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HISD students walk out in protest of TEA takeover

Good for them.

Five minutes into her second-period class, Elizabeth Rodriguez and her classmates at Northside High School stood up and walked out to protest the Texas Education Agency’s planned intervention in Houston’s sprawling, diverse public school district.

The 18-year-old senior joined more than 100 students flooding the hallways, walking out of the large brick building and pouring into the gated courtyard by the school entrance on Quitman Street. Teenagers sporting jeans, hoodies and backpacks held handmade posters with various slogans: “My school matters,” “I am NOT just a number,” and “Estudiantes unidos! Jamas seran vencidos!”

Rodriguez, a member of a student club that helped organize the protest, stepped up on a purple platform and grabbed the microphone.

“You need to let your voices be heard,” she said to a crowd that occasionally broke out into chants. “We don’t want more STAAR. What does STAAR do? It stresses us out and gives us more anxiety.”

The walkout coincided with other demonstrations on Thursday at dozens of schools across HISD organized by Community Voices for Public Education and campus student groups. They were marching to express their displeasure with TEA’s March 15 decision to oust the board and superintendent because of one school’s repeated failure to earn an acceptable academic rating and allegations of misconduct by board members.

At elementary schools, some parents gathered with doughnuts and protest signs before sending their children into school. High school students took charge by stepping out during the school day to voice their opposition.

Thursday also marked the last day to apply for the board of managers, a governing body appointed by TEA Commissioner Mike Morath that will replace elected trustees to oversee the district.

At the Northside High School, students rallied for about 15 minutes before heading back to class.

“I was afraid that a lot of people weren’t going to care, they were just doing it to get out of class,” Rodriguez said. “But seeing them now, holding up the signs, doing the chants, I loved it. It makes me feel good about my school.”

Later in the day, as gray skies started dumping rain, roughly 50 students at Carnegie Vanguard High School walked out and took a lap around the block during their lunch break. They held wet paper signs while chanting: “T-E-A, go away!” and “Hey-hey-ho-ho, TEA has got to go!”

Some students stayed outside to listen as their peers spoke into a bullhorn about the value of diversity and an education hard-earned by immigrant parents. One student questioned the motives of the state agency intervening in a school district serving nearly 190,000 students, largely Hispanic and Black children.

“They don’t like abortion, they don’t like gay people, they don’t like minorities,” he said about the Texas GOP. “Why do we want them taking over one of the most diverse school districts in all of Texas?”

Good question. Look, this protest isn’t going to accomplish anything at this time. Mike Morath isn’t going to suddenly change his mind about the takeover – he would argue that it doesn’t matter what he thinks, he’s compelled by the law – because some number of students chanted at him. But bringing about change starts with caring enough to do something, and enduring a bunch of getting nowhere before you can get yourself into a position of influence. It’s not linear, it’s often frustrating, and there are usually a bunch of other things that have to happen before what you want to do is even possible. It still starts with caring enough to take action. Good on these kids for doing that.

Note the bit about the deadline for the Board of Managers. Barring some action from the feds in response to the complaints that have been filed, the next milestone in this saga is going to be the naming of the Board of Managers. I’m going to guess that will happen in early to mid May, to give them some time to get their feet on the ground before the official takeover in June. We’ll get some idea of where this is going when we see who the Board is.

Chron story on HCC redistricting

This focuses on one district, which seems to be the main and possibly only point of contention in the process. I’d like to know more than what was in this story.

Reagan Flowers

Houston Community College trustee Reagan Flowers had to receive special permission to hold a forum last week at Emancipation Park because it’s not in her district, but she and many other Third Ward community members think it should be.

Ten years after HCC last redistricted and divided Third Ward between two tracts, Flowers is trying to put the historic, majority-Black neighborhood squarely back into District 4. She faces an uphill battle, as other trustees would see changes to their own districts if Third Ward is pieced back together.

HCC’s District 4 currently represents the Medical Center, Museum District, Sunnyside and Third Ward’s south part. The northernmost part was absorbed into its eastern neighbor, District 3, in the last redistricting, Flowers said.

“It’s caused this divide where we can’t speak with one voice when it comes to Houston Community College,” she said. “That doesn’t necessarily support the culture, the history of Third Ward.”

District 3, which encompasses parts of east and southeast Houston, counted the lowest population among HCC districts in 2010 and 2020. Districts have to be redrawn when the population of the most populous district — now District 4, in west Houston — exceeds the population of the least populous district by more than 10 percent, based on the most recent major Census updates.

HCC’s first proposal for redistricting, based on the 2020 U.S. Census, mostly left District 4 alone. Still, community members hoping to regain the northern part of Third Ward face resistance because a change would cause them to shed another part of their district — and District 3 is already looking for more space to expand in order to balance the district populations.

[…]

Third Ward residents have long lamented a pattern of division in their neighborhood. The Museum District, Midtown and what is now East Downtown were formerly considered Third Ward.

HCC appears to be the only governing body that splits Third Ward — and in doing so excludes some of their most well-known spots, including Jack Yates High School, Emancipation Park, Cuney Homes and Project Row Houses.

While HISD, City Hall and Houston Super Neighborhoods currently keep Third Ward intact, some worry HCC’s current and proposed maps could set a precedent for others to follow their lead.

“It’s dangerous ground,” said Flowers, whose term expires at the end of the year. “What’s happening with HCC and District 3 is very disrespectful to the Black community and the Third Ward, and it doesn’t have to be.”

See here and here for the background. I wish the story had included comments from other Trustees as well, especially District 3 Trustee Adriana Tamez, since moving the Third Ward back into District 4 would have a big effect on her. If you look at all of the maps that have been proposed (downloadable PDF), any significant changes to Districts 3 and 4 would also affect District 9, and so it would have been nice for the story to have a comment from its Trustee, Pretta VanDible Stallworth, as well.

I had the chance to talk to Trustee Flowers about this. She told me that Plan 2C, which you can find on page 31 of that PDF, accomplishes what she is advocating, but she does not currently have the support to get it passed. Map 1, which is in that presentation and also viewable here, is the one that is set to pass. But there’s still time, and if this is something you care about, you can contact your Trustee and let them know it. The public hearing on the redistricting proposal will be February 15, as noted before.

As I said about HISD redistricting, I don’t think anyone is trying to screw the Third Ward here. The fact is that Harris County’s population is shifting westward you can see the demographic data in that PDF download – and District 3 is in need of more population. Moving the Third Ward out of 3 increases that need, and that has to come from somewhere, which affects more people. Redistricting is always nuanced and multi-dimensional, and in the end it’s zero-sum. All you can do is make your case and do your best to minimize the negative effects on everyone involved.

Spring Branch ISD to discuss a book ban today

I don’t post stuff like this often – it’s not really my remit, and timeliness usually works against me – but this one really annoyed me, so here it is. Via Facebook:

PLEASE CONSIDER SPEAKING ON TUESDAY @ 1PM! (If you cannot make Tuesday, consider speaking to the topic at tonight’s board meeting instead)

This is the first book complaint that has been elevated to a level-3 for consideration under our new school board. This book complaint was reviewed by a committee of 7 (1 middle school librarian, 1 middle school teacher, 1 high school librarian, 1 high school teacher, 1 secondary campus administrator, 1 parent that has both a middle & high school students, and 1 district admin. The committee voted unanimously that the age recommendation and content were appropriate and recommended retaining the book at SBISD libraries in both middle and high school.

Level 2 Review: Denise Thompson Bell appealed the decision made by the reconsideration committee so the book was escalated for review by upper administration. Dr. Kristin Craft reviewed the comments and work of the review committee and upheld the decision that the content and age recommendation were appropriate and retained the book in SBISD libraries.

Denise Thompson Bell has since appealed the decision again, escalating this to a level 3 complaint to be heard by the board for final decision. There will be a public comment period and I ask that if you can participate at all, that would be incredibly helpful!

We know that the right to have access to books that are meaningful to a student support literacy efforts and have shown increased rates of reading. Being able to read books on different subject matters refines a student’s critical thinking skills. Parents have always had the right to restrict the reading of their own children, but this personal parenting choice should not be imposed upon the general public.

In most cases, school board meetings should be restricted to those who live in district. In this case, however, it would be beneficial for the board to hear why and how this book is important literature that should remain available to our students, regardless of the district residency of the speaker. If you or anyone you know have been affected by the more subtle aspects of racism that are described in the book, either as the target of racism, or as an individual who has actively worked to educate themselves on anti-racism, then there is benefit to you speaking up. The board needs to know that limiting books on racism and other helpful topics will cause students to feel alienated from their own school district, which will have a deleterious effect on their education and mental well being.

Speakers will need to arrive at 12:30 in order to fill out paperwork and have it submitted PRIOR TO 1pm. Public comment opportunity will be at the beginning of the meeting. Then, the board will sit with their attorney and hear the grievance as presented by Denise Thompson Bell and deliberate. After deliberation, and hopefully consideration of public comment, the decision will be made to either retain the book in SBISD libraries as has been recommended by the specialists that review books and the specialists in our district, place the book on their newly enacted restricted shelf, or ban the book from district libraries altogether.

Spread the word, far and wide! We need speakers to stand up. This will not stop at one book on racism. A book complaint for a book that has a wedding with two brides has already been escalated to level 2, and likely will be appealed again (as John Perez requested). This affects all people, whether or not they have experienced any form of bigotry or not.

I have included information regarding the board meeting in the pics attached, as well as supporting documentation of the complaint and appeal process. Documents acquired via public information request. Hope to see you then!

That’s from a closed Facebook group, so I’m omitting the link since many of you would not be able to see it anyway. The book is called The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person. Here are the pictures mentioned, which include some information about the meeting:

Here’s the public notice and agenda for this meeting; general info about SBISD meetings is here. I said this annoyed me because SBISD normally holds meetings at 6 PM, a time when many working people can attend. This one is for 1 PM, in the middle of many people’s work days, and it was called on Friday afternoon for this Tuesday, so there was very little time for anyone to even hear about it. You probably can’t be there, if you even see this in time, but if you do and you can, you can show up and push back. Good luck to those who do.

HCC redistricting update

I got this email from HCC Trustee Reagan Flowers, which has prompted me to remind you that HCC redistricting is also happening, and per the Redistricting Info page, there are community events going on right now to help you understand what is being proposed and how you can give feedback. These events are also being livestreamed, and you can submit comments or propose your own map here. Trustee Flowers prefers the current map option 2, which she says will keep the Third Ward in the same district.

I previously mentioned the HCC redistricting process here, in an earlier post about HISD redistricting. The next regular public Trustee meeting on February 15 will be the public hearing on redistricting, and the deadline to submit comments and proposed maps is February 28. The final map will be voted on at the April 19 meeting. Make your voice heard!

The Winter Street Studios fire

This is so awful.

A fire that broke out Tuesday morning at Winter Street Studios has damaged countless works of art and left many Houston artists without workspaces or gallery space. The fire, which began around 6:30 a.m., is being investigated as arson, according to the Houston Fire Department and numerous accounts from artists who work at the building.

The fire started on the first floor, in the studio for Bohemian Photography, a commercial photography business owned by Jack Potts. A GoFundMe for Potts states that someone broke into the studio, stole thousands of dollars worth of camera and production equipment, then set the fire. Per another artist at the studio, Potts is in the middle of switching insurance policies and is currently uninsured.

The Houston Arts Alliance has activated its Emergency Relief Fund, first created in 2020 to support artists during the COVID-19 pandemic, to help those whose studios were damaged. Donors can contribute to the fund at HAA’s websiteFreshArts has also created a list of resources, including emergency grants, for those affected.

The 100-year-old building, which was once a furniture factory, was converted to artist studios in 2005. There are 77 studios in the building, many of them shared between two or more artists.

On Instagram, the hashtag #winterstreetstudios was filled with photos and posts from artists detailing the damage to their workspaces. That includes water damage from the sprinklers and hoses, ash, smoke damage, and structural issues with the building that may require it to be demolished.

[…]

Renters at the studios were supposed to carry liability insurance, [painter Erika] Alonso said, and many of them did not have coverage beyond that. Aside from the countless, irreplaceable works of art that have been damaged or destroyed—some of which had already been sold but not yet delivered to their new owners—artists have also lost computers, materials, tools, paperwork, and other essential business items.

“There’s all these little personal investments artists make over the years,” she said. “But all the artists are helping each other, which is a beautiful thing.” Alonso said she had additional insurance, and hopes it can help recoup the cost of replacing her supplies and cleaning up her studio.

Just terrible. Winter Street Studios is a great place, a vibrant part of the community in an area where it’s often too expensive for creative types to hang their shingles. They have had regular Saturday art markets that are always fun to visit, and our elementary school used their space in the past for fundraisers. I’d really hate for this to be the end for them. The link in the story for HAA’s website is where you can make a donation to help these folks out if you’re so inclined. Thanks very much. CultureMap, ABC13, KHOU, and the Chron have more.

Community meetings about the Harris County bond referenda

Ask your questions, get some answers.

Harris County voters will decide in November whether to approve a bond package totaling $1.2 billion, with the vast majority aimed at road construction. On Monday, the county [began] a series of 24 community engagement meetings to share information and gather input about where the money will go if the bond propositions pass.

Voters will see three bond propositions on the ballot:

  • Proposition A: Up to $100 million for public safety, which could include law enforcement facilities, courtrooms, technology and improved data systems for court management and crime prevention.
  • Proposition B: Up to $900 million for transportation, including road rehabilitation and added capacity; roadway and neighborhood drainage improvements; walking, biking, and mass transit access; and safety projects to reduce transportation-related fatalities and injuries.
  • Proposition C: Up to $200 million for parks and trails, including construction and maintenance of parks facilities and trails, including floodable parks, trail projects, and inclusive parks for people with disabilities.

If all are approved, at least $220 million would be spent in each of the county’s four precincts, while the $100 million in public safety investments would be countywide.

The county will hold community meetings through Oct.. 20, including 16 in-person meetings divided evenly among the four precincts and eight virtual meetings. Spanish, Mandarin and Vietnamese interpreters will be available.

[…]

The dates and locations of the meetings are subject to change. Residents can check the latest schedule or submit their comments online at harriscounty2022bond.org.

See here for the background. The schedule as known at the time of publication is in the Chron story, but it is subject to change so check out that Harris County 2022 Bond page before heading out.

Whole Woman’s Health moving to New Mexico

Sad, but inevitable.

One of the nation’s largest independent abortion provider said Wednesday that it is pulling out of Texas and opening a clinic in New Mexico to support Texans and others facing limited abortion access after the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision.

Whole Woman’s Health has operated in Texas for nearly two decades, getting its start in Austin in 2003, and later expanding to McAllen, Beaumont, San Marcos, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and McKinney.

The clinic is still searching for a site and seeking financial support from the public to make the move, Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Woman’s Health said in a statement.

“Even when the courts and the politicians have turned their backs on Texans, we never will,” said Hagstrom Miller said. “With the shuttering of our four Texas clinics, we do not have the financial reserves to open in New Mexico. We are asking for your help as we vacate our Texas clinics, move our needed equipment and supplies, buy and renovate a new clinic building, relocate and hire staff, and set up Whole Woman’s Health of New Mexico.”

If you can cast your mind all the way back to 2016, Whole Woman’s Health was the plaintiff in the SCOTUS case against the state of Texas that overturned the then-historically massive HB2, which was intended to shut clinics down by forcing them to adopt a bunch of medically unnecessary building codes. That type of law was called a TRAP law, and though a very different SCOTUS knocked it down it did have the effect of forcing a bunch of clinics to close while the suit was being litigated (thanks to the Fifth Circuit allowing the law to be in effect in the interim). That decision, which for about five minutes was seen as a way to fight back against states like Texas that had been slowly but effectively chiseling away at abortion rights, was largely but not entirely forgotten in the carnage after the Dobbs decision. Just thought it was worth mentioning here.

Anyway. Whole Woman’s Health is asking for your help as they make this move:

There are a lot of thing we need to be doing right now and in the coming months to get things back on a good path. This one should be up there at the top of your list. Please help if you can.

Please don’t ever talk to me about “a good guy with a gun” or “hardening the schools” again

The police were there but did nothing.

A gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers at a South Texas elementary school walked unopposed onto school grounds, state law enforcement officials said Thursday — and once he was inside, it took police an hour to stop him.

In the days after the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, officials with the Texas Department of Public Safety said the shooter encountered a police officer employed by the school district before charging through a back door — and gave conflicting accounts about whether the officer fired at the gunman.

Agency officials now say there was no police officer on campus when the shooter first arrived — but did not explain why they first believed there was.

The gunman crashed a truck in a ditch near the school at 11:28 a.m., fired at two passersby on the street, then entered the school 12 minutes later through a back door before police arrived, DPS officials said Thursday.

“He was not confronted by anybody,” Victor Escalon, a DPS official, said during a press conference Thursday. The agency is leading the investigation into the shooting along with Uvalde police.

The law enforcement response to the active shooter call has drawn mounting scrutiny in the days since the massacre. State law enforcement officials have given vague and conflicting answers on what exactly happened after the gunman arrived at the school, and parents have criticized police for not acting quickly enough to stop the shooter.

At a Wednesday press conference in Uvalde, DPS Director Steve McCraw said that a school police officer “engaged” with the gunman before he entered the school but did not exchange gunfire with the gunman. Other DPS officials were quoted in media reports saying there was an exchange of gunfire at that moment.

That was Wednesday. By Friday, they had gotten the story straight, and the local PD screwed it all up.

The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety criticized the police chief of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District on Friday, saying he acted too slowly in responding to the elementary school gunman who killed 21 people, including 19 children.

Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said the incident commander — identified by the San Antonio Express-News as Uvalde CISD police chief Pete Arredondo — believed the situation was no longer an active shooter, but that of a barricaded suspect.

But 911 calls, reviewed by Texas Rangers, reveal that at least two people inside the Robb Elementary School classroom called police and reported that there were children inside who were alive.

Meanwhile, the shooting continued periodically.

“With the benefit of hindsight, of course it was not the right decision,” McCraw said. “It was the wrong decision.”

He said once the shooting continued, the incident commander — who he did not identify directly — should have switched back to an active shooter response.

“We believe should have been an entry at that as soon as they (could),” McCraw added. “When there’s an active shooter, the rules change.”

Meanwhile, inside the classroom, children made terrified calls to 911, whispering and asking for help.

All of this has made Greg Abbott mad because he had been out there praising the Uvalde PD’s response before being clued in about how inept they were. He should maybe be mad that all of his party’s “solutions” for stopping mass shootings at schools just don’t work.

Four years after an armed 17-year-old opened fire inside a Texas high school, killing 10, Gov. Greg Abbott tried to tell another shell-shocked community that lost 19 children and two teachers to a teen gunman about his wins in what is now an ongoing effort against mass shootings.

“We consider what we did in 2019 to be one of the most profound legislative sessions not just in Texas but in any state to address school shootings,” Abbott said inside a Uvalde auditorium Wednesday as he sat flanked by state and local officials. “But to be clear, we understand our work is not done, our work must continue.”

Throughout the 60-minute news conference, he and other Republican leaders said a 2019 law allowed districts to “harden” schools from external threats after a deadly shooting inside an art classroom at Santa Fe High School near Houston the year before. After the Uvalde gunman was reportedly able to enter Robb Elementary School through a back door this week, their calls to secure buildings resurfaced yet again.

But a deeper dive into the 2019 law revealed many of its “hardening” elements have fallen short.

Schools didn’t receive enough state money to make the types of physical improvements lawmakers are touting publicly. Few school employees signed up to bring guns to work. And many school districts either don’t have an active shooting plan or produced insufficient ones.

In January 2020, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District received $69,000 from a one-time, $100 million state grant to enhance physical security in Texas public schools, according to a dataset detailing the Texas Education Agency grants. The funds were comparable to what similarly sized districts received.

Even with more funds and better enforcement of policies, experts have said there is no indication that beefing up security in schools has prevented any violence. Plus, they said, it can be detrimental to children, especially children of color.

“This concept of hardening, the more it has been done, it’s not shown the results,” said Jagdish Khubchandani, a public health professor at New Mexico State University who studies school security practices and their effectiveness.

Khubchandani said the majority of public schools in the United States already implement the security measures most often promoted by public officials, including locked doors to the outside and in classrooms, active-shooter plans and security cameras.

After a review of 18 years of school security measures, Khubchandani and James Price from the University of Toledo did not find any evidence that such tactics or more armed teachers reduced gun violence in schools.

“It’s not just guns. It’s not just security,” Khubchandani said. “It’s a combination of issues, and if you have a piecemeal approach, then you’ll never succeed. You need a comprehensive approach.”

I was on the board of our elementary school’s PTA in 2012, when the Sandy Hook murders happened. Our school adopted the “only one entrance” idea then, so even though there were other entrances to the school, you had to go through this one, and be buzzed in, if you wanted to visit. That could easily be defeated by an attacker, of course, but it’s in line with the official Republican response. The other ideas, you know, about limiting access to extremely deadly automatic weapons that can fire dozens of rounds in a few seconds, we’re still waiting on that.

Again, there’s plenty of reporting and analysis out there. You don’t need me to regurgitate it all. What we need, all of us, is a change in political leadership in this state, plus at least two more Democratic Senators, to maybe have a chance to move this forward. (We’ll also have to deal with the radical Supreme Court, but with those two more Democratic Senators, bigger things are on the table.) We’re not going to get anything from the Greg Abbotts and Dan Patricks. We have to get them out of power to have a chance.

UPDATE: Here’s two more things for you to read if you haven’t had enough yet.

Uvalde

I don’t have anything clever or original to say about the horrible tragedy in Uvalde. There’s a vast amount of stories and heartbreaking photos out there, so go and look to the extent that your heart and mental health can endure. I’ll simply note a couple of stories that I think say more about Greg Abbott than any insult I could hurl at him, and the contrast with Beto O’Rourke speaks for itself. I will also co-sign this sentiment, which should serve as a reminder that no matter how little you think of Ted Cruz, he’s worse than that.

There are many things you can do in response to Tuesday’s massacre, and all of them involve getting enough people who have had enough to the polls to throw out the callous nihilists who just don’t care about children being murdered on the regular. There’s also one thing you can do right now that may yield a more immediate effect:

I should note that it’s not clear to me that the city can cancel this convention. There’s a contract that was signed and it spells out the conditions under which one party or the other can back out – I’m not sure what grounds the city would cite. I do know there would be a lawsuit; as you may recall there was one filed in 2020 over the Republican convention in Houston, which the city canceled due to COVID; in the end a federal judge allowed it to happen for sketchy reasons. The city prevailed initially in the state lawsuit but that ruling was vacated earlier this year by the 14th Court of Appeals and the Texas GOP has re-filed its suit. They still may lose, but they’re not done yet, and if the city loses it could be quite costly.

Which doesn’t mean you can’t demand the city find a way to do this anyway. And for sure, you can make sure every one of the ghouls that shows up for that atrocity feels unwelcome while they’re here. I’m just compelled to point this stuff out, it’s what I do. The Chron has more on the planned protest activity. Now go take action and make some good trouble.

UPDATE: Mayor Turner has specifically mentioned the possibility of lawsuits if the city were to cancel the contract with the NRA for its convention. There’s still plenty we can do to make their time here as unpleasant as possible.

Here’s your public meeting schedule for Houston City Council redistricting

Attend one and be In The Know.

Houston residents will have a chance to preview potential changes to Houston’s 11 City Council districts at a series of public town hall meetings in April and May.

[…]

The town hall meetings will start at 6 p.m. Residents can find redistricting information, sign up for meetings, ask questions and submit comments at letstalkhouston.org/redistricting.

The meetings are set for:

Tuesday, April 19 : District E, Councilmember Dave Martin, Kingwood Park Community Center, 4102 Rustic Woods Dr., Kingwood

Monday, April 25: District H, Councilmember Karla Cisneros, Moody Park Community Center, 3725 Fulton St.

Tuesday, April 26: District A, Councilmember Amy Peck, Trini Mendenhall Community Center, 1414 Wirt Rd.

Monday, May 2: District J, Councilmember Edward Pollard, Sharpstown Park Community Center, 6855 Harbor Town Dr.

Tuesday, May 3: District C, Councilmember Abbie Kamin, Congregation Emanu El, 1500 Sunset Blvd.

Wednesday, May 4: : District K, Councilmember Martha Castex-Tatum, Fountain Life Center 14083 S. Main St.

Tuesday, May 10: District I, Councilmember Robert Gallegos, HCC Southeast Campus, 6815 Rustic St.

Thursday, May 12: District G, Councilmember Mary Nan Huffman, Grace Presbyterian Church, 10221 Ella Lee Lane.

Monday, May 16: District D, Councilmember Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, HCC South Campus, 1990 Airport Blvd.

Tuesday, May 17: District F, Councilmember Tiffany Thomas, Alief ISD Center of Talent Development, 14411 Westheimer

Wednesday, May 18: District E, Councilmember Dave Martin, Johnson Space Center Special Event Room, 2101 E. NASA Pkwy.

Thursday, May 19: District B, Councilmember Tarsha Jackson, Acres Home Multi-Service Center, Senior Service Room, 6719 W. Montgomery Rd.

See here and here for some background. Most likely these will end up being minor changes, unless there’s further effort to get rid of the At Large positions. That said, there’s always some support for or opposition to joining or splitting particular neighborhoods – there was an effort to put all of the Heights into a single Council district back in 2011, for example – and that might be a thing that you have opinions about. Attend one or more of these meetings and find out for yourself.

How to help the AstroWorld victims

Very straightforward.

Houstonians hoping to help the victims can contribute to their verified GoFundMe accounts. The fundraising platform has created a hub for Astroworld victims with direct links to verified campaigns to help families cover funeral expenses and medical bills.

“We prioritize balancing speed and safety to ensure funds are distributed as quickly as possible to those who need help,” GoFundMe said in a release.

The verified accounts so far include:

GoFundMe said the online hub will be updated with more fundraisers as they are created and verified.

I don’t have anything to add here. Go help if you can.

Going after the snitch sites

I approve of this.

When an anti-abortion group last week created a “pro-life whistleblower” website encouraging people to anonymously report violations of Texas’ new six-week abortion ban, a group of politically active Texans noticed one potentially fatal flaw.

“They’re trying to use the internet to retaliate against people who were raised on the internet,” said Olivia Julianna, an 18-year-old student and activist from Sugar Land who is among the leadership of a group called “Gen Z For Change.” The group was formerly known as “TikTok for Biden.”

Olivia, who goes by only her first and middle names on social media due to safety concerns, said the goal was clear: “This website, if we can mess with them in any way, if we can stop even one woman from having a lawsuit filed against her or waste even a second of their time, we need to do it.”

The tip site was meant to help enforce Senate Bill 8, the Texas law that went into effect at the start of this month that prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before most women know they’re pregnant.

The law has so far avoided being blocked by the courts because the government does not enforce it. Instead, it puts enforcement in the hands of any private citizen who wishes to sue an abortion provider or others who “aid or abet” someone getting an illegal abortion, with a possible reward of at least $10,000 per successful suit.

Olivia was one of several young left-leaning activists who immediately took to social media to sabotage the site by flooding it with false reports and other information — some suggested anti-Gov. Greg Abbott sayings. Others recommended off-the-wall responses or nonsense.

She and other members of Gen Z For Change — Generation Z is typically defined as those who are now 18 to 24 — quickly got to work.

“It would be really, really bad and morally wrong of all of you to go to ProLifeWhistleblower.com and send in an anonymous tip that is fake,” Olivia sarcastically told her more than 137,000 followers in an Aug. 23 video she posted on TikTok. “It would be even worse if your anonymous tip was about Greg Abbott.”

Another popular content creator and Deputy Executive Director of Gen Z for Change, Victoria Hammett, 22, saw her video and found it “absolutely brilliant” and encouraged her followers to do the same.

“Wouldn’t it be so awful if we send in a bunch of fake tips and crashed the site?” she said in a TikTok that’s been liked over 240,000 times.

Create a morally reprehensible website, you’re going to face some consequences. Three cheers for the activists who are giving them the response they deserve.

And it’s not just the Gen Z activists, too.

After a Texas law restricting abortion went into effect Wednesday, an antiabortion organization had hoped to out those involved in unlawful procedures by collecting anonymous tips online.

But Texas Right to Life’s website, ProLifeWhistleblower.com, which invited people to inform on those obtaining or facilitating abortions, has not stayed up for long, as website registration providers have said the online form to submit “whistleblower” reports violates their rules. On Monday, the organization confirmed that the website redirects to its main page as it seeks to find a new digital home for the form.

“We’re exploring various long-term plans for the domain registration,” the group’s spokeswoman, Kimberlyn Schwartz, told The Washington Post. “For now, ProLifeWhistleblower.com is redirecting to TexasRightToLife.com only while we move hosts.”

After hosting provider GoDaddy booted the group from its platform last week, the site’s registration changed to list Epik, a Web hosting company that has supported other websites that tech companies have rejected, such as Gab and 8chan. The site went offline Saturday, however, after the domain registrar told the Texas organization that lobbied for the abortion ban that it had violated the company’s terms of service.

After speaking with Epik, which never hosted the site, Texas Right to Life agreed to remove the form, Epik general counsel Daniel Prince said Monday. By late Saturday, the website had redirected to Texas Right to Life’s main page.

But Schwartz said the group still hopes to solicit tips.

“It will be back up soon to continue collecting anonymous tips,” she said, adding that the group is reviewing its options, including seeking another company to register the site’s domain.

Prince said Epik would no longer offer its services if the group continues to collect private information about third parties through its digital tip line.

I’m sure they will eventually find a hosting company that is sleazy enough to allow them to use their services. Putting all of the politics aside for a moment, however, that bit about “[collecting] private information about third parties” should raise some serious data privacy red flags. I guarantee you, the owners of the snitch site have no plan to protect any of that data, and any information they do get will be at serious risk of being abused. Merrick Garland, as you formulate your response, please take note of that as well. The Current has more.

The march for voting rights

Good work, but it can’t be the end.

Saturday marked the third time in as many months that former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke has headlined a voting rights rally at the Texas Capitol, as Democrats hope to keep momentum with just a week left before the end of the special session in Austin.

The rally, which drew several thousand attendees, marked the end of a Selma-style march to the state Capitol — a roughly 27-mile journey from Georgetown to Austin that activists split over four days. It was organized by the Poor People’s Campaign, a group inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.

As demonstrators finished the last leg of their march, they greeted a crowd in front of the Capitol holding signs: “Texas deserves better,” “It’s about us,” “We care, we vote.” They sang along with the performers on the center stage as they belted out the labor movement anthem, “We Shall Not Be Moved.”

“The right time to do right is right now,” the Rev. William J. Barber II, a national civil rights leader who spearheaded the march, repeated throughout the rally.

It culminated with a live performance by Willie Nelson, who sang the classics “Whiskey River” and “Good Hearted Woman.” His set ended with a newer song, “Vote ‘Em Out,” which opens with the line: “If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ‘em out; that’s what Election Day is all about.”

The marchers have demands ranging from a $15 minimum wage to immigration reform, but their most pressing concern is new voting restrictions that have been proposed or passed in GOP-led states. Texas, which already has some of the nation’s strictest laws on voter registration and mail ballots, is among them.

Lots of positive energy came out of this, and I hope it helps to sustain us through the next few weeks, which are going to be tough. But really, what I want to see next are headlines that say things like “Senate Democrats agree to pass voting rights bill that includes redistricting reform and new preclearance requirements”, and “Beto O’Rourke announces his entry into the Texas Governor’s race”. I’m not asking for much here.

The “public service” part of being a public servant

It’s not that hard, though obviously some people make it look easier than others.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [flew] to Houston [Friday] with more than $2 million to help Texas recover from a week of catastrophic blackouts and water outages.

“I’ll be flying to Texas today to visit with Houston Rep. Sylvia Garcia to distribute supplies and help amplify needs & solutions,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Friday morning.

Earlier in the week, Ocasio-Cortez sent out fundraising appeals to her massive campaign donor network and her nearly 13 million social media followers.

“Please chip in what you can afford today and 100% of your donation will automatically be split between these organizations on the ground providing immediate relief,” the fundraising pitch said.

Those organizations include the Houston Food Bank, the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, The Bridge Homeless Recovery Center, Family Eldercare, Feeding Texas, Corazon Ministries, Central Texas Food Bank, North Texas Food Bank and Food Bank of the Rio Grande Valley.

Very nice. Also of note:

Astros third baseman Alex Bregman and his wife, Reagan, are partnering with the Astros Foundation and Brothers Produce to distribute 18,000 cases of water on Saturday at the Astros Youth Academy.

The event will be a drive-through and a limit of two cases of water per car is in place. Distribution will begin at 9 a.m. and last until cases run out.

The Astros Youth Academy is located at 2801 S. Victory Drive.

Also very nice. And one more:

My point here is that one of the defenses of Ted Cruz that was put forth by various sycophants is that he’s just a plain ol’ US Senator, he doesn’t actually do anything, so why shouldn’t he go off to Cancun for a couple of days while everyone else is freezing in the dark with no potable water? He’s useless and impotent, and no one will miss him. I mean, they’re not wrong in their characterization of Ted Cruz, but they are definitely wrong about the potential for good that someone who is not at all like Ted Cruz can do. You don’t even have to be a public servant to do good, you just have to want to do good and find a way to do it. It’s not that hard, if you’re not like Ted Cruz.

UPDATE: Okay, I stand corrected. Ted Cruz can be good for something after all.

Country music artist Kacey Musgraves is trying to channel the anger over Sen. Ted Cruz’s widely criticized Cancun jaunt into relief for his constituents suffering through Texas’ snowmageddon.

The Lone Star State-based singer is selling a T-shirt on her website to raise money for those affected by the freeze while letting purchasers proudly proclaim just how they feel about the state’s widely reviled junior senator.

The tee is a white ringer with the phrase “Cruzin’ for a bruzin’” printed in bold black letters on the front.

“Regardless if you support him, you gotta admit Cancun was a bad look and that this is funny AF,” Musgraves wrote in an Instagram post revealing the design. “I’m HALFWAY to raising $100k for Texans who really need it. All proceeds are being donated.”

They are on sale through tomorrow, so buy one quickly, while they last.

Give Pancho Claus a hand

Tis the season.

He doesn’t come the night before Christmas in a miniature sleigh with reindeer like St. Nick, but instead parades along city streets with an equally number of low-riders, often surrounded by a festive jazz band.

“To the top of the roof, the lowriders flew, with a bag full of toys, and Pancho Claus too,” Richard Reyes likes to recite when he introduces the Christmas character he brought to the Bayou City almost 40 years ago.

A Houstonian Santa unlike any other, dressed in a bright red and black zoot suit with a fedora, Pancho Claus has helped thousands of disadvantaged children to feel the joy of Christmas, bringing gifts and throwing colorful seasonal parties that their low-income parents could not afford.

Now, after decades of giving, this Latino “Papá Noel” lost financial sponsors and the support of the institution of which he was one of the founders, Talento Bilingüe de Houston, sparking a community effort to save Pancho Claus. An online fundraiser via GoFundMe.com has been established, as well as an effort to create an independent nonprofit to keep the holiday tradition alive, and other programs with children that he carries out throughout the year.

“We lost our sponsors, but we don’t blame them because the (coronavirus) pandemic is affecting everybody,” said Reyes. “I’ve always said that we have our community, and this year, our community will be our sponsor.”

[…]

Pancho Claus is now operating at the Latino Learning Center, another nonprofit east of downtown that agreed to provide temporary space to store materials and prepare gift boxes. No shows or city events are planned because of the pandemic, and instead Pancho Claus will distribute gifts in a drive-thru format. More information will be posted at www.panchoclaus.com.

See here for my last Pancho Claus update, and here for the GoFundMe link. If you’re looking for a good place to give a few bucks this holiday season, you’d do well to help Pancho Claus out.

Will we have redistricting hearings?

Not looking great for it right now.

In the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas Republicans have quietly halted plans to hold a series of public input hearings across more than 20 cities, slated to occur earlier this year, to collect public testimonials from Texans about redistricting. These testimonials would be a critical tool to help group communities which share common social and economic interests, voting patterns, and local preferences as new district maps are being drawn.

A coalition of 42 advocacy groups have taken notice of this indefinite stoppage and are demanding for the resumption of public hearings on redistricting in a safe and accessible format.

[…]

In an effort to remedy urgent concerns about the lack of preclearance and increase transparency in the upcoming 2020 redistricting process, Texas lawmakers planned for a series of public input hearings earlier this year, led by the House and Senate Redistricting Committees. Both committees are led by Republicans, Rep. Phil King and Sen. Joan Huffman, respectively.

The House and Senate originally planned for a limited public hearing schedule, however, the Texas Civil Rights Project built a coalition of groups to successfully agitate for the geographic expansion of these public hearings to reach across every corner of the state, from Austin and Houston to Amarillo and Weslaco. Then, COVID-19 swept across the state.

Because state leadership prematurely opened the state and failed to enact safety measures to control the pandemic, COVID-19 cases have skyrocketed to nearly 600,000 infections and have claimed nearly 11,000 lives, disproportionately killing Black and Latinx Texans. South Texas communities along the U.S.-Mexico border have the highest infection rates across the entire nation.

Due to the pandemic, public hearings for redistricting were indefinitely postponed in March. However, in the past four months since, the legislature has failed to provide a plan to resume the hearings with a modified schedule or different format.

The Texas Civil Rights Project argues that resuming this process to hear from Texans and receive community input is both urgent and vital to avoid further suppression and the dilution of voting power of Black and Brown communities.

You can see a copy of the letter and who signed it, along with a list of the cities where hearings had been tentatively scheduled, here. I attended one of these for the 2011 reapportionment, and there was a lot of interesting information that was presented, with several members of the public having useful things to say. The point of these hearings is to give the public a chance to understand what the data looks like and how any proposed new maps may affect their communities, while also giving the committee members a chance to hear about concerns and issues that they might not otherwise know about. It’s the least they can do, in my opinion, and even with a pandemic there needs to be a way to bring this opportunity to the people. Zoom meetings have their pros and cons, but they could certainly be used here, and would allow for people not in any of those 20 cities to attend without having to travel. Something is better than nothing, and right now nothing is what we have.

NBA agrees to offer its arenas as voting centers

Nice.

“What was the plan?” was always the wrong question to ask of striking NBA players; what they wanted was to not play basketball, and they got it. But they used that time not playing to talk, to think and to make their voices heard.

But the players did get a significant commitment from their bosses: turning as many NBA arenas as possible into voting sites for November.

The league and union announced Friday that the playoffs will resume Saturday. That announcement included a concrete promise from the league. Every team-owned arena will turn into a polling place for the November election in locations where that’s still legally possible in order for voters to have a large, COVID-safe place to vote in person.

Three teams had already committed to this earlier in the summer — Bucks, Pistons and Hawks — and the Rockets made the announcement on Thursday.

Chris Paul, the Thunder point guard and longtime union president, gave an emotional interview to bubble media after the announcement.

“In 15 years in the league, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Paul said. “Everyone expects us to go out and play. I get it. But we needed some time,” he said, adding that he had spoken to Jacob Blake’s father.

We knew about the Toyota Center. I had not been aware of the other three arenas, which was apparently something that happened in early July. Here’s some more details about what this announcement means:

On Friday, the NBA and NBPA announced a three-point plan to promote social justice and racial equality, which includes converting NBA arenas into voting centers for the 2020 presidential election. The NBA playoffs will resume on Saturday in Orlando.

“1. The NBA and its players have agreed to immediately establish a social justice coalition, with representatives from players, coaches and governors, that will be focused on a broad range of issues, including increasing access to voting, promoting civic engagement, and advocating for meaningful police and criminal justice reform.

2. In every city where the league franchise owns and controls the arena property, team governors will continue to work with local election officials to convert the facility into a voting location for the 2020 general election to allow for a safe in-person voting option for communities vulnerable to COVID. If a deadline has passed, team governors will work with local elections officials to find another election-related use for the facility, including but not limited to voter registration and ballot receiving boards.

3. The league will work with the players and our network partners to create and include advertising spots in each NBA playoff game dedicated to promoting greater civic engagement in national and local elections and raising awareness around voter access and opportunity.”

In theory, that could mean voting centers in battleground states like Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Arizona in addition the four that are already signed on. Maybe Dallas and San Antonio will join in as well. How many of these actually happen, and what kind of response the players will have if they feel the effort fell short for whatever the reason, remains to be seen. But in terms of direct action resulting from the wildcat strike the players engineered this past week, it’s pretty impressive. Well done.

(A more recent article than the NPR story I linked above suggests some other NBA teams, as well as teams in the NFL, NHL, and MLB, are taking similar action to allow their stadia to be used for voting. Not clear to me what relation these two efforts have. For sure, there are plenty of stadia, including hundreds of college stadia and arenas, that could also be used in this capacity, in all 50 states. It would be nice to say we’re just limited by our imagination, but of course we are very much limited by the ferocious opposition to this idea that those who don’t want to make voting easy and convenient would bring. What the NBA players have done is a great start. There’s a lot more that could and should be done.)

Interview with Sherrie Matula of Sisters United Alliance

Sherrie Matula is a longtime Democratic activist (she was a founder of the BAAD Women club) and two-time candidate (for HD129 in 2008, and for HCDE in Precinct 2 in 2016, which she lost by 0.2 percentage points), but that’s not the reason I’m interviewing her. I’m interviewing her because she’s the founder and President of Sisters United Alliance, a small data-driven effort to turn out Democratic-aligned women voters in Texas. Beginning in 2016 and focusing in that election on Harris County, SUA identified 89,000 low-propensity women who were already registered to vote and contacted them by mail and by phone to encourage them to vote for Democratic candidates. Forty-three percent, or 39K of those 89K women they targeted, did cast a vote. They followed that up in 2018 with a larger focus that included Fort Bend, Galveston, Brazoria, and Montgomery Counties plus four small counties between Houston and Austin, and had similar results.

Sisters United has expanded their reach again for 2020, and it’s an effort that deserves more attention. SUA is aiming at precisely the kind of voters that campaigns tend to overlook, and they have been successful at getting them to vote. You can see their numbers from 2018 here and their 2020 universe here, and you can visit their website to learn more here. We all know what’s at stake in this election. Sisters United is doing the kind of work that’s needed to make victory possible. Give a listen to hear what they’re about:

If you like what you hear and want to help, go here to donate to Sisters United Alliance.

Let’s talk “meaningful reform”

Chief Acevedo brought it up, so let’s go there.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo’s voice cracked several times and his eyes welled as he railed against the death of George Floyd beneath a policeman’s knee and implored protesters to demonstrate peacefully with him.

“I will not allow anyone to tear down this city, because this is our city,” Acevedo shouted on Sunday to the group of mostly black Houstonians surrounding him at one of many protests in the wake of video showing Floyd’s fatal encounter with police in Minneapolis. “Pay close attention! Because these little white guys with their skateboards are the ones starting all the s–t.”

Video of Acevedo’s profanity-laced remarks went viral and, along with his other blunt statements this week, won the chief acclaim from those outraged by the death of Floyd, a former Third Ward resident.

It has also drawn anger from those who say Acevedo has failed to address the very things he’s condemning at home. His calls for police to be more transparent and enact “meaningful reform” have refocused attention on a series of fatal shootings by his own officers, and his refusal to release body camera video of the incidents.

“We’re looking at him say one thing on camera, but locally, we know different,” said Dav Lewis, a local activist who was friends with Adrian Medearis, one of the men who died in the spate of shootings. “We know different locally. We have not seen police accountability.”

The chief has also resisted calls to release the results of an audit of his narcotics division, rocked last year by one of its worst scandals in decades, and he has downplayed calls to bolster the city’s Independent Police Oversight Board, long criticized as a “toothless watchdog” group.

“While these are great photo ops, and maybe the chief has political aspirations, and this is all warm and fuzzy kind of stuff he’s doing, it’s time for some action,” said Mark Thiessen, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association.

[…]

Protesters intensified their calls on Tuesday for Acevedo to make the videos public. Mayor Sylvester Turner’s remarks at City Hall were punctuated by several people chanting “release the tapes,” and hours later Acevedo was directly confronted by a group of critical protesters at the downtown park Discovery Green.

Some lawmakers questioned Acevedo’s rationale for not releasing the body camera video.

“It is not law enforcement’s job to worry about prosecution,” said state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston. “It’s their job to be law enforcement.”

Wu, a former prosecutor who has called on Acevedo previously to release his audit, said Acevedo’s attitude “does more of a disservice to taint the public’s perception than anything else.”

“Right now you have the general public believing the police hide things,” Wu said. “When other cities during this crisis have shown they can release body cams immediately — that they can fire and discipline officers immediately — the fact we can’t get videos released months, sometimes even years later, is very telling.”

There’s more, and you should read the rest. On balance, I think Art Acevedo has been a pretty good Chief of Police. It’s not at all hard to imagine someone worse in his position – the current Chief of Police in Austin, for example. I also think that some of these reform ideas should be taken out of his discretion and mandated by the appropriate governing body. For releasing body camera footage and just generally being more transparent about it, that could be the Legislature or it could be City Council. Point being, the less room he or any Chief has to stall on releasing said footage, the less time we have to have this debate about transparency.

There are plenty of other things that can be done, at all levels of government, with the local stuff having the greatest potential for swift adoption. Tarsha Jackson, formerly with the Texas Organizing Project and now on hold in the City Council District B runoff, recommended several changes to the police union contract. CM Letitia Plummer, thankfully recovering from COVID-19, has proposed a budget amendment that would:

-Require officers exhaust all reasonable means before shooting
-Ban chokeholds and strangle holds
-Require de-escalation
-Require officers give verbal warning before shooting
-Notify Independent Police Oversight Board when death occurs
-Give IPOB subpoena power

It would also redirect funds currently allocated for a police cadet class as follows:

$2M, fund separate IPOB investigations
$1M, build online portal for residents to report misconduct
$3M, police training
$2M, permanent revolving fund for the Office of Business Opportunity, no-interest loans to minority-owned biz
$2M, enhance Health Dept’s Community Re-Entry Network Program
$500k, enhance Health Dept’s My Brother’s Keeper program
$1M, equipment and implementation of a “CAHOOTS” program (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets)

The point of that last item is to redirect a class of 911 calls that now go to law enforcement to this Crisis Assistance program, so the police can handle higher priority calls. Look at the photos she embedded in this Facebook post (specifically, this and this) to get a better feel for this. The city of Eugene, Oregon has used a program like this successfully since 1989. I strongly suspect most police officers would be happy to not have to respond to these kinds of calls for the most part going forward.

Stace adds recommendations from 8CantWait, which largely overlap the items noted by CM Plummer and Tarsha Jackson. Again, these are things that could be done now, if we wanted to. If there’s something you want to do in this direction, call Mayor Turner’s office and your district Council member along with the At Large members in support of these proposals. There are many ways to make noise.

There’s still more. Looking at the federal level, Sherrilyn Ifill and a triumvirate at The Atlantic have a list of action items for Congress, including an end (or at least a serious cutback) to qualified immunity, national data collection and tracking of police conduct and use of force, stronger enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and more. Ifill notes that “Currently, officers fired for misconduct and brutality against innocent civilians can be hired by other departments”. This will sound depressingly familiar to anyone who remembers the story of Tulia.

I personally would add: Decriminalization of marijuana and a complete shift of focus on other drug offenses from arrest and incarceration to treatment; Expanding Medicaid, which as I have said a gazillion times before will do so much to provide mental health services to countless Texans; Really attacking the homelessness problem by funding housing for the homeless and raising the minimum wage so that more people can afford housing in the first place; and repealing SB4, the odious “show me your papers” law. I believe these things will drastically reduce the interactions that ordinary people – overwhelmingly people of color – have with the police and the criminal justice system.

None of these things are panaceas, and none of them directly address systemic racism – I will defer on that to those who can speak more directly from their own experience – but I do believe all of them will have the effect of reducing harm to the black and brown people who have always received the brunt of the violence that comes from encounters with the police. Again, much of this is doable right now. Clearly, some other items will require winning more elections, in Texas and around the country, but we can still get started on what can be done now. If Chief Acevedo wants to come out in support of any or all of these things, that would be nice, too. Whether he does or he doesn’t, we can make them happen anyway.

The George Floyd March

Impressive.

Sixty thousand people joined the family of George Floyd as well as elected officials and religious leaders today in a peaceful Houston march from Discovery Green to City Hall organized by rappers and civic activists Trae tha Truth, Bun B, and Floyd’s nephew Brandon Williams.

Floyd, 46, a native Houstonian from the Third Ward, died in handcuffs last week after then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin, who was fired immediately after the incident was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter four days later.

It was released Monday that both a private autopsy done by Dr. Michael Boden and Dr. Allecia Wilson hired by Floyd’s family as well as the Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Floyd’s death a homicide though both reports differed on cause of death. The medical examiner ruled it was heart failure, while the private autopsy ruled asphyxiation. Both reports agreed Floyd died on site, and not later in an ambulance.

The march began and ended with a prayer as well as Floyd’s family’s wishes that the day remain peaceful—and it did. It is reported that prior to the march the Houston Police Department removed bricks and artillery that had been stashed around downtown and a Houston Alert asked everyone to be on the lookout for suspicious activity.

A family member of Floyd spoke deliberately stating, “This is our home, we will find justice on the streets of Houston, we are going to march in peace and show the nation, show the world what George Floyd is all about.” She thanked Bun B and Trae tha Truth for helping to organize the event.

Although this was not a city-sponsored march, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner turned out and addressed the crowd, once again applauding them for standing up for George Floyd and the need for change, but again warning that violent actions undermined their cause.

I assume the Chronicle will have a full story on this, but as of when I wrote this post, what they had was a liveblog of the event, which you have to read from the bottom up. The question that always accompanies mass protests is what actions should come of it? Tarsha Jackson, who is still awaiting a court ruling to allow the runoff in City Council District B to proceed, posted on Facebook nine specific items to address in the city’s collective bargaining agreement with the police union. Seems to me that if you believe the problem is mostly “a few bad apples”, then you should want to make it easier to pluck those apples out of the barrel, or at least make it so they have a harder time advancing in their career. These ideas have been out there since 2018. Do we have the will to fight for them?

Three other things. One, you can make a contribution to support bail funds around the country here. Two, William Barr needs to be arrested at the first opportunity. And three, our two US Senators really suck. You can do something about one of them this November.

Abbott issues disaster declaration following protests

Where we are now.

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Sunday afternoon that the entire state of Texas will be placed under a disaster declaration in response to demonstrators in several Texas cities protesting the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed Monday in Minneapolis police custody.

The declaration allowed Abbott to designate federal law enforcement officers to perform the duties of peace officers in Texas.

Thousands of protesters marched in Texas cities on Friday and Saturday, outraged after Floyd was filmed crying out for help as a white police officer pinned him to the ground with a knee to his neck. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was later arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.

“Every Texan and every American has the right to protest and I encourage all Texans to exercise their First Amendment rights,” Abbott said in a statement. “However, violence against others and the destruction of property is unacceptable and counterproductive.”

His announcement comes a day after he activated the Texas National Guard “in response to protest violence” across the state. In several of the state’s large metropolitan areas — including Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio — protesters clashed with police who sometimes used rubber bullets and tear gas.

Abbott also sent state resources to Houston, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio on Saturday afternoon and said he’s spoken to the mayors of all four cities, as well as law enforcement officials. He said Sunday that he also increased those resources for cities throughout Texas and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has deployed tactical teams to assist state and local law enforcement.

[…]

Prior to Abbott’s announcement, several Texas cities took measures into their own hands. On Saturday evening, the mayor of San Antonio imposed a curfew as a result of escalating tensions due to the protests.

In Dallas, where officials defended the use of tear gas at protests for Floyd, Dallas Police Chief Reneé Hall said Sunday afternoon that a 7 p.m. curfew will go into effect Sunday and end at 6 a.m. “for the next several days,” The Dallas Morning News reported. In Austin, meanwhile, organizers canceled a protest planned for Sunday afternoon out of fear that “white agitators and other agitators of color” would co-opt the event and put black Texans in harm’s way.

The single best thing that can happen right now is for law enforcement agencies around the country to stand down and stop being violent themselves. After that we’ll see, but people have been pushing for moderate and incremental police reforms for a long time now with little success. What are people supposed to do now?

Justice for George Floyd

I stand with the people who are rightfully demanding justice for George Floyd and the many many (far too many) other black men and women like George Lloyd who have been killed by police officers. I join those in being shocked and disappointed (though sadly not surprised) at how different the police response to these protests were to the armed idiots that stormed and terrorized the Michigan legislature a couple of weeks ago because they couldn’t get a haircut or go to the mall. I fear the next wave of armed idiots who are now showing up at protests to wreak havoc, destroy property, and in their wildest dreams incite racial violence. I am thankful that our police chief recognizes this. I will do everything I can to elect a President – and a Senate, and a Congress, and a Legislature – whose first instinct in these times is to work to make things better, and not worse. I will listen to and follow the people who have been leading on this issue for years. I hope you will join me in this.

Bad bill alert: SB9

We’re a bit more than two weeks out from the end of this legislative session. It feels like it’s been pretty quiet, but perhaps that’s just in comparison to the last session when it was a nonstop fight over the bathroom bill. I’m not going to say this has been a good session, but it hasn’t stood out as a terrible one yet, which again may just be a comment on other recent Leges than a statement about this one. Be that as it may, we are at the point where bills can be killed by virtue of the constrained calendar that remains. The Texas House LGBTQ Caucus knocked off one bad bill recently, and now the time comes to go after another. Progress Texas explains.

After historic voter turnout in the 2018 midterms, Republicans started to get a little nervous. Too many new voters spell a disaster for the GOP that has long been out of touch with everyday Texans, so Republicans in the legislature got to work to prevent our fellow Texans from voting.

The “Slow Down the Vote” bill, known as SB 9, proposes a long list of changes to state voter laws, some of which could make access to the polls more difficult for our friends and neighbors. We need lawmakers to protect the fundamental right of every eligible citizen to vote and create an election system that works for all Texans.

Here’s everything you need to be up to date on the Republican voter suppression scheme:

Act Now: Stand up for Fair Elections: Say NO to the “Slow Down the Vote” Bill

Blogs:

There are some videos at that Progress Texas link with some good discussion about SB9, so click over to see them. This link provides the details of what SB9 would do.

The “Slow Down the Vote” bill, known as SB 9, proposes a long list of changes to state voter laws, some of which could make access to the polls more difficult for our friends and neighbors. Some of the items include:

Require people giving rides to the polls to sign sworn affidavits

Make it harder for people with disabilities to receive assistance at polls

Make it harder for some people to vote by mail

Take away the safe harbor to cast a provisional ballot

Allow registrars to reject voter registrations if any item is left blank

Allow campaigns to observe voters who require assistance

Allow the currently indicted Attorney General direct access to the state voter registration database

Allow the Secretary of State to share voter Social Security numbers with other states and jurisdictions

Create a mandate that countywide polling places be located within 3 miles of every registered voter, but only for the five most populous counties

We’ve previously written on the dangers of this bill, as have our friends at the Texas Civil Rights Project. The bill passed the Texas Senate in March and is on its way to the House.

The Current also had a story about an anti-SB9 rally at the Capitol. The good news here is that it’s just now getting a committee hearing in the House, which is scheduled for Wednesday, May 15, at 8 AM. That brings tactics like delays and points of order into play, with the goal of running out the clock before this thing can get a vote on the House floor. You can show up to testify against this bill – you should register as a witness beforehand. You can also call your own representative and urge him or her to oppose SB9. If you’ve been looking for a chance to Do Something this session, here it is.

“Families Belong Together”

Make some noise, then make sure everyone you know gets out and votes.

As the temperature inched to the triple digits and sweating crowds swarmed the south lawn of the Texas State Capitol, speakers declared with grief, hope, indignation and determination that the Trump administration’s immigration policies do not reflect their values.

Parents brought their children. Grandparents brought their grandchildren. College friends and church groups all stood and cheered as, one after another, immigrants, activists, doctors and religious leaders took to the stage and called for the unification of the thousands of immigrant children who were separated from their parents by the federal government when crossing into the United States. The “Families Belong Together” rally in Austin was just one of many held across the state and nation, from Houston and El Paso to Washington, D.C. and New York to Dodge City, Kansas and Missoula, Montana.

“While our president and his supporters have sought to divide us, we are here in defiance,” said Michelle Castillo of the Children’s Defense Fund of Texas, to a cheering crowd of thousands in Austin. “To see each other’s humanity. Across race, across party lines.”

[…]

Bishop Joel Martinez of the United Methodist Church told the crowd he was hopeful seeing so many people in attendance. But, he said, nothing will get accomplished unless they go out and vote.

“Those who legislate and govern must answer at the polls for their acts,” he said.

That’s exactly right, and we cannot forget it. As a child of the 70s and 80s, I grew up on horror stories about life on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain. So many times we were told about the horrible things that those repressive totalitarian governments did to the people who lived there. Well, the things we’re hearing right now, in our own country, about children being taken by force and deception, parents being told they can only get them back if they agree to be deported, preschoolers appearing by themselves in court – all of them would have been totally plausible if they’d been told about the Soviet Union by Ronald Reagan. I can’t adequately express what a fucking disgrace, embarrassment, travesty this is.

So get angry. Get inspired by the pictures of the protesters. And get fired up to vote in November. ThinkProgress and Daily Kos have more.

You got something to say about the Harris County bond referendum?

You’ll get a chance to say it.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett on Wednesday announced a series of public meetings to seek input from residents on an estimated $2.5 billion flood infrastructure bond that commissioners plan to put before voters on the anniversary of Hurricane Harvey in August.

“On August 25, the voters of Harris County will make one of the most important decisions, I think, in our history,” Emmett said.

Throughout June, July and August, the county will hold public meetings on the bond in each of the county’s 23 watersheds.

[…]

Flanked by Harris County Flood Control District head Russ Poppe, Emmett said the $2.5 billion sum is a ballpark figure, and projects may be added or subtracted before commissioners decide on a final amount on June 12.

Emmett said the county intends to publish a list of planned projects by the first week of August, when early voting on the bond begins.

An initial list of possible projects and information about the community meetings can be found at www.hcfcd.org/bondprogram.

See here for the background, and here for a list of the meetings that have been scheduled so far. There’s one for each watershed, though as you can see most are not yet on the calendar. There’s a lot we need to know about this, and just two months before we start voting on it, so find a meeting near you, learn what you can, and ask questions. We all need to know what we’re voting on.

Houston Youth Walkout

Good work, y’all.

Chanting for gun-law reform and reduced firearm violence, an estimated 2,000-plus students marched to City Hall Friday morning as part of nationwide school walkouts.

The Houston Youth Walkout, believed to be the largest local out-of-class gathering to mark the April 20 protests, attracted students from across the region for a 1.2-mile march. They joined thousands of students from Greater Houston who demonstrated at their schools Friday morning, advocating for changes to gun laws and honoring victims of gun violence.

“To see so many students from different high schools come together brought tears to my eyes,” said Elena Margolin, a march organizer and senior at Houston ISD’s High School For The Performing And Visual Arts. “We realize we’re all in it together and all fighting for the same cause.”

School districts across the area prepared for demonstrations Friday, with many campus principals coordinating plans with students. They sought to balance free-speech rights with student safety and orderly continuation of classes.

Several demonstrations remained indoors, with students leading assemblies or rallies in gymnasiums, while others stayed confined to school grounds.

In recent days, students and campus principals across the region have been coordinating walkout events, as school districts try to minmize disruptions and safety concerns associated with walkouts. Several districts said they had empowered principals to allow events on campus grounds, encouraging them to speak with student organizers in advance.

See here for the group’s webpage, and here for their Instagram feed. There were similar events elsewhere in the state – see the Trib and the Rivard Report for other stories. April 20 was the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre, in case you were wondering what significance there was to the date. I appreciate the approach that school administrators took to this – no one appears to have overreacted in some ridiculous way – and hope that’s a model for events like this going forward. Next up, registering and voting for candidates that will listen to what these students are saying, and against those who won’t. Keep it going, kids.

Scenes from the March For Our Lives

From Houston:

Nearly 15,000 descended Saturday morning on downtown Houston for the city’s March For Our Lives, advocating for greater gun control in light of last month’s Florida school shooting.

A mix of children and adults gathered in Houston’s Tranquility Park for the student-led march, many carrying signs that illustrated their fear of violence and demand for legislative action.

“I didn’t know what to expect here today, but I just expect change in the government,” said Austin Luchak, a ninth-grader at The Woodlands College Park High School who attended the march with his father. “I hope they follow through.”

Hundreds of marches are taking place across the country, largely driven by students who are organizing the events. The rally in Washington included Texans like Kay Hopper, a retiree from Austin who showed up with her daughter, son-in-law and grandchild. “I’m hoping that what starts here will change the world in Texas,” Hopper said.

[…]

In Houston, organizers expected 10,000 to 20,000 attendees to gather in Tranquility Park and march toward U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz’s office.

“Today, I hope our voices are heard, because we are the ones that go to school,” said Azariah Haro, a junior from Langham Creek High School in Cy-Fair ISD, who traveled to Saturday’s event with three friends. “I really hope we’re able to make a change.”

As protesters milled about shortly before the 9 a.m. start, volunteers worked to register young voters inspired into political action. Many brought signs voicing opposition to the National Rifle Association, while others implored replacing legislators who have been more supportive of expanded gun rights.

Emphasis mine. I’ll get back to that in a minute. Mayor Turner spoke at the rally, and he announced the creation of the Mayor’s Commission to End Gun Violence. Details will be forthcoming. In the meantime, there were rallies around the state as well.

In more than 800 planned “March for Our Lives” events across the country – including in Austin, Houston and Dallas – students and families protested against gun violence and called on lawmakers to take decisive action.

Thousands clogged Austin’s Congress Ave and gathered outside the pink-domed Capitol building, chanting and applauding as speakers – including Mayor Steve Adler, actor Matthew McConaughey and the local high school students organizers of the event – took their turns rallying the crowd.

“We cannot allow one more child to be shot at school. We cannot allow one more teacher to make the choice to jump in front of an assault rifle,” said state Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin. “Not one more.” The crowd broke into chants of “Not one more!” as he spoke.

Many of the speakers at the Austin event pointedly described state lawmakers’ dithering on gun-control laws, and called for reforms – like a ban on assault-style weapons and bolstering the background-check process.

“Now there is not one solution that will prevent mass shootings,” Adler, the mayor, said at one point, “but there are common sense solutions most people can agree upon.” He suggested people on airlines’ “no-fly” lists should be banned from purchasing guns, and said, “if you can’t buy a gun in a gun store, you shouldn’t be able to buy a gun at a gun show.”

Watson dismissed a push to arm school staff and educators with weapons by saying teachers in the state are already-overburdened. “Adding sharpshooter to their list of obligations is ridiculous,” he said.

There were many more marches around the country and around the world as well. These are great to see, but what comes next is of greater importance. There is – correctly – a lot of focus on Congress, as there is a lot that can and should be done at the federal level to reform gun laws. Part of the reason for that is because Democrats have a decent chance of retaking the House, and even if they can’t get the Senate this year, it along with the Presidency are very doable in 2020.

It’s a much bigger challenge at the state level – the Lege isn’t flipping, and statewide offices are very much longshots. But we can make gains, and we can state our goals for state government, which if nothing else can serve as both vision and rallying cry. Right now, though, I don’t know what those goals are – I’m not even sure I could say what they should be. We’re pretty clear on things like education, health care, equality, the environment, and criminal justice, but gun issues have not been in the foreground except for when we have had to play defense. Someone asked me recently if I could point them to a legislative scorecard for gun control, and the only one either of us could find was from the NRA. There are local chapters here of national groups like Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action, but again that focus has been on the national scene. We know that if we want to change things in Texas we need to win more elections, but we need the candidates we are electing to have gun safety as one of their mandates. What is it we hope to accomplish on this issue in the Legislature in 2019? That needs to be our starting point.

March For Our Lives rally

On Saturday, March 24, community members from Houston will gather for a “sibling march” as part of the March for Our Lives movement. The march is one of hundreds happening around the country planned by students and survivors of gun violence in communities big and small, in all 50 states. The national day of action will focus on calling for lawmakers to make students’ lives and safety a priority and to pass common-sense gun safety legislation. The March will take place on Saturday, March 24th at Tranquility Park in downtown Houston starting at 9 AM. To RSVP please text March to 644-33 or go on to the Facebook invite to tell organizers you’re coming.

I don’t have to tell you that Texas is a pretty cordial state for gun ownership. The Republican-controlled Legislature has been working to make it more so in recent years, thanks to open carry and campus carry laws. There are quite a few legislators who think we haven’t gone nearly far enough, too. Their endgame is the bizarrely-named “constitutional carry”, in which there are basically no restrictions on ownership or limits on where you can bring your guns. You want to fight back against that, this is a good place to start. It is just a starting place, though, because the ultimate goal is to elect more people who agree that gun ownership and possession can and should be subject to reasonable and rational limits. Some come out to Tranquility Park on Saturday – and be sure to RSVP to the event, so organizers know how many people to expect – and stay engaged and active afterwards. You can live in the world you want, or you can live in the world we have now. The difference between the two is what you make of it.

Action alert: Rally at Culberson’s office for a clean DREAM Act

From the inbox:

Mothers, children, and other allies will gather in front of John Culberson’s office to demand a Clean DREAM Act this Thursday at 4 PM. The gathering will feature remarks from children of mixed status parents and mothers who are enraged at government support for tearing apart families in our communities.

In spite of the fact that 76% of the American people support a clean DREAM Act- as does the majority of Congress- our Houston area congressional representatives such as John Culberson continue to cater to extremists and the White House instead of doing what is right.

We say ENOUGH.

Moms, children, and other community allies are ENRAGED.

Join us this Thursday, February 22 nd at 4 PM, at John Culberson’s office located at 10000 Memorial Dr. to DEMAND a Clean DREAM Act NOW. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey and so many other challenges, when so many have lost their homes and their belongings, and some have lost loved ones, our reps MUST not only bring actual support for those who are hurting but also STOP the anti-family agenda that endangers our friends and neighbors.

#CleanDREAMActNow

Who: Indivisible Houston, Pantsuit Republic Houston
What: Solidarity Action
When: Thursday, February 22, 2018, 4 PM-5:30PM
Where: John Culberson’s Houston Office, 10000 Memorial Dr.

There’s a Facebook event for this here, and here’s a map for the location. Go vote and go rally, you’ll be glad you did.

Public meetings for Texas Central draft EIS

You got something you want to say about the proposed high speed rail line and its possible routes, here’s your chance.

Houston residents are being asked to weigh in on a plan to build a $12 billion high-speed train between the city and Dallas.

The meeting is set for Feb. 5 and will be coordinated by the Federal Railroad Administration, which must approve plans for the Texas Bullet Train.

[…]

Texas Central, which has support from Houston and Dallas city officials, said the line would stop south of downtown Dallas and then in Houston, near Loop 610 and U.S. 290, the Houston Chronicle’s Dug Begley reported.

Relevant info about the meetings is here. The schedule for meetings near us in Houston is as follows:

Madison County – Monday, February 5, 2018, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Truman Kimbro Convention Center, 111 W Trinity St, Madisonville, TX 77864

Harris County – Monday, February 5, 2018, 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Woodard Elementary School, 17501 Cypress North Houston Rd, Cypress, TX 77433

Grimes County – Tuesday, February 6, 2018, 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Navasota Junior High, 9038 Highway 90 South, Navasota, TX 77868

Waller County – Tuesday, February 6, 2018, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Waller High School, 20950 Fields Store Rd, Waller, TX 77484

You can also provide feedback or sign up to receive updates on the project from the Federal Railroad Administration here. As a reminder, there are three possible locations for the Houston terminal, and one of the goals of the DEIS project is to pick a winner from those three. So speak now or forever hold your peace.

Rally against the GOP tax scam

Are you upset about the terrible tax giveaway passed by the Senate last week? (If you aren’t, you should be.) Here’s one action you can take to channel those feelings.

Rally Against Robbery! The People Fight the Tax Scam.
Hosted by Indivisible Houston and Tax March – Houston.

Wednesday at 6 PM – 8 PM
Houston City Hall
901 Bagby St, Houston, Texas 77002

The #GOPTaxScam just robbed The People right in front of the watchful eyes of the world. By ramming a partisan package full of anti-poor provisions down the collective throats of the masses, 45 and his gang of congressional thugs have declared war on hardworking taxpayers and every single person who makes up the American social fabric, and we have had ENOUGH.

Join us to fight back as Congress seeks to reconcile its dueling versions of robbery and deliver a giftwrapped heist to mega-corporations on the backs of working class and middle class families, just in time for Christmas.
The Rally Against Robbery will include an extension of The People’s Filibuster, an auctioning off of each of our individual Houston area Congressional reps to finance the programs they have attempted to cut, and a united front against the worst legislation to hit reconciliation committees in decades.

Join if you can, but whether you can or you can’t, remember that the bill hasn’t received final passage yet. There’s still a need to fight, which means a need to call your Congressperson and Senators and tell them what you think of this abomination. And then of course vote out all of ’em who supported it.

It’s about the domestic violence

You want to do something to reduce gun violence, here’s the place to start.

Domestic violence cases have risen sharply across the state, with more than 210,000 wives, girlfriends, husbands and others suffering death or injury at the hands of a family member in the past two years. More than 550 wives or girlfriends were killed by a domestic partner between 2012 and 2016, according to state figures.

“We continue to underestimate the reach and devastation of domestic violence,” said Gloria Aguilera Terry, chief executive of the Texas Council on Family Violence. “Domestic violence thrives in the silence and obliviousness we give it. Only when we confront the very conditions which allow domestic violence to exist will our homes, public spaces and places of worship be truly safe.”

[…]

Despite law enforcement’s best efforts to curb the violence, the deaths continue unabated. The Harris County Institute of Forensic Science recorded 229 domestic violence homicides from 2010 to 2016, or an average of 31 homicides a year.

Of those, at least 22 – about 10 percent – were relatives of the main victim.

Amanda Johnson, with the Dallas chapter of Moms Demand Action for Guns Sense in America, said the shooting underscores the need for smarter gun laws.

“People violent enough to be violent enough with their own children and spouses are also violent enough to commit mass murder,” she said. “When they have easy access to these weapons, it’s a really deadly combination.”

She and other advocates hope the Sutherland Springs shooting will spark a national dialogue, particularly with the daily abuse many women face that doesn’t draw the same scrutiny as a mass shooting.

“Up until now, the media would lose interest in a shooting once they found out it was a domestic violence incident and not a ‘real’ crime,” Johnson said. “Sutherland Springs is a game-changer.”

Sherri Kendall, CEO of Aid to Victims of Domestic Violence, said approximately 1 in 4 women experiences domestic violence at one point or another.

“While we are seeing a number of multiple homicides with domestic violence in the timeline, it is happening all the time,” she said. “We have to learn something from it. When this story is over we have to continue to be vigilant in our communities to make sure there are services for survivors and for perpetrators.”

The Sutherland Springs shooting highlighted the need to ensure domestic abusers can’t possess firearms, advocates said.

“This man had a history of abuse, and he should not have had access to a firearm, and we are advocating for stricter gun laws when it comes to being the hands of convicted abusers,” said Chau Nguyen, chief marketing officer at the Houston Area Women’s Center. “If we don’t take action, we’re going to see this as a recurring reality in our lives – and we know the link between domestic violence abusers and mass shooters.”

The link between domestic violence and gun violence is very strong. It’s not just the guys who commit the big headline-grabbing mass murders who depressingly and consistently turn out to have had a history of domestic violence, it’s the everyday (literally, every day) three-to-six people killings that no one outside those affected pay attention to because we’re all mesmerized by the latest double-digit massacre. There are many things we could do to ameliorate this if we wanted to. My advice would be to elect more people who do want to do something about it.

The secret sexual predators of Texas politics

Come in, sit down, make yourself comfortable. Maybe a nice cup of hot tea? There now, all settled in? Good. Now steel yourselves and read this.

More than a year before the now-infamous “shitty media men” list, women in Texas’s statehouse secretly created their own online whisper network to document sexual harassment and assault in their industry.

This spreadsheet, called the “Burn Book of Bad Men,” lists 38 men, named by an unknown number of women who contributed anonymously to the document. Its accusations run the gamut from pay discrimination to creepy comments and sexual assault.

The men in the document include campaign workers, legislative staffers, and lawmakers. Some of the allegations are recent; others stretch back 20 years. Most of the women who contributed to the list and circulated it early on worked for Democrats, so most of the accused men are also Democratic officials or staffers.

More than one sexual-assault allegation on the list involves a man on a Democratic political campaign, according to women who contributed to the spreadsheet.

Excerpts of the document, but not the full list, were reviewed by The Daily Beast this week.

For years before the document existed online, this type of information “just kind of lived in whisper circles,” said Rebecca*, who started the list in the fall of 2016.

Rebecca told The Daily Beast that she worked in Texas politics for about two years before giving up and leaving the state because the political environment was “toxic and horrible.”

Sexism in the Texas state legislature is well-documented, in both vague and explicit terms.

In 2005, Republican State Sen. Craig Estes allegedly propositioned an intern at my former publication, The Texas Observer, on her first day in the Capitol. He let her know that if she needed any “adult supervision,” she was welcome to “see him in his office,” according to the magazine. The implication was clear, and it was included in the magazine’s list of notable quotes that year.

In 2013, I wrote a lengthy story about how men were—in addition to regularly making crude jokes at work—caught looking at porn on the Texas House and Senate floor. Others asked about their colleagues’ breasts during debates. Rep. Senfronia Thompson, the longest-serving female state legislator in Texas history, once told me a horrifying tale about a lawmaker who nicknamed her his “black mistress.”

(Depressingly, there’s a long list of similarly toxic situations in other statehouses, including in CaliforniaMassachusettsKentuckyFloridaIllinoisOregon, and Kansas.)

My story documented the misogyny of the “good ol’ boys’ club,” but it didn’t cover even a fraction of the previously unreported accusations in Rebecca’s living document.

Now go read the rest of the story, which contains a few names and a lot more personal accounts. Then go read RG Ratcliffe for a bit of historical perspective; in short, things aren’t much better now than they were thirty years ago. Keep in mind that the list in question was put together mostly by Democratic women, so there are undoubtedly a bunch of Republican stories to tell, too.

Finished reading them? Good. Now let’s talk about what we can do about it. A few thoughts:

– First and foremost, listen to women when they tell you their stories. (Actually, even before that, be the kind of person that women will trust to tell their stories.) Know what is happening and what has been happening.

– When you see or hear about stuff like this, take action to stop it. Call out the bad behavior and the men who are committing it. It won’t be easy. I know I’ve missed plenty of opportunities in my life to do this, through obliviousness or cowardice. All of us, me very much included, have to do better.

– We really can’t give a pass to anyone, even if they have done good work and otherwise fought the good fight. That’s going to be hard and painful, but it’s the only way. Everyone has to be accountable for their actions.

– Ultimately, the way to make something less of a “boys’ club” is to improve the gender balance. There’s plenty of social science research to back that up. I’m not claiming this is some kind of panacea – among other things, I’m not nearly naive enough to think that given truly equal access and opportunity, women will be any less conniving, dishonest, or generally shitty than men are. Human nature is what it is, after all. I am saying that a legislature that is closer to fifty-fifty – right now, less than twenty percent of legislators in Texas are female – will at the very least be a better place for women to work. There’s a vicious cycle at work here – we need more women involved, not just as legislators but also as staffers, political operatives, lobbyists, reporters, and so forth, but the existing hostile climate drives them away and makes it that much harder to achieve the balance we need. Maybe, just maybe, if the men who are the biggest part of the problem come to understand that their bad behavior can and will be made public, that will make it a little easier.

(Yes, I know, I wrote this whole piece without mentioning Roy Moore. I’ll have something to say about him tomorrow. For now, let’s concentrate on that mote in our own eye.)

Texans take a knee

Good for them.

On Sunday afternoon, before the Houston Texans faced off against the Seattle Seahawks in Washington, all but approximately 10 Texans took a knee during the national anthem.

This was a direct response to Texans owner Bob McNair after an ESPN report on Friday revealed that, during a meeting with other NFL owners, McNair said the league needed to put a stop to protests during the national anthem because, “We can’t have inmates running the prison.”

McNair’s comments were particularly jarring considering that the protests — which began at the start of the 2016 season when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem — are a way to draw attention to police brutality and systemic racism, which the criminal justice system only exemplifies.

[…]

McNair issued two apologies, one on Friday and one on Saturday. He also reportedly spoke with the players directly on Saturday.

“As I said yesterday, I was not referring to our players when I made a very regretful comment during the owners meetings last week,” McNair said on Saturday in his second official apology regarding his comments. “I was referring to the relationship between the league office and team owners and how they have been making significant strategic decisions affecting our league without adequate input from ownership over the past few years.”

But an unnamed player on the Texans told Josina Anderson of ESPN that he did not accept McNair’s apology.

“I think as an owner and as a business man that is something you can’t really say,” the defensive player said. “My reaction is: that’s unacceptable and I don’t want to even hear an apology, or anything like that, because I feel like you knew what you said because you were in a room where you didn’t think it was going to leak out; so you said how you feel. So, that’s how I feel about it.”

You’ve probably seen coverage of this over the weekend, but you can refer to this ThinkProgress story, Deadspin, and the Chron for a refresher. If there’s one reason why I’ve never embraced the Texans, it’s Bob McNair. All I can say is I look forward to the day when he finally sells the team.