBTQ people, including legislation that would restrict schools’ role in discussing the existence of LGBTQ people, block transgender kids’ access to gender-affirming care that major medical groups support, ban trans college athletes from joining sports teams that align with their gender identity, and defund public libraries that let drag queens read to children.

The House — which has historically served as an obstacle to legislation that would curb the rights of LGBTQ Texans — has also showed signs of moving quickly on some of these bills.

On Friday, a House committee advanced new versions of House Bill 1686 and Senate Bill 14, which would ban trans youth from accessing puberty blockers or hormone therapy. The bills now require trans youth already receiving those treatments to be weaned off the prescription medication. The bills would also ban surgeries, though they are rarely performed on adolescents.

[…]

Medical experts say gender-affirming care is aimed at improving the mental health of trans youth. Transgender children are far more likely to be depressed and attempt suicide than their cisgender peers. A 2015 report by the National Center for Transgender Equality found 40% of the roughly 27,000 transgender people surveyed had attempted suicide — almost nine times the average rate in the country.

Bills that seek to restrict health care and regulate what drag shows can be performed in front of children have been condemned by more than 100 advocacy groups and churches. Democratic chairs of six House caucuses, including the House LGBTQ Caucus, have also denounced the slate of legislation.

I wish I believed that appeals to science, or compassion, or human rights, or decency would have any effect on the Republican-controlled Legislature. I wish I believed that loud advocacy and activism would have any effect on them. I wish I believed that the business lobby still had the inclination and the clout to successfully grind this sort of thing to a halt. I wish I felt hope for these things, but right now what I feel is numb. The bad guys keep winning elections. They have no fear of electoral consequences, except from their seething, nihilist primary voters. I wish I had something better to say than we need to win more elections. I fear for what is coming. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep doing what we’re doing now – among other things, it’s the best we can do, and maybe we can begin to convince some voters that the threat is real. I have tremendous respect and empathy for everyone involved in this fight. I just know the days are about to get darker, and we will have more to overcome. Again, I wish I had something better to say.

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Weekend link dump for April 16

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

“As society stares down the barrel of what is almost certainly just the beginning of these advances in generative AI, there are reasonable and technologically feasible interventions that can be used to help mitigate these abuses. As a computer scientist who specializes in image forensics, I believe that a key method is watermarking.”

“Walmart is planning to build out a nationwide electric vehicle charging network at thousands of its stores, including Sam’s Club locations. The company says it plans to have the network built by 2030″.

“But this particular fracas over Bud Light grows from a deeper history of consumer politics, and it has an amusing resonance given the crucial role beer—or not drinking beer—has played in the past successes of the LGBTQ movement. In fact, part of the reason Bud Light (and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev) embraces—and is embraced by—queer beer drinkers is thanks to a historic boycott of one of its rivals, the Coors Brewing Company.”

“Take a tour of Northern Ireland—with a little help from the ‘Derry Girls’”.

“So if I’m evaluating a new government program and it improves the life of a working class person by $10, that’s a benefit of $32.70. If I take away $10 from an upper middle class person to pay for it, the cost is $2.30. Instead of a cost-benefit of zero, I have a whopping positive cost-benefit of $30.40.”

“Fine, I admit it. Elon Musk is ruining Twitter.”

“[Boban] Marjanović is only the second player in league history to spend full seasons with all three NBA franchises in Texas.”

Please stop singing along to “I Will Always Love You” when you attend The Bodyguard.

“Try this on for size: The Trash Pandas led 3–0 heading into the seventh and final inning of the game, having not allowed a hit. They went on to lose that game 7–5, still not having allowed a hit. “You can’t predict baseball” is a bit of a cliché; baseball has been around for more than 150 years. All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. But allowing seven runs while preserving a no-hitter? That’s worthy of detailed examination.”

RIP, Al Jaffee, legendary cartoonist for MAD Magazine. Mark Evanier adds a few words.

RIP, Hobie Landrith, original member of the New York Mets.

“Collecting sculptures of dictators and Nazi knick-knacks reveals more than bad taste, which, unfortunately, still cannot be counted as a crime. It is downright creepy. The reason it is creepy is that it shows an unwholesome fascination with power and domination. Crow might earnestly think he is buying this stuff to provide some kind of object lesson about the perils of tyranny, but there is an unavoidable suggestion of idolatry and vulgar power-worship just under the surface. The reason such objects would be impressive and interesting to a person like this and to his guests is that they are almost occult talismans: they are fetish objects, redolent of the power of evil.”

“By more than two-to-one, Americans say medication abortion should be legal in their state”.

“Flush with $80 billion in new funding, the IRS is aiming to ramp up audits of wealthy taxpayers and large corporations”.

“Certainly, abortion bans aren’t as unpopular as defunding the police, though it’s precisely the vagueness of that latter phrase that makes it hard to pin the precise level of support. But the dynamic is the same. Republicans can make that claim — the Democrats want to defund — all they want. Democrats simply deny it and, in most cases, for better or worse, are actually pushing for various increases in spending on police. But on abortion, the crooked judges Republicans spent a generation pushing into the federal judiciary keep coming up with new strategies for back-door or even front-door ways to push through new bans.”

“But treating “faithfulness” as the chief value of an adaptation is a creative dead end. It turns all adaptations into a pass/fail test, a series of exam questions in which a “faithful” adaptation is correct and anything else is an error. The adaptation becomes a Highlights magazine activity sheet with two side-by-side “spot the difference” pictures, asking viewers to circle each upside-down ice-cream cone or missing minor character with a red crayon.”

“What No Labels can’t seem to reckon with is that there are a host of burning issues in today’s America that come down to binary choices.”

“Republicans Are Silent On The Abortion Pill Ruling, Despite Confirming The Judge Behind It”.

RIP, Anne Perry, prolific crime writer who as a teenager helped murder her friend’s mother; the movie Heavenly Creatures was based on that.

RIP, Mary Quant, British fashion designer who is credited with designing the miniskirt and hotpants.

“So yes, a six-pack of not-woke beer might cost you a hefty $34.31, or almost $6 per can, but you can’t deny the value! And that’s not including the stupid T-shirt they try to get you to buy in the process”.

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Staffer alleges that Slaton had sex with an intern

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Really gross and inappropriate if true.

Rep. Bryan Slaton

A Capitol staffer alleged in an internal complaint that state Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, had “sexual relations” with an intern two weeks ago.

The new details of the allegation come from the complaint filed by a legislative staffer to the House General Investigating Committee. Earlier this week, The Texas Tribune reviewed excerpts of the complaint, which alleged that Slaton, 45, was having an “inappropriate relationship” with an intern who is under the age of 21. The complaint said Slaton called her after 10 p.m. on March 31 and invited her to his Austin apartment.

The Tribune has since obtained the full version of the complaint, which states the intern disclosed that she had sexual relations with Slaton that night.

Another Capitol staffer with direct knowledge of the situation corroborated the complaint and said that Slaton and the intern drank alcohol together. Slaton, one of the most far-right social conservatives of the Legislature, has been married to his wife since 2017.

The complaint alleges that sometime after the night at his condo, Slaton brought the intern into an office and flirted with her again. The same day, Slaton allegedly showed the intern emails from his personal account that accused him of having sex with a staffer, according to the complaint. The staffer believed Slaton wrote the emails as a test to see if she would report him. Slaton told her and her friends to keep quiet, according to the report.

Slaton and his attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday evening. Earlier this week, Slaton’s attorney issued a statement calling allegations against his client “outrageous” and “false.”

Julie Springer, an attorney for the intern, also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Texas Tribune is not identifying the intern.

See here and here for the background. If true, this is the sort of thing that ought to get someone’s ass thrown out of the Legislature, as there’s no way for it to be anything but abusive given the power differential. The hypocrisy angle adds to it, though at this point I have no idea how anyone outside that movement can see anyone like Bryan Slaton as a moral agent. If I thought that the shame or the stigma might move Slaton to resign, or the Republican primary voters in his district to vote him out, I might be willing to let events take their course. But as things stand, I’m rooting for the committee to return a recommendation that he be subject to an expulsion vote.

Note, by the way, that while we don’t have all the facts yet, this isn’t a criminal proceeding. As such, the terms “presumption of innocence” and “beyond a reasonable doubt” don’t have the meaning they would in that context. I don’t want to jump to conclusions, and I’m happy to let the committee do its work. But anyone is entitled right now to think that Slaton is a scumbag.

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Our first look at the Board of Managers wannabes

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

An eclectic group, to say the least.

The Chronicle on Friday obtained through a public records request a list of people who applied to the position through the end of March. In total, 374 people applied through the deadline last Thursday, although the agency extended the application window for an additional two weeks. The second round has already netted several dozen more applicants, said TEA deputy commissioner Steve Lecholop.

“We want to make sure all Houstonians have a second chance or more time to deliberate on whether they would be good fits to serve on the board,” Lecholop said. “We wanted to make sure we captured as many Houstonians as were interested and create as deep of a pool as possible.”

So far, the applicant pool is vastly underrepresented by Hispanic community members, raising concerns and questions among some residents. The Hispanic population makes up 10% of the applicants but nearly 62% of the HISD student body, according to the TEA.

Meanwhile, 40% of the applicants are Black, 33% white, 12% other and 5% Asian, according to the state agency. The group includes many teachers or educators, parents and district alumni, according to the TEA, in addition to some community activists and one current trustee, Bridget Wade.

[…]

Meanwhile, somoe trustees at a Thursday night board meeting expressed concerns that the applicant pool included people who had previously lost in school board elections, vendors in the district and people who say they have already been chosen for the position despite an ongoing selection process.

“If you’ve already selected three to four people, and those people are stating they’re selected, then that would be disingenuous to the community,” said trustee Myrna Guidry. “Those names are out there.”

Lecholop, the TEA representative who presented and answered questions at the board meeting, said the agency has selected no one for the board of managers or the superintendent positions.

“Not a soul in Houston or elsewhere has been notified that they will be a member of the board of managers,” he said.

Among the applicants in the first round is Lawrence Allen Jr., a third-generation educator and former member of the State Board of Education. His sister, Dr. Patricia Allen, now sits on the HISD board of trustees. Both siblings and their parents served as principals in the district, Allen said, adding that he is uniquely equipped to serve in the position due to his experience with the district and on the state level.

See here and here for some background. I guess this means they’re hoping for more Latino applicants, though that’s still my inference and not anything that the TEA has explicitly said. Par for the course, us trying to guess what the TEA has in mind to do.

Be that as it may, here are some names I recognized in the applicant list. All have been unsuccessful candidates for at least one office – you can search my archives for them or click on the Tag link below to see where they have been in the past.

Hugo Mojica
Gerry Monroe
Larry McKinzie
Karen Kossie-Chernyshev
Joshua Wallenstein
Youlette McCullough
Rasuali Bray
Georgia Provost

There are also a few names I’m not sure about, because they’re sufficiently common and/or are a variation on a known past political figure. This is how they are listed and who they might be:

Anne Garcia – There was a Dem candidate in the 2020 Senate primary named Annie Garcia.
Gregory Travis – Could possibly be the former District G Council member and failed State House candidate Greg Travis.
Sandra Moore – Possibly the former Democratic candidate for HD133. I’m Facebook friends with her and see that she has a recent post about the BoM, but didn’t say anything about being an applicant herself.
Graciela Saenz – This one seems likely to be the former At Large City Council member Gracie Saenz. I’d have thought that might have been mentioned in the story if so, but who knows.

We’ll see. As for the concern about people who had failed in past runs for the Board of Trustees being appointed as a Manager, I wouldn’t bar anyone like that from the process, but I do think it would be a fair question to ask why they should be appointed when the voting public has previously rejected them. There are a number of ways one could give a satisfactory answer to that question, and a number of ways one could give an answer that ought to brand you as not being a good candidate for any position of power ever. As for why more current Trustees did not apply for the Board, that’s a question I’ll ask those who are running for re-election this fall.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The benefits of going fine-free

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I love this story.

Two months ago, a Houston resident walked into the city’s public library and returned three long-overdue books from the 1990s.

The trio of the returned books included “Tenth Dimension” by Jeremy Bernstein on elementary particle physics, “The New Ambidextrous Universe” by Martin Gardner about the asymmetric DNA helix, and “Archery: A Sport for Everyone” by the Athlete Institute. These books had been missing for so long, the library had removed them from its system. They didn’t have a barcode, only a checkout card stamped with the due date: Nov. 13, 1992.

The customer had apparently forgotten about the books and only recently discovered them in her attic, according to Houston Public Library Communications Director Carmen Abrego. But instead of having to pay a late fee, she was welcomed back to the library and given a renewed membership for the first time in 30 years.

In January, Houston followed in the footsteps of other major Texas cities like San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, and Fort Worth, eliminating late fees for its library system to encourage more residents, particularly younger and low-income Houstonians, to use its 40-plus locations. Since then, residents have returned a total of 23,420 books and other items valued at $468,302, Abrego said.

The library also hosted its first amnesty event since 2014, from Jan. 18 to Feb. 17, allowing residents to request the removal of all past fines. The physics and archery enthusiast was among the 3,098 customers who cleared their overdue accounts during the month-long period.

Late fines don’t necessarily motivate people to return books on time and can actually deter those owing fines from using the facility again, with communities of color and low-income residents disproportionately affected, a Syracuse University study showed. For instance, when Chicago eliminated fines in 2019, the library system saw a 240 percent surge in book returns.

See here for the background. Harris County’s library system followed suit a few weeks later. According to the story, nearly half of the long-overdue books that have been returned were children’s books. The point here is for people to use the library and then bring the books back. Looks like this new system is working great so far.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The benefits of going fine-free

SCOTUS pauses that anti-mifepristone ruling

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

A brief timeout.

The Supreme Court granted the Department of Justice’s emergency request to temporarily halt lower court rulings that would have reimposed restrictions on mifepristone that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had lifted in recent years.

The stay is in place until 11:59 p.m. ET Wednesday. The anti-abortion plaintiffs’ response to the government’s request for a stay is due by noon on Tuesday.

It’s just an administrative stay, temporarily putting the lower court orders on ice until the full Supreme Court can decide on the merits of the case. Without it, the restrictions on mifepristone would have taken effect nationwide on Saturday.

“The idea would just be to keep the ruling on hold until the Supreme Court can take a closer look at the merits and decide whether to issue a longer stay pending appeal,” Jessie Hill, associate dean and professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, told TPM.

The stay does not guarantee that the right-wing bench will ultimately reverse the lower courts.

[…]

If the Supreme Court majority ultimately prioritizes its hostility to abortion access over the standing issues, the FDA may be able to mitigate some of the damage, depending on how it uses its enforcement discretion.

So far, the White House told TPM that it wouldn’t “ignore” the lower court rulings and keep mifepristone on the market as usual, but it’s unclear whether that stance will hold if the administration is defeated at court.

See here for the previous update. This action was widely expected, and doesn’t mean anything about how SCOTUS will ultimately rule. It’s just that SCOTUS had a clear need to intervene, and we’ll know more on Wednesday. So try to put this out of your mind for a few hours and enjoy the weekend. The 19th has more.

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TEA takeover approved by trustees

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

That was a formality and will be noted later in the post, but first there was this.

Members of the Houston ISD board of trustees peppered a Texas Education Agency representative with questions about the upcoming takeover at a public meeting Thursday that lasted late into the night.

More than four hours into the meeting, Steve Lecholop, the TEA’s deputy commissioner of governance, gave a slideshow presentation about the board of managers applications and transition process, while standing before elected trustees in the Hattie Mae White Educational Center.

The TEA has re-opened the window for board of manager applications until April 20 after receiving 374 applicants in the first round, Lecholop said.

Preliminary screening of applicants is now underway and applicants have been invited to attend one of two required Lone Star Governance training sessions, he said.

The presentation included information about the timeline of the takeover, the process and exit criteria for transitioning back to elected control, and the role of the elected trustees after their powers are suspended. Elected officials will be encouraged to remain in place as advisors to the board of managers, Lecholop said.

“It is really important that you guys stay involved,” he told trustees.

Several trustees raised questions about transparency and validity in the application and selection process for the board of managers. They asked about the reasons behind the takeover and the specifics of the conditions for ending state governance. Some board members said they would have preferred to hear from TEA Commissioner Mike Morath to address their questions about the takeover.

“We’d like to see Commissioner Morath to discuss all of the questions,” said trustee Kathy Blueford-Daniels.

Lecholop said the TEA has made no selections for any governance positions. He also said the future board of managers will be bound by the same laws as the elected school board, meaning meetings must be open to the public.

[…]

Later, trustee Patricia Allen asked the state representative about a scenario in which the new leadership fails to achieve the exit criteria and instead contributes to tanking student outcomes.

“What happens when they do a terrible job and we can’t get back in because they keep doing a terrible job?” she said.

Lecholop did not provide an answer, instead pointing to a successful track record in other Texas districts that have been governed by a board of managers.

“We have every expectation that the board will be successful,” he said.

Quite a bit here, but I want to focus in on three things.

1. Mike Morath still can’t be bothered to show up and answer questions in person. This is just plain chickenshit on his part. The biggest school district in the state, being taken over for past behavior that is no longer in operation, vastly unpopular among the stakeholders, and all we get is a string of functionaries. Just straight up cowardly and deeply disrespectful. I had a fair bit of respect for Mike Morath before this. He’s done a lot to shred that.

2. Why are they still taking applications for the Board of Managers? Perhaps to correct for the non-representative nature of the existing pile of applicants. I’m speculating, because Morath’s flunky didn’t say why they were doing it. That would be a valid reason if it’s true, but it sure would be nice to have confirmation. If that’s not the reason, then what is? Were there really not nine semi-decent candidates among the 374 that had applied? What does that tell you if true?

3. Trustee Allen asks a great question, which typically goes unanswered. Move along, nothing to see here. Fears that the Board will fail to meet the aggressive metrics set by the TEA are real and deserve a thoughtful response, which we aren’t going to get, but there’s another scenario to consider. It’s possible the Board of Managers won’t do anything that the existing Board of Trustees already had in place, and with the trajectory HISD is on after two years or so the metrics are met an the TEA can declare victory, claim all the credit despite having done nothing of substance, and get out. That would be both good and annoying as hell. I’m going to have to sit with that for a little while.

In the end, the baton was passed.

Despite pleas from speakers earlier in the meeting that the TEA action be abandoned and pointed questions from some of the board members following the address from TEA Deputy Commissioner for Governance Steve Lecholop, any but the most dedicated true believers had to know it was over.

Despite all the objections raised by board members, in the end they acquiesced in a 7-1-1 vote with trustee Sue Deigaard voting against and Bridget Wade abstaining (?). The HISD board of education gave their formal OK to the transition of the district from locally elected leadership to a board of managers and a new superintendent that will all be appointed by TEA Commissioner Mike Morath.

I said the Board vote was a formality, in that after all this it cannot possibly be the case that a Board vote against approving the takeover would have had any effect. Maybe it would have had caused some minor bit of chaos, I have no idea. But this train is leaving the station, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it at this point. Now we wait to see who the new Board is and who gets named as the new Superintendent.

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House General Investigations Committee issues subpoenas

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We’ll keep an eye on this.

Rep. Bryan Slaton

The Texas House Committee on General Investigating issued four subpoenas Friday, though it did not say to whom or for what purpose.

It was this legislative session’s first meeting of the committee, which investigates wrongdoing in government including potential misconduct by members, since its inaugural housekeeping meeting at the beginning of March.

Since then, two House members have faced ethics questions, both related to their treatment of staff.

The House Committee on General Investigating, along with its counterpart in the Senate, has the power to conduct inquiries into state agencies, departments and officials. The committees also have the ability to draft articles of impeachment against lawmakers.

This week, The Texas Tribune reported that a legislative staffer submitted a complaint to the investigative committee earlier this month alleging that Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, had a potentially inappropriate relationship with an intern.

The complaint said Slaton invited the intern to his Austin condo after 10 p.m. on March 31. A source with direct knowledge of the incident told the Tribune that Slaton drank alcohol with the woman, who was under 21.

[…]

Earlier this month, three employees of Rep. Jolanda Jones, D-Houston, resigned in late March, citing an “abusive and hostile” work environment.

In a letter, the trio said Jones assigned them work unrelated to state business, regularly required them to work outside of business hours and often threatened to fire employees. They also alleged that Jones had failed to intervene in what they said was an inappropriate relationship between an office intern and the lawmaker’s son.

The former employees also filed a complaint with the House investigative committee.

See here and here for some background. We don’t know that these subpoenas have to do with Reps. Slaton and Jones, but it seems very likely that they do. I will reserve comment on those situations for now, but one thing that should be mentioned that I have not explicitly said before now is that mistreatment of legislative staff is unfortunately very common, so much so that it’s often seen as a fact of life rather than a bad thing that deserves sunlight and reform. It’s a bipartisan problem, and as such there’s very good reason for there to be a robust bipartisan solution. A number of legislators started out as staffers, and many staffers are young people who don’t have any power or resources to protect themselves. We have no excuse for this. Whatever happens with these investigations, it’s way past time for the Lege to address this issue. We can do so much better.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fifth Circuit barely limits ridiculous anti-mifepristone ruling

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

In other words, the Fifth Circuit did Fifth Circuit things.

The notoriously right-wing Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling on mifepristone from late last week in an early Thursday decision that may prompt the Justice Department to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

Kacsmaryk stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 2000 approval of mifepristone last week based on both anti-abortion myths regarding the dangerousness of the drug, and on near-universally panned contortions of standing and timeliness.

The Fifth Circuit panel broke from Kacsmaryk on rejecting the 2000 FDA approval, saying that the six-year statute of limitations to challenge that agency action has passed (though without much conviction, saying that the anti-abortion plaintiffs may win on that topic at another stage of litigation). But it agreed with Kacsmaryk on nearly everything else.

The panel — comprised of two Donald Trump appointees, and one George W. Bush appointee — would let mifepristone remain on the market with FDA approval, but would reject many of the steps to expand access and lift restrictions that the FDA has taken since 2016. That means that mifepristone would only be available under the previous, much more restrictive regime: allowed to be used only up until 50 days into a pregnancy versus 70, with patients required to have multiple in-person visits with a provider, and the pills not allowed to be mailed. (The Bush appointee said she wanted to grant an administrative stay, and to punt a decision on the stay pending appeal to the argument panel — meaning this decision comes courtesy of the two Trump judges.)

Mifepristone has always been subject to an unusually harsh set of restrictions on its use and prescription, which the medical community has soundly criticized as based in politics and not medical fact.

The Fifth Circuit panel’s ruling is shot through with similar ideological, non-scientific, anti-abortion rhetoric to that which peppers Kacsmaryk’s decision.

“As a result of FDA’s failure to regulate this potent drug, these doctors have had to devote significant time and resources to caring for women experiencing mifepristone’s harmful effects,” the panel writes, a regurgitation of anti-abortion lies about mifepristone being particularly dangerous.

At another point, the panel refers to a fetus as an “unborn child” — a term that is often shorthand for the idea of fetal personhood, the anti-abortion theory that fetuses are essentially just small children with rights under the 14th Amendment, so all abortion is murder.

But the appeals court’s cosigning of Kacsmaryk’s novel interpretations of standing alone will likely be enough for the DOJ to appeal.

See here, here, and here for the background. Some of the coverage I’ve seen has put the focus of the ruling on the injunction against the 2000 approval of mifepristone, which is the one thing the Fifth Circuit stayed. But that really isn’t the main feature of this ruling, it’s the acceptance of so much of Kacsmaryk’s bonkers interpretation of standing as well as his wingnut-infused rejection of the science.

That’s the big picture. You can get more detail here, and Chris Geidner has a good thread here. Remember also, that Washington court ruling, which directly contradicts this one, and which Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern says offers the FDA the perfect opening to just follow what the Washington court ordered, as it “more explicitly obligates the agency to maintain mifepristone access in most states where abortion remains legal”.

This mess is now on SCOTUS’ doorstep, as the Justice Department is seeking emergency relief. I assume they will take action, but we saw how pusillanimous they were with SB8. Unless SCOTUS steps in by the end of the day today, access to mifepristone will be severely curtailed even as the nationwide injunction is put on hold. It’s chaos, it’s a terrible ruling for the pharmaceutical industry, and they have taken notice. We’ll see what comes of that. NBC News, NPR, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, Daily Kos, and the Trib have more.

UPDATE: Clarification from Washington:

Judge Thomas Rice in the eastern district of Washington responded Thursday to government lawyers asking how they should comply with contradictory rulings on mifepristone that both came down Friday evening, one of which Rice wrote.

He told them that, regardless of the ruling out of Texas, the government must comply with his order to keep mifepristone available as usual in the 17 states plus Washington D.C. that are part of the case.

“That order is currently stayed and was not in effect at the time of this Court’s preliminary injunction,” he said of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling, which had stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone. Aspects of Kacsmaryk’s ruling were stayed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday morning. “Under these circumstances, because the Court has jurisdiction over the parties before it and limited its preliminary injunction only to the Plaintiff States and the District of Columbia, this Court’s preliminary injunction was effective as of April 7, 2023 and must be followed by Defendants.”

He added that “irrespective of the Northern District of Texas Court ruling or the Fifth Circuit’s anticipated ruling,” defendants are prohibited from “altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone under the current operative January 2023 Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy under 21 U.S.C. § 355-1 in Plaintiff States and the District of Columbia.”

Okay then.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Houston rescinds its anti-busking ordinance

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good call.

Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Houston formally abandoned an ordinance Wednesday that banned buskers throughout most of the city, four months after it was struck down by a federal judge.

For decades, Houston made busking — musicians and other artists performing on streets for cash tips — illegal throughout most of the city. In 1991, it confined the performances only to the Theater District, and required interested performers to obtain a permit.

Federal Judge Alfred H. Bennett declared that legal framework unconstitutional in December, ruling the ordinances violated the First Amendment.

Instead of appealing the ruling, City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to drop those portions of its code. The council passed the repeal measure as part of its consent agenda, meaning it was not considered individually.

The request for council action said Houston Public Works would receive “at most” one permit application a year.

See here, here, and here for the background. After the ruling, the city’s response was to amend the ordinance in question, and I suppose it took some time to arrive at the final dimensions of that amendment. May have been a bit slow, but I think they did the right thing here. Good on them for that.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Dispatches from Dallas, April 14 edition

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in Dallas-area news, we have a lot more on Harlan Crow and the Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, the Bryan Slaton scandal, various other bad bills and bad ideas coming out of the Lege and the Governor’s office, problems with beer distribution in Texas over spring break/St. Pat’s/SXSW (!), and a laugh at the expense of some Texas figures courtesy of the Barbie selfie generator. No baby animals this week, alas.

This week we’re starting with Harlan Crow once again. As I was writing this post, ProPublica came out with a new piece of the puzzle: Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal. Makes you wonder what else is missing from Thomas’ disclosures, doesn’t it?

Another of the big stories is in the Washingtonian: Clarence Thomas’s Billionaire Benefactor Collects Hitler Artifacts. This is not local but the photos are real and they do link to a DMN report on the house. I have never been in the house; we don’t run in those circles. But danah boyd and Ethan Zuckerman have visited and have some things to say.

The DMN has some items for your reading pleasure as well. Harlan Crow, who gave lavish trips to Clarence Thomas, has donated $13M to GOP (Archive link.) Note that he does occasionally give to Democrats, like Henry Cuellar. Also there’s Inside Harlan Crow’s ‘Garden of Evil’ and his collection from Washington to Monet (Archive link), which contains the line “They’re not a celebration of repressive regimes, Crow has said.” See also: I am not a crook. Crow’s collection also inspired this meditation on collections, which poses the question: “[H]ow prestigious is owning a piece of a Supreme Court justice?”

Last, but not least, from the DMN is today’s editorial: Harlan Crow, Clarence Thomas and a diminished Supreme Court (Archive link.) I’m glad DMN’s editorial board is calling for a code of conduct. But if they really believe Crow and Thomas didn’t know what they were doing was wrong, though, I’ve got some NFTs I’d like to sell them.

I have some questions about about Thomas’ response to the ProPublica investigation: he describes the Crows as “close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court”. Specifically, I’d like to know how Thomas thinks of business before the courts. I’d also like to know whether Crow, or any person or entity involved in Crow’s holdings and investments, was involved in suits before the Supreme Court directly or indirectly, for instance by an amicus curiae brief, in the years when Crow hosted Thomas. I’m sure someone out there is doing that research, which I look forward to reading, especially after the latest revelations.

Our second DFW-area hot topic is this week’s scandal in the Lege, which our host has already covered: House Representative Bryan Slaton of Royse City getting caught having an underage female intern (archive link) over to his condo in Austin for late-night drinks. Calling a young staffer over for drinks and then pressuring her to keep her mouth shut about it is gross, even if there’s nothing more to it.

But some GOP reps have called for his resignation and between the tweets linked there and the language in the Texas Tribune story, I suspect we’re going to find out there’s quite a bit more. Personally I wish the young intern all the best and the least traumatic way out of this situation she can get. I wish Slaton all the justice a man who calls queer folks predators while grooming a minor deserves.

In other news:

  • Also in Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, Crowe’s real estate empire is hosting a UATX symposium this summer. UATX is the not-yet-established University of Austin started by conservatives to rival UT Austin; the Forbidden Courses summer program will be held at the Old Parkland Campus, which is one of the signature properties in the Crow Empire. No word on how much, if anything, UATX is paying Crow for the use of his property.
  • With Tarrant County’s congressional districts ‘carved to bits,’ who represents us? DFW is as carved up in the current round of gerrymandered redistricting as Austin, where I lived for a decade. When I lived in NW Austin, I was in CD-10 along with folks all the way down 290 to Prairie View; when I lived in SE Austin, I was in CD-35 all the way down 35 to San Antonio; when I moved to near NE Dallas, where I now live, I was in CD-5 with half of East Texas. Now I’m in CD-24 with parts of Fort Worth and a lot of the suburbs in between. I didn’t realize CD-30 (Jasmine Crockett’s district, which I think of as South Dallas because it was Eddie Bernice Johnson’s old seat) also extended into Fort Worth, but I’m not surprised.
  • A Good Friday funeral in Texas. Baby Halo’s parents had few choices in post-Roe Texas. Baby Halo was diagnosed with anencephaly (parts of her brain and skull never developed) at 20 weeks. In a civilized state where people have access to abortion care, her mom would have terminated the pregnancy. In Texas, she had to carry an additional three months, undergo labor and give birth to a child who survived only a few hours. And of course there’s no charitable care for her mom or assistance for Baby Halo’s funeral. This is what the Republican party wants. The cruelty may not be the point but it’s certainly not a problem.
  • A story I’m looking forward to is whatever comes of KXAN’s search for stories about TxTag, the central Texas toll authority (found via the Austin subreddit). When I lived in Austin, my only significant problems with TxTag were with NTTA (DFW’s toll authority) failing to read my tag on Dallas tollways. Apparently it’s gotten a lot worse in recent years. I’d rather get rid of some of the toll roads but barring that, I’d at least like my toll tag to work properly.
  • In North Texas legislature news: Police ID person who took Bhojani’s family Qur’an but won’t tell us who it was. That’s not even slightly weird!
  • In another gross story from the Lege, our only governor is poised to pardon a convicted murderer (Archive link) despite his record of “stingy clemency”. If you need more information on why our so-called law-and-order governor would do such a thing, Radley Balko has all the details.
  • In case you were wondering: Texas Legislature’s education savings accounts proposal won’t cover tuition at most Fort Worth private schools. I took a quick look at the tuition numbers from the article. When I sorted them by cost, it looked like the $8000 the Lege is considering would pay the cost of tuition at fewer than 20% of the schools.
  • In sad medical news, Shelley Luther, the woman who broke lockdown in DFW during the height of the pandemic, has apparently suffered a brain aneurysm and is on a ventilator in the ICU. I wish her well and hope she has a complete recovery and a return to private life. Also, I would like to note that a quick Google for research about brain aneurysms and COVID turns up a lot of hits, including this case report and literature review on the NIH site whose abstract concludes “COVID-19 infection could be considered as one of the possible risk factors leading to instability and rupture of intracranial aneurysm.”
  • News from Plano: Plano gets details of long-awaited overhaul of Shops at Willow Bend mall (Archive link). Today I learned that the Shops at Willow Bend was the last enclosed mall built in Texas. It was completed in 2001. I remember visiting it when it was fairly new and we had family living in the area; it’s already obsolete only two decades into its lifecycle.
  • You Had One Job — Country’s Largest Beer Distributor Doesn’t Deliver, Causing Rocky Start in Texas. Reyes Beverage Group, which bought into Texas last year, screwed up deliveries to Austin in March, which means during SXSW, St. Patrick’s, Rodeo Austin, and spring break. In North Texas they also screwed up during the Country Music Awards. I know beer distributing issues in the Lege have been a long-time interest of our host’s so perhaps he’ll have something more on this when it wends its way back to Austin at some later date.
  • You need a laugh! Enjoy these Texas politicians and other notable figures in the Barbie selfie generator for the upcoming movie.
  • Last but not least: 10 Texas Music Museums Worth the Stop on Your Next Road Trip. Austin and Houston both get a look in here so if you’re local to them, check them out.
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