Dispatches from Dallas, March 10 edition

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in Dallas news: The DPD evidence scandal grows, more about Marvin Lowe, water cremations, winter weather, Star Wars, and finally some good news at the Dallas Zoo.

I complain a lot about the Dallas Morning News, but they’ve done a good job covering the Dallas PD evidence scandal. Here are the two most recent stories about what the investigation into missing evidence is finding: Murder cases could be in jeopardy as Dallas police review 450 cases for missing evidence [Archive link] and What we know about Dallas police search for missing video evidence in murder cases [Archive link]. 13 homicide convictions are in jeopardy and now they’re going through violent crime cases. One does wonder whether this is a problem with DPD or whether review of other law enforcement agencies would show the same kinds of negligence in evidence handling. Meanwhile, I hope the last line of this DMN story about official reactions to the missing evidence [Archive link is correct and someone is going to be held responsible for these screwups.

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“Shall” versus “may”

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Houston Landing touches on a subject I’ve mentioned before.

As concerns grow about the Texas Education Agency ousting the Houston Independent School District’s elected board, a question with major practical and political implications has emerged: Are state officials legally mandated to take over Texas’ largest school district?

Despite multiple years of legal and legislative battles, there’s still no definitive answer to this fundamental query – setting the stage for even more litigation that could delay or derail any state efforts to strip power from the district’s school board.

A strange confluence of recent events has left it unclear whether TEA officials must, or merely may, take drastic action against the state’s largest school district due to persistently poor academic performance at Wheatley High School, according to a Houston Landing review of state law and court rulings. While the uncertainty has lingered for the past several weeks, it’s taken on greater importance as the state nears a decision on whether to punish HISD for past failings.

The murkiness stems from state appellate rulings and legislative actions in the past several months that were supposed to clarify the state’s responsibility for punishing HISD, yet failed to plainly answer one key question: Did Wheatley trigger a state law requiring sanctions against the district when it received a seventh consecutive failing grade in 2019?

[…]

HISD finds itself in legal limbo largely due to a peculiar disconnect between Texas’ legislative and judicial branches.

The saga began in 2015, when Texas legislators passed a law that said the TEA must replace a district’s school board or close chronically low-performing campuses in any district with a single school that failed to meet state academic accountability standards for five consecutive years. The bill, championed by state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., a Houston Democrat whose legislative district includes Wheatley, aimed to punish school boards for neglecting long-struggling campuses.

However, the law spelled out specific years – including 2018 – for which schools must fail to meet state standards to trigger sanctions. And as a result of Hurricane Harvey, Wheatley received a “not rated” designation in 2018, which didn’t count as a failing grade.

Still, state officials moved to oust HISD’s school board after Wheatley fell short of state standards in 2019, its seventh consecutive failing grade without a passing mark. (TEA leaders have said closing Wheatley would not remedy the root causes of the school’s poor results.)

Wheatley’s “not rated” mark in 2018 set off a legal skirmish over whether the school technically triggered the law with its seventh straight failing grade the following year.

A Travis County judge issued a temporary injunction in HISD’s favor in early 2020, halting the takeover, but she did not elaborate on the rationale for her decision. Then, in late 2020, the Texas Third Court of Appeals ruled that Wheatley did not violate the accountability law because the “plain language of the statute” required a failing grade in 2018. TEA officials subsequently appealed the decision to the Texas Supreme Court.

While the case was pending before the Texas Supreme Court, state legislators passed a bill in mid-2021 clarifying that a “not rated” grade doesn’t count as a passing score for the purposes of calculating whether a school scored five consecutive failing grades. If a school receives four straight failing grades, followed by a “not rated” mark, it must meet state standards the next school year to avoid triggering a state takeover or campus closure. Texas legislators, however, did not make the law retroactive to the Wheatley situation.

“It was our legislative intent not to include any language that would have done that,” Dan Huberty, a Republican former state representative who helped usher the bill to passage, said in an email last week. Huberty added that lawmakers wanted to leave Wheatley’s fate to the courts – a point echoed this week in a statement by another key figure in the law’s passage, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston.

Yet the Texas Supreme Court, when given the chance, didn’t clearly address the unanswered question about Wheatley.

In an October 2022 written opinion, the justices unanimously overturned the temporary injunction, finding the TEA has the legal right to install a replacement board on two unrelated matters: the lengthy presence of a state-appointed conservator in the district; and multiple findings of misconduct by some board members, including violations of the state’s open meetings laws and attempts to steer vendor contracts, following a TEA investigation in 2019. On both fronts, state law says Morath can appoint a new board, but he’s not required to.

But for reasons never made clear, the justices didn’t explicitly rule on whether Wheatley triggered mandatory sanctions. The justices seemed to defer in their opinion to the Texas Legislature’s new law, which could bolster the state’s case for mandatory sanctions, but they never issued an unequivocal directive.

I’ve noted the “shall” versus “may” distinction before. I see two ways of looking at this weaseling by the Lege and the courts. One is that this is all a very thin technical reed on which to hang an argument that the TEA doesn’t have to intervene. I wouldn’t want to have to defend that in court. The other is that despite it being very clear that the Lege wanted SCOTx to be the decider, they declined to say one way or the other if the TEA was required to act. Thin it may be, it’s an easy to grasp reason for the TEA to take more limited action, which is at least what the locals want, and probably what they would prefer given the scope of the issue.

Will they do it? Like I said, it can’t hurt to have people talking to Mike Morath to try to persuade him to back off. Maybe the bills filed to prevent the takeover, along with such lobbying efforts, are enough to push him to that way of thinking. Or maybe not. Campos is “hearing the HISD takeover will be announced on Friday”. Which, I guess, still comes down to the meaning of “takeover”. But if you phrase it that way, I know where my mind is going. We’ll maybe find out tomorrow.

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The forced-birth zealots target the Internet

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I hate to be an alarmist, but we live in a time and a place where stuff like this has to be taken seriously.

A proposed state law in Texas would force Internet service providers to block websites containing information on how to obtain an abortion or abortion pill. Republican lawmaker Steve Toth, a member of the state House of Representatives, introduced the bill last week.

Texas already has several laws that heavily restrict access to abortion, but the new proposal is notable for its attempt to control how ISPs provide access to the Web. “Each Internet service provider that provides Internet services in this state shall make every reasonable and technologically feasible effort to block Internet access to information or material intended to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug,” the bill says.

The bill lists six websites that would have to be blocked: aidaccess.org, heyjane.co, plancpills.org, mychoix.co, justthepill.com, and carafem.org. ISPs would also have to block any website or online platform “operated by or on behalf of an abortion provider or abortion fund” and any website or platform used to download software “that is designed to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug.”

Finally, the bill would force ISPs to block any website or platform “that allows or enables those who provide or aid or abet elective abortions, or those who manufacture, mail, distribute, transport, or provide abortion-inducing drugs, to collect money, digital currency, resources, or any other thing of value.”

People who become aware of websites containing prohibited abortion information may notify an ISP “and request that the provider block access to the information or material in accordance with that section,” the bill says.

Toth’s proposal isn’t just aimed at ISPs. Individuals in Texas would be prohibited from making or hosting a website or platform “that assists or facilitates a person’s effort in obtaining an abortion-inducing drug,” for example.

More broadly, the bill would establish “civil liability for distribution of abortion-inducing drugs.” It attempts to extend the law’s reach outside the Texas borders, saying “the law of this state applies to the use of an abortion-inducing drug by a resident of this state, regardless of where the use of the drug occurs.” Women who get abortions would not be held liable, as the bill targets distribution instead.

The bill would create a private civil right of action that would let individuals sue people or organizations that violate the proposed law. The private right of action would include letting Texans sue any interactive computer service that provides “information or material that assists or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortions or abortion-inducing drugs.”

While the bill would make it a criminal offense to pay for the costs of an elective abortion or to destroy evidence of an elective abortion, it mostly limits enforcement to civil lawsuits in other circumstances. It specifies that no state or municipal official can take action against ISPs, interactive computer services, or others who violate specific sections of the law.

It’s hard to know even where to begin with this kind of malevolence, but one must note the vigilante bounty hunter aspect of it, which thanks to the cowardly SCOTUS blessing of SB8 means it will be used as a get-out-of-being-sued card for this kind of legislation for the foreseeable future. As I said, I don’t want to be an alarmist, and at this time I don’t think this bill has any real chance of becoming law. That’s not the same as having zero chance, and if we’ve learned one thing over the past 20 or so years with the Legislature, it’s that what is now fringy whackjob stuff may tomorrow be one of Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities. The mark of a true zealot is that they never give up, and Steve Toth is a true zealot. The answer to this is the same answer I’ve been giving for every other piece of crap that has been thrown at us lately, which is that we need to elect more Democrats. I wish there were an easier way, but there isn’t. Add this to the ever-increasing list of reasons why.

And because I feel the need to clear some tabs, here’s some further reading on related matters, if you want to ruin your weekend:

One Florida Case Shows How the U.S. Became a Rogue State on Abortion

Abortion funds in Texas are unsure if they will resume supporting people after court ruling

Walgreens won’t distribute abortion pills in some states where they remain legal

We know that support for abortion rights is on the rise, but that only matters if people vote on it. It’s all of our job to make sure everyone knows how out of touch with public opinion he Republicans are and what they are trying to do. They’re not going to stop, so they have to be stopped.

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One small gun loophole may get closed

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Take your wins where you can find them.

Texas lawmakers are working to plug a gap in a 2009 law that was meant to keep people with a history of serious mental health issues from legally acquiring firearms.

Bipartisan legislation has been filed in the state House and Senate that would explicitly require courts to report information on involuntary mental health hospitalizations of juveniles age 16 and older after a ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation revealed that they were being excluded from the national firearms background check system.

Under the current law, county and district clerks across the state are required to send information on court-ordered mental health hospitalizations to the Department of Public Safety. The state’s top law enforcement agency is charged with forwarding those records to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS. Federally licensed dealers are required to check the system before they sell someone a firearm.

Elliott Naishtat, a former state lawmaker from Austin who authored the 2009 law, told the news organizations that he intended for it to apply to all Texans no matter their age. But following the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, the outlets discovered that local court clerks were not sharing that information for juveniles, either as a matter of policy or because they didn’t believe that they had to.

A bill by state Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston-area Republican, passed unanimously out of committee last week with bipartisan support.

The legislation aligns Texas with new federal reporting requirements and is “meant to make the background check more thorough and hence make our communities and schools safer,” Huffman at the committee hearing.

Congress passed gun reform legislation in June that includes a requirement that federal investigators check state databases for juvenile mental health records. But such checks would fail to reveal many court-ordered juvenile commitments in Texas because they are not currently being reported.

See here for the background. This is a small thing and it will have a small effect. It’s still better than not doing it, and as a proponent of the idea that effective gun control involves a lot of small, overlapping protections in order to be effective, I’m happy to see these small steps take place even as we pointedly ignore the larger ones. It’s still one piece we won’t have to fit in later, and it will do some good in the meantime. The story notes that Naishtat had been making some calls to his former colleagues urging them to close this loophole, and to whatever extent he had an effect I salute him, and Sen. Huffman as well.

UPDATE: The bill has now passed the Senate, the first bill to do so. It heads to the House next.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of March 6

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready to spring forward as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Five women harmed by Texas’ anti-abortion law file a lawsuit over it

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Well, this ought to be interesting.

Five women who say they were denied abortions despite grave risks to their lives or their fetuses sued the state of Texas on Monday, apparently the first time that pregnant women themselves have taken legal action against the bans that have shut down access to abortion across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wademe.

The women — two visibly pregnant — plan to tell their stories on the steps of the Texas Capitol on Tuesday. Their often harrowing experiences will put faces to what their 91-page complaint calls “catastrophic harms” to women since the court’s decision in June, which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion after five decades.

Their accounts may resonate with public opinion, which generally supports legalized abortion and does so overwhelmingly when a pregnancy endangers the woman’s life. The lawsuit, backed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, comes as the country grapples with the fallout from overturning Roe, with abortion banned in at least 13 states.

Texas, like most states with bans, allows exceptions when a physician determines there is risk of “substantial” harm to the mother, or in cases of rape or incest, or if the fetus has a fatal diagnosis. Yet the potential for prison sentences of up to 99 years, $100,000 fines and the loss of medical licenses has scared doctors into not providing abortions even in cases where the law would seem to allow them.

The suit asks the court to affirm that physicians can make exceptions, and to clarify under what conditions. But its greater power may be in appealing to public opinion on abortion. Similar lawsuits over exceptions, focusing public attention on stories of women who were denied abortions despite medical dangers, helped build momentum for legalized abortion in heavily Catholic Ireland and in South America.

The women bringing the suit contradict stereotypes about who receives abortions and why. Married, and some with children already, the women rejoiced at their pregnancies, only to discover that their fetuses had no chance of survival — two had no skulls, and two others were threatening the lives of their twins.

Though they faced the risk of hemorrhage or life-threatening infection from carrying those fetuses, the women were told they could not have abortions, the suit says. Some doctors refused even to suggest the option, or to forward medical records to another provider.

The women found themselves furtively crossing state borders to seek medical treatment outside Texas, worried that family and neighbors might report them to state authorities. In some cases, the women became so ill that they were hospitalized. One plaintiff, Amanda Zurawski, was told she was not yet sick enough to receive an abortion, then twice became septic, and was left with so much scar tissue that one of her fallopian tubes is permanently closed.

“You don’t think you’re somebody who’s going to need an abortion, let alone an abortion to save my life,” Zurawski, 35, said. “If anybody reads my story, I don’t care where they are on the political spectrum, very few people would agree there is anything pro-life about this.”

[…]

Unlike other suits from abortion rights groups, the Texas suit does not seek to overturn the state bans on abortion. Instead, it asks the court to confirm that Texas law allows physicians to offer abortion if, in their good-faith judgment, the procedure is necessary because the woman has a “physical emergent medical condition” that cannot be treated during pregnancy or that makes continuing the pregnancy unsafe, or the fetus has a condition “where the pregnancy is unlikely to result in the birth of a living child with sustained life.”

The women are not suing the medical providers who denied abortions, and the providers are not named in the suit; in most cases, the women say the providers were doing the best they could, but had their hands tied.

The Texas Medical Association has appealed to state authorities to offer more clarity on what exceptions are allowed. The author of one of the bans wrote to the state medical board in August, concerned that hospitals “may be wrongfully prohibiting or seriously delaying physicians from providing medically appropriate and possibly lifesaving services to patients who have various pregnancy complications.” He underscored that under the exceptions, hospitals had to protect the “mother’s life and major bodily function.”

The lawsuit says the five plaintiffs “represent only the tip of the iceberg,” and that “millions” of people across the country have been “denied dignified treatment as equal human beings.”

As the story notes, it is a reprint of a New York Times article. I don’t know who has what stereotypes about who gets abortions, but none of this surprises me. I’ve been saying all along that it’s just a matter of time before some nice white married lady, like one of these plaintiffs, dies from being unable to get timely medical care as a result of Texas’ anti-abortion law. One of these plaintiffs spent three days in intensive care with sepsis because abortion care was denied to her. No one should have to go through that.

I’m wondering what the state’s defense will be. My best guess is that they will claim that the law is clear as written and that if these women were unlucky enough to have incompetent doctors that’s their problem. The Republicans really don’t want there to be any clear lines about when an abortion is allowed, because the lack of clarity serves their purpose of forcing women to give birth.

Also, these women are going to get smeared, doxxed, threatened, harassed, and so on. Can’t be having them speaking out about their experiences, that’s just not allowed.

I’m not going to be foolish enough to make any predictions here. I will say that if these plaintiffs win, it will have only a marginal effect, in that their situations are relatively rare. The total number of abortions that would be allowed if they win will be minimal – basically, this is a “life/health of the mother” exception. Rape and incest are still not acceptable reasons for an abortion, and of course elective abortions are still criminalized. It would be significant in that the risk of death or serious health consequences would be mitigated, and that’s a big deal, but it will be limited. For now, that’s the best we can do. Axios, NPR, the Trib, Daily Kos, The 19th, the Current, and Slate have more.

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Bills filed to stop the TEA takeover of HISD

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Feels too late to me, but it can’t hurt to try.

State senators have filed the first bill to soften the law that triggers school district takeovers.

State Sens. Carol Alvarado, Borris Miles and John Whitmire filed Senate Bill 1662 in response to the threat of a possible takeover of Houston Independent School District by the Texas Education Agency. State Rep/ Alma Allen has filed companion legislation in the Texas House.

The bill modifies the current state law to provide TEA additional tools to address low performance ratings such as hearings before the commissioner, academic achievement plans, appointing agency to monitor, but not replace trustees, among other items. Under SB 1662, the TEA commissioner will have broader discretion to choose an alternative that does not require a school closure or the appointment of a board of managers.

Given Phyllis Wheatley High School improvement to a C and the district’s overall B rating, the TEA’s reason for initiating a takeover bid in 2019 is no longer valid, Alvarado said.

“It is unjust and unwarranted for TEA to move forward with a takeover,” Alvarado said in a statement. “S.B. 1662 offers the agency options to work collaboratively with HISD to address any current deficiencies instead of subjecting nearly 200,000 students and 27,000 teachers and employees to a takeover.”

Other leaders also made promises to get answers. NAACP president Bishop James Dixon said he plans to call a meeting with TEA commissioner Mike Morath. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said she intends to bring the issue to the Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Education.

HISD Trustee Patricia Allen said the trustees, administrators and other HISD representatives will let their grievances be known when they go to the legislator March 20.

“We have been in this fight before we even came in office,” Trustee Patricia Allen said at a community meeting at North Main Church of God in Christ in the Heights. “The board has been working since we were elected. We have a lone star governors coach, a TEA program — we have tried our best, hired the best superintendent.”

See here for the previous update, and here for my discussion of things that could be done to stave this off. As I said then, even if these bills have the support to pass and are allowed to come to the floor, it would be at least weeks and more likely months before they would take effect. Thus, unless Mike Morath is agreeable to wait it out, the legislative process is just too damn slow. I appreciate the effort, but let’s not put our hope in something that can’t work unless Morath and the TEA are willing to let it work.

Now having said that, it’s Tuesday afternoon and the TEA hasn’t taken over HISD yet, so maybe Morath is waiting until something happens to take him off the hook. Stranger things and all that. I would encourage Trustee Allen and Bishop Dixon and whoever else can get a meeting with Morath to ask him nicely if he’d at least talk to these legislators before he does anything. As with the bills themselves, it can’t hurt. Getting the feds involved has a chance of achieving something, and it could be done quickly, but it would also be super antagonistic, so let’s try the “ask very nicely for a delay” option first, since it surely won’t work if we do it the other way around. Throw everything at the wall, but do so in the proper order.

Oh, and why wasn’t a bill like this filed in the last Lege? Well, maybe there was one – I’d have to look, I don’t know offhand. That would have solved the timing issue, but only if it was allowed to pass, as with this one, and we didn’t know we’d need it because of the then-ongoing litigation. I think it’s at best a tossup whether these bills get even a committee hearing now, and I’d say that was never in the cards in 2021. That’s easy to say, and if we give credit for trying now we do have to ask what we tried then. We’re in this situation now regardless, so let’s not waste too much energy on what could have been. What it is now is what matters.

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I-45 project is back on

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Though it will still be several years before there is any real construction.

Nearly two years to the day that federal officials paused TxDOT’s plans for rebuilding Interstate 45 and downtown Houston’s freeway system, national and state highway leaders have come to an agreement that will let the rebuild proceed, but with several concessions aimed at addressing the project’s impacts on low-income and minority neighborhoods.

The Federal Highway Administration and Texas Department of Transportation announced Tuesday they had reached an agreement, similar to those TxDOT reached with Harris County and Houston in December, outlining commitments related to the planned $9.7 billion rebuild of I-45 from downtown Houston north to Beltway 8.

The agreement immediately lifts the federal pause placed on the project on March 8, 2021, and resolves the audit conducted by federal officials related to TxDOT’s adherence to federal environmental rules.

“This agreement moves forward an important project, responds to community concerns, and improves (I-45) in ways that will make a real difference in people’s lives. Through this agreement the community will have a greater voice in the design and throughout the project’s life cycle,” said Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt, in a statement.

[…]

Unlike the agreements with the city and county, the deal reached with federal officials holds TxDOT to both oversight and enforcement of many of the specifics. As part of the agreement, TxDOT will:

  • conduct twice-annual public meetings during development and construction, expected to take more than a decade, to update the community on the progress and plans for detours during construction.
  • add another $3 million to the $27 million TxDOT already committed to help the Houston Housing Authority develop new affordable housing opportunities, mirroring the promise TxDOT previously made to the city.
  • commit $1.5 million to create parks and trails, in particular to replace park space near the Kelly Village public housing complex.
  • support the creation of the Emancipation National Historic Trail, a proposed federally-sponsored historical route chronicling the journey of freed slaves from Galveston to Houston, including trail links and planning for historical displays along the footprint of I-45.
  • coordinate detours near two Houston Independent School District schools to take students’ bicycle and pedestrian routes into account during construction

Longtime skeptics of the project, however, said they fear the promises of partnership will erode as TxDOT proceeds.

“They are doing what federal agencies do, using the term enforcement when historically we have seen no follow-through,” said Joetta Stevenson, president of Houston’s Super-neighborhood 55 and one of those who had accused TxDOT of skirting federal civil rights laws, prompting the review by FHWA. “Trust has been broken for generations, and by signing off on the choices of the state, only enforcing after harm has been done, they continue a painful legacy. So far, I see no tangible changes that don’t rely on TxDOT’s good faith participation.”

In a statement the group formed to oppose the project, Stop TxDOT I-45, said “Houston deserves a project that prioritizes safety, centers the lived experience of those most impacted by the project, actually relieves traffic, and moves us toward a more equitable future. We will not stop fighting for our city and our lives.”

Air Alliance Houston and LINKHouston, which have advocated for sweeping changes to the plans, said they were reviewing the details but initially indicated the details alone leave the project short of expectations.

“While we hoped the federal government would maximize its leverage over TxDOT to push for a more equitable project, we are encouraged to see that the Federal Highway Administration will hold TxDOT accountable in ways that the City of Houston and Harris County memorandums of understanding could not,” LINKHouston Executive Director Gabe Cazares said.

Parts of the agreement commit TxDOT to elements that are less specific, for now, but eventually could have sweeping effects on the communities impacted by the freeway. TxDOT has agreed to re-evaluate drainage studies for the freeway rebuild to reflect ATLAS-14, the national rainfall analysis released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2018 that places more of Houston in areas at flood risk.  TxDOT already had agreed to do this as part of its agreements with the city and county. The change potentially could mean more flood control, such as detention ponds or channels for neighborhoods near the freeway.

See here and here for the background on the city/county deal with TxDOT. If the skeptics and opponents remain unconvinced, then there continues to be reason to not want this to happen. If it mostly comes down to how close the federal oversight and enforcement of the deal will be, then at least we know where to concentrate future efforts. A statement from County Attorney Christian Menefee is beneath the fold, a statement from Commissioner Adrian Garcia is here, a Chron story recapping the saga so far is here, and the Trib and Campos have more.

Continue reading →

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The past history of TEA takeovers

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

As of Monday afternoon there’s still no word from the TEA about the fate of HISD, so while we wait we ponder what history can teach us. Assuming that history doesn’t contain anything gay or CRT-related so we’re allowed to learn from it, of course.

As rumors of a looming state takeover of the Houston Independent School District cause uncertainty and anxiety for educators and families, many are looking to previous examples of the Texas Education Agency imposing control of local school systems.

There are 15 such instances over the course of three decades, according to state records. None likely offer a case study that would compare to a takeover of HISD, the largest school district in the state and the eighth largest in the nation. Still, some have likened the potential takeover of diverse HISD to that of the other school systems, all of which served predominantly Black and Hispanic student bodies or children from families considered to be “economically disadvantaged.

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from HISD teachers asking me for advice,” said Jennifer Jermany, a former North Forest ISD teacher who was laid off when the district was absorbed into HISD. “Our cases are similar, but not exact. My heart really goes out to those teachers because we really don’t know what is going to happen.”

[…]

Of the 15 previous state takeovers, four — Kendleton, Wilmer-Hutchins, North Forest and La Marque ISDs — closed entirely after regaining local control. El Paso, Beaumont, Edgewood and Southside ISDs remain open after local control was restored.

Progreso, Pearsall, Hearn, Harlandale and Snyder ISDs each came to a settlement or did not proceed with a board of managers.

Two districts — Marlin ISD and Shepherd ISD — still have a state-appointed board of managers in place.

Seven of those districts were predominantly Black, including multiple districts with schools significant to Texas’ African American history. Another seven of the districts taught mostly Hispanic student bodies. Only one district — Shepherd ISD — was predominantly white. Around 66 percent of students in that district are economically disadvantaged.

Of HISD’s 187,000 students, 62 percent are Hispanic and 22 percent are Black. Nearly 80 percent of its students are economically disadvantaged.

None of the districts previously taken over by TEA come close to comparing in size to HISD. The smallest of those districts, Kendleton ISD, had less than 100 students and the largest, Beaumont ISD, currently has around 17,000.

In the previous takeovers, TEA gave reasons such as financial issues, administrators violating the law, fraudulent test score data, inability of school boards to properly govern, loss of accreditation status and poor academic ratings, among other causes.

See here, here, and here for the background. Beaumont ISD was taken over because of fiscal mismanagement. That at least would be an understandable reason, with clear goals for being returned to local control. Most of the rest of the story is about the takeover of North Forest, which followed a few years later by North Forest being absorbed into HISD. They had serious, long-term issues with their board of trustees, which again is a different issue than what HISD faces. It’s also a reminder that we didn’t have any real mechanism in place at the time to track the former NFISD students as they made their way through HISD. That was long enough ago that I’d expect none of those original students are still in HISD schools. Sure would have been nice to know what their outcomes were, or how those who followed them into HISD have been doing.

Anyway. The one reason why I think HISD might maybe avoid a full takeover is that the TEA cannot possibly be prepared to handle the responsibility of running HISD, even if they outsource it to a board of managers. I don’t think they want it, and I think they will look for an exit ramp. I agree with Mayor Turner and Judge Hidalgo and many others that politics is at play, and I freely admit I am thinking wishfully when I say stuff like this. It’s what I’ve got, and until the TEA tells us what they’re doing we can at least hope for the best.

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I don’t see any issue with HCC campaign contributions and the Maldonado vote

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I appreciate the reporting in this story, but ultimately I think it’s a nothingburger.

The four trustees who voted to extend Houston Community College Chancellor Cesar Maldonado’s contract received a combined $78,000 in campaign donations from a political action committee whose chair was found expressing interest in the renewal effort, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Questions have arisen about the potential involvement of Jonathan Day from the Houston Business Education Coalition, after a voicemail recording surfaced where a man identifying himself as Day asked to speak to Chairwoman Cynthia Lenton-Gary about the issue.

Maldonado’s contract extension still failed, with five trustees – including Lenton-Gary – voting Wednesday against re-signing. (Lenton-Gary’s available campaign finance filings do not show any contributions from the PAC.)

“I’d be very interested in talking with you briefly about the pending issues with the renewal of the chancellor’s current arrangement with the college,” Day, naming himself as the chair of the coalition, said in the voicemail. “Please give me a call at your convenience.”

The recording signaled a more drawn-out fight over Maldonado’s contract than was previously known: Conversations about the pending deal had largely taken place behind closed doors in executive session. But several administrative problems in Maldonado’s nine years as chancellor were part of the fight. Two of the trustees who voted against the renewal afterward cited steep declines in admission as well as lawsuits brought under the chancellor’s tenure – including one alleging discrimination against Black employees – as some of their personal reasons for opposing his continued leadership.

Trustees Monica Flores Richart, Eva L. Loredo, Charlene Ward Johnson and Adriana Tamez voted in favor of the extension. While they each reported campaign contributions from the business education PAC, all four denied financial influence in their decision making. Day also denied any ethical conflict occurred.

“We’re people who pay taxes, we have an interest in the performance of the college,” Day said in a phone interview. “That’s materially affected by the selection of the chancellor, the chief executive officer. We of course have an interest in that. I think it would be very disappointing if the business community here in Houston was not vitally involved in that kind of a matter at the college.”

[…]

The five trustees who voted against Maldonado’s contract extension did not offer any reasons immediately after the Wednesday vote, nor did the chancellor react. He did not respond to requests for comment.

In a letter issued to the HCC community, however, Maldonado cited several gains in student achievement and building a financial reserve of $256 million as some of his biggest accomplishments.

“I am proud of my service as chancellor of HCC and of the many accomplishments, awards, and recognitions we have achieved together since May 2014,” Maldonado said. “The best is yet to come and we must all keep advancing the institution’s goals – keeping true to our North Star, the ultimate student experience, which shines bright and guides us from good to great in every aspect of our college’s service.”

But in separate phone calls, two trustees pointed to a number of management issues in Maldonado’s administration as their reasons for voting ‘no.’ One of those is a systemwide decline in enrollment, with more than 12,000 students lost between fall 2019 and fall 2020 – although system officials say they expect more than 30-percent increase in enrollment growth through 2035.

“I voted not to renew chancellor’s contract because of the precipitous decline in enrollment, underperforming campuses, poor fiscal management, absence of a turnaround plan and an astounding number of lawsuits involving current and former personnel,” District IV Trustee Reagan Flowers said. “I fundamentally believe that we need to move this institution in a new forward direction under different leadership.”

One of those lawsuits is seeking $100 million from the system. Filed in 2020 on behalf of hundreds of current and former Black employees, the suit alleges that 90 percent of the longtime black professionals at the community college have either been terminated or demoted since Maldonado arrived, compared with 10 percent of white employees who have been displaced. Hispanic hires and promotions, however, have increased by 50 percent, according to court documents.

The plaintiff’s attorneys also claim that Maldonado used a list of tactics to undermine and get rid of black employees, including padding their personnel files with false complaints to be used as reasons to fire them, using the word “transformation” as a code word for getting rid of black employees, placing doubt on black employees’ claims, and forcing black employees to take leaves of absence without cause in order to use those as grounds for termination.

[…]

Several of the trustees with donations from the PAC said they took issue with any claims that their votes were cast under financial influences. Richart said she received many perspectives and opinions on the matter of Maldonado’s contract, but the decision was hers alone.

“As a Trustee bound by law, ethics rules, HCC bylaws and policies, and my own moral code, I made this decision, as I have all other decisions as Trustee, based on the best interest of the College,” she said. “To suggest otherwise is an insult to not only me, but each one of my colleagues who have received campaign contributions from individuals and groups who care about the future of HCC and Houston.”

See here for the background. It’s very easy to slide into whataboutism when arguing about the ethics of campaign contributions, so let me just say that I found the case for possible shenanigans here to be unpersuasive. You can feel however you want to feel about Mr. Day and his PAC – I’d have to take a deeper look at their donation history, but it would not surprise me if I viewed them unfavorably, given the context. Lobbyists lobby, it’s what they do. That includes lobbyists for causes and organizations that most of us here support. As far as this example goes, put me down as in agreement with what Trustee Richart says.

The thing here is that there’s a perfectly good case for casting either vote on this matter. I thought it made sense to move on from Chancellor Maldonado, for reasons mostly in line with those of Trustee Flowers. Against that, it’s clear that he did a lot of good work – read the comments on my previous post for a strong defense of Maldonado – and retained the confidence of a significant portion of the HCC community. I don’t see any reason at this time to doubt the sincerity of anyone’s vote. I’m happy to have this phone call come to light – more sunlight, please do bring it on – I just don’t think it made any difference. If there’s more evidence out there to suggest otherwise, let’s hear it. For now, I have no issues with what happened.

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What does Florida have against bloggers?

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

These are the questions we must ask ourselves these days.

Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.

In the bill, Brodeur wrote that those who write “an article, a story, or a series of stories,” about “the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature,” and receives or will receive payment for doing so, must register with state offices within five days after the publication of an article that mentions an elected state official.

If another blog post is added to a blog, the blogger would then be required to submit monthly reports on the 10th of each month with the appropriate state office. They would not have to submit a report on months when no content is published.

For blog posts that “concern an elected member of the legislature” or “an officer of the executive branch,” monthly reports must disclose the amount of compensation received for the coverage, rounded to the nearest $10 value.

If compensation is paid for a series of posts or for a specific amount of time, the blogger would be required to disclose the total amount to be received, upon publication of the first post in said series or timeframe.

Additional compensation must be disclosed later on.

Failure to file these disclosures or register with state officials, if the bill passes, would lead to daily fines for the bloggers, with a maximum amount per report, not per writer, of $2,500. The per-day fine is $25 per report for each day it’s late.

The bill also requires that bloggers file notices of failure to file a timely report the same way that lobbyists file their disclosures and reports on assessed fines. Fines must be paid within 30 days of payment notice, unless an appeal is filed with the appropriate office. Fine payments must be deposited into the Legislative Lobbyist Registration Trust Fund if it concerns an elected member of the legislature.

For writing about members of the executive branch, fines would be made payable to the Executive Branch Lobby Registration Trust Fund or, if it concerns both groups, the fine may be paid to both related trust funds in equal amounts.

Explicitly, the blogger rule would not apply to newspapers or similar publications, under Brodeur’s proposed legislation.

I’ll save everyone the trouble: I get no compensation for any of this. I don’t know if that will keep me off of Florida’s “Ten Most Wanted” list someday, but it’s what I’ve got.

But honestly, bloggers? Doesn’t this guy know that blogging peaked in, like, 2008? Anybody who is anybody is on Twitter or TikTok or Substack these days. Does Substack count as blogging for these purposes? You can see what a mess this is. Also, how delicate a snowflake must Ron DeSantis be if he needs to have his feelings protected from the likes of me? Maybe the author of this bill should see about adding a budget item for warm milk and an official gubernatorial binkie.

We make lame jokes in the face of looming authoritarianism as defense mechanisms. There is another option.

The blogger bill is one of two Brodeur introduced this week targeting the media. The second would make it much easier to sue journalists for defamation—a priority for DeSantis. That bill would create the presumption that information from anonymous sources is false, the Orlando Sentinel reports. It would also limit journalists’ ability to protect the identity of anonymous sources. Hungary’s 2011 media law also tried to make it harder for reporters’ to protect their sources.

The Florida legislation is a slightly less severe version of a House bill introduced by Andrade. The House bill would allow people to successfully sue for defamation even when they are accurately accused of discrimination. Normally, truth is an absolute defense in defamation suits. But under Andrade’s bill it would be illegal to cite a plaintiff’s “scientific beliefs” or religious beliefs in defamation suits related to discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. “If the House bill is a horrendous, horrendous bill, the Senate bill is [just] a horrendous bill,” Bobby Block, executive director of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, told the Sentinel.

The defamation bills mirror a proposal pushed last year by Stephanie Kopelousos, DeSantis’ legislative affairs director. No bill ended up being filed in 2022, but DeSantis didn’t give up. In February, he hosted a roundtable with critics of US media law while sitting in front of a digital banner that read “Truth.” The focus of the discussion was what his office called “Legacy Media Defamation Practices.” By the end of the month, DeSantis had the legislation he wanted. It was all quite Orbán-esque.

If passed, the defamation bills would almost certainly be challenged in court. In lower courts, opponents of the law would have a strong case under existing precedents. But as Kopelousos explained in documents obtained by the Sentinel, the long-term goal is to get the conservative Supreme Court to overturn the protections established for journalists in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which makes it difficult for public figures to successfully sue for defamation.

Electing fewer dims store dictators would also be an option. In the meantime, I hope there aren’t any similar bills being filed in Austin.

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Nate Paul jailed for contempt

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Just a little story about one of Ken Paxton’s close personal friends.

Also associates with known criminals

A real estate investor accused of bribing the Texas attorney general has been ordered to pay over $180,000 in fines and spend 10 days in jail for contempt of court in Travis County.

The case is one of many that Nate Paul, a friend and campaign donor of Attorney General Ken Paxton, faces as he fights multiple bankruptcies and legal battles with creditors.

He and Paxton are the targets of an FBI investigation launched in late 2020 when Paxton’s aides went to local and federal authorities, claiming the second-term Republican abused his office and took bribes from Paul.

According to a letter from a staff attorney for Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer obtained by Hearst Newspapers, Paul is being punished for ignoring a court order, then later lying about it under oath. The court is fining him $181,760, and his confinement is set to begin March 15.

“Mr. Paul’s flagrant lies to the court while under oath were pervasive and inexcusable, and served to deliberately thwart the functions of the court in enforcing its injunction,” a staff attorney for Soifer wrote on her behalf. “Mr. Paul’s actions are part of a pattern of non-compliance with court orders.”

[…]

The conflict at the heart of the case goes back to 2011 when the nonprofit invested a portion of its endowment in Paul’s companies and a share of his properties. The nonprofit later accused the companies of breaching their contract by refusing to make certain financial disclosures.

Soifer approved an arbitrator’s $1.9 million judgment against Paul in July 2021, ordering that Paul’s companies shut down.

That was when Soifer issued the injunction that Paul flouted, which was meant to prevent him from moving or getting rid of assets to hide them from the court.

Paul appealed the district court’s decision in late 2021, but the panel of appellate judges affirmed the district court ruling against him. Court records indicate Paul’s attorneys plan to request a rehearing on that decision by the full court.

According to the letter from the district judge’s office, despite the injunction, Paul made at least two unauthorized transfers totaling just over $1 million. Paul was required by the injunction to file monthly sworn reports to the court showing all money transfers greater than $25,000, but he failed to report them, the letter said.

Paul later committed perjury by offering false testimony while being questioned by opposing counsel and Soifer, the letter from her office said. He lied about making the transfers, as well as about his own personal bank accounts, even when confronted with evidence of the accounts.

Chester said Paul lied at two separate court hearings in November 2022. At the first one, Chester presented Paul with his own bank statements, and Paul claimed he could not recognize them.

The court recessed for a week to allow Paul time to collect and bring in the bank records himself, so there would be no question of authentication. But at the next hearing, Paul also “completely lied about what bank accounts he had” and claimed he only had $6,000 to his name even though he lives a very luxurious lifestyle,” Chester said.

“The whole thing was very not-believable and showed utter disregard for the court,” Chester said.

If you’ve ever watched a TV show or movie based on some hot piece of longstanding intellectual property – say, a Marvel movie or The Mandalorian or Lord of the Rings, that sort of thing – you surely are aware that no matter how much you may think you know about the subject matter or the characters and their backstories, there’s so much more out there that not only do you not know it, you don’t even know enough to know that you don’t know it. There is Deep Lore that can only be fully understood by the most robust of nerds, who have spent their lives reading the books and comics and blogs and Wikipedia pages and fan fiction and watching the movies and bootleg videos and listening to the podcasts and on and on and on. You live in 2023, you know what I’m talking about.

Well, I’m here to tell you that the story of Nate Paul and his connections to Ken Paxton and all of the twists and turns and cul-de-sacs and rabbit holes associated with them are too deep and byzantine for even the likes of me to get my arms around. Suffice it to say that there’s more to this story than I can adequately summarize from this Chron article or this Trib story which is more expansive and would have required almost a complete copy-and-paste job to make sense here. Read them both, read through all of my Nate Paul-tagged posts, starting with these two – you can tell by the title of the first one that you’re already in a story in progress – and try your best to keep up. Just know that at the end of the day, Ken Paxton is a huge sleazeball who hangs around with a bunch of other sleazeballs, and sleazeballing is his core competency. The rest – so, so much of the rest – is details. And, God willing, the basis of an eventual federal indictment.

Posted in Scandalized! | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

So whose fault is the Sidney Powell lawsuit dismissal?

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

My reaction to the news that the lawsuit brought by the State Bar of Texas against Trump nutcase lawyer Sidney Powell was being dismissed was that it was the State Bar’s fault for screwing up the paperwork. The DMN editorial board puts the blame elsewhere.

A local Republican judge’s decision to throw out the State Bar of Texas’ disciplinary case against former Donald Trump lawyer Sidney Powell on flimsy technical grounds was a disservice to the public the judge serves.

Collin County state District Judge Andrea Bouressa last week granted Powell’s motion for a summary judgment largely because of filing and clerical errors bar lawyers made. Among the mistakes Bouressa found so egregious were a mislabeling of the bar’s exhibits and a failure to file a sworn affidavit attached to a motion.

What a travesty of justice. Such errors occur in court cases often. And while not excusable, they shouldn’t be a basis for a judge to throw out such a serious case without considering evidence.

[…]

There’s no question the state bar made some careless errors in its brief asking the judge to deny Powell’s motion to dismiss the case for lack of evidence. Exhibits were clearly mislabeled and some were altogether missing.

But Bouressa’s heavy-handed ruling is concerning. First, it wasn’t rendered as part of an in-person hearing, during which the filing issues may well have been quickly resolved in open court.

Rather, her decision came after her private review of the parties’ documents. Her judgment says that she tried to contact the bar’s lawyers for clarification on their confusing exhibits, but it “responded that no corrective action was necessary.”

That’s puzzling. The court file revealed only one email exchange between Bouressa’s court coordinator and a legal assistant at the bar, and it involved only one question about one exhibit. The assistant answered the question.

We understand it’s within Bouressa’s right to rule against a party for clerical errors. But legal experts tell us that appellate courts lately have been frowning upon judges who dismiss cases based on filing mistakes rather than on actual evidence.

That’s what happened here. Eric Porterfield, associate professor at the University of North Texas Dallas College of Law and an expert in civil procedure, reviewed the judgment for us and said it’s clear that while the bar was sloppy, Bouressa’s decision wasn’t based on the merits of the case.

Instead, the regal Bouressa got hung up on what she called the “defects” of the bar’s documents. In doing so, she shut the door on the public’s right for a full hearing of the facts surrounding Powell’s outlandish conspiracy theories that threatened the peaceful transfer of the power of the presidency.

See here for the background. As I said, my initial inclination, made with admittedly limited information, was that the State Bar screwed it up. If this take is more accurate, then they were screwed by the judge. The good news there is that appealing the dismissal is an option and it has a decent chance of working. If they do that, then I retract what I said before about the State Bar.

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A win for butterflies

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I’m sure this will end up in court, but it’s still a good thing.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday declared the prostrate milkweed an endangered species and mandated new habitat protections for the plant, closing a chapter in a feud between environmentalists and those who advocate for unfettered border wall construction in South Texas.

The rare milkweed, which grows only in the Texas-Mexico borderlands, has for months been at the center of the fight between butterfly lovers and Texas officials. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who supports new border wall construction, said last year that formally protecting the plant would create an “influx of illegal aliens” and endanger Texans. Environmental groups say the listing will help safeguard the charismatic migratory monarch butterfly, which has a deeply symbiotic relationship with the unassuming weed.

While the prostrate milkweed has a range of around 200 miles, only 24 populations of the species are known to still exist. Those are in Starr and Zapata counties in far South Texas, as well as in neighboring states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas in northern Mexico.

It’s the rarest species of milkweed, and it’s a critical habitat for monarch butterflies as they head north from Mexico after the winter. Monarch caterpillars can only eat milkweed, and female monarchs only lay their eggs on milkweed. Toxic compounds in the plant, which monarchs consume, help protect the butterflies from predators and give them their signature orange hue. In turn, monarchs help pollinate and spread the plants.

Historically, the FWS said in its final rule on Monday, patches of prostrate milkweed along the Texas-Mexico border were all geographically linked. They were separated and are “very unlikely” to reconnect, the agency said, due to what it called “disturbance” in the region.

That disturbance has included herbicides, oil and gas pipelines and, most notably, border wall construction green-lit by former President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration spurred a firestorm in 2017 when it began bulldozing habitat at the National Butterfly Center in South Texas, damaging habitat used by monarchs and other species. Officials with the center said they weren’t properly notified about construction and publicly criticized the Trump administration. The situation pulled some butterfly lovers into an unlikely partisan battle, and the center was later forced to temporarily close following threats and conspiracies about human trafficking.

While Trump is no longer in office, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a fellow Republican, has repeatedly said he also wants to build a wall. This year, he appointed a state border czar with a goal of speeding up that project.

In the process, the Texas state government became one of the biggest opponents of plans to list the prostrate milkweed as endangered, submitting multiple comments to the FWS. Among them was a comment from the state attorney general’s office warning the designation would have “a significant impact on national security by preventing Texas’s efforts to address the border crisis.” In response, the FWS said in its rule that prostrate milkweed is currently in danger of extinction and that the agency is therefore required to list the species as endangered.

[…]

The monarch butterfly has also been struggling, with population numbers dropping by 99.9% in some areas. The International Union for Conservation of Nature last year listed the monarch as endangered, citing declining milkweed populations as a factor, though federal officials have so far held off on making a similar ruling.

There are many factors behind the decline in milkweed, but one of the biggest is border wall construction, said [Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity]. Even after a section of wall is constructed, there is an “ongoing disturbance” as border officials keep clear land near the wall and drive vehicles along it.

“You don’t just put up the wall and leave it there,” Curry said.

I’ve noted the plight of the monarch butterfly and the battle between Monarch conservation and the border wall before. As you might imagine, I’m happy to see this news. I’m also a hundred percent certain it will draw a lawsuit, and who knows what happens from there. I’m sure I’ll keep an eye on it. In the meantime, let’s be happy that the right thing was done. There will be plenty of time to worry about any negative consequences later.

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Weekend link dump for March 5

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

13 Biggest Changes ‘Game of Thrones’ Made From the Books. Spoilers a-plenty, in case you couldn’t tell.

“[T]here is no evidence to support speculation that noise resulting from wind development-related site characterization surveys could…cause mortality of whales, and no specific links between recent large whale mortalities and currently ongoing surveys.”

AI chatbots are probably not going to write any good original fiction any time soon.

“The verdant canopy of lies tended by Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) requires no summary here. They’re so thick and leafy that they now block the sun from the forest floor. But he’s not the only freshman member who struggles when self-reporting.”

“In 2022, right-wing extremists committed every ideologically driven mass killing identified in the U.S., according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.”

“Human composters are pitching themselves as part of the solution—and trying to dismantle the funeral industry in the process. The potential to alter an age-old practice has brought together former Silicon Valley types, celebrity investors and mission-driven entrepreneurs as interested in lofty green goals as they are in changing our relationship to death.”

Don’t believe a word Ron DeSantis says.

The New York Times is perfectly capable of publishing deeply stupid op-eds on a broad array of topics.

“The National Cartoonists Society condemns all forms of racism and discrimination.”

“Andrews McMeel Universal values free speech. We promote and facilitate many different voices and perspectives. But we will never support any commentary rooted in discrimination or hate.”

“I’m proud and happy to see publishers, magazines, and newspapers are dropping him because there should be no tolerance for that kind of language. It’s a relief to see him held accountable.”

And with that, Elon Musk has entered the chat.

RIP, Gus Mutscher, former Speaker of the Texas House who got caught up in an infamous contretemps known as the Sharpstown scandal.

“Don’t get your dog stoned. He’s not all that high up on the food chain to begin with.” — Robin Williams

“Photos of President Jimmy Carter’s Fort Worth visit seen for first time in 45 years”.

RIP, Burny Mattinson, longtime Disney animator and the last full-time Walt Disney Studios employee who had worked at the company when Walt Disney still ran it.

“It’s a weird thing to know for an absolute fact that the people lying to you knew they were lying to you at the time they did the lying.”

RIP, Ricou Browning, actor and stuntman best known for portraying Gill-Man in the 1954 film Creature from the Black Lagoon.

RIP, Linda Kasabian, former Manson family member who testified for the prosecution in the trials.

“[S]ocial media has become central to the modern extremist landscape, often supplanting affiliation with formal organizations. Extremists can mobilize far more effectively on digital platforms than they can through formal organizations alone. While the Jan. 6 committee’s final report spotlighted the role of militias and extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, members of these groups represented a small minority of rioters at the Capitol. The presence of so many unaffiliated rioters in Washington suggests something that was also true for Brasilia: The spread of election disinformation and extremist rhetoric was a more effective motivator than membership in established groups with public leaders and logos.”

“But at the end of the day, the origin of the pandemic is also a scientific question. Virologists who study pandemic origins are much less divided than the U.S. intelligence community. They say there is “very convincing” data and “overwhelming evidence” pointing to an animal origin.”

RIP, Wayne Shorter, 12-time Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer who played with Miles Davis and co-founded Weather Report.

“Pete Maravich’s all-time NCAA scoring record survives … for now”.

“None of the witnesses have provided evidence related to a violation of law, policy, or abuse of authority. None are whistleblowers in any sense recognized by federal law or any federal agency.”

RIP, Tom Sizemore, actor best known for Saving Private Ryan.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | 1 Comment

So is there anything that can be done to derail the TEA takeover?

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Probably not. I mean, I really appreciate the engagement and the passion, but we’re at the end of the road here, a road that started almost six years ago. Sometimes you just run out of things to do.

With time seemingly running out, Houston politicians vowed on Friday to file lawsuits and legislation — whatever it takes — to stave off a possible state takeover of Houston ISD that has been in the works for four years.

Mayor Sylvester Turner and state Rep. Alma Allen announced earlier this week that they’d heard reports that the takeover could happen as early as March 6. The Texas Supreme Court gave the Texas Education Agency final authority to assume control of the school system in January but has yet to take formal action to do so.

“We as a body, as state legislators, are standing before you to say ‘We are not asleep at the wheel,’ ” state Rep. Jarvis Johnson, said Friday during a protest at Discovery Green, one of a series of events held to highlight the urgency of the situation. “We are in the process of rewriting legislation. We are looking at every lawsuit we can bring to the doorstep of the governor, and the TEA, to thwart the efforts of the TEA.”

Turner called on TEA Commissioner Mike Morath and state legislators at the protest and earlier this week to amend the law so the state doesn’t appoint a board of managers.

During their conversations, Morath did not confirm nor deny takeover plans, but cited a provision in state code that he says requires the TEA to take over a district or close a school that has failed five consecutive years.

Turner is advocating a different option. “If there is something that is not in the best interest of the kids, you can go to the Legislature now, and make any modification that is needed and we can move further down the road,” the mayor said.

[…]

Friday started with a few dozen protesters in front of the district’s central office, also wondering why HISD should be taken over by the state instead of other lower-performing districts. They pointed to HISD schools’ current ratings, which show that 94 percent of schools earn a grade of A, B or C.

“Those who cannot stand on the right side of history, don’t deserve our shopping, don’t deserve our worship, they don’t deserve our tithes and offerings,” James Dixon, president of the Houston NAACP, said. “If you can’t stand up for public schools and for education, you don’t deserve our support financially, you don’t deserve our votes and you do not deserve our respect.”

Speaking via the phone from the U.S. Capitol, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said she could not attend the protest in person but fully supported its mission.

“I’ve said to the Department of Education and to the president United States … this is a test case and we must win this case,” Jackson Lee said.

See here and here for the background. We’re where we are now because of a Supreme Court ruling, so a state lawsuit seems extremely unlikely to bear fruit. A federal lawsuit could be possible, and maybe there’s some way for the US Department of Education to intervene, but that all feels vague and undefined. Better odds than a state lawsuit, but nothing I’d want to bet on. And as far as legislation goes, we’re barely even into the committee-hearings part of the legislative session. Any bill to stop this takeover, assuming it had majority support in both chambers and wasn’t opposed by Speaker Phelan or Dan Patrick or Greg Abbott, would be at least a month away from getting signed. And even then, unless it passed with a two-thirds majority in both chambers, it would be another 90 days before it went into effect. This just cannot happen in time.

The one possibility I can see is someone convincing Mike Morath that the Supreme Court ruling just means that the TEA “may” take over HISD, not that it “shall” take it over. I don’t know what provision he’s citing, I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know what’s in his head or what legal advice he’s receiving, but at least this is a plausible path. If Morath believes he has discretion, then we just have to persuade him to do something less drastic. How good are the odds of that? We’ll find out soon.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

If not for I-45 then for something else

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Money for highways never goes unspent.

Drivers on Houston freeways likely can relate: Facing a slowdown when it comes to rebuilding Interstate 45, state transportation leaders are shifting gears and changing lanes.

Unable to significantly move ahead with the controversial rebuild until probably 2027, the Texas Transportation Commission is considering taking money it planned to spend in the next four years on I-45 and dedicating it to other projects in the Houston area, citing the need to keep spending now with the expectation that the funding for I-45 will come later.

“I am looking at it as an opportunity to get projects funded,” transportation commission Chairman J. Bruce Bugg said Thursday during the board’s monthly Austin meeting.

While no projects have been advanced, there are a handful in the Houston area that are substantially planned and set for construction in the coming years, but not fully funded. They range from small projects on nearly every farm-to-market road in Houston, adding two lanes to major routes such as Texas 36 in Fort Bend County and FM 359 in Harris and Waller counties, to the $2.4 billion rebuild of Loop 610 north from Texas 225, including replacement of the Sidney Sherman Bridge across the Houston Ship Channel with one much higher in elevation. Other planned work includes:

• expansion of Spur 5 near the University of Houston and Texas 35 south of Loop 610 into a new freeway segment

• widening of Texas 6, FM 1960 and FM 2100 in various locations

• elevating I-10 out of the floodway near White Oak Bayou

Commission members urged Texas Department of Transportation leadership to examine projects in the Houston area and make possible changes to timelines for moving some to the construction phase. The first step, part of the state’s annual process of revising its 10-year-plan, would be to adjust the dates in the Unified Transportation Program during revisions planned for June. The commission typically approves updates to the UTP in late August.

Officials stressed that shuffling money between projects and away from I-45 was not an indication the massive project is less of a priority, or that other parts of the state will capture the funding.

“This is not a choice of ice cream or cake,” Bugg said. “This is, we want to give the Houston area ice cream and cake, but the timing is the cake is not coming out of the oven for a long, long time. We might as well serve them ice cream in the meantime.”

“Ice cream or cake” would not be the metaphor I or any other skeptic/opponent of the I-45 project would use here. Maybe the second choice is appetizing, but honestly just not being force-fed works. That said, please, just no to the I-10 elevation proposal, at least not without addressing the neighborhood’s concerns. Given that that remains the crux of the disagreement over the I-45 project, I’m not terribly optimistic.

The project will be the largest freeway rebuild ever in Houston, replacing the aging I-45 from downtown to Beltway 8 north of Greenspoint and redesigning the entire freeway system around the central business district. The project will move I-45 to follow Interstate 69 along the east side of downtown, removing the elevated portion of the freeway along Pierce but maintaining many of the downtown connections.

None of that will happen, however, until construction starts in 2027, as the project has faced years of delay that has pushed breaking ground years beyond what officials had hoped. Since 2017, the project has faced criticism, including opposition from Houston and Harris County officials who sought some changes to the design.

Some, but not all, of the concerns came to conclusion in December, when TxDOT, the city and county announced they had reached some agreements, which also ended a lawsuit filed by Harris County.

Still unresolved, however, is a federal pause, placed in March 2021, that halted most development of the project.

“Right now, we are just stuck,” Bugg said.

Officials are working on an agreement, essentially a contract between TxDOT and the Federal Highway Administration, that would lift the federal hold, TxDOT Deputy Executive Director Brandye Hendrickson said.

“We believe we have come to terms,” Hendrickson said, adding that final approval of the deal rests with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Resolving the issues, however, still puts most parts of the project years from construction as the design is refined.  While some portions of I-69 could see construction, many major areas, such as I-69 at Main and Fannin and construction along I-45, Texas 288 and Interstate 10, are not scheduled until 2027.

Take your time. Seriously, no rush. We’re all fine over here.

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Won’t someone think of the catchers?

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

There’s at least one constituency affected by the looming future of robo umps that isn’t so sure about the whole thing.

While pitch clocks, bigger bases and other rules changes debut this year at the major league level, the Automated Ball-Strike System will receive its biggest experiment yet at Triple-A. ABS will be used four days per week to call every pitch at baseball’s highest minor league level. On the other three days, umpires will traditionally call balls and strikes with a challenge system in place — teams will be able to appeal a handful of calls to the so-called robo-zone each game.

To many, ABS has begun to feel inevitable. Umpires have already agreed to allow it at the major league level when it is ready. Which means that within a season or two, everything around home plate could change

“It’s going to be here,” Servais said.

Others think Major League Baseball, and specifically Commissioner Rob Manfred, don’t recognize how seismically such a shift could alter the sport.

“I don’t see it happening,” said Yankees All-Star and distinguished pitch-framer Jose Trevino. “I don’t think Manfred has any idea what’s going on whenever he talks about that kind of stuff. He’s obviously never put the gear on, so he doesn’t know.”

Manfred, who last summer told ESPN that ABS could reach the majors by 2024, has cautioned this spring that the robo-umps remain in “the evaluation phase.” In order to be adopted in the big leagues, ABS would need to be approved by an 11-member competition committee that includes four players.

“There are issues that are still the topic of really considerable discussion within the ownership group and even more that are going to have to be resolved in the joint committee process with the players,” Manfred said. “The framing issue is one of those. I mean it’s a legitimate concern on the part of at least a subset of players.”

The subset includes some coaches, too, including New York Yankees director of catching Tanner Swanson — a pioneer of sorts in teaching backstops to steal strikes.

An appreciation for pitch framing had been under way for nearly a decade when Swanson jumped from college coaching to join the Minnesota Twins organization before the start of the 2018 season.

Among his most impactful ideas: If catchers received pitches while down on one knee as opposed to a traditional squat, they’d be better positioned to steal strikes near the bottom of the zone. Within just a couple seasons, the one-knee approach he coached with Minnesota was being used across the majors.

“When I got into pro ball, I think it really kind of opened the curtain to like, ‘OK, now this is not only extremely valuable, but this is something that we should be prioritizing just in terms of the frequency in which it happens relative to all the other skills.’” Swanson said.

Swanson preaches subtle movements with the glove on every borderline pitch — just enough trickery to sway even the most well trained umpire. Even if it came at the expense of blocking pitches or throwing out runners, the data showed framing trumped all other skills.

Swanson has had several notable success, starting with Mitch Garver in Minnesota and most recently Trevino, who was an All-Star and Gold Glove winner last season. Trevino converted 53.8% of non-swinging strikes on the edges of the zone into strikes — best in the majors, according to MLB’s Statcast.

The knee-down catching technique is already being taught to youth catchers on up, and there’s now an entire generation of big league catchers trained to put pitch presentation first.

“Framing’s always been big,” said Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman, last year’s AL Rookie of the Year runner-up. “Since probably my junior year in high school, it’s been a big point of emphasis. Got to college, same thing, and in the pros, same thing.”

Robot umpires, of course, can’t be fooled. So what happens when framing falls out of focus?

The short answer to that is that the good-field, no-hit catchers will lose value, which is a thing that aficionados of pitch framing as well as those catchers themselves are extremely wary of. I think we’re well more than one year out from MLB adopting some form of automated ball-strike calling, but it is coming sooner or later. The version that I’m now leaning towards, which is a middle ground that seems to ease most of the anxiety about this, is a challenge system, in which human umps make the original calls, and either side can ask for some number of pitches to be reviewed by the robo ump. The experience so far has been that the reviews are very quick, and the response has been positive. If that is the case in Triple A this year, then this might indeed be very close to happening in MLB. Check back later in the year and we’ll see.

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Superintendant House speaks about the looming TEA takeover

Posted on March 4, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Not much one can say in this position.

Superintendent Millard House II said it’s business as usual in the state’s largest school system until the Texas Education Agency pulls the trigger on its rumored takeover plan.

He used the start of a school board meeting to address the rumors regarding a potential intervention by the Texas Education Agency.

“As of today, the district has not received any official notice from the TEA,” House said Thursday. “I remain laser-focused on fulfilling my duties as Superintendent alongside our Board of Trustees to provide the best possible educational outcomes for all HISD students. My team and I will continue to implement our community informed strategic plan, which is delivering results for HISD students and families.”

He vowed to keep students, families and community updated.

[…]

The mayor publicly announced on Wednesday that he is hearing rumors regarding an imminent takeover, calling on the Texas Education Agency to clarify its plans. The Supreme Court also issued a mandate on Wednesday — the final legal step necessary — to allow the state takeover, if the commissioner believes it to be appropriate.

“He’s in a very uncomfortable position,” Turner said of the superintendent. “His future, like the district, is in the hands of the TEA, and it’s unclear. If you didn’t know you were going to hold on to your job, and the power was not in your hands to decide, I think you would be reluctant to say anything publicly.”

Turner reiterated that the TEA should make a statement publicly, due to the uncertainty around the situation.

“This is what I would say to the state: if there is no intention of (taking over) state your position clearly,” Turner said. “If you intend to do it there should be a certain amount of community engagement and transparency and not hiding behind office walls.”

See here for the background, and here for coverage of a protest about the takeover. In a different story, Superintendent House says he doesn’t know what the future will bring, which is not a great place for any of us to be.

The TEA is gonna do what they’re gonna do, and it looks like we’ll first hear about it from them when they do it. This sucks and is very likely to be harmful, but we have no control over the situation. All we can do is say it loudly. So let me be as clear as I can: There’s no good reason for the TEA to step in at this point. Nearly all of the HISD Board is different than it was when the issues that led to the takeover conditions occurred. The schools whose performance triggered the takeover conditions are now meeting the needed academic standards. HISD overall got a B grade from the TEA in the last accountability ratings. There’s nothing for the TEA to fix. But there’s plenty for them to break. The TEA won the legal battle to say that they could take over HISD. Please take that victory and be satisfied with it. The Press, the Trib, and Campos have more.

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The Rodeo is more accessible now

Posted on March 4, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good to hear, though I’m honestly surprised this is a thing that has just now happened.

People with disabilities trying to get into and enjoy the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo will have an easier time this year because of an access compliance crackdown by the U.S Justice Department.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas on Thursday announced that the the livestock show and NRG Park had worked to make parking lots, bathrooms, ramps and countertops compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The changes were made after the Justice Department conducted a three-day investigation of the rodeo and its venue over ADA compliance complaints made during the 2022 event.

The findings from that investigation were used to make changes during this year’s event, according to a press release

“[The rodeo] did the right thing and made its facilities accessible to the entire community, including those with disabilities” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani. “With the cooperation of the [rodeo] and NRG Park, and after my office’s investigation, all individuals in the district will have a chance to enjoy the Rodeo.”

The investigation found “significant barriers to accessibility,” according to the press release.

To fix the issues, the rodeo increased the number of porta-potties and add more accessible dining areas, seating and paths. Some obstruction were modified or removed and a stair lift was installed in NRG Arena. NRG Park also increased the number of accessible parking spaces and drop-off points, and added a shuttle to the Orange Lot on Circle Drive, according to the press release.

The story comes from the aforementioned press release, which among other things notes that the investigation was opened last year at the start of the 2022 Rodeo. I had noted the Rodeo’s return last year but don’t recall seeing a story about this review. I’m glad it happened, I’m glad the Rodeo cooperated, and I’m very glad that the situation has improved, but I’m surprised that it took until the year or our Lord 2022 for it to happen. I don’t have a good explanation for that. Better late than never, but still.

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Are there more parks like Fairfield Lake out there?

Posted on March 4, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Yes, there are others, but most are not likely to go away any time soon. We hope.

Recent news that Texas’ Fairfield Lake State Park is closing to make way for a new upscale gated community raised a question: How many other state parks could be subject to closure because they aren’t really owned by the state?

The answer, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, is one — Lake Colorado City State Park. That West Texas Park north of San Angelo sits on land owned by The Texas Electric Service Company, and wildlife officials say they are not aware that it is at any risk of closure, said Stephanie Garcia, a spokeswoman for the agency.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department leases 15 parks, including Fairfield Lake and Lake Colorado City, from other entities. “The rest are leased from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, river authorities or city or county governmental entities,” Garcia said.

State wildlife officials have been leasing land for decades and using the properties for state parks, on land ranging in size from less than an acre to several thousand acres, Garcia said.

The lease for Fairfield Lake State Park, which is located between Dallas and Houston, was terminated recently by its lessor, Vistra. The park will be closed to the public Feb. 28 due to its impending sale to make way for a new real estate and golf course development by Todd Interests.

Here is the TPWD list of all 15 parks on leased land, including the two not owned by a governmental entity.

See here and here for the background. As nearly all of these other parks are on land owned by other government entities, it seems unlikely that they could end up getting sold to a developer, at least in the near future. But selling off properties is a thing that local governments do all the time when they need cash for their operating budgets – the city of Houston has done this many times over the past 20 years or so. The feds do it, too – just look at all the new development where post offices used to be. Maybe none of these sites have a Fairfield Lakes destiny in their future. The point is that the only way for the state to have control over that is to own those properties. Perhaps this is the nudge – and the budget, with its large surplus – that the Legislature needs to do something about that.

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Democratic AGs file lawsuit to ease access to mifepristone

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good, albeit a bit confusing at this point in time.

A dozen Democratic state attorneys general have opened a new front in the legal war over mifepristone, the “gold standard” medication used in the majority of all US abortions. In a federal lawsuit filed Thursday, the AGs—from states including Arizona, Illinois, and Washington—accuse the Food and Drug Administration of imposing unnecessarily “onerous” restrictions on mifepristone, which is used in combination with the anti-ulcer drug misoprostol to end pregnancies in the first 10 weeks.

The drug has a sterling safety record and has been used by an estimated 5.6 million people since it was approved by the FDA more than 22 years ago. Nevertheless, the FDA has long subjected mifepristone to a set of unusual restrictions known as a “Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy” (REMS). The agency only applies these extra rules, such as a requirement that prescribers receive a special certification, to a few dozen drugs—typically high-risk medications like opioids, or injectable anti-psychotic sedatives. The inclusion of mifepristone on this list has long been controversial. “Many people believe that the strict restrictions on mifepristone reflect political concerns more so than concerns around the safety of the drug itself,” Temple University law dean Rachel Rebouché told me in June, the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Since then, a dozen states have outlawed abortion almost entirely. Medication abortion has only grown in importance as people who want to end their pregnancies in abortion-hostile states source the pills through telehealth, mail-forwarding services, and overseas pharmacies.

Yet while the FDA has recently loosened some of its rules on mifepristone—for instance, by allowing certified pharmacies to dispense it—the REMS remains in place. “FDA’s decision to continue these burdensome restrictions in January 2023 on a drug that has been on the market for more than two decades with only ‘exceedingly rare’ adverse events has no basis in science,” argues the complaint from the attorneys general. “It only serves to make mifepristone harder for doctors to prescribe, harder for pharmacies to fill, harder for patients to access, and more burdensome for the Plaintiff States and their health care providers to dispense.”

This isn’t the only legal battle over mifepristone. For the few weeks, abortion rights advocates have been waiting and watching as an anti-abortion, Trump-appointed judge in Texas considers issuing a nationwide ban on the drug. That case—brought by the religious-right legal group Alliance Defending Freedom—claims that the FDA “exceeded its regulatory authority” when it approved mifepristone in 2000; that the agency had overlooked potentially harmful side effects; and that a 19th-century anti-obscenity law forbids the mailing of abortion drugs. If the judge agrees and issues a temporary injunction, which he could do any day, mifepristone could be taken off the market everywhere from New York to California.

That case, about which I’m sure you’ve already read at least two alarmist articles, is the reason I’m a little confused by this. Who even knows what happens if that whackjob judge in Texas decides to make medication abortion illegal across the country? That said, I do appreciate an effort to go on the offensive. Daily Kos adds on.

The suit is spearheaded by Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. In January, the FDA updated the risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) for mifepristone to life the requirement that patients pick the medicine up in person from a pharmacy, making it simpler for pharmacies to fill the prescriptions online and through the mail. But the FDA kept a requirement under REMS that forces prescribers to obtain specific certifications, and requires extensive documentation that the AGs say could endanger both providers and patients.

The paper trail “puts both patients and providers in danger of violence, harassment, and threats of liability amid the growing criminalization and outlawing of abortion in other states,” the complaint states. That paperwork puts an unnecessary burden on healthcare providers and on patients, the AGs say in the suit.

Under the REMS, both doctor and patient are required to sign an agreement saying that the drug is being prescribed and the patient intends to take it to end a pregnancy. It doesn’t distinguish between an abortion or treatment for a miscarriage, and that agreement stays in a patient’s medical record.

The lawsuit also points out that there are just 60 drugs among more than 20,000 regulated by the FDA that it has imposed REMS on, that “cover dangerous drugs such as fentanyl and other opioids, certain risky cancer drugs, and highdose sedatives used for patients with psychosis.” It is “improper and discriminatory for FDA to relegate mifepristone … to the very limited class of dangerous drugs that are subject to a REMS.”

“FDA’s decision to continue these burdensome restrictions in January 2023 on a drug that has been on the market for more than two decades with only ‘exceedingly rare’ adverse events has no basis in science,” the AGs lawsuit says. “It only serves to make mifepristone harder for doctors to prescribe, harder for pharmacies to fill, harder for patients to access, and more burdensome for the Plaintiff States and their health care providers to dispense.”

“In this time when reproductive healthcare is under attack, our coalition of 12 states seeks to ensure that access to mifepristone—the predominant method of safe and effective abortion in the U.S.—is not unduly restricted,” Rosenblum said in a statement. “Our coalition stands by our belief that abortion is healthcare, and healthcare is a human right.” The other states joining the suit, filed in the Eastern District of Washington state, are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

The suit was filed in the Eastern District of Washington. I’d like to think that if the plaintiffs gets a favorable ruling, the FDA will not appeal. We’ll see where we even are when that happens.

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Former Land Commissioners oppose anti-Open Beaches bill

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox:

Among coastal states Texas is unique. The 1959 Texas Open Beaches Act (TOBA), as well as time-honored common law and tradition in existence since long before 1959, provides that Texas beaches are open to the public. In 2009, Texans voted by a 77% to 23% margin to enshrine TOBA into the Texas Constitution.

Unfortunately, public access to Texas beaches may soon end if legislation filed in Austin passes into law.

Senate Bill 434, by Senator Mayes Middleton of Galveston, would strip the authority of the Texas General Land Office (GLO) to define the boundaries of the public beach and would allow the upland beachfront property owner to make that determination. The property owner could then deny access to the public beach easement that existed between the line of vegetation (LOV) and the mean high tide mark. That would then limit Texas beachgoer’s access to only what is known as the “wet beach” – the area between the low tide and the high tide lines. When that area is washed by waves during periods of high tide, SB 434 would result in there being no beach at all for Texans to use.

If SB 434 passes, don’t be surprised if you show up at your favorite beach spot and you’re confronted with a fenced off beach or no trespassing signs. The only remedy available to you then would be a suit against the adjacent upland landowner. Yes, on your next trip to the beach you should consider bringing along your lawyer. You should also be prepared to drag your kids, your cooler, and your beach gear through the shallow tidal waters in order to enjoy the beach.

Beachfront property owners can’t claim ignorance of the public beach easement. Since 1986 they have received notice of the public beach easement in the documents they signed at closing.

Ironically, SB 434 doesn’t just hurt Texas beachgoers, it hurts beachfront property owners as well. Public money must be spent for a public purpose. The GLO and local governments will be unable to spend money on improving property with no public access. There will be no beach renourishment projects, no beach cleanup, and no beach maintenance in areas where property owners claim the beach has no public access easement. There is currently an expansive beach renourishment project ready to go at Jamaica Beach on Galveston Island that will be cancelled. In addition, developers of coastal property will be handicapped if the GLO is no longer able to determine survey data needed to designate set back lines for coastal construction.

Please join us in opposing SB 434. Contact your State Senators and State Representatives. You can find their contact information at Texas Legislature Online at www.capitol.texas.gov.

God Bless Texas,
David Dewhurst, Garry Mauro and Jerry Patterson, Former Texas Land Commissioners

I get a lot of unsolicited requests to run op-eds here, the vast majority of which come from bots and SEO-addled PR flaks who wouldn’t know me from a Buzzfeed listicle. This one came from someone I do know, former Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who I spoke to several times during his tenure. We absolutely disagree on a lot of policy matters, but I always respected him as Land Commissioner, and he ran an open and transparent office. On the matter of the Texas Open Beaches Act, we are in firm agreement. I’ve blogged about it before, most recently after a couple of lousy SCOTx opinions that weakened the Open Beaches Act. I’m happy to cosign this.

Here’s SB434. I have not seen any public statements from the current Commissioner, Dawn Buckingham, about this bill, but all indications are that she opposes it and supports public beach access along with these three and unlike her immediate predecessor, George P. Bush. Hopefully that will carry some weight. In the meantime, it can’t hurt to tell your legislators that you also oppose this bill and hope that they will stand for keeping Texas’ beaches open, as they should be.

UPDATE: The op-ed is in the Chron as well. But you saw it here first.

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HCC will hire a new Chancellor

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

The Houston Community College System Board of Trustees voted on Wednesday not to extend the contract of Chancellor Cesar Maldonado.

The trustees’ decision was close: Four voted in a special meeting to consider a new contract and five opposed. Board Chairwoman Cynthia Lenton-Gary was against the contract, as were District IV Trustee Reagan Flowers, District V Trustee Robert Glaser, District VI Trustee Dave Wilson and District IX Trustee Pretta VanDible Stallworth.

It was not immediately clear why the majority declined to continue their relationship with Maldonado. The trustees’ vote occurred after more than one-and-a-half hours in executive session, and neither Maldonado nor the trustees made public comments before the decision.

Maldonado’s contract expires Aug. 31.

“Chancellor Maldonado has had a notable nine-year run, in part, expanding student achievement, ensuring a high credit rating for our institution, forging value-added partnerships with the community, and expanding the mission, vision and strategic priorities of HCC,” Lenton-Gary, also the District VII trustee, said in a statement. “On behalf of the HCC governing board, we celebrate the successes of HCC under the leadership of Dr. Cesar Maldonado and extend our gratitude for his leadership and longstanding service as HCC’s Chancellor.”

While Maldonado oversaw several physical expansions at HCC, his time at the system will also be marked by multiple shakeups in the board and controversies in the administration.

[…]

At least one lawsuit rose to public attention in 2021, after a former instructor accused Maldonado and the system of retaliating against her for reporting that she was being sexually harassed by board member Robert Glaser. Most recently, the system has struggled to maintain steady enrollment, having lost more than 12,000 students between fall 2019 and fall 2020.

The contract vote on Wednesday passed without many visible reactions from the trustees. Only District III Trustee Adriana Tamez spoke afterward, saying she was upset enough to not participate in a subsequent vote to engage the Association of Community College Trustees for a new chancellor search. The item passed 7-0, with District VIII Trustee Eva Loredo also making herself absent for the vote.

“Chancellor, I sincerely apologize that you were brought out here like this,” said Tamez, who voted in favor of a new contract. “I’m just in disbelief and in shock right now in terms of conversations that we’ve had and your willingness to work with us in a transition. But to have you here and for the result to be this, I think you deserve more respect than that.”

Loredo, Vice Chair Monica Flores Richart, of District 1, and District II Trustee Charlene Ward Johnson cast the three other votes in favor of Maldonado’s contract.

Campos is pissed about this. I can understand that, and I will say that any time Dave Wilson is your fifth vote for something, you should maybe question what you’re doing. On the other hand, there’s that sexual harassment lawsuit, for which Maldonado is one of the defendants (as is Trustee Robert Glaser, who was also a vote for not extending Maldonado’s contract) and for which a settlement agreement was not approved by the Board. The matter is headed for trial, which raises the possibility of a significant judgment against HCC as well as who knows what potentially embarrassing evidence coming to light. Given that, it’s easy to see why the Board may have been reluctant to extend Chancellor Maldonado’s contract. We’ll see who they bring on as the successor. In the meantime, I thank Chancellor Maldonado for his service and wish him well with whatever comes next.

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Dispatches from Dallas, March 3 edition

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in DFW, our most interesting story is a brouhaha in Frisco ISD, but we also have an interview with Sarah Weddington’s co-counsel in Roe v. Wade, trouble with the Dallas SPCA, local elections news, including speculation about who’ll go for Colin Allred’s seat if he takes on Ted Cruz, and more. Be sure to scroll down for a link to a picture of bald eaglets!

Marvin Lowe, a Frisco ISD trustee elected in the May 2022 cycle, had some kind of interaction with a trans student from Brownsville at a statewide educational conference in September of last year. The student reports that Lowe said a number of inappropriate things, he’s backed up by his mother and at least two other adults, and he and his family seem to have gone through official channels until last week, when they spoke to the Dallas Morning News [Archive link] because they weren’t getting any satisfaction. Lowe apparently talked about his “junk” and naked people in locker rooms and people getting aroused to the student; also, according to everybody but Lowe, an activist had to intervene to get Lowe to leave the then sixteen-year-old student alone.

Lowe didn’t want to talk to the DMN, but the subject came up at a Frisco ISD board meeting on February 26 (Frisco Star), exciting significant controversy from speakers. Lowe denied everything at the meeting but has since gone on a conservative talk radio show to defend himself (DMN archive link) but his story has already started to shift: now he says he talked to the student’s mother about locker rooms.

Lowe won his seat from incumbent Kathy Hebert by 51 votes after a recount. His candidate website is bare-bones but mentions his opposition to CRT in the schools. Here’s some coverage of the race and Lowe’s supporters in Texas Monthly from last May, which demonstrates how Lowe’s candidacy is part of the ongoing reactionary attack on public schools, teachers, and curriculums in north Texas.

I don’t expect Lowe will resign, or be forced to, but I don’t expect we’ve heard the last of this case, or Lowe.

In other news:

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So it looks like that TEA takeover of HISD is going to happen

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Welp.

Mayor Sylvester Turner sounded alarm bells Wednesday when he announced that he has heard from multiple sources that the state intends to take over Houston ISD as early as next week.

“I’m talking to legislators, and what they’re saying to me is that the state intends to takeover the district, replacing the entire board, replacing the superintendent … And they intend to do it next week,” said Turner, who spent three decades as a state representative.

Turner questioned how the state would take over 273 schools successfully, and urged the community to sound speak out against the takeover.

“We can’t be silent on this one. The state is overreaching on this one,” Turner said. “It is a total obliteration of local control, and when you take it, you own it… You are destroying the public education system.”

Rep. Alma Allen, who had also been hearing various rumors of a soon-to-be takeover, asked TEA commission Mike Morath about the possibility at a Public Education Committee meeting Tuesday.

“The streets have it…that it’s going to be March 6, and there are already persons that have already been asked to take over the position of superintendent,” Allen said. “Do you have any idea (if this is true)?”

Morath did not give a timeline.

“All I will say is we’re waiting to evaluate the Supreme Court’s ruling that has not yet been finalized,” Morath said during the meeting. “What we’re going to do is going to be a mandatory action under state law, not a discretionary action.”

Houston ISD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Texas Education Agency said: “TEA continues to review the Supreme Court’s decision in order to determine next steps that best support the students, teachers, parents, and school community of the Houston Independent School District.”

See here and here for the background. The Trib also quotes Morath at that same hearing saying they “have not made any final decision and not announced any final action”. There’s nothing here to contradict what Mayor Turner says, but it’s not totally clear what Morath means. This Chron story lays out some possibilities.

What is the TEA’s likely first step?

The Texas Education Agency likely would choose one of the following options: It could:

1) Appoint a conservator, effectively a state-appointed manager to oversee district operations.

2) Replace Houston ISD’s 9-person elected board with a state-appointed “board of managers.” If this happens, based on previous experience, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath would select those new trustees and potentially pick a new superintendent.

3) Allow the district to remain autonomous but retain a degree of oversight.

The state agency will have to release the details after they pull the trigger on the takeover.

Door #3 is the obvious choice, if we have one. My thought on trying to parse Mike Morath’s words is that the TEA and its lawyers want to read the SCOTx decision before they do whatever it is they will do. Depending on whether that decision says or implies that the TEA “shall” take over HISD or that it “may” take over HISD could be the difference between a conservator and an appointed Board on one hand, and a monitoring situation on the other. Or maybe I’m full of hopium and Morath already has a full-on takeover plan at the ready and he’s just waiting for the ink to dry on the SCOTx decision before they hit Send on the press release. Hell if I know. But if the Mayor’s threat intel is accurate, and I tend to think he has the goods, then we’ll know very soon what’s up. Reform Austin has more.

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So about that DPS delay in notifying the victims of the credential stuffing attack

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s their explanation.

[DPS Director Steve] McCraw said DPS officials kept the news under wraps to avoid jeopardizing the agency’s investigation, including efforts to arrest the fraudsters who organized the scheme.

The explanation came in response to questioning from state Rep. Mary González, D-El Paso, who expressed bewilderment over the delay.

“So, hold on,” González said. “It could be my driver’s license, and somebody could be going around as Mary González right now for two months, and nobody has been notified.”

González also queried McCraw and one of his top deputies, Jeoff Williams, about whether the state could face fines for possibly running afoul of federal regulations requiring timely notice of certain security breaches.

Williams, DPS’ deputy director of law enforcement services, said that was not the case. He added that the criminal investigation — which includes at least four states — “has taken priority at this point.”

“We recognize that there’s a requirement to notify people, and we want to do that more than anyone, believe me,” Williams said. “ — We’re going to handle each one of those (affected Texans) with the individual care that’s required, given what occurred to them.”

On Tuesday, DPS confirmed that it had begun sending letters informing victims of “fraudulent activity that resulted in your driver license card being sent to an unauthorized party.” The agency reportedly told the victims they would be issued a new replacement license at no charge.

Under state law, anyone who “conducts business” in Texas and owns or licenses data that includes “sensitive personal information” is required to notify people within 60 days if their information is compromised in a breach. The law provides an exception, however, if a law enforcement agency “determines that the notification will impede a criminal investigation.”

“The notification shall be made as soon as the law enforcement agency determines that the notification will not compromise the investigation,” the law states.

In 2021, state lawmakers tacked on a requirement to notify the state attorney general about any breach that involves at least 250 Texans. The attorney general’s office is required to post a publicly accessible list of the breaches on its website, updated within 30 days of each breach notice.

The attorney general’s office has tallied 468 such breaches since the law took effect in September 2021 — an average of 26 per month.

See here for the background. I get the reason for the delay, though perhaps there should be some limit to that, and the earlier stories mentioned that the FBI and Homeland Security were also involved, so that’s good. I just don’t trust Steve McCraw. But unless there’s some other nuance to this, I’ll have to get over it.

Of more interest to me is what DPS and the Texas Department of Information Resources will learn from this. Will they take proactive steps to notify their customers whose passwords are known to have been compromised? How about doing a better job of screening where these logons come from, and put in extra verifications to filter out unwanted foreign actors? McCraw specifically said there weren’t adequate controls in place. What controls does he have in mind, and who is responsible for implementing them? Put the cybersecurity stuff aside for a second, was this an unusual number of license requests, was there a way to detect that, and what if anything was supposed to be done if so? And if there wasn’t any way to flag that as suspicious, is there now? This is the kind of review process that an enterprise has to undertake when there is a successful attack like this. All of us drivers license holders need to know that this is happening. Please keep the pressure on them, legislators.

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You still have time to donate to the Democratic judges’ legal fund

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Just a reminder:

See here for the background. That link takes you here, and while the in-person fundraiser mentioned there is now over, the Donate link remains. But due to a change in state law, you only have until March 8 to make a contribution. That’s a new statutory deadline for all judicial fundraising – it used to be the case that judges who were involved in lawsuits could continue past that deadline, but the law was changed in the last session, so here we are. Please give a few bucks if you can and help them all out. Thanks!

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Texas blog roundup for the week of February 27

Posted on March 2, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance is studying pitch clocks and base sizes as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Abortion funds’ lawsuit against the “sanctuary cities” guy tossed by SCOTx

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Unfortunate.

The Texas Supreme Court upheld the right of an anti-abortion activist to call abortion advocacy groups criminal enterprises and emphasized the state’s 1921 law criminalizing abortion is in force.

In the majority and the concurring opinions issued Feb. 24, the Supreme Court took on three abortion advocacy groups that hoped to proceed with defamation claims in state trial courts against anti-abortion activist Mark Lee Dickson and his organization Right to Life East Texas.

Two courts of appeals came to different conclusions, with the Seventh District finding the defendants’ statements protected political speech and the Fifth District finding Dickson’s statements inconsistent with the Penal Code and permitting the defamation suit to continue.

Justice Jane Bland, writing for the court, held the statements “are protected opinion about abortion law made in pursuit of changing that law, placing them at the heart of protected speech under the United States and Texas Constitutions.”

Dickson, during the course of a “Sanctuary City for the Unborn” campaign meant to get local municipalities in Texas to pass resolutions declaring themselves sanctuary cities, used promotional materials and social media that included statements such as abortion groups were criminal organizations and murderers.

During oral argument last October, Jennifer Ecklund of Thompson Coburn, the attorney for Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, Texas Equal Access Fund and Afiya Center, said, “People are afraid to express their view for fear that they will also be called literal criminals who might be prosecuted, based on things that they believe were totally constitutional based on this court’s pronouncements and the U.S. Supreme Court’s pronouncements.”

Bland noted the statements were made before Roe v. Wade was overturned and amid decades of fervent debate regarding the morality and legality of abortion.
“Equally apparent is that such statements reflect an opinion about morality, society, and the law,” Bland wrote. “The collective impression is not that Dickson was disseminating facts about particular conduct, but rather advocacy and opinion responding to that conduct. Dickson invited the reasonable reader to take political action.”

[…]

The majority opinion affirmed the Seventh District appeals court ruling and reversed the Fifth District’s ruling, remanding both to their respective trial courts for entry of dismissal orders.

See here and here for the background. I was obviously way too optimistic about this one. I can see the Court’s reasoning but I think they got it wrong. Not much else to say. Bloomberg Law has more.

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DPS victimized by credential stuffing attack

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

That’s the technical term for this.

The Texas Department of Public Safety was duped into shipping at least 3,000 Texas driver’s licenses to a Chinese organized crime group that targeted Asian Texans, DPS Director Steve McCraw told a Texas House committee on Monday.

The crime group worked through the state’s government portal, Texas.gov. The agency, which discovered the security breach in December, will begin notifying victims in letters to be sent out this week, the DPS chief said. More victims are still being identified, he said.

“We’re not happy at all, I can tell you that, one bit,” McCraw said in testimony to a House Appropriations subcommittee. “They should have had — controls should have been in place, and they never should have happened.”

The crime organization, which McCraw did not name, was able to get its hands on the Texas driver’s licenses by first pulling personal data on individuals with Asian surnames from the “dark web” and other underground data-trading portals.

That info, including previous addresses and family names, allowed thieves to correctly answer password security questions on the Texas.gov site and use stolen credit cards to order duplicate copies of active licenses — such as those ordered by people who misplace their licenses or report them stolen. A replacement license costs $11.

The state-run Texas.gov site is the central portal for Texans wanting to renew licenses, obtain driving records and registration, and obtain birth and death certificates, among other things.

The investigation into the stolen driver’s licenses spans at least four states and also involves fraudulent licenses duplicated from victims in other states as well as Texas. The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are also investigating, according to the DPS letter to lawmakers.

House Appropriations Vice Chair Mary González, an El Paso Democrat, blasted DPS agency chiefs for letting so much time lapse while Texans were unaware that their identities were being used fraudulently.

“Somebody could be going around as Mary González right now for two months, and nobody’s been notified, I [wouldn’t have been] notified,” González said.

DPS officials are not calling the incident a “data breach” because they say no hacking was involved and vast amounts of data were not being stolen. Instead, the crime group used data obtained from underground sources to bypass a simple password security system — laying bare a security vulnerability that “should never have happened,” McCraw said.

Texas.gov is operated not by DPS, but by the Texas Department of Information Resources.

DPS officials declined to provide details about the security loophole that left the site open to fraud but told lawmakers that it had been closed.

DIR spokesperson Brittney Booth Paylor dismissed the notion that the incident was a cybersecurity breach, calling it “a case of fraudulent criminal activity based on factors unrelated to state systems.”

[…]

The problem was first detected in December when a third-party Texas.gov payment vendor “alerted DPS to an increase in customers challenging credit card charges for online transactions,” according to a February letter sent to lawmakers from the DPS. The credit cards used to buy the fraudulent copies were also stolen, authorities said.

Before investigators shut down the operation, McCraw said, the license thieves were able to use the site, billed as “the official website of the State of Texas,” to obtain driver’s licenses that are “Real ID compliant” — not cheap copies, McCraw said.

These stolen licenses can pass verification methods and be used fraudulently all over the country because they are real driver’s licenses being used by people who can pass for the photo on the original card, McCraw said.

See here if you want to learn a bit more about what a credential stuffing attack is. Long story short, don’t reuse your passwords and enable two-factor authentication where you can.

Putting my cybersecurity hat on for a minute, I will say that the DIR response to this is disingenuous. It’s true that there are plenty of pwned password lists available on the internet, and that it’s not Texas’ fault if people reuse passwords. But there are services that the state can subscribe to that would alert them to email addresses in their database that have been found in those pwned lists, which would then give DPS or DIR or whoever would have that responsibility the impetus to contact those address owners proactively and tell them to update their password. They could also enforce, or at least offer, a two-factor solution, and there are other proactive steps available as well. DPS/DIR isn’t “responsible” for this, but DPS/DIR absolutely could have done something to prevent or minimize it.

Rep. González’s complaint about the delay in notifying the affected users is addressed in a later Chron story. I drafted this originally Monday night, so I will do a separate post on that. Short answer, there is a legal requirement in Texas to report data breaches, but there is an exception for when there is an active law enforcement investigation, which DPS has invoked here.

Given the upsurge in violence against Asian-Americans, Rep. González also asked if this could be considered a hate crime, which McCraw avoided answering. It may not be possible to tell from what they know right now, but it is possible to try to figure it out. I’m glad DPS is in contact with the FBI and DHS about that, and I hope that leads to some action. I hope the Lege will press DPS and DIR to do better, and to share the results of the investigation when it’s over. The Lege – and the media – should also focus on McCraw’s statement about controls not being in place and demanding to know what is now being done about that. Either we learn from this or we risk having it happen again. The Chron has more.

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We do need more felony courts

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

This is a good start.

County officials are considering adding new district courts and making more room for detainees in an effort to reduce to county’s court backlog and alleviate overcrowding at the Harris County Jail.

During Commissioners Court on Tuesday, officials considered adding six more district courts to help expedite pending cases in the county’s criminal court system.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo questioned whether focusing directly on the county’s court system would make a significant impact on the jail’s bloated population.

“How do we know that if we bring these new courts that cases will: number one, move faster, and number two, that the backlog reduction will translate into a reduction in the jail population?,” Hidalgo asked.

The number of pending criminal cases in the county has decreased by more than 20% over the last year, according to Harris County’s district court dashboard. Despite the backlog reduction, the jail’s daily population has continued to increase.

As of Wednesday, there were 9,915 people in the jail and 1,051 people outsourced to other facilities, according to the Harris County Jail dashboard. The facility’s daily population has been dangerously close to maximum capacity since June 2022.

Last year, 27 people died with in custody — the highest number in nearly two decades, according to county records and data from Texas Justice Initiative. So far, at least four people have died while in custody this year.

The county’s budget office said the additional courts would cost the county about $30 million to build. After construction, the courts would cost nearly $17 million per year to operate.

On Wednesday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said she supported adding more courts, but was concerned about the amount of time needed for the new courts to make a meaningful dent in the backlog and overcrowding in the jail.

“I would simply be concerned about the timing that we need time to ramp up,” Ogg said. “It’s not an immediate fix to the problems of the Harris County Jail. It would take time for the legislature to agree and approve, then implement, then you’d have to hire.”

One point to clarify here, Harris County cannot add more district courts to the mix. District courts are state courts, created by the Legislature. Harris County can add county courts, and has done so in recent years, but in the criminal context those are for misdemeanors. District courts are for felonies. The backlog here is in the felony courts.

District courts can also be Civil or Family, but they all come from the Legislature. Harris County has more district courts than any other county, but we are of course by far the biggest county, and we have had a total of two new district courts created here since 1984, and one of those was a Family court. Harris County is about twice as big as it was 38 years ago. District courts are numbered by creation date, so the higher the number the more recent the court. Since the 351st Criminal District Court was created, Fort Bend County and Montgomery County have each had five new district courts added. They have both grown exponentially over the past 40 years and absolutely needed those new courts, my point is that Harris needs some new ones, too. Six new district criminal courts sounds good to me, just on population growth alone.

That doesn’t mean those new courts would solve all of our problems right away – we have issues beyond the backlog, and even if we could snap our fingers and get these new courts tomorrow, it would take awhile for them to have any effect. Other issues, from mental health care at the jail to bail issues to who’s getting arrested and charged with what need to be dealt with, too. Along those lines:

Jail reform advocates say the DA’s Office should follow the recommendations of a 2020 report from the Justice Management Institute, which suggests the department dismiss “all non-violent felony cases older than nine months” in order to alleviate the number of pending cases. The report found that of all the county’s felony cases in 2019, about 57% were either dropped or deferred.

In response, Ogg said the recommendation was “an unrealistic solution.”

“Not only is it unfair, it’s basically unethical,” Ogg said. “If I were to simply dismiss cases because they were over nine months old, it would punish crime victims and it would punish innocent people who might be subjected to repeat crimes.”

Maybe dismissing them all is going too far, but we can certainly try to get our priorities in order. DA Kim Ogg was elected in 2016 in part on a platform of prioritizing violent crime over things like minor drug crimes. We could take a good look at that in deciding which of these years-old unresolved non-violent felony cases really need to be pursued and which can be safely let go. I don’t see why this should be controversial.

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Lege targets Harris County election administrator

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We knew something like this was coming.

House and Senate bills filed by Republican lawmakers in response to Harris County’s mismanagement of its recent elections could give the Texas secretary of state the authority to step in, suspend county election administrators when a complaint is filed and appoint a replacement administrator.

Election administration experts told Votebeat the legislation was an overreaction to the desire to hold Harris County accountable for years of election mismanagement, and would disrupt the state’s ability to help county election offices improve and address systemic problems.

If passed, the secretary of state’s office would change from being a guide and resource for election workers to being an auditor that can investigate and fire them. Some election officials are concerned this change could prevent local election workers from asking questions or seeking help from the office for fear of being reprimanded.

“Currently we work hand-in-hand. [The secretary of state’s staff] are our No. 1 resource, and that benefits all voters,” said Jennifer Doinoff, Hays County elections administrator. “Putting them in the position of oversight would definitely change the dynamic.”

Authored by state Rep. Tom Oliverson and state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, both Harris County Republicans, the bills are among several already filed this legislative session in reaction to the long lines, late openings and reports of shortages of ballot paper on Election Day in Harris County. More than 20 lawsuits from losing Republican candidates have also been filed against the county, citing those problems and seeking a redo of the election. Harris County Elections Administrator Cliff Tatum did not respond to Votebeat’s request for his comment about the legislation.

House Bill 2020 and Senate Bill 823 would allow the secretary of state’s office to take action in a county if a complaint is filed by one of several officials and organizations involved in elections, and if there’s “good cause to believe that a recurring pattern of problems with election administration exists.”

The bills list five causes for suspension of an elections administrator:

  • malfunction of voting equipment,
  • unfair distribution of election supplies,
  • errors in tabulation of results,
  • delays in reporting election returns,
  • discovery of voted ballots after the polls close.

Currently, any problems that arise in an election or with an elections administrator are handled by the county’s election commission. Those commissions are made up of the county judge, the tax assessor-collector, the county clerk and the chairs of local political parties. The commission’s oversight powers allow it to appoint, terminate or accept the resignation of the county’s election administrator.

Some Texas voting rights groups worry the Legislature will use the problems in Harris and those lawsuits as “an excuse” to advance bills such as these. The League of Women Voters of Texas in a statement last week said such legislation, if passed, “is fraught for potential abuse, infringes on the rights of county governments to select their own elections administrator, and demeans the meaning of local governance.”

Slightly more than half of Texas counties appoint nonpartisan election administrators to run their elections. This legislation would apply only in those counties and not in the 122 that elect county clerks or tax assessors tasked with running elections and handling voter registration.

“We are subject to the authorities of those that appointed us,” said Remi Garza, Cameron County elections administrator and the Texas Association of Elections Administrators legislative committee co-chair. “It does cause concern that somebody from outside that jurisdiction would be able to usurp the authority of the elections commission in dealing with their elections administrator.”

There’s more, but I don’t have the mental energy to continue, so go read the rest for yourself. This story came out the same day that a Senate committee approved a bill making “illegal” voting a felony with even harsher punishments and lower standards for “illegality” than before. So, you know, a banner Monday.

My first thought is that I’m not really clear what these guys are aiming at. I mean, Harris County could in effect call their bluff, restore election administration to the County Clerk, have Cliff Tatum move over and be the chief of elections under Teneshia Hudspeth, and this bill would no longer apply to us. Democrats would still be running the elections. Maybe they actually think Stan Stanart can win that ridiculous election contest, I don’t know. At this level, this is just weird.

Second, these bills – I assume they’re identical in each chamber – are just a mess. The story goes into detail about how absurdly vague the provisions are, which could put a whole lot of election administrators in solidly red counties in danger if something goes wrong, as things sometimes do. I obviously wouldn’t expect the Secretary of State to crack down on, say, Bell County as they’re slavering to do to Harris, but it could be that the first example to be made is in a red place. This is what happens when you let your rage control you.

(Of course, if we had managed to pass a federal voting rights law over the past two years, we wouldn’t be talking about any of this now. But hey, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema preserved the filibuster, so.)

Third, I kind of suspect that in the same way that the TEA probably doesn’t actually want to take over HISD, the SOS probably wants no part of administering Harris County elections. It’s big, it’s hard to do, and most importantly now everything that goes wrong is your fault. Who wants that? But the Republicans in the Lege don’t care about that. Slapping around Harris County is the point. If there’s collateral damage, so be it.

And finally, with a less-predatory state government, we could have a reasoned discussion and admit there are problems that could be fixed with some help from that state government and Lege find ways to do elections better that aren’t predicated on punishment and the exercise of raw power. And if I flap my arms and think happy thoughts, I could fly.

I’ve made the decision to pay less attention to the Lege than I have in the past because I don’t need the mental torment. The Republicans are gonna do what they’re gonna do, and we can’t stop them. One fine day we’ll win enough elections to make it stop, but until then this is what we’re gonna get. I don’t know what else to say.

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Actually, we could have saved Fairfield State Park

Posted on February 28, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Well, well, well.

State officials passed up an offer to save Fairfield Lake State Park this month, just days before the Texas parks department celebrated its centennial, according to newly uncovered text messages.

The 1,821-acre park sits on land the state leases at no cost from the energy company Vistra Corp., part of a larger tract that also includes the 2,400-acre lake and 3,204 acres along the northern shores. It will close permanently Tuesday. Vistra has agreed to sell it to Todd Interests, a Dallas developer.

Screenshots we obtained of a text conversation between Texas Parks and Wildlife Commissioner Arch “Beaver” Aplin, Todd Interests founder Shawn Todd and Vistra CEO Jim Burke show that, even as state officials publicly treated the park’s sale as a triumph of developer interests over the common good, they inexplicably failed to take serious steps to buy most of the parkland. Todd, Aplin and a Vistra spokesperson all verified the authenticity of the messages.

In the texts, Todd offers to complete the purchase of the entire property and then sell the parkland to the state, minus what Todd called a “tiny” carve-out in the northern peninsula of the park, for $60 million. Todd would have retained water rights and restricted some boating activities.

The carve-out would have closed hiking trails but would not have disrupted campsites, picnic areas or boat ramps, Todd said. The precise size of the carve-out was never agreed upon. But apparently, it was still a deal-breaker for the state. In response to Todd’s offer, Aplin texted, “I just spoke with the Lt Gov and he reminded me I asked him and the leadership for the ok to buy it all, not the park minus.”

When Todd pressed for compromise, Aplin responded by emphasizing the importance of the northern peninsula because of its hiking trails. The deal fell through.

The texts also reveal that the state has never made a competitive offer to buy the land. The agreement under contract is for approximately $110 million, the texts say. The state’s best offer, which Aplin texted Feb. 2, was $60 million plus a tax incentive in the form of a conservation easement to Vistra. The offer to Todd was simply for him to walk away, expenses paid, out of “altruism.” Aplin said he later offered Todd a fee in the amount of 3% to 6% of the value of the deal.

The $60 million was for the entire property, not just parkland. Aplin told us he wanted to buy the lake and expand the park.

“TPWD can commit to a 60 MM deal with commission approval,” Aplin texted. “My concept was an altruistic approach for Todd’s and Vistra. I know you have a deal at 100+ MM. We can’t get there, hence my altruistic suggestion.”

Aplin offered other perks to sweeten the deal.

“Feb 8th Centennial celebration, 100 yrs of parks with Governor Abbott presenting. It’s a big deal,” Aplin texted. “We announce this gift, both of you present, with me and the Gov, on 8th at our biggest celebration ever.” He even offered naming rights.

It’s hard to estimate the size of the donation Aplin was soliciting here. From Vistra, it was $50 million minus the value of the tax incentive. From Todd, it was opportunity cost. Todd told us he expects to make hundreds of millions developing the site. The water rights alone are worth that much, he said. When we asked Aplin, founder of the Buc-ee’s convenience store chain, if he would walk away from that much money, he wouldn’t answer.

[…]

There’s another conundrum with the state’s handling of this deal. In 2018, Aplin said TPWD asked Vistra to sell only the park portion of the property. Vistra declined, a spokesperson confirmed. But this month, when Todd offered the park portion, state officials wanted to buy the whole thing, at half price.

When the whole property was for sale, the state only wanted part. When part was for sale, the state wanted the whole thing.

At one point, the parties discussed yet another option. Todd offered to walk away in exchange for $50 million and 250 acres, and let TPWD negotiate its own deal with Vistra. Aplin declined.

None of this answers the more frustrating question of why this issue was allowed to get out of hand. In 2019, the department’s then-Executive Director Carter Smith suggested the state’s plan was wishing and hoping.

“It would be our hope that we could continue to see that lease extended with the new buyer of that property so that the state park did not go away, but ultimately we’re going to be at the mercy of the new owner,” Smith said in a hearing.

See here and here for the background. This is on the DMN editorial page for some reason, but it doesn’t matter, the story is clear enough. I can’t tell if Aplin and the TPWD are being so erratic because they sincerely believe they are constrained by what the rest of state government will let them do, or if they just don’t have the processes and organization to figure out this admittedly complex but utterly solvable problem. All I can do at this point is shake my head.

As for what could be done now, leave it to Greg Abbott to do the barest minimum possible.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has offered support for preserving Fairfield Lake State Park, which is scheduled to close within days as a private developer moves forward with purchasing the land.

[…]

Abbott, in a Thursday interview with the Star-Telegram, didn’t specifically address the possibility of eminent domain. But he said he wants to see the park remain public.

“We’re working with Texas Parks and Wildlife on doing everything we can to preserve that park,” Abbott said.

I have no idea what that means. That story was from before the DMN’s editorial, so “doing everything we can” would have sounded different when he said it. I still think the odds of the Lege taking the park land back are very small, but maybe not zero. We’ll know in a few weeks if that or any other bill related to this is likely to go anywhere.

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