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Chris Hollins

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

Apr 23rd, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
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If you regularly check the houstonchronicle.com page, you may have noticed this article continuing to appear, even though it was originally published last November. The reason for this is that they are tracking who has officially filed for office, and are updating it weekly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rep. Jackson Lee makes her Mayoral candidacy official

Apr 17th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
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Here she comes.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rerun candidate running again

Apr 12th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
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Oh good grief.

Orlando Sanchez, the former Harris County treasurer, City Council member and mayoral candidate, is running for city controller, his second consecutive run for the office.

Sanchez received 47.8 percent of the vote in 2019, losing to incumbent Chris Brown, who now faces term limits.

[…]

Sanchez, a Republican and fiscal conservative, served as Harris County treasurer from 2006 to 2018. He held an at-large council seat from 1995 to 2001, and made two runs for mayor, in 2001 and 2003. He qualified for runoffs in both — nearly becoming the city’s first Latino mayor — but ultimately lost to former Mayors Lee Brown and Bill White.

“I feel that my time serving this community as both treasurer and on City Council has made me uniquely qualified to oversee the controller’s office,” Sanchez said. “I have both public and private sector experience, running successful businesses, and holding public offices. I look forward to taking my service and experience and using it to improve the efficiency of the office to better serve Houstonians.”

He joins an increasingly crowded field of candidates vying to become the next controller. Former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins announced last week he was dropping his mayoral campaign to pursue the controller’s office.

Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin, a longtime accountant who chairs City Council’s budget committee, and At-Large Councilmember Michael Kubosh, a former bail bondsman, are running as well. Shannan Nobles, who works in the controller’s office, also is vying the seat.

Well, I can say with confidence that I will not be voting for Orlando Sanchez. I’m sure Dave Martin and Michael Kubosh are delighted to see him enter. Until further notice, I think this race is Chris Hollins’ to lose. And that’s all I have to say about Orlando Sanchez.

Hollins moves to the Controller’s race

Apr 7th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

I have some thoughts.

Chris Hollins

Chris Hollins, the former Harris County clerk, said Thursday he is dropping his campaign for mayor and will seek the controller’s office instead, roughly one week after Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced she would enter the race.

Hollins had postponed a fundraiser scheduled for the day after news broke of Jackson Lee’s entry, and his campaign stopped sending fundraising emails and updates to supporters. That fueled speculation he would bow out. On Thursday, he made it official.

“You may know that we’re facing some real financial challenges in this city. It’s been projected that the next budget that we will have to pass, in the first term of the new mayor and the new controller, will be one where we have a $200 million-or-more structural deficit,” Hollins said of pursuing the controller’s office. “It’s going to take real smarts, real ability, real commitment to thread that needle, and that’s not even talking about having to pay our firefighters.”

[…]

Hollins, who also serves on the Metro board, sought out young and progressive voters, regularly criticizing the state’s Republican leadership and one of the mayoral race’s front-runners, state Sen. John Whitmire, a moderate Democrat.

He had raised $1.67 million for his campaign as of Dec. 31, slightly more than competitors Amanda Edwards, a former City Council member, and attorney Lee Kaplan. His campaign consultant, Grant Martin, was part of winning campaigns for Mayors Sylvester Turner and Annise Parker.

Like many of the mayoral contenders, though, Hollins has relatively low name recognition with city voters. His campaign needed to separate him from that pack to make a runoff, a task made much taller by Jackson Lee’s entry. The congresswoman’s base of voters includes many of the folks Hollins was hoping to attract.

Jackson Lee made her entry official earlier Thursday morning, designating a campaign treasurer for her mayoral run in the city secretary’s office.

[…]

The controller’s race has three other declared candidates; Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin, a longtime accountant who represents District E on City Council and chairs the council’s budget committee; At-Large Councilmember Michael Kubosh, a former bail bondsman; and Shannan Nobles, who works in the controller’s office now.

Nobles, who filed a treasurer form in January, announced her candidacy Thursday.

“With over 20 years of public service experience and a background in finance, I am excited to bring my expertise to the table to help shape Houston’s future,” Nobles said in a release Thursday morning. “As Chief Deputy City Controller, I have worked tirelessly to safeguard the city’s assets and bring financial literacy to our communities.”

Hollins starts with a steep financial advantage in that race, thanks to the $1 million he had amassed for his mayoral bid as of Dec. 31. Controller races are much less expensive than mayoral contests.

Martin had $162,000 on hand as of December, with Kubosh further behind at $54,000. Nobles has not had to file a campaign finance report yet.

My thoughts:

– As I said when SJL stepped into the Mayor’s race, the field was awfully big and full of credible candidates, and that at some point it might be difficult for one or more of the current candidates to stay in the race. I said the same thing in 2015 and was wrong then, but this time I was right. Good to know I’m no worse than a coin flip on these matters.

– I also suggested that the Controller’s race would be a potentially enticing option for whoever might consider it as an alternative. I specifically had Chris Hollins and Amanda Edwards in mind when I wrote that, in part because they’d be prominent Democrats in a field that at the time only contained Republicans, and in part because they’d already raised more money than Controller candidates normally dream about. I’m on a roll here, I should buy a lottery ticket.

– On the subject of Hollins’ fundraising, Campos wonders if “he will give back the dough folks gave him to run for mayor”. My guess is that if someone asks for their contribution back he will do so, but he’s not going to go ask everyone who gave to him about it. I suspect his bottom line will not change much at all.

– Could other current candidates switch from the Mayor’s race to the Controller’s? Eh maybe, but I kind of doubt it. I feel like it’s a great decision for the first person, and much murkier for the second. But who knows?

– As for Shannan Nobles, I got an email announcement of her candidacy, which she also posted on Facebook, yesterday. The email arrived a couple of hours after the text I received from the Hollins campaign announcing his switch. I’m going to guess she’s not too happy about the way events transpired.

– If he gets elected Controller, Hollins would be well positioned to run for Mayor again at the next good opportunity. Normally that would be in eight years, which is to say the year 2031, which I swear is a real year and not a made-up date from an Arthur C. Clarke novel. The thing is, as I have noted before, both John Whitmire and Sheila Jackson Lee will be in their eighties in the year 2031. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t still be serving as Mayor at that time, but as I have wondered on more than one occasion, they might not want to still be Mayor at that time. It’s a hard job, and one might like to enjoy a retirement while one can. This is a longwinded way of saying that he would be as well-situated to run in 2027 as he would be in 2031, if the circumstances are there.

– I will once again remind everyone that nothing is set in stone until the filing deadline, all polls should be taken with large amounts of salt, and no one knows how these races will play out. There are just too damn many variables.

– Because my brain hates me, it occurred to me while writing this that Hollins’ departure makes a Tony Buzbee candidacy slightly more likely, on the grounds that at least some Hollins-for-Mayor supporters will migrate over to SJL’s camp now. As penance for bringing this up, I will say three Hail Marys and go sit quietly in a corner for an hour to contemplate my life choices.

That’s all I got. Let’s root for a quiet weekend. The Trib, the Texas Signal, and the Press have more.

No one asked you, Tony

Apr 6th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

Oh good Lord.

Tony Buzbee, the millionaire businessman and trial attorney who unsuccessfully challenged Mayor Sylvester Turner in 2019, is considering another run for City Hall’s top job.

Buzbee on Wednesday said supporters are urging him to run again, and he believes he is the only candidate who can defeat U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who told church parishioners last week that she would run. He emphasized, though, that he has not made a decision yet.

“I’m most concerned about the safety and well-being of the people who live in Houston. We have decisions to make to ensure that Houston leads,” Buzbee told the Chronicle, a comment he also posted on social media. “I can spend $15 to $50 million to win, if I think there is a path to victory. I’m a moderate. I’m not affiliated with any party, but I do lean a bit left. Houston deserves a motivated independent. That’s me. Not sure I would do it, but people are pushing me to do so.”

He predicted he would “step into a runoff” if he decides to run. The only question, he said, is whom he would face. Runoffs are necessary when no candidate garners a majority in the first round of voting, often the case in crowded city elections; the top two candidates then go to a runoff.

“I haven’t decided yet if I want to do that,” Buzbee said. “Our firm is working on too many cases at the moment across the country.”

[…]

“Buzbee is not a true Republican in the sense that we associate Republicans today, but he’s definitely seen as more conservative than all the other major contenders,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston. “(If) you’ve got a more bona fide conservative in the race, it takes some of the fuel away from Whitmire’s fire.”

Whitmire, a Democrat, is positioning himself as a moderate voice who would be tough on crime, according to Rottinghaus. If Buzbee gets in, some of the more conservative voters to whom Whitmire could appeal may look elsewhere.

There also is the matter of money. Whitmire’s $10 million war chest, amassed over decades in the Texas Legislature, has loomed over the mayoral race since late 2021. It is dramatically more than any other declared candidate has, but Buzbee’s personal wealth likely will allow him to outspend any candidate.

The $12 million he spent on his bout with Turner was second only to Bill White’s $9.7 million in 2003, which when adjusted for inflation would have equaled $13.5 million in 2019. On Wednesday, Buzbee raised the specter of spending four times that sum, up to $50 million.

“The only way to beat the front-runners currently running for mayor is with a lot of money, and Buzbee has a lot of money,” Rottinghaus said. “He has, to some extent, endless pockets to keep going back to the well.”

I swore in December of 2019 that I would not devote any more brain space to Tony Buzbee, but here we are. So let’s get to the point.

– Buzbee lost that runoff by a 56-44 margin, in case anyone has forgotten that. Twelve million bucks can only buy you so much.

– As I said when SJL announced her intent to run (has she said anything more about this yet, by the way?), the field is far too big and the situation is far too chaotic to make any reasonable predictions about how it might go. Buzbee, if he does run, could perhaps take some support from Whitmire. He could maybe bring in some Republican voters who had otherwise felt there was no one for them to vote for. Whether that is enough for him to finish in the top two or not, I have no idea.

– As far as those Republicans who may currently feel like they have no one to vote for in this race, I have been saying for some time now that I think a “real” Republican is likely to enter for precisely that reason. The potential effect of such a hypothetical candidate on the not-yet-a-thing candidacy of Tony Buzbee is left as an exercise for those with way more time on their hands than I have.

– The thing about the 2019 race is that Buzbee was able to run as the “not Sylvester Turner” candidate. Which was enough in Round One to put him ahead of Bill King, who was an even less appealing candidate than he had been in 2015, which believe you me is no mean feat. He seems to want to pitch himself as the “not Sheila Jackson Lee” candidate, which makes some sense in a vacuum, but there are a whole lot of other people running as their own selves, and they will draw some amount of support based on that. With that many choices, it’s not at all clear that he’d be the top preference of those who aren’t voting for SJL. The candidates who will be making a positive case for themselves rather than a negative case against one particular opponent will have their own advantages in a race like this.

– Certainly, repeat candidates can win on subsequent attempts. Mayor Turner famously ran for Mayor and lost twice before winning in 2015, and plenty of City Council members had to run more than once before they broke through. It’s a combination of learning from past mistakes, maturing as a candidate, raising more money, finding a winning issue, having a better environment, and more. I’m honestly not sure what of these would apply to Tony Buzbee in 2023. I admit, I don’t like the guy and am judging him in part on that, but do you see anything in this story that says to you that he’s learned from his 2019 experience? I know, it’s one short story, I’m sure he’ll have (oh so very much) more to say if he does run, but my point stands. Right now, his plan is to run the same playbook but spend more money. It could work – politics is weird – but this is a different election, with different candidates and different circumstances. There’s no reason to think it won’t lead to worse results this time, not better results.

Okay, that’s all I can stand. Please, Tony, I beg you, don’t make me have to do more of this.

Of course there’s already a Mayoral poll

Mar 30th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

From the Daily Kos Morning Digest:

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Veteran Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee upended Houston’s race for mayor on Sunday when she announced her entry into the crowded field looking to succeed term-limited incumbent Sylvester Turner this fall.

Jackson Lee has represented the Houston area in Congress since 1995, after she won a landslide 63-37 primary victory over then-Rep. Craig Washington, who had opposed projects important to the region such as the International Space Station. During the ensuing three decades, Jackson Lee burnished her reputation as an outspoken progressive and became one of the most prominent Democrats in the city, giving her instant name recognition. She also won’t necessarily have to give up her safely blue House seat (which includes 20% of Houston’s population) in order to seek the mayoralty, since voters will decide this November, with a runoff the following month if no candidate takes a majority.

That seems likely, given the large number of hopefuls already vying to run Texas’ largest city. The most notable of these is state Sen. John Whitmire, a Democrat who’s been running since 2021 and has a $10 million war chest. He also has the support of a number of major Republican donors as well as Democratic Rep. Sylvia Garcia, who represents a district that neighbors Jackson Lee’s.

A pair of conservative organizations, the Houston Region Business Coalition and Protect and Serve Texas PAC, responded to Jackson Lee’s announcement by releasing a month-old survey from Republican pollster Ragnar Research showing Whitmire with a slender 20-19 lead over the congresswoman, with three other candidates in the low single digits and a large 46% plurality undecided. The two groups, however, emphasized a head-to-head matchup between the two that had Whitmire in front 45-33. Both say they have not endorsed in the race, though HRBC has backed Whitmire in the past despite typically backing Republicans.

While the race is officially nonpartisan, almost all of the credible candidates are Democrats. No Republican has been elected mayor of Houston, which voted for Joe Biden by a 64-32 margin, since Jim McConn won a second two-year term in 1981. (Mayors only began serving four-year terms in 2015.) Houston is also a very diverse city, with an eligible voter population that’s 34% white, 31% Hispanic, and 28% Black. Like Jackson Lee, two of the contenders named in the Ragnar poll, former City Councilor Amanda Edwards and former Harris County interim Clerk Chris Hollins, are Black, while Whitmire is white and City Councilor Robert Gallegos is Latino.

See here for the background, and see also my admonition about polling in Houston elections. This same poll was also cited in the updated Chron story about Rep. Jackson Lee’s announcement. Note that the poll in question predated Gilbert Garcia’s entry into the race, which is likely why his name wasn’t mentioned.

I feel like we’re going to have more polling data that usual for this race, and I just want to remind everyone that each poll is a data point and nothing more. It’s possible we’ll see some trends, and in those trends we may see clear signs of how the race may play out. It’s also possible we’ll get a bunch of seemingly random and contradictory numbers that tell us nothing. Remember that we’re still a long way out, the campaigns have barely begun, and that a lot of factors can and will affect the outcome. Don’t read too much into any single poll result and you’ll probably be fine.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is in for Mayor

Mar 28th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
24 comments

Okay then. The Quorum Report was first on the scene.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Sources: In a closed-door event over the weekend, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee told pastors she is running for mayor of Houston
The chatter is getting louder out of H-Town, where sources this morning indicate that Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee on Saturday told attendees at a closed-door event that she is indeed running for mayor.

Some of those who went to the Ministers United for Houston’s Future event on Saturday have said that when she was speaking onstage, Rep. Jackson Lee confirmed her plans to enter the crowded field to succeed Mayor Sylvester Turner, who of course is term-limited.

As you know that field already includes Sen. John Whitmire, Chris Hollins, Amanda Edwards, Gilbert Garcia, Robert Gallegos, Lee Caplan, and others.

Developing…

It has developed.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a mainstay in Houston politics for more than three decades, is running for mayor.

Speaking to the City Cathedral Church on Sunday, the congresswoman told parishioners she intends to run in the November election to succeed Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is term-limited.

“Sheila Jackson Lee wants to come home to be your mayor, for the city of Houston,” the congresswoman said in the video, streamed online and first shared on social media by Urban Reform, an online advocacy group. “I will not be able to do it without each and everyone of you.”

Jackson Lee has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Rumors have swirled for years that Jackson Lee may be interested in City Hall’s top job. The political chatter had reached a fever pitch in recent weeks and months, as polls tested her viability.

Jackson Lee immediately becomes a front-runner in the race, and her entry likely scrambles the calculus for other mayoral contenders. The field now includes seven Democrats. While municipal elections are nonpartisan, each of those candidates is working to assemble winning coalitions from overlapping voter bases.

They include state Sen. John Whitmire; former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins; former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards; attorney Lee Kaplan; Councilmember Robert Gallegos, and former Metro Chair Gilbert Garcia.

Whitmire enjoys a $10 million war chest and decades in the Texas Legislature, qualities that made him an early front-runner. Jackson Lee’s long tenure in the House, a more visible role, put her at a similar advantage, according to political analysts. She is a prolific presence at political events, community gatherings and news conferences, and she has a well-documented knack for getting to the front of the crowd to greet the president after a State of the Union address.

“I think that’s her stock and trade, in terms of being able to work the community and speak out on issues,” said Michael Adams, a professor of political science at Texas Southern University. “If you were to rank the order of Black elected officials in terms of visibility or electability, Sheila Jackson Lee is probably the most visible and recognizable member of Congress out of all of the congressional delegation in Harris County… She’s well recognized.”

Familiarity in a partisan role, though, cuts both ways: Just as Jackson Lee has proven popular in her district, Houstonians outside its boundaries, especially those who do not share her political leanings, may know her only in a negative light.

“She’s been out there for a long time,” Adams said. “Since she’s been an elected official for a lengthy time, she will have scar tissue; that comes with the territory.”

[…]

The question is whether Jackson Lee will be able to expand on her voter base to win a runoff, according to Jeronimo Cortina, a professor of political science at the University of Houston.

“You core base is always going to support you, but you have to start making inroads with other voters,” he said.

Whitmire has assembled the most institutional support to date, collecting endorsements from influential labor groups and elected officials, including Rep. Sylvia Garcia, Jackson Lee’s colleague in the House. A recent poll testing Jackson Lee’s prospects asked several direct questions about how she would compare to Whitmire, according to recipients of the poll.

That last link is to my February 1o post about CM Robert Gallegos entering the race, in which I noted that I had been the recipient of a poll call about the Mayor’s race, and I asked who paid for the poll. It would be more accurate to say “according to one person who asked about the source of the poll” or words to that effect, but whatever. At least they included the link.

I have a lot of thoughts about this, so let’s get to it.

– In general, I tend to agree with the consensus that Rep. Jackson Lee becomes a top tier candidate, on the strength of her name ID and years of serving a large portion of the city of Houston in Congress. I think things get complicated when the field is this big, and there will be a lot of overlap in each candidate’s base of support. Clearly, though, it’s easy to see what her path to a runoff looks like.

– It should be noted that Rep. Jackson Lee has never been a huge fundraiser, mostly because she hasn’t had to be. Indeed, as of December 31, 2022, her federal campaign account had $300K in it, which is quite a bit less than those of the four earliest entrants – Whitmire, Hollins, Edwards, and Kaplan. I don’t think she’ll have any trouble raising money – she has connections out the wazoo, and plenty of colleagues who I’m sure will write her a check. Her name ID means she needs a pile of money less than other candidates, because most of them have to introduce themselves to the electorate, which she won’t have to do. But if she wants to run TV ads and employ a field team, she’s gonna need at least a million bucks, probably two or three million. Best get started soon.

– Many times in 2015, I said that there’s only so much room for qualified and well-funded candidates in a Mayoral race. I said that at the time in the ultimately mistaken belief that someone would look at the field and their own prospects and drop out before the filing date. I’ll say it again this year, because the field is now even bigger and there’s an obvious need for a good Democrat to move over to the Controller’s race. The first current Mayoral candidate to make that move becomes in my opinion the favorite in that race, and if they’re young enough to run for Mayor again in (gulp) 2031 – or maybe 2027 – then they could be the frontrunner at that time. We’ll see how wrong I am in this belief this time.

– This is where I say again that in general polling for city races is dicey and should be taken with skepticism. This is mostly because it is hard to identify the likely electorate, as turnout can vary wildly and 30% turnout is quite high, so polls of “registered voters” will include responses from a lot of people who won’t actually vote.

– As noted before, I expect we will have a new high in city election turnout this fall thanks to the increase in registered voters since 2015. That would be an incremental increase, but would still represent maybe 40-50K more voters than the last open Mayoral race, and quite possibly a lot more “new” city election voters. There is a scenario in which interest in the city elections is higher than usual, and the overall increase in local election participation since 2016 combines to make it a more significant step increase, say to the 350-400K level. I don’t know how likely that is, but it is the range of possible outcomes. If that does happen, who knows what the effect might be on the races themselves. See my point above about how hard it will be to poll this election.

– The Trib accurately notes that Jackson Lee, like Whitmire, does not need to resign to run for this office. Mayor Turner remained in the State House in 2015 when he got elected. That’s true, but Turner then and Whitmire now could reasonably expect to be done with their legislative gigs as of Memorial Day, giving them the entire summer and fall to campaign fulltime. Congress doesn’t work that way, and it’s also a much longer trip from DC to Houston than it is from Austin to Houston. Jackson Lee will have to face a choice they didn’t, which is to largely abandon her current gig, which will open her up to attacks about missed votes and the like, or step down in the near future and give herself the time to fully commit to the campaign. This could go either way, but it’s not clear to me that she will remain in office while she runs.

– If she does step down, or if she wins and then resigns from Congress next January, the field to succeed her in CD18 will be at least as big as the Mayoral field is now. This is my Congressional district, and the thought of having to do interviews with all those candidates, both for a special election and a 2024 primary, is giving me palpitations. I’m going to go lie down now.

That’s what I think for now. I’m sure there will be plenty more to say. What do you think? Does this change anything for you? Leave a comment and let me know. The Texas Signal has more.

A few words about Lee Kaplan

Mar 23rd, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

I mean, I dunno.

Lee Kaplan

During the early stages of a mayoral race, polls carry little significance and every candidate says they are organizing a diverse coalition of supporters. There often is only one indicator to differentiate contenders from also-rans: money.

Fundraising enables candidates to reach out to voters and introduce themselves in campaign mail, digital ads and, perhaps, on television. That is important in city elections, which typically feature candidates less familiar to residents, and which inspire lower voter turnout and engagement.

As of their January campaign finance reports, no candidate aside from state Sen. John Whitmire — who carries a $10.1 million war chest from his decades in the Texas Legislature — has more money on hand for his or her mayoral campaign than Lee Kaplan, an attorney and political newcomer.

Kaplan had about $1.2 million in his campaign account as of January. He has raised about $1.3 million, and lent $200,000 of his own money. That fundraising haul is just shy of two other contenders, former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins and former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards. City Councilmember Robert Gallegos and former Metro Chairman Gilbert Garcia entered the race after the January campaign finance report deadline.

Kaplan says he has more money that he is “legally allowed to spend” than any other candidate, an allusion to questions about how much of Whitmire’s stockpile is available for use in a city election. The rest of the field has held office or been involved in municipal politics. Kaplan has not, but his fundraising numbers have kept him apace as a contender.

“I’ve frequently thought, well, you’re just writing checks,” Kaplan said of his past contributions to candidates. “You can’t complain if you’re not willing to run.”

[…]

His campaign so far offers a focus on the basics of city government, emphasizing public safety, streets and transportation, and trash collection among his priorities. He candidly admits he does not have solutions to those challenges yet, nor will he be able to fix them overnight. The pitch is in his approach: He plans to “beaver” away at them until he makes progress.

Kaplan said he and his son often have discussed the value of shoveling away at the proverbial mountain.

“No matter how big it is, if you start shoveling away at the problem, it gets smaller,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan has proposed adding more police cadet classes, as Mayor Sylvester Turner did for several consecutive budgets, and focusing on efficiency in the department. That may include turning some officer desk jobs into civilian roles, he said. A city consultant in 2017 said that could result in “considerable cost savings” for the city.

He rails against what he calls poor planning in streets repairs and recycling collection. He points to the city’s decision to switch to one recycling plant on the northeast part of the city, which has worsened collection times in the city’s southern sectors.

Kaplan’s appeal to voters, he said, also will stem from his singular focus on the mayor’s job. He is not aiming to use the position as a launching pad to something else, he said, and he does not think he is entitled to the job, comments that appear to be not-so-veiled jabs at his opponents.

“I’m at least as capable as those people, I’m not beholden to anybody, and I’m not worried about offending people so I can get some future position,” Kaplan said. “People do want someone who they believe isn’t beholden to others and isn’t looking for the next job.”

I’ve snarked to a few people that Kaplan gives me Marty McVey energy. Which is a bit unfair to Kaplan, since McVey’s campaign was more self-funded. But I can totally imagine a scenario in which Kaplan ends up with about two percent of the vote.

To be more respectful to Kaplan, he’s a former law partner of Larry Veselka, who’s one of the genuine good guys. I don’t have any specific quibbles with what he’s pitching, I just don’t think the electorate will be there for him, not without a widespread and compelling bit of campaign outreach, along the lines of Bill White’s omnipresent advertising in 2003. He’s entered a race that’s full of people who can make a good case for themselves, and in order to get traction with the voters you have to do more than say why you’d be good for the job. You have to say why you’d be better than all those other choices. And then the voters have to believe you. I don’t mean for this to sound dismissive, but good luck with that. It’s a tough task.

Gilbert Garcia is in for Mayor

Mar 11th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Widely expected.

Gilbert Garcia

Gilbert Garcia, the bond investor and former Metro chairman, is running for mayor, he told the Chronicle Friday.

Garcia’s candidacy has been an open secret in Houston politics for months, if not years. His name has appeared on most early polls of the field, and he has participated in candidate endorsement screenings even before launching his bid. Garcia said he plans to file a form appointing a campaign treasurer with the city secretary’s office before 5 p.m. Friday.

He joins an increasingly crowded field that includes state Sen. John Whitmire, former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards, attorney Lee Kaplan and Councilmember Robert Gallegos. Rumors have intensified in recent months that U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee may enter the race, as well. The election is Nov. 8.

Garcia, 59, is managing partner at Garcia Hamilton & Associates, a wealth management firm specializing in bonds. The Corpus Christi native went to Yale University and then staked out a career in finance, joining his current firm in 2002. It since has grown from managing about $350 million in assets to more than $20 billion, he said.

Then-Mayor Annise Parker appointed Garcia, who was her campaign chair in 2009, as chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, an agency beset by ethics scandals and shaky finances at the time. Garcia said he knew nothing about transit at the time, but that was the point: Parker was appointing him to “shake up” the organization.

Along with CEO George Greanias, Garcia branded the agency a “new Metro,” stabilizing its fiscal outlook, reorganizing its pension system and increasing transparency by posting its check register online.  He helped oversee a redesign of the agency’s local bus routes and the opening of three light rail segments, though the latter did not come without challenges.

There were long delays in work on the rail lines, and he angered many East End residents when the agency had to go back on its promise to build an underpass where the Green Line intersects with Harrisburg. That dispute included sparring with Gallegos, who represents the East End and now is one of his mayoral opponents.

Garcia’s pitch to mayoral voters is that City Hall now is in need of a similar shake-up. He cites separate federal investigations into the city Health Department and a mayoral aide, the public accusation of corruption by the former housing director, a lingering pay dispute with firefighters and a shaky financial outlook.

“I read the news like everyone else, and I have seen so many challenges that are challenges, frankly, of our own making,” Garcia said. “Those are all things that I think can be solved or done better, because those are not things that are part of the economic environment… I would do a Metro re-do for the city.”

[…]

Renée Cross, senior executive director at the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, said Garcia will make a credible candidate, but he will have to overcome his lack of electoral experience, which will include building name recognition among voters who do not closely follow city politics.

“He’s well-liked on both sides of the aisle,” Cross said. “Now, whether he can go up against experienced candidates like John Whitmire, we’ll have to see, because he’s never run for office.”

Like Gallegos, who announced last month, Garcia is seeking to be Houston’s first Latino mayor. Cross said she thinks the two will pull from different bases, and she would not be surprised if Garcia tries to pull in more conservative voters.

As the story notes, Garcia was a candidate in all but official announcement well before this. I’ll say that I thought he was an excellent Metro board chair – I interviewed him twice, along with then-Board member Christof Spieler, back in the day – and I like him personally. He has some fundraising ground to make up, and as with everyone else in this large field he’s going to have to differentiate himself and get voters’ attention. This is going to be a very busy year.

CM Gallegos enters the Mayor’s race

Feb 10th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

I wish him well.

CM Robert Gallegos

Councilmember Robert Gallegos, the lone Hispanic member of Houston’s City Council, has entered the mayoral race.

Gallegos filed a form Thursday with the secretary’s office to start raising money for a mayoral bid, and he told the Chronicle shortly after that he has decided to run. He said he would make a more formal campaign announcement in the coming weeks.

“What I bring is over nine years’ experience in the trenches making a difference,” Gallegos said in a statement. “Our city is at a crossroads. We need strong leadership to make city government work and a vision that makes this a world class city on public safety, city infrastructure, improved affordability and equal opportunity in every part of this city.”

He joins state Sen. John Whitmire, former County Clerk Chris Hollins, former Councilmember Amanda Edwards and attorney Lee Kaplan among the contenders for the seat.

A poll went out last month that presaged Gallegos’ entry, asking residents who they would pick among the declared candidates, Gallegos, and former METRO Chairman Gilbert Garcia, who widely is expected to launch his own campaign soon. Recipients said it contained specific information about Gallegos and his track record on council.

[…]

Gallegos will have to expand his voter pool drastically to become mayor. Less than 11,000 people voted in the most recent District I race, whereas 241,000 people voted in the mayoral contest.

He will face an uphill climb in fundraising as well. Candidates announced their bids earlier and started raising more money than usual in this year’s contest. Each candidate has raised more than $1 million to date and has more than $1 million in the bank. In his January campaign finance filing, Gallegos reported having about one-tenth of that amount, $133,500, in the bank.

It is possible other candidates will join the fray as well. Another recent poll tested how U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee would fare in the contest, although it was not clear who funded the survey.

The field also lacks a conservative candidate. Municipal races are nonpartisan, but the last two elections have ended in runoffs between Mayor Sylvester Turner, a longtime Democrat, and conservative challengers.

See here for the January 2023 finance reports. I’d heard rumors of his candidacy for awhile, so this isn’t a big surprise. He does have a tough challenge ahead of him, but he also has the most experience in city government, having been first elected in 2013, and the most recent experience. That ought to count for something.

I’ve also heard rumors about Rep. Jackson Lee, and I got one of those poll calls mentioned in the story a few days ago. Many of the questions compared her directly to Sen. Whitmire. I can say that the poll did come from her campaign, because I asked specifically that question at the end of the call. In the same way that I don’t understand why Whitmire wants to be Mayor, I don’t understand why she wants to be Mayor. It’s a much tougher 24×7 job than what either of them has now. If you don’t want to do what you’re now doing any more, it’s okay to just peacefully retire. I don’t get it.

Finally, on that last point, it’s very much my opinion that a Republican candidate will enter the race. My belief is that if this happens, it will be a modern Republican, which is to say a MAGA type, not an old school Chamber of Commerce type, who enters. Not because they think they can win, but because they want to have someone on the ballot they want to vote for. Obviously I could be wrong, running for Mayor is a big commitment even if you’re just doing it to make a point, but this just makes sense to me. We’ll see if I’m right.

January 2023 campaign finance reports: City of Houston

Jan 23rd, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

It’s late January, so you know what that means: It’s campaign finance report time again. The reports of the greatest interest will be for the city of Houston, but I’ll be checking in on HISD, HCC, and Harris County as well. The July 2022 reports are here, the January 2022 reports are here, and the July 2021 reports are here. 


Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
====================================================
Hollins      547,027    469,141        0   1,062,754
Edwards      567,005    195,257        0   1,044,338
Whitmire   1,148,015    249,142        0  10,100,086
Kaplan       465,180    177,578  200,000   1,164,527

Peck          10,750     13,940        0      20,729
Jackson        2,500     14,965        0      14,971
Kamin         52,080     12,255        0     238,337
 Scarbrough        0          0        0      14,810   
E-Shabazz     
L Dixon            0        254      100         254
Thomas        43,996     11,310        0      89,042
Huffman        5,850      3,624        0      35,012
Castillo      37,448      1,037   10,000      41,935
G Lindner      4,503          0        0       4,503
Martinez      78,605      6,130        0      52,187
Pollard       17,350     15,412   40,000     718,379
 Sanchez      30,140      4,201   20,000      25,938
C-Tatum       14,250     13,687        0     155,691

Hellyar       65,854      6,772        0      44,710
Coryat         5,626      4,063        0       1,562
Bess               0          0        0           0
Carter        85,926      9,456    4,000      78,768
Cooper        23,977     17,631        0       9,189
Plummer        4,125     10,309        0      24,741
 Morales      12,900        417    5,534      18,016
Alcorn       155,301     28,187        0     306,273

Martin         8,250     12,493        0     161,851
Kubosh        22,900      3,612  196,000      54,289

Wolfthal      43,812     16,683        0      24,953
Flickinger         0      1,933   50,000           0

Turner       228,862    186,942        0     842,484

Cisneros         250      7,215        0      31,128
Gallegos      21,787     13,500        0     133,471

Knox          16,175     20,914        0      14,231
Robinson      44,894     27,296        0     271,624

Brown              0      5,404   75,000      29,316

Laster             0      3,254        0     147,138

I have collected all of the reports for the people listed above, and you can find them in this Google Drive folder. I decided not to link to all of them individually just because it was more work than I felt like doing. Omitting that means I don’t have a complete listing, with full names and the office they are seeking, of all the candidates. I’ll be sure to at least mention everyone of interest later in the post.

I’ve grouped everyone in the table above as follows: First are the Mayoral candidates, then the candidates for district Council offices, listed in alphabetical order by office – Amy Peck is District A, Tarsha Jackson is District B, and so on. The open offices are Districts E, H, and I. There are so far two challengers to incumbent Council members, and I have indented their names to indicate them – Daphne Scarbrough (yeah, the same person who was a leading opponent of light rail on Richmond Avenue, here to scourge us again) is running against CM Abbie Kamin in C, and Ivan Sanchez, who was a Democratic candidate for CD07 in 2018, is running against CM Ed Pollard in District J. Martina Lemond Dixon is running in E, Mario Castillo and Janette Garza Lindner (2021 candidate for HISD district I) are running in H (my district), and Joaquin Martinez is running in I. The one person that did not have a report filed as of Friday was District D incumbent Carolyn Evans-Shabazz.

The next group is for the At Large seats, of which #s 1, 2, and 3 are open. Nick Hellyar, who ran for At Large #4 in 2019, is running for #2, as are Marina Coryat and Danielle Bess (former candidate for HD147 in 2022), and Twila Carter and Dannell Cooper are running for #3. No one has yet filed a finance report saying they plan to run for At Large #1. You can be sure that will change, and that all of these fields will be much larger by the time the filing deadline rolls around. Indeed, they may already be larger, as there are two candidates who didn’t specify an office in their reports; I’ll get to them in a minute. As above, a candidate opposing an incumbent is indented. Yes, that’s our old buddy Roy Morales running against CM Letitia Plummer in At Large #4.

Next we have the two term-limited Council members who are now running for City Controller, and following them are two candidates who did not specify an office on their report, Leah Wolfthal and Fred Flickinger. I met Leah Wolfthal at the January CEC meeting for HCDP precinct chairs, and I thought she told me she is running in At Large #2. Her website just says “for At Large City Council”, so better not to make any assumptions. I’ve put her in this group for that reason.

Everyone after that is not running for anything, from Mayor Turner to the four CMs to Controller Chris Brown. Former CM Mike Laster, who termed out in 2019, still has a decent amount of cash on hand. I assume the four people in this grouping who remain with over $100K on hand have some plan, perhaps vague and unformed but still existent, to do something with it. What that may be is not known to me, and possibly to them, at this time.

The Chron picks a few highlights from the Mayoral portion of the reports. The one thing I will add to that is that I must have missed Lee Kaplan’s July 2022 report, because I was surprised by his cash on hand total. Kaplan raised about $850K in the last period, which combined with a small amount of spending gives him the cash on hand total he has now. I have included Kaplan’s July 2022 finance report in that Google Drive folder as well.

There are candidates now who have not yet filed a finance report, and there are people who will be candidates that have not yet formally announced their candidacies. The July finance reports will tell us a much more complete story, though even then there will be room for more, as the filing deadline is not until August. This is what we know now. If you have anything to add, by all means please do so.

So how much money does Whitmire have available for his mayoral campaign?

Jan 18th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

It’s already a lot, and it could be a whole lot more.

Sen. John Whitmire

State Sen. John Whitmire is kicking off his mayoral campaign with a $10 million war chest, most of it drawn from the money he has amassed over decades in the Legislature.

The campaign balance dwarfs the resources of his opponents, but it could renew debate about how much of that money the city’s campaign finance laws allow him to use.

Whitmire’s first mayoral campaign finance report, filed Tuesday, shows $1.1 million in new donations between his formal campaign launch in November and the end of the year. The report’s staggering number, though, is the amount of cash he reports having on hand: about $10.1 million.

The sum makes him the overwhelming financial heavyweight in the race — no other candidate had more than $1 million on hand as of last summer. Other candidates, including former county clerk Chris Hollins, former city councilmember Amanda Edwards, and attorney Lee Kaplan, are expected to share more current numbers Tuesday, as well.

It is not yet clear how much of that money Whitmire will seek to spend. Sue Davis, a consultant for Whitmire, said the report shows the full balance of his campaign account, filed with both the state and the city. The campaign started earmarking money raised for the mayor’s race at the end of last year — the $1.1 million — which “has more than enough to start this year,” Davis said.

The move, though, may test the enforcement of an ordinance that was intended to limit how much money raised for non-city accounts can be used for city campaigns. The council members who introduced and passed the law in 2005 said it was meant to cap that amount at $10,000. It was intended to treat non-city accounts like any other political entity that seeks to support a city campaign: subject to a $10,000 cap on donations.

Former councilmember Gordon Quan, who spearheaded the ordinance, confirmed the intent behind the law in an email to the Chronicle last week. The law says candidates can use money raised for a non-city public office “in an amount not to exceed the maximum contribution that the candidate may accept from a single donor,” which is $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for political groups.

In practice, though, the city has not enforced the ordinance that stringently. A decade later, in 2015, then-City Attorney Dave Feldman told candidates they could use the amount of money under the cap from each individual donor, rather than from the account as a whole.

That allowed then-State Rep. Sylvester Turner to use $900,000 from his legislative account to start his mayoral bid, which ultimately proved successful.

City Attorney Arturo Michel, who returned to City Hall in December 2020, was serving his first stint as the city’s top lawyer in 2005, when Council first passed the law. The legal department, under his leadership at the time, helped craft the ordinance.

Michel, though, suggested Tuesday that Feldman’s interpretation was sound in its reading of the law’s actual language.

Feldman’s “determination reflected the language used in the code when adopted and as exists now,” Michel said. That language is less supportive of the more stringent interpretation, he added.

“Texas law is clear that statements made by members of a legislative governing body are not evidence of collective intent of the body and do not override the language used in the law,” Michel said.

The law has not been thoroughly tested in court, and it is possible another candidate could seek a ruling limiting what Whitmire can spend from his Senate funds. No candidate publicly has suggested they will do so.

See here for the July finance reports; Whitmire had not yet filed a city report. There are as of Tuesday night a number of January reports available on the city’s campaign finance webpage – you know I’m looking for them – but none of the Mayoral candidates had them up there yet.

The story references a lawsuit filed by Chris Bell, who was a Mayoral candidate in 2015, to challenge the cash on hand total that Turner claimed. There was a separate federal lawsuit filed to challenge the city’s blackout period for fundraising – in those days, you couldn’t fundraise outside of an election year – and after the plaintiff won an injunction the city basically agreed with his position to strengthen their case against Bell, who eventually dropped his suit.

I think the city should enforce its laws, though I can’t say with complete confidence that they’d win in court if there is a challenge over this limitation. I don’t know if someone will file a complaint to stop Whitmire from using his entire treasury, but if I were advising Whitmire I’d suggest he go through the last five or ten years’ worth of reports, claim the money that would clearly be under the limit, and then dare anyone to sue him. He’d still end up with a ton of cash and a plausible claim to already be in compliance. We’ll see what happens.

Whitmire launches his Mayoral campaign

Dec 1st, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
11 comments

And we’re off.

Sen. John Whitmire

State Sen. John Whitmire formally launched his campaign for Houston mayor Tuesday evening with a fundraiser at the ritzy Post Oak Hotel, attended by dozens of the city’s political luminaries — including the hotel’s billionaire owner, Tilman Fertitta, and several other Republican mega-donors who are opening their checkbooks for Whitmire, a moderate Democrat.

With almost a year to go until next year’s Nov. 7 election, Whitmire outlined his platform and kickstarted his campaign at Tuesday’s fundraiser. The host committee is filled with prominent lobbyists, business groups, labor unions, former elected officials and a mix of donors to both political parties.

Whitmire said his campaign is motivated by his desire to solve a variety of problems that he has personally witnessed in Houston including homelessness, illegal dumping, rising crime and inefficient city services.

Among them, public safety is a driving issue for the candidate. Besides supporting law enforcement officers, he said he would also take a holistic approach to improving the criminal justice system including offering more resources to the court system and the crime lab.

“I’m not going to get into squabbles with other elected officials about what the numbers are, but the bottom line is we have a crime issue in Houston, Harris County,” he said at the fundraiser. “We are not New York or Chicago. We fix our problems.”

Whitmire said he is expecting resistance from people who do not want to see the changes that he is advocating for, including a more transparent government than how the city is currently operating.

“There are people who like the status quo. There’s people that like the city is operating because they are profiting real well. They know if I’m mayor, it’s going to be very transparent, honest and play no favors,” he said. “I want you to tell the firemen and the policemen that help is on the way. I want you to tell Houstonians that help is on the way.”

[…]

Whitmire, the longest-serving member of the Texas Senate, already has $9.5 million in his state campaign account, according to his most recent filing. He has built up his war chest over a decades-long career in the Legislature dating back to 1972, when he was elected to the state House while a senior at the University of Houston. He has served in the upper chamber since 1982.

It is not yet clear how much of the $9.5 million Whitmire can transfer to his mayoral campaign, though he is expected to start the race with a massive financial advantage over the rest of the field. Hollins reported a $1.1 million haul during the first five months of his campaign, while Edwards took in about $789,000 in a shorter span. Kaplan raised $800,000 and pitched in another $100,000 of his own money.

Nancy Sims, a longtime political consultant who now teaches political science at the University of Houston, said she had “never seen such hardcore fundraising this high and this early” in a Houston mayor’s race.

“This is going to be one very expensive mayoral campaign,” Sims said.

Boosting Whitmire’s mayoral bid are a number of donors who helped bankroll the recent campaign of Republican Alexandra del Moral Mealer, who came within two percentage points of unseating Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in this month’s midterm election.

Mealer donors serving on the host committee for Tuesday’s fundraiser include Fertitta, Gallery Furniture owner Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale, real estate developer Richard Weekley, Fidelis Realty Partners CEO Alan Hassenflu and Houston beer distributor John Nau, among others.

Also on the host committee are several former Republican elected officials, including former state representative Dan Huberty, former city councilmember Greg Travis and two of Whitmire’s former Senate colleagues: Todd Staples, who also served as agriculture commissioner, and Kevin Eltife.

A number of Democrats, including former state representative and city councilmember Ellen Cohen and former Harris County Democratic Party chair Lane Lewis, also are on the host committee.

[…]

In the Senate, Whitmire is best known for his work on criminal justice issues, having long served as chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, even under Republican leadership.

Though his record generally aligns with those of his Democratic colleagues on other issues, Whitmire has broken with his party on a number of votes related to criminal justice. He is a longtime ally of Houston and Harris County’s police union groups, which also are on the host committee for his kickoff fundraiser.

Last year, Whitmire voted for a GOP-backed bail bill that limits the opportunity for defendants to be released on no-cost personal bonds and gives judges more information about a defendant’s criminal history when setting bail.

He also voted to amend the Texas Constitution to expand the charges under which judges could deny bail outright, extending the list to include certain violent and sexual crimes. The measure died after nearly every Democrat in the House voted against it, denying the two-thirds support needed to pass.

Whitmire’s criminal justice stances are expected to bolster his position among Republican voters and donors, including those who supported Mealer in a county judge race that focused heavily on violent crime rates in Harris County.

His views on criminal justice, and his support from GOP-aligned donors, have attracted some early backlash from Democrats, including Hollins, who noted last month on Twitter that Whitmire had not endorsed Hidalgo in the county judge’s race.

There’s a lot here and I don’t want to get too much into it right now because it’s going to be a long campaign and where candidates start out is not always indicative of where they end up. Going into a race like this, where more than one candidate is going to be broadly acceptable to me, I usually take a moment to see how I react to the campaign launches, as in what are the themes they chose to emphasize, who do I know that is or is not already on board with them, that sort of thing. See what the vibes are and how I feel about that. Let’s put a pin in that for now and come back to it after Hollins and Edwards have launched.

One thing I will make note of is this:

Fertitta, who also spoke at the event, praised Whitmire for his bipartisan perspective.

“When you look in this room tonight, you see Republicans and Democrats and you see the whole city of Houston,” he said. “John looks at things the right way and isn’t partisan when it comes to doing the right thing.”

The billionaire also faulted Mayor Sylvester Turner for not taking a stronger stance to represent the city’s interest.

“When you had a strong mayor form of government and when you are the mayor in this city, you run this city. Every single department here is yours. It is no different than running a huge company,” Fertitta said. “When Harvey happened and the state got billions and billions of dollars, Houston didn’t get any money for years. I can tell you this, if John Whitmire is our mayor, that wouldn’t have happened.”

Wait, what? Does the name “George P. Bush” mean anything to you, Tilman? This is so at odds with the facts of the matter that I’m surprised the story didn’t include a paragraph explaining the way the Land Commissioner went about distributing the federal funds and how they overtly favored smaller, more rural, definitely more Republican, areas over Houston and Harris County. Also, isn’t Mayor Turner a longtime friend and ally of Sen. Whitmire? It’s a little weird to see such a potshot being launched like that, especially at a campaign kickoff. I don’t even know what to make of it.

Anyway. This is where the 2023 Mayor’s race starts out. It will be long and loud and expensive and we’ll all be ready for it to be over in a few months’ time. What are your vibes about this going in?

A too-early look at who’s running for Houston city offices in 2023

Nov 26th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Because it’s never not election season.

With the midterm elections behind us, city election season is now heating up. Next November, Houston will elect a new mayor, a new controller and 16 City Council members.

The campaigns actually got underway long before the midterm elections were over. State Sen. John Whitmire, the longest serving member of the Texas Senate, announced his plans to run for mayor way back in November 2021. Chris Hollins, the former Harris County clerk, announced in February, and former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards launched her campaign in March.

Those announcements, and the millions of dollars the mayoral candidates collectively have raised for their bids so far, have set Houston off on its earliest start to campaign season to date.

As the candidates start making more public appearances and vying for voters’ attention, here’s your early primer on city elections, and who is running so far:

[…]

Mayor Sylvester Turner is serving out his second and final term, which means Houston will elect a new mayor in 2023. Voters also will decide 16 spots on City Council — 11 members representing geographic districts, and five members elected citywide in at-large seats — to round out the City Hall horseshoe.

City Controller Chris Brown also is term-limited, meaning the city will have a new controller as well. The controller is the city’s independently elected financial watchdog.

Six council members face term limits, meaning their seats will be open. Ten council members are eligible for re-election and presumably running.

They have a list of the Council members who are not term-limited, as well as a list of people who claim they are running for something at this time. We’ll get some idea of who is serious and who is just a name when the January finance reports come out. From past experience, nothing is truly set in stone until the filing deadline, and we’re a long way away from that.

One more name that is out there as a potential Mayoral candidate is former Metro chair Gilbert Garcia. Don’t be surprised to hear of other names, though at this point it’s not very likely there will be any more high-profile names.

The incumbent Council members who are term limited include Dave Martin (District E), Karla Cisneros (H), Robert Gallegos (I), Mike Knox (At Large #1), David Robinson (AL #2), and Michael Kubosh (AL #3). I expect there to be a lot of At Large candidates, assuming At Large seats are still a thing next November.

There are also races for HISD and HCC boards of trustees. In HISD, Kathy Blueford-Daniels (District II), Dani Hernandez (III), Patricia Allen (IV), and Judith Cruz (VIII) are up for re-election. In HCC, the candidates whose terms are up are Reagan Flowers (Distrct 4), Robert Glaser (5), and Pretta VanDible Stallworth (9). Glaser is under accusation of sexual harassment, and as such I have to think there’s a decent chance he’ll choose not to run again. That is 100% fact-free speculation on my part, so take it for what it’s worth.

This is the situation as it stands now. As I said, we’ll know more when we see the January finance reports. If you know of someone not listed in the Chron story who’s running for something next year, please let us know in the comments.

July 2022 campaign finance reports: City of Houston

Jul 27th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

We’re still more than a year out from the 2023 election, but we are now up to three serious conteners for Mayor, plus two others in the wild, so the finance reports are beginning to generate some real interest. The January 2022 reports are here, the July 2021 reports are here. 


Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
====================================================
Turner       209,950    129,870        0     802,194

Peck          19,100     19,457    5,000      24,057
Jackson       17,400     11,330        0      33,436
Kamin         86,461     14,691        0     193,807
E-Shabazz      8,000      5,591        0      17,691
Martin         2,500     18,138        0     151,767
Thomas         5,750      2,887        0      51,761
Huffman       45,350     45,284        0      30,697
Cisneros      13,500      1,164        0      38,094
Gallegos      27,050     14,126        0     127,933
Pollard      286,341     11,800   40,000     716,441
C-Tatum       51,950     16,089        0     154,697

Knox          18,425     10,266        0      37,185
Robinson      67,675     17,595        0     247,700
Kubosh        14,000     31,141  196,000      59,273
Plummer                   6,417    8,175      33,010
Alcorn        38,305     17,321        0     178,429

Brown            500      4,849   75,000      34,861

Hollins    1,123,316    138,079        0     941,155
Edwards      789,227     96,378        0     712,066

As a reminder, no links to individual reports here because the city’s system generates PDF downloads, and I don’t have the time to rename and upload and share them. Next year, when there are candidates, I’ll do that. Not this time.

All of the current officeholders submitted reports in a timely fashion this period. The only oddity was with the report for CM Letitia Plummer, which did not list an amount raised on either the summary or section totals pages. She clearly did raise some money, as a perusal of the rest of the report shows, but didn’t include a total for it anywhere. I didn’t feel like tallying it up myself, so I left the mystery in place. The only non-officeholders of interest to file reports are the two 2023 Mayoral candidates listed at the bottom, who made a decent splash with their unprecedented totals for this point in the cycle. While he did not file a city of Houston report yet, and while there is some uncertainty about how much he can move from his state account, Sen. John Whitmire had $9.7 million on hand as of July 15. Even if he can only transfer, say, 25% of that, it’s a lot of cash to start out with.

We must once again talk about the finance report for Ed Pollard, who I will say again must be planning something for his future because there is absolutely no need for this level of fundraising for his re-election campaign in District J. I had speculated that maybe he was aiming for a Mayoral campaign, but at this point that seems less likely – I can’t rule it out, but there’s already a big field of well-financed players, and Pollard would be the least known and tied for least-funded among them. Maybe next time, or maybe something in 2024? Or maybe he just really likes fundraising? Who knows.

Other than that, honestly kind of a boring set of reports. Things should start to get more interesting with the January 2023 reports – if nothing else, I’d expect to see a few new names. I’ll skip the HISD and HCC reports this cycle so look for those next January as well. I’ll round up a few state reports of interest for next time. Let me know what you think.

Hollins and Edwards report big Mayoral fundraising numbers

Jul 15th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Yes, we’re going to need to start paying attention to this.

Chris Hollins

Houston’s next mayoral election is not for another 18 months, but the early contenders already are raising heaps of cash.

Former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins has taken in more than $1.1 million in the first five months of his bid, according to data his campaign released Thursday. And former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards has raised about $780,000 since launching her candidacy on March 23, her campaign announced.

Both of those numbers far exceed what City Hall contenders historically have reported this far out from the election, as the November 2023 campaigns get off to an early start.

Five candidates already have announced their campaigns to succeed Mayor Sylvester Turner when his second term ends in January 2024: Hollins, Edwards, state Sen. John Whitmire, attorney Lee Kaplan and police officer Robin Williams.

Despite the strong fundraising starts from Hollins and Edwards, Whitmire will be the financial heavyweight in the race. The state senator, who has served in the Texas Legislature since 1973, has a war chest of more than $9.7 million in his state account, according to his latest filing.

When Turner made the jump from the Legislature to a mayoral campaign, he was allowed to transfer $900,000 of his funds, even though an opponent argued it was forbidden by city ordinance. City attorneys said at the time that Turner could transfer the first $5,000 from each donation to comply with the city’s more stringent cap on contributions. It is not yet clear exactly how much Whitmire will be able to transfer when he launches his mayoral campaign officially, likely this fall.

Amanda Edwards

Finance reports for declared candidates are due Friday and cover the first six months of this year. Williams and Kaplan have not publicly disclosed fundraising numbers yet.

[…]

The numbers set a new bar for fundraising this early. At this stage in the 2015 race, then-state Rep. Sylvester Turner reported raising $166,600 in donations and had $366,351 in the bank, although he had yet to formally declare his mayoral candidacy. Hollins has raised more money so far this year than Turner reported in all of 2014: $824,000, according to the mayor’s state filings at the time. Turner later would begin his mayoral candidacy in 2015 with $900,000 that he transferred from his state account.

Among other candidates that year, former Kemah Mayor Bill King and then-Sheriff Adrian Garcia did not report any contributions in July 2014, and had not announced candidacies at that point. The black-out ordinance still was in place at that point, and Garcia was barred from transferring his county account. Then-City Councilmember Stephen Costello reported $215,600 in contributions, with about $308,325 on hand. Each of those candidates would break the million-dollar threshold in the actual election year.

Eighteen months before his re-election, Turner reported $585,000 in contributions, though he had a campaign account of $2.2 million at that point. He broke the million-dollar threshold in both January and July 2019, and raised $1.7 million in the month between the 2019 general and runoff elections.

I will of course have a post on the city of Houston finance reports for July, along with those for Congress and Harris County and probably some state races. It’s going to be a busy weekend. Also, Adrian Garcia could not have announced any fundraising numbers for Mayor in 2014 because he was still Sheriff, and had to resign as Sheriff as soon as he announced his candidacy. That happened in early 2015. I knew that Mayor Turner had transferred money from his state account to his city campaign, but I’d forgotten what constraints he had. I suspect that Sen. Whitmire will still be able to move a fair amount of his existing treasury, and will have no trouble raising more. How much, we may soon see.

No new election admin yet

Jun 29th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Hope this delay is brief.

Harris County’s top election position remains unfilled, after a Monday meeting of the county’s election commission to select a candidate was canceled due to a lack of quorum. Their final pick will face a narrowing time frame to prepare for his or her first test: Early voting for the November election begins Oct. 24, less than three months after the new administrator’s likely start date.

The tight schedule adds to an already daunting job in a sprawling county with more than 2.5 million voters, an adversarial political climate with frequent election lawsuits, and a startlingly high rejection rate of nearly one out of five mail ballots in this year’s March primaries under the state’s new voting laws.

Only two of the five members of the commission were able to attend the Monday meeting in person, a day after County Judge Lina Hidalgo announced she had tested positive for COVID-19. The commission has not yet rescheduled the meeting.

With outgoing Harris County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria’s resignation going into effect Friday, Beth Stevens, chief director of voting for the county, will become the interim administrator until the new hire begins, which Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said is likely to be Aug. 1. The new administrator’s appointment will be voted on at a later meeting after the selected candidate meets a residency requirement to become a voter under the Texas Election Code.

The commission was slated to hold a closed-door executive session to interview two finalists for the position and take “possible action” to name the administrator at Monday’s meeting. Both finalists have prior experience running elections and are located out of state, according to Hidalgo.

See here for some background. I agree with Campos, it would have been nice to know who besides Judge Hidalgo (who had a perfectly good excuse) didn’t show up and why. May have been valid reasons, but the clock is ticking and we deserve to know. I get the impression that there’s no real dissension on the committee, they just need to finish the job.

The target date to have the new admin in place is still August 1. That’s a brief time to get up and running, but if they are hiring an experienced person and the operational staff is in place – and hopefully we have a way forward on the ballot collection question for Election Day – then I think we’ll be fine. So with that in mind, let me comment on this:

At the commission’s most recent meeting on June 15, Rob Icsezen, deputy chair of the Harris County Democratic Party’s primary committee, presented a letter to the commission signed by around 100 members of the public, many of them current or former Democratic election workers, asking that Longoria be reinstated as elections administrator. One of the reasons they cited was the time frame left until the November election.

“Any new elections administrator would have the same challenges as Ms. Longoria, without the benefit of a year and a half of hands-on experience,” the letter stated. “In short, they would be starting from scratch. November is rapidly approaching. The voters of Harris County do not have time for this.”

This will not be the first time an administrator has overseen a major Harris County election on relatively short notice. In June 2020, Chris Hollins took over as county clerk shortly before the November election, after outgoing clerk Diane Trautman resigned her position, citing health concerns during the pandemic.

“On my first day as County Clerk in 2020, we had just four months to figure out how to administer an election in pandemic conditions for the first time in Texas history,” Hollins said in a statement. “That included acquiring the necessary protective equipment, recruiting the election workers we needed, and creating and training our team on new safety procedures.”

Hollins benefited from an unprecedented budget to administer the 2020 election, after Commissioners Court approved $27 million — much of that coming from federal CARES Act dollars — to fund his plan, which included additional polling locations, up to 12,000 election workers and an extra week of early voting.

“Many core planning items (e.g., number and location of voting centers) should be well under way by August, but the new EA will need to ensure that solutions are in place for issues that have arisen in recent elections, as well as problems created by the recent voter suppression law,” Hollins said. “These include record rejection rates for mail ballots, which we saw in March, and intentional disruption by partisan poll watchers, which will be something we face for the first time in November.”

I was contacted by Icsezen and a couple of other folks, all people I respect, with this pitch. I did not join them. I like Isabel Longoria and I totally get where Icsezen and the others are coming from, but I just think that ship has sailed. It didn’t work out. That’s unfortunate, but it is what it is. Let’s get the new person in there, give that person all of the support and financing they will need to run a successful election, and do everything we can to help. At least COVID ought to be a much smaller issue this time around. We can do this.

Amanda Edwards to run for Mayor

Mar 24th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The field is now at three.

Amanda Edwards

Amanda Edwards, a former at-large member of Houston City Council and candidate for U.S. Senate, announced Wednesday she is running for mayor of Houston in 2023.

Edwards’ return to politics comes two years after her fifth-place finish in the 2020 Democratic Senate primary. She previously had served a single term as one of Houston’s five citywide council members, before passing up a second term to run for Senate.

With Edwards’ announcement, there now are three major candidates vying next year to succeed Mayor Sylvester Turner, who cannot run again due to term limits. Edwards, who would be the first Black woman to lead Houston city government, said her experience at City Hall sets her apart from the other two candidates, former Harris County clerk Chris Hollins and state Sen. John Whitmire, both of whom, like Edwards, are Democrats and attorneys.

“There are complicated issues that are facing the next mayor. The easy stuff, that was done many years ago,” Edwards said. “It’s the hard stuff that’s left, and you’ve got to have somebody at the helm on Day One that is ready to lead and knows how to navigate the city and all of its challenges and opportunities that may be in front of us.”

During her four-year tenure on Houston City Council, Edwards served as vice chair of the council’s Budget and Fiscal Affairs Committee and helped direct a task force focused on boosting the city’s tech and startup economy.

She proposed amendments to the annual city budget — one of the few levers of power for council members under Houston’s strong-mayor form of government — that sought to speed up the permitting process, expand internet access for low-income communities and improve conditions for women- and minority-owned businesses.

As mayor, Edwards said she would focus on “cultivating opportunity for everyone,” including businesses owned by women and minorities, who she said face “great disparities when they’re trying to access traditional forms of capital” to grow their businesses.

I thought Edwards would be an obvious contender for Mayor back when she was a Council member, for a variety of reasons – she was young and had a strong showing in her first election, did well raising money, would be term-limited at the same time as Mayor Turner, had plenty of opportunity to make things happen on Council, and so on. She chose a different path, declining to run for re-election before entering the Democratic primary for US Senate in 2020, where she raised a respectable but not impressive amount of money and finished a disappointing fifth place in that large field. Even when she was a candidate for Senate I still thought she might wind up running for Mayor. And so here we are. (You can also see what a genius I was at predicting the future.)

Whatever route she took to get here, she’s here now. As I’ve said many times, we’ll have a better handle on how her candidacy, or anyone’s, is doing when we see the first batch of campaign finance reports. Money isn’t everything, but at least early on it’s a decent proxy for how much interest there is in a particular contender, and where that interest is coming from. Right now we have three candidates with varied backgrounds and experiences, and they’re out there introducing themselves to the wider audience that they’ll need to appeal to. It’s likely that field will grow, so making a good impression now while there’s less competition is of great value. There’s a lot happening right now, and we should all rank the 2022 election ahead of the 2023 one, but do keep an eye on these people, as one of them could be our next Mayor. Edwards’ intro video is here. I wish her luck. The Trib and the Texas Signal have more.

January 2022 campaign finance reports: City of Houston

Mar 6th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

January finance reports are always worth a look, if only as a ritual to start the new year. We’re a year out from election season truly beginning for Houston, but as we now have two brand name contenders for Mayor already, we should check in and see how our current electeds are doing in the fundraising department. I last looked at these reports in July of 2021. Let’s see what folks have been up to since then.


Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
====================================================
Turner       311,976    156,329        0     723,455

Peck          25,620     13,989    5,000      27,442
Jackson        2,775      8,725        0      27,367
Kamin         14,620      7,824        0     124,434
E-Shabazz      8,440     13,625        0      15,282
Martin        56,350     32,011        0     162,311
Thomas        
Huffman       21,550     24,921        0      27,040
Cisneros       9,495      2,033        0      25,758
Gallegos      50,355     16,218        0     114,905
Pollard      151,275     12,946   40,000     441,900
C-Tatum       10,000      8,576        0     118,827

Knox          13,385      5,227        0      17,884
Robinson      50,595     11,758        0     189,134
Kubosh        33,200     31,914  196,000      73,174
Plummer       14,191     22,440        0      25,473
Alcorn       153,700     26,652        0     158,067

Brown          3,000      6,067   75,000      38,887

As a reminder, no links to individual reports here because the city’s system generates PDF downloads, and I don’t have the time to rename and upload and share them. Next year, when there are candidates, I’ll do that. Not this time.

Mayor Turner is the biggest recipient of campaign cash, which is usually how it is. He won’t be on the 2023 ballot, but we will have at least two charter referenda in our future, and I’m sure he’ll want to be able to have some influence over them. As was the case with Mayor Parker and term limits in 2015, he might want to add one or two more to that list, on policy matters that have been discussed but not yet addressed. I’m thinking of the stupid revenue cap, and a second try at an equal rights ordinance, this time for the charter. I have no special insight on these matters, just a long memory and a searchable archive, both of which I endeavor to use for good and not evil.

The fact that we have two high-profile Mayoral candidates in place (well, as much as one can be at this early hour) doesn’t mean that there aren’t other potential Mayorals out there. Last time I noted CM Ed Pollard’s prodigious fundraising, in which he amassed an amount that far outstripped his possible need for re-election in his district, and noted that he has been on some people’s lips as a possible candidate for Mayor. His January finance report does nothing to turn that speculation down, though also as noted before he may have his eye on some other prizes as well.

On the other end of that spectrum is the one person I had felt most confident about as a 2023 Mayoral candidate, and that’s City Controller Chris Brown, who seemed a natural fit for the Mayoral candidate role and who has demonstrated fundraising prowess in the past. Not these past six months, though, and his cash on hand total is looking awfully paltry. Does that mean anything? It’s too early to say. But now that John Whitmire and Chris Hollins are out there doing Mayoral candidate things, the time to decide whether or not one wants to join them in that is not far off. Michael Kubosh, who is currently doing Michael Kubosh things, falls in between the two of them in fundraising action. He’ll be facing the same decision as well.

A person who turned it up several notches after a sedate second half of 2021 is CM Sallie Alcorn, who was a top fundraiser for her initial election and now seems to be preparing for her second race. Note that in recent years, the old “blackout” period for fundraising was eliminated, so incumbents can get a head start on building up their treasuries. Fewer of them have need to do that now, as about half of them are term-limited. Some of those term-limited folks will be leaving with a decent amount of cash in their kitties – I’m thinking Dave Martin, Robert Gallegos, and David Robinson. It’s not clear to me what if any office they might use those funds for in the future – maybe one of them has an eye on Controller – but they have them if they want them.

Not much else of note. Greg Travis is now filing state reports, so he’s been swapped out for Mary Nan Huffman, who still has a few bucks in her account. I did not find a report for Tiffany Thomas. I’ll do HISD and HCC next to finish this off. Let me know what you think.

Chris Hollins to run for Mayor

Feb 8th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Wow.

Chris Hollins

Chris Hollins, the former Harris County elections chief who pushed measures aimed at expanding ballot access during the November 2020 election, announced Monday that he’s running for Houston mayor in 2023.

“The challenges that we’re facing as Houstonians are becoming more and more complex,” Hollins, 35, said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “And to overcome those challenges, that job demands innovation, that job demands effective leadership. And so we need a mayor who has a vision for Houston, but who also has the skills and attributes necessary to achieve that vision.”

Hollins, a Texas Democratic Party official who temporarily served as Harris County clerk in 2020, rose to prominence two years ago by championing efforts intended to make it easier for people to vote during the pandemic, including 24-hour drive-thru voting and a bid to send applications for mail-in ballots to more than 2 million registered voters in Harris County.

Those efforts drew a legal battle and a decisive rebuke from state Republican lawmakers, who passed a sweeping voting restrictions bill last year that outlawed the measures Hollins put in place.

Now, Hollins is looking to use his brief seven-month tenure as county clerk to catapult him into the mayor’s office — where he would oversee a $5.1 billion budget and 23,000 municipal employees. He’s running to replace Mayor Sylvester Turner, who will step down next year after serving two four-year terms; the city has term limits that prevent him from running again.

Hollins is the second major candidate to announce for mayor, following state Sen. John Whitmire, a longtime Houston Democrat with deep ties to the city’s police and fire unions and an $11 million war chest.

Well, the 2023 Mayor’s race just got a lot more exciting. I interviewed Hollins after the 2020 election and asked him (among other things) about the Republican reaction to his innovations, which they very much did follow through on. I imagine all of that will come up again, so get ready for it. There are other potential candidates out there, and given the early announcements by these two potentially quite formidable contenders, we may either get more of the same in the coming weeks, as no one will want to fall behind in the fundraising race, or we may find that the well of hopefuls has dried up a bit.

I don’t normally like to get ahead of one election with another, but to some extent that can’t be helped. Whatever my personal preferences are, we’re going to be hearing a lot about this race going forward. It’s a pretty sharp move on Hollins’ part because it sort of puts Sen. Whitmire, who has pledged to give his full attention to his 2022 race and the 2023 legislative session before he begins campaigning in earnest for Mayor, in a box. Whitmire probably doesn’t want to ignore Hollins, but at least over the next few weeks he can’t do all that much either or he’ll provide evidence for one of the main criticisms that Molly Cook, his primary opponent, has made against him. Even beyond that, he’s made his pledge about his order of operations and his priorities. That’s harder for him to do now.

We’ll see how it goes. By the same token, Hollins likely doesn’t want to divert too much attention from the very important 2022 election, so perhaps this is a smaller problem for Whitmire than it may appear. Whatever the case, as I said above, this race is a lot more interesting now. The Chron has more.

Vote No and take the dough

Jan 27th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
20 comments

It’s as Republican as insurrection and hydroxychloroquine.

Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, last year left little doubt why she was voting against a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure measure, calling it nothing more than a “socialist plan full of crushing taxes and radical spending.”

Yet, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced on Wednesday that very same infrastructure bill would be funding a $403-million flood control project in her district in the Fort Worth area, Granger wasted no time in hailing the effort.

“This is a great day for Fort Worth,” she said in a statement. She did not mention where the Army Corps was getting the money but thanked the agency for its “hard work and tireless commitment” to making her community safer.

Granger is not the only Republican cheering on projects generated by a bill that she voted to kill. In recent days, at least four other Republican members of Congress have praised initiatives made possible by the infrastructure law they opposed. Political analysts say they are not likely to be the last.

“Infrastructure remains a relatively nonpartisan issue, so even though those lawmakers may have not voted for the bill, they still have to answer to their constituents, and they want to align themselves with things that are popular,” said Cynthia Peacock, a professor of political communications at the University of Alabama.

[…]

Granger, the Texas Republican who commended the Army Corps of Engineers for addressing flooding problems, defended her vote against the legislation, saying she “wasn’t against this project.”

“I was against some of the other parts of that bill,” Granger said in a Thursday news conference.

I mean, sure, that’s one way to go about it. There’s also the Gene Wu approach, which gives you legitimate input into the process and enables you to secure at least some of your priorities, even if they come wrapped in a bill you otherwise don’t like. Lord knows, the Dems would have welcomed that collaboration, which they did manage to get in the Senate. To be sure, that route will not be popular with the seething masses of Republican primary voters, but that’s a much bigger problem within the Republican Party, and I can’t help you with it. If you are going to do it this way, you can and should be criticized for it.

And just to prove that this kind of hypocrisy is endemic:

Yes, what Rep. Crenshaw is doing here is perfectly legal. It makes absolutely no sense to ban elections administrators from doing this same exact thing, but that never stopped the vote suppressors. “It’s fine when I do it and it’s a travesty when you do it” is the logic here, and as you can see it’s pretty much impossible to argue with.

UPDATE: Crenshaw has gotten pilloried for this, not that it matters. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.

First two lawsuits filed against the voter suppression bill

Sep 4th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

No time wasted.

The top elections official in Harris County and a host of organizations that serve Texans of color and Texans with disabilities have fired the opening salvos in what’s expected to be an extensive legal battle over Texas’ new voting rules.

In separate federal lawsuits filed in Austin and San Antonio, the coalition of groups and Harris County sued the state over Senate Bill 1 before it was even signed into law, arguing it creates new hurdles and restrictions that will suppress voters and unconstitutionally discourage public officials and organizations from helping Texans exercise their right to vote.

The lawsuits claim the legislation violates a broad range of federal laws — the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 — and the First, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

“Egregiously, SB 1 takes particular aim at voters with disabilities, voters with limited English proficiency — who, in Texas, are also overwhelmingly voters of color — and the organizations that represent, assist, and support these voters,” the plaintiffs in the Austin lawsuit wrote in their complaint.

The plaintiffs in the San Antonio lawsuit,, which includes Harris County, also raise claims that lawmakers intentionally discriminated against voters of color in pushing the legislation.

[…]

The plaintiffs attack head on the lack of evidence that fraud is a widespread problem in Texas elections.

In the San Antonio lawsuit, they argue SB 1’s “additional burdens and restrictions” cannot be justified by invoking “unspecified and unproven voter fraud” when there is no proof that it occurs “beyond the very few examples already identified through Texas’s pre-existing processes and procedures.”

“Rather … SB1 is a reaction to Texas’s changing electorate, which is now more racially diverse and younger than ever before,” they wrote in their complaint.

The claims raised collectively in both lawsuits are as expansive as the legislation is far-ranging.

They include claims on SB 1’s new restrictions on voter assistance, including the help voters with disabilities and those with limited English proficiency are entitled to receive. The plaintiffs point to the reworked oath that a person assisting a voter must recite, now under penalty of perjury, that no longer explicitly includes answering the voter’s questions. Instead, they must pledge to limit their assistance to “reading the ballot to the voter, directing the voter to read the ballot, marking the voter’s ballot, or directing the voter to mark the ballot.”

As part of its claims of intentional discrimination, the lawsuit that includes Harris County as a plaintiff also calls out SB 1’s prohibition on the drive-thru and 24-hour voting initiatives used by the diverse, Democratic county in the 2020 election — both of which county officials said were disproportionately used by voters of color.

SB1 also makes it a state jail felony for local election officials to send unsolicited applications to request a mail-in ballot. Several counties proactively sent applications to voters 65 and older who automatically qualify to vote by mail, but Harris County attempted to send them to all 2.4 million registered voters last year with specific instructions on how to determine if they were eligible.

In outlawing those voting initiatives, Republican lawmakers made it clear they were targeting the state’s most populous county, even though other counties employed similar voting methods.

“My first and only priority is to educate and help voters to lawfully cast their ballots,” Harris County Elections Administrator Isabel Longoria said in a statement. “Voting by mail is not simply another method to vote — for many senior voters and voters with disabilities, it’s their only option to vote. SB1 makes it a crime for me to encourage those who are eligible to vote by mail to do so, effectively making it impossible to fulfill my sworn duty as Elections Administrator.”

Both lawsuits also argue the constitutionality of a section of SB 1 that creates new a “vote harvesting” criminal offense, which it defines as in-person interactions with voters “in the physical presence of an official ballot or a ballot voted by mail, intended to deliver votes for a specific candidate or measure.” The lawsuits argue the language in that section — and the criminal penalties attached to it — are unconstitutionally overbroad and vague and could serve to quash legitimate voter turnout initiatives.

The lawsuits also challenge provisions of SB1 that bolster protections for partisan poll watchers inside polling places, and new ID requirements for voting by mail.

You can see copies of the lawsuits here for Austin and here for San Antonio. I note that Isabel Longoria, the Harris County elections administrator, is a defendant in her official capacity in the Austin lawsuit and a plaintiff in the San Antonio lawsuit. I assume there’s a technical reason why a county elections administrator is named as a defendant in these actions, but I have no idea what algorithm is used to decide which county and administrator. (The Austin lawsuit also includes Dana DeBeauvoir from the Travis County elections office as a defendant, while the San Antonio lawsuit picks the Medina County admin. Go figure.)

I’m not going to speculate on the merits or chances of these lawsuits, which I assume will eventually get combined into a single action. I expect that they have a strong case, and we know from past performance that the Republicans in the Lege tend to be shoddy and indifferent in their work when they pass bills like these, but none of that really matters. What matters is what if anything the Fifth Circuit and SCOTUS deign to find objectionable. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to get my hopes up. I expect the Justice Department to get involved on the side of the plaintiffs, and there’s always the specter of passing the John Lewis Act and making this way easier on everyone. In the meantime, settle in for the long haul, because we know this will take years to come to a resolution. Look to see what happens when (I feel confident saying “when” and not “if”) a temporary restraining order is granted.

SOS Hughs resigns

May 24th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

In retrospect, I should have seen this coming.

Ruth Hughs

Texas Secretary of State Ruth Ruggero Hughs announced Friday she will step down from her post as the state’s top elections official, less than two years into her term.

The decision comes after Republicans in the Senate failed to take up her nomination, which was required for her to remain in the role past this legislative session. Hughs oversaw the presidential election last year, in which Harris County officials implemented several alternative voting measures, including 24-hour voting and voting by drive-thru.

Republicans have vilified the county’s efforts as part of their ongoing effort to discredit the election results, and have put forth legislation this session to crack down on what they see as opportunities for fraud at the ballot box. Democrats and voting rights advocates have called the effort voter suppression.

Hughs is the second Texas Secretary of State in a row to leave after the Senate did not confirm an appointee of Gov. Greg Abbott.

[…]

The departure, effective at the end of this month, leaves a hole for the Republican governor to fill as he faces reelection to a third term late next year. Under state law, legislators won’t vet Abbott’s next choice until they reconvene again in 2023.

SOS Hughs’ statement about her resignation is here. She was in many ways the opposite of the incompetent partisan hack David Whitley, who resigned almot exactly two years ago following his botched voter registration purge attempt.

It was easy to forget about Hughs because she didn’t make a lot of news. What did her in was that her office approved the various election innovations that Harris County (and others) put forth last year in response to COVID. For all of the caterwauling and litigation over drop boxes and drive-through voting and overnight hours and sending absentee ballot applications to voters who hadn’t specifically requested them, there was nothing in existing law that said those things were illegal. We all know what happened next, and so here we are.

The later version of the Chron story makes this more clear.

While Republicans have not publicly expressed any lack of faith in Hughs, Democrats point to her office’s assertion that Texas had a “smooth and secure” election in 2020.

“Apparently, that wasn’t what leadership wanted to hear,” said Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, in a tweet on Saturday.

The “smooth and secure” line became a highlight of the Democrats’ fight against a slew of Republican voting restrictions in the ongoing legislative session.

The Republican-led Senate is backing voting restrictions, saying they are needed to prevent fraud at the polls, despite no evidence of widespread cheating.

In pushing against the legislation, Democrats pointed to testimony from one of Hughs’ top deputies, Keith Ingram, director of elections.

“In spite of all the circumstances, Texas had an election that was smooth and secure,” Ingram told lawmakers in March, referring to the effect of the pandemic. “Texans can be justifiably proud of the hard work and creativity shown by local county elections officials.”

[…]

Chris Hollins, the former Harris County Clerk, said it was clear to him that Hughs’ office was under “intense partisan pressure” in 2020. Hollins said the county generally worked well with the secretary of state’s office in the 2020 elections until legal battles began over the county’s voting expansions. That’s when communication between the two offices abruptly ended, he said.

“They were supportive of us until, it seemed like, somebody of power put in a call to the governor’s office and told them not to be supportive of us,” said Hollins, now a vice chair for finance with the Democratic Party.

Across the country, “secretaries of state and election administrators have stood up and said ‘no, this was a free and fair and secure election,’ but that fact flies in the face of this entire lie that they’re trying to build, so folks who stand behind those facts have to go,” Hollins said.

“On the ultimate question of was this a safe and secure election, they said yes,” he said. “Right now the Republican Party line is no. So if you don’t bend to that, if you don’t bend to this ‘Big Lie,’ you are ousted.”

I had been wondering if Hughs had come under pressure last year to reject what Harris County (and again, other counties as well) was doing or if this is all an after-the-fact reaction to her office’s actions. Seems likely it’s the former, but maybe once she’s free of her constraints she’ll let someone know. I hope a reporter or two tries to chase that down regardless. Whatever the case, it doesn’t speak well for the state of our state’s democracy. In theory, if the massive voter suppression bill passes, a lot of this might not matter because so many of these previously un-quantified actions have now been explicitly outlawed, which leaves a lot less room for counties to get clever and SOSes to give them that latitude. But there are always new frontiers to explore, and I expect the big urban counties are not going to go quietly. The next SOS will have an opportunity to put a thumb on the scale – and that’s before we consider future voter roll “cleanup” efforts – and I would expect the next Abbott appointee to be fully versed on that. Get ready to have these fights all over again, this time with more resistance. The Trib has more.

Making voting worse

Apr 22nd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

I’ve spent a lot of time this year writing about how Republicans in the Legislature want to make it harder to vote. That’s undeniably true, but it doesn’t fully capture what’s going on. Voting is a thing that most of us do, and the process of voting is basically a service that your local government provides. The goal of the Republican bills in the Legislature, both the omnibus HB7 and SB6 but also the smaller and crazier bills that have garnered much less attention so far, is to make that service worse, now and in the future, and especially when external circumstances like a global pandemic make it harder to vote to begin with.

This Trib story is a straightforward analysis of what SB6 and HB7 do, and there’s also a good explainer in Vox, which I want to highlight.

The Senate bill imposes new rules limiting precinct placement that only apply to large urban counties. It punishes county registrars who don’t sufficiently purge the voter rolls, threatening a repeat of a 2019 fiasco in Texas in which nearly 100,000 recently naturalized citizens were pushed off the rolls. And it prohibits practices pioneered in Democratic-leaning counties designed to improve ballot access during the pandemic, like 24-hour voting.

The House bill, meanwhile, makes it nearly impossible to kick partisan poll watchers, who have historically been used to intimidate Black voters, out of precincts.

“SB 7 looks at what made it easier for people to vote in 2020, particularly communities of color — and then with a laser focus goes and removes those [rules],” says Thomas Buser-Clancy, a staff attorney at the Texas ACLU.

They weren’t rules (I don’t know what Buser-Clancy actually said), they were innovations. These innovations – 24-hour voting, curbside voting, multiple drop boxes for mail ballots, sending mail ballot applications to eligible voters – were things that were allowed in the sense that they weren’t explicitly forbidden. When election administrators, mostly but not exclusively in the big urban counties and exemplified by Chris Hollins, used their creativity and their desire to make it easier and safer to vote, that was the line in the sand that was crossed. Where their actions were upheld by the courts, it was because what they did was allowable under the law as it was. The point here is to remove any possibility of future innovations.

The Senate and House bills both contain a large number of revisions affecting different aspects of state election law — some trivial, others potentially significant.

One of the most notable, according to experts and activists, are the Senate bill’s new rules about the placement of voting precincts and the allocation of election resources, like staff and voting machines.

Under current law, Texas counties have significant discretion about where to set up precincts and where to put their resources. The Senate bill changes these rules, but only for counties with more than 1 million residents. There are five such counties in Texas, all of them urban Democratic strongholds: Harris County (Houston), Dallas County (Dallas), Tarrant County (Fort Worth), Bexar County (San Antonio), and Travis County (Austin).

In these five counties, SB 7 would require that precincts and resources be allocated proportional to the percentage of the county’s eligible voters living in specific areas. This method has two major features that are likely to make voting in Democratic-leaning areas harder.

First, any measure of “eligible voters” would have trouble accounting for very recent population change — likely undercounting younger, heavily minority areas with high growth rates while overcounting older, whiter ones. Second, many Texans vote near their place of work in the city center, so allocating resources by population would underserve urban areas with lots of offices.

The result? In the big Democratic-leaning counties, precincts will be less conveniently located and more likely to have long lines. This could have an effect on outcomes: Studies of elections in California and Texas have found that cutting the number of precincts in a county leads to a measurable decrease in local voter turnout.

“Harris County and Travis County did a good job at distributing polling places in areas where there was a high number of potential voters and where there was a likelihood of higher turnout among ethnic and racial minorities,” says Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. If SB 7 is passed, “that’s going to change.”

Another important provision of SB 7 requires county registrars to check their voter logs against state data on individuals “determined to be ineligible to vote because of citizenship status.” The registrar must remove voters on these lists from the voter registration lists; they would be personally fined $100 for each name they left on the voter rolls.

Voting rights activists worry that this is a backdoor effort to revive a 2019 voter purge struck down in court, an effort that tried to kick tens of thousands of recently naturalized voters off the rolls by using outdated citizenship status for them. The provision would also serve as a deterrent to people working as volunteer registrars — nobody wants to be fined hundreds of dollars for simple mistakes — which would significantly undermine the in-person voter registration drives that depend on their work.

“It’s kind of underrated but might be the biggest provision of SB 7,” says Joseph Fishkin, an election law expert at the University of Texas Austin. “There’s a real partisan skew as to who benefits from drying up the pool of new voters.”

wThe two bills would also significantly expand the powers of poll watchers, partisan operatives who observe the voting process to protect the party’s interests.

SB 7 allows poll watchers to film voters while they are getting assistance from poll workers, potentially intimidating voters with disabilities and non-English speakers. They are nominally prohibited from distributing their footage publicly, but there’s no enforcement mechanism or punishment — so there’s nothing really stopping them from sending misleading footage to fringe-right websites and claiming they prove “fraud.”

HB 6 makes matters worse by making it impossible to kick out poll watchers for any reason other than facilitating voter fraud, even if they are disrupting the voting process in other ways. The experts I spoke to said this applies even in extreme cases: a drunk and disorderly poll watcher, for example, or a jilted spouse who starts a fight when their ex shows up to vote.

It’s hard to say how these provisions would affect elections; poll watchers have had little impact on recent American elections. But the history of the practice gives us reasons to be skeptical about expanding their powers: Watchers have historically menaced Black voters trying to exercise their rights.

And there are many other notable aspects of the two laws.

Remember those ridiculously long lines at the TSU early voting location during the 2020 primaries? That was the result of having the same number of Republican and Democratic voting machines at a site that was heavily Democratic (remember, this was a primary). The effect of SB6 and HB7 will be to make more places have such lines. Really, that’s the idea in general: Fewer locations, shorter hours, longer lines, more disruption, and a total clampdown on any bright ideas that local officials may have to make the experience better. Make voting worse. That’s what it’s all about. Go read those stories and give it a thought in those terms. When I’ve said that Democrats in 2022 should campaign on making it easier and more convenient to vote, this is what they’d be campaigning against.

The Texas/Georgia comparison

Apr 17th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The main thrust of this story is that the Texas voter suppression bills are not as bad as the law Georgia passed. But as you can see, these laws are still Very Bad.

After major corporations criticized Georgia for adopting voter restrictions in the wake of Democratic wins there, the spotlight is shifting to Texas as Republican lawmakers advance similar legislation.

And just as Georgia Republicans sought to rein in Fulton County — a heavily Democratic county that includes the city of Atlanta — Texas Republicans are targeting large counties run by Democrats with measures that provide possible jail time for local officials who try to expand voting options or who promote voting by mail.

That same push is happening in Arizona and Iowa, said Lawrence Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law.

“All of these bills share a common purpose: to threaten the independence of election workers whose main job should be to ensure fair elections free from political or other interference,” Norden said.

The Senate is particularly intent on preventing a repeat of 2020, when the interim Harris County clerk, Chris Hollins, promoted novel approaches such as 24-hour voting sites and drive-thru polling places as safe alternatives to indoor voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Democrat-leaning county saw historic turnout that helped Joe Biden come within 5.5 percentage points of the incumbent, Republican Donald Trump.

“Out of thin air they decided on drive-in voting,” charged Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a conservative Republican who runs the Senate and has been a leading voice in urging lawmakers to tighten voting laws in the name of preventing fraud.

Harris County officials, on the other hand, say drive-thru voting was preapproved by administrators at the Texas Secretary of State’s office.

“In 2020 we did everything we could within the bounds of the law to ensure that we were going to have a free, a fair, a safe and an accessible election in Harris County,” Hollins said.

House Bill 6, which passed out of a committee and will next go before the full Texas House, would open up election officials to felony charges if they were to solicit a voter to fill out an application for an absentee ballot. Election officials could also face felonies for submitting false information on a provisional ballot, or if they are proven to intentionally have failed to count a valid ballot. Another provision would subject election officials to misdemeanor charges for blocking partisan poll watchers from having access to observe voting.

Legislation approved by the Texas Senate, SB 7, would also make it a crime for election workers to deny a partisan poll watcher the chance to sit or stand near enough to observe voting.

That Senate bill includes a proposal to allow poll watchers to video record voter activity at polling places. Election law expert David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation and Research told CBS News that provision would make Texas elections less secure, not more so.

[…]

The overlapping debates in Georgia and Texas over election legislation has left some confused over what each state is doing.

During a marathon session of the Senate last week, state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, went out of his way to explain some of the distinctions. He noted that there is nothing in SB 7 that would make it a crime to give people food and water while they are standing in line to vote, as the Georgia bill does.

“Not in the bill,” Hughes said. “Never going to be in the bill.”

The “no food or water to anyone standing in line” provision in the Georgia law drew a lot of notice for its cruelty and pettiness, but the lack of such a provision in the Texas bills should not distract you from their badness. The main point is to make it harder to vote, and to prevent any future election official – with the threat of a felony, for crying out loud – from taking any action in any situation to make it easier to vote. The poll watchers provision is an open invitation for all kinds of self-appointed election vigilantes to intimidate any voter whose looks they don’t like. And this was all very much done with animus aimed at Harris County, for the sin of being a Democratic stronghold.

I have referred to Daniel Davies’ pithy comment about how “good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them to gain public support” in the past. In a post-Trump world, I’m not sure how accurate that still is, but I do note that the likes of Dan Patrick are still lying their heads off about these bills.

Before explaining how the bill would amend the state election code, Patrick said something that he would repeat during the 35-minute press conference.

“Nothing has changed in the election code (under SB7) regarding early voting. Nothing has changed,” he said.

[…]

If passed, SB 7 would codify Republicans’ objections to drive-thru voting and 24-hour voting into the state election code. To Roxanne Werner, deputy director of communications for Harris County Elections, that’s an appreciable change.

“There are definitely a number of things that would change under SB7, particularly with early voting. Some of the more obvious things are the drive-thru locations and the lack of extended early voting hours,” Werner said. “There are several things in SB 7 that relate to early voting, so I’m surprised to hear (Patrick’s) particular statement.”

For instance, the bill’s text would eliminate 24-hour voting by adding language to the election code that requires early voting to be conducted “for a period of at least nine hours, except that voting may not be conducted earlier than 6 a.m. or later than 9 p.m.”

And it would prohibit drive-thru voting — during the early voting period or on election day — by adding language that says “no voter may cast a vote from inside a motor vehicle.”

Robert Stein, a Rice University political scientist who has worked with and studied Harris County’s election system, said the changes proposed in SB 7 are obvious.

“What do you mean nothing changed?” Stein said, responding to Patrick’s claim. “Then why are you writing SB 7? You’re changing the law so as to prevent someone from doing something they have been doing in the past.”

David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, agrees and notes that SB 7 would make Texas one of the most restrictive voting states in the nation. Becker said that SB 7 would “concentrate more voting to a single day” by disincentivizing early voting and mail-in voting.

“I think it’s really hard to characterize SB 7 as not severely limiting early voting given that early voting was allowed to proceed under Texas law in a way that was much more expansive,” Becker said.

All of the changes packaged in SB 7 taken together, the overall effect of the bill, as in bills in other states, is the removal of authority from local election officials, Becker said.

“The fact is that the election code, as every election code does, leaves areas for local government to manage their elections, and there was nothing in the code before that said you couldn’t do drive-thru voting, that said you couldn’t do 24/7 voting, that said you couldn’t do temporary buildings for early voting,” he said. “That has absolutely changed.”

The claim was rated “Pants On Fire”. Even some Republicans have noted the likely effect that these bills would have on early voting and the voters who use it. It’s not that I expect Dan Patrick to be some kind of bastion of truth, but he’s usually smoother than this. Lying in such an obvious fashion like this is defensive in a way Patrick doesn’t often show.

The original story also notes that HB6 has fewer of the restrictive provisions than SB7 does. That’s true, but it’s not particularly relevant. One of these bills will end up in a conference committee, and once there anything can happen. I’d bet on the Senate version being the one that wins out in the end.

One last thing: I’ve mentioned this before as well, but remember that the two omnibus bills are not the only ones out there. There are other bills that do smaller and more targeted things that are getting hearings, like HB895, which would allow election workers to have the discretion to pull voters out of line if their ID and documentation seem questionable, take them aside and make their photo on the spot, make copies of their documentation, and turn that over to the Secretary of State. (No, really.) What could possibly go wrong with that? That hasn’t gotten a vote in committee yet, so it’s not nearly as far along as SB7 or HB6, but we all know that a bill like this could wind up as an amendment to a bill that’s on its way to passage if it doesn’t survive the committee process itself. Until the Lege is out of session, all kinds of badness remains possible.

A bit of business pushback against voter suppression

Apr 1st, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

It’s a start, but much more is needed.

A group of 72 Black business leaders are calling on companies to publicly oppose a series of bills being advanced by Republicans in at least 43 states that could dramatically curb access to the ballot box.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Black corporate executives are rallying around a letter that pushes back on a Georgia law that voting rights advocates have said will make it harder for Black people to vote.

“There is no middle ground here,” Kenneth Chenault, a former chief executive of American Express and one of the letter’s organizers told the Times. “You either are for more people voting, or you want to suppress the vote.”

The letter — which urges corporate America to publicly oppose new laws that would restrict the rights of voters — comes after major Atlanta-based corporations, including Coca-Cola and Home Depot, failed to formally condemn the bills restricting voting rights.

The letter’s powerhouse group of signers include Roger Ferguson Jr., CEO of TIAA; Mellody Hobson and John Rogers Jr., the co-chief executives of Ariel Investments; Robert Smith, CEO of Vista Equity Partners; and Raymond McGuire, a former Citigroup executive who is running for New York City Mayor.

Also among the letter’s long list of supporters were Richard Parsons, a former chairman of Citigroup and chief executive of Time Warner, and Tony West, the chief legal officer at Uber.

[…]

While voting rights and advocacy groups, including the ACLU and NAACP, have filed a series of lawsuits against the bill in the wake of its passage, a majority of corporations have remained largely mum on the legislation.

Delta Air Lines CEO came forward and issued a memo on Wednesday calling the final bill “unacceptable,” suggesting that it hinged on the premise of former President Donald Trump’s false claims about a stolen election.

The group of executives stopped short of calling out specific companies for their inaction, but are asking big corporations to dedicate resources to  fighting voting rights restrictions.

The executives are hoping that big companies will help short circuit dozens of similar bills in other states from being signed into law.

Like Texas, for example. Former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins has sounded the alarm and called for the business community to get involved as well. I unfortunately think it’s already too late – remember, when there was a lot of business resistance to the bathroom bill in 2017 (which the likes of Dan Patrick viewed with contempt), it was underway well before the session began. We’re already pretty far into the process, and there hasn’t been a peep in Texas as yet, other than some progressive groups taking out ads urging businesses to get involved, which is still a couple of steps away from meaningful action. Things are starting to move in Georgia, but of course that’s after their heinous bill has been signed into law. Sometimes it just takes that much longer for the forces that oppose evil to get its act together. It’s still worth the effort, but time is fast running out.

The Republican attack on Harris County voting

Mar 15th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
14 comments

It’s straight up retaliation for Harris County getting positive national attention for going out of its way to make it easier to vote in 2020.

Harris County made a big push to expand mail-in and early voting during the 2020 election, offering options never before seen in Texas such as 24-hour polling places and drive-thru voting.

Republicans in the Legislature are now moving to make sure it never happens again, targeting the county with sweeping voting restrictions they hope to enact ahead of the 2022 midterm elections that they say are necessary to prevent voter fraud.

A priority Senate bill filed this week would prohibit local election officials from sending out mail ballot applications to voters who have not requested them, another step Harris County pioneered during the 2020 election. The bill would also ban certain early voting opportunities, including drive-thru voting and early voting before 7 a.m. and after 7 p.m.

The goal of Senate Bill 7 is “to make sure that the election process is fair and, equally important, to make sure that Texans know it’s fair,” said bill author Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola. “As people lose faith in the process, as people don’t think their vote is going to be counted accurately or doubt whether the process is secure, they’re going to be discouraged, they’re going to be less likely to vote.”

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said the voting methods targeted by Senate Republicans in the bill resulted in higher turnout among voters of both parties in the county, adding that it saddens her to see any proposals to limit voting and make access to the ballot box a partisan issue.

“The proposed voting restrictions in SB7 are political theater that sadly harms voters of both parties,” Hidalgo said. “Policies grounded in the Big Lie — the falsehood that mass voter fraud exists — are wrong and only harm our democracy.”

Former County Clerk Chris Hollins, who enacted all the get-out-the-vote measures in 2020, said the bill was “certainly targeted at Harris County in particular.” He noted that over 100,000 voters used drive-thru voting last year and 10,000 took advantage of extended polling hours, and not all were Democrats.

Republicans are “trying to make sure that those people do not cast votes in the future,” Hollins said. While election administrators “come up with innovative ways to better serve voters … Republicans are doing everything that they can to disenfranchise voters.”

See here for the previous post on this topic. Look, we all know the arguments for these new restrictions are bullshit. Republicans scream about “voter fraud” and “election integrity” because it’s what they do. It doesn’t matter that people who voted Republican also took advantage of these opportunities, the point is that they originated in a Democratic county by Democratic officials and on balance they benefited Democratic voters more because there were more Democratic voters to begin with.

You can sign up to testify against these bills, and if you are someone who used drive through voting or overnight voting or know someone who did I’d encourage you or them to testify. It won’t change anything, but you can at least make the Republicans who want to make it harder for you to hear your story. The one thing we can do is win enough elections in 2022 and beyond to begin to remove these needless burdens on voting. (Remember, “Making It Easier To Vote” is one of my 2022 campaign planks.) The federal legislation that has passed the House and awaits action in the Senate if enough Democratic Senators decide that keeping the filibuster as is does not and should not give Republicans a total veto over their agenda would help, as it would require laws like these to go through preclearance, where they would surely fail. Republicans are making it harder for you to vote because they can. Until they lose that power, they will continue to exercise it.

Republicans want to ban voting at night

Mar 8th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Give me a break.

Chris Hollins

Texas Republicans have made it clear that voter suppression is a legislative priority, and one of their biggest targets involves Harris County.

State Rep. Jared Patterson filed a bill last week that would restrict voting hours at early voting locations to between 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. On Twitter, Patterson argued that his bill was filed in response to early voting that occurred in Harris County.

“I filed HB 2293 because of irregularities in Harris County polling hours of operation and the opportunity for voter fraud when no one is looking,” wrote Patterson.

Though many Texas Republicans have claimed the 2020 election was rampant with voter fraud, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has produced only 16 cases, which all involved incorrect addresses.

In 2020, Harris County utilized a number of innovations to safely increase voter turnout in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight voting locations throughout the city held early voting until 10 p.m. and one day of 24-hour voting. The locations were strategically placed in neighborhoods that were most likely to benefit workers with non-traditional hours.

According to the Houston Chronicle, over 10,000 Harris County residents voted overnight from October 29 to October 30. The former county clerk for Harris County, Chris Hollins noted on Twitter that HB 2293 would impact “first responders, medical professionals, and shift workers.”

Of course, the overnight early voting locations were from the same early voting locations that had operated during the day. Indeed, the ones that had nighttime hours just stayed open past the usual closing times. The allegations of “irregularities” and “fraud” are just shibboleths, meant to demonstrate continued fealty to Donald Trump and the Big Lie of the 2020 election. The purpose of this bill is simply to make voting less accessible. The least they could do is to be honest about that.

This is hardly the only bill to restrict voting – John Coby has rounded up a bunch more, and of course there’s a crap-ton of voter suppression bills in statehouses around the country, with states that President Biden flipped like Arizona and Georgia on the forefront. Democrats can stave off some of this if they can overcome the ridiculous obstacles in the Senate (which include a couple of their own Senators) and pass the two voting expansion bills the House has approved. These bills cover a heck of a lot, and if you want to look at it in a particular way, they’re targeting Texas with these two bills.

“It would be a huge, huge deal for Texas voters,” said Grace Chimene, president of the League of Women Voters of Texas, a group that supports the legislation. “It’s like having a new Voting Rights Act that would protect the rights of voters, make it fair and equal access to voting here in Texas.”

State lawmakers are now pushing a slew of new restrictions on voting, including bills that would make voting by mail more complicated and would scale back hours for polling places.

The federal legislation would stop those efforts, but its changes to how political boundaries are drawn may have some of the biggest effects on Texas, where Republicans control the Legislature and are expected to draw districts that benefit GOP candidates for the next 10 years as Texas becomes an increasingly competitive state. Texas lawmakers will also be drawing boundaries for two to three more seats in Congress.

The bill would take redistricting out of the hands of lawmakers and create independent panels to draw boundaries — something already in place in several states.

The bill also includes provisions to prevent the drawing of districts to break up communities of color, which could have a big impact on Texas’ increasingly diverse — and Democratic trending — suburbs, said Michael Li, an expert on redistricting who serves as senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

The legislation would create a legal framework to test districts for gerrymandering and would expedite the legal challenges that are almost certain to follow Texas’ new maps, as well.

“This is the pushback to all the efforts going on in states including Texas to rollback longstanding voter practices,” Li said.

From your lips to Joe Manchin’s ears, Michael. Still, there’s real work to be done here, which very much includes winning enough state offices to pass our own voting rights bills. We know how hard that’s going to be. On the plus side, passing the two federal bills might make Ken Paxton’s head explode, and that should make anyone want to support them.

Do we still have to worry about the Elections Administrator’s office?

Dec 31st, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

I’m a little hesitant to bring this up, but…

Isabel Longoria

This year, Harris County began the process of consolidating the two offices that have historically handled elections — the county clerk and the tax assessor-collector’s office — under one roof.

Isabel Longoria, a special advisor on voting rights to the county clerk, was sworn in to lead the new office last month.

“Fundamentally the office is shifting from being reactive to proactive,” Longoria told the Signal. “Under the tax office and county clerk offices, since elections and voter registration were just one part of what they did, it was always kind of like, ‘oh shit elections are coming, now what’ or ‘oh shit, we’ve got to register voters, now what’ — now we have the capacity to say that this is our focus year-round.”

Harris County voters are already benefiting from some new practices, some they can see and some they can’t. Election results in the county are now updating every thirty minutes, and behind the scenes, election officials are working more closely together. For example, Longoria said the heads of both the voter registration and elections department were in the same room at NRG on election day.

[…]

Earlier this month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a letter to Harris County informing them that Longoria’s newly created office did not exist. Paxton argued that the county violated Texas election code by creating the office without the proper timing and without appropriately informing the Texas Secretary of State. He gave the county two weeks to take “corrective action” before his office would intervene.

Harris County Commissioners Court was unmoved by the threat, the county attorney replied to Paxton detailing the paperwork, and nothing has come of it since. And business as usual has continued at the elections administrator’s office, Longoria said.

“I think he just wanted to make sure we filed our paperwork, and we did,” Longoria said. “That’s it. It’s one of those things where… yeah… nothing happened.”

That story was published on December 14, right after the District B runoff, which was the first election fully administered by the new office. It was also two weeks after Ken Paxton’s temper tantrum about the slow notification of the office’s creation and the appointment of Longoria as the chief. It’s now been four weeks since Paxton raised the possibility of taking Harris County to court if they didn’t take “corrective action” within two weeks. I guess Vince Ryan’s email to Paxton settled the matter, which suggests that maybe Paxton was making a much bigger deal over a minor boo-boo than he needed to make. Of course, he’s been a pretty busy man since then, what with being raided by the FBI and trying to overturn the election and all, so maybe he just hasn’t gotten back around to this. Sometimes these things just take longer than you think they will, you know?

The Harris County Election Security Task Force

Dec 26th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

I hadn’t realized that this was a thing, but it was and I’m glad it was.

A task force formed to ensure the security of the November election in Texas’ biggest county has found no evidence of wrongdoing after finishing its work.

The Harris County Election Security Task Force was made up of the Harris County Precinct 1 constable’s office, the district attorney’s office, the county attorney’s office and the county clerk’s office. In a report published Friday, the task force said it “received approximately 20 allegations of wrongdoing that needed to be elevated to the level of a formal investigation.”

“Despite claims, our thorough investigations found no proof of any election tampering, ballot harvesting, voter suppression, intimidation or any other type of foul play that might have impacted the legitimate cast or count of a ballot,” the report says.

[…]

The task force operated from Oct. 13 through Nov. 3, which was Election Day, according to the report. Undercover officers made 6,311 visits to 122 early voting and 806 Election Day polling sites. The task force responded to 77 calls for service. And it used four explosive-detecting K-9 units to to make 323 sweeps of polling locations, as well as “continual sweeps” while voters dropped off ballots at NRG Stadium on Election Day. (The task force found no explosives.)

“We all worked together to ensure our elections, which are the lifeblood of democracy, were free and fair and that any and all allegations were thoroughly investigated,” Ogg said.

The report is here, and it’s an easy read. This is good from a pragmatic perspective, in that it was good for the various law enforcement agencies to work together and coordinate efforts, and it was good from a transparency perspective, as each incident is detailed along with the response and resolution. You should read through the incident reports, which begin on page 8 and are the bulk of the document. Incident #2 was the subject of some fever-swamp “reporting” on right wing websites – a fellow Democrat who had come across one of those stories emailed me about it early on, and I noted in my reply to them the various ways in which it sounded like BS – while incident #22 was the Aguirre situation, which the report noted was referred to the DA’s office. The fact that in addition to responding to calls from the public, the task force made regular proactive checks on voting locations to ensure their safety was retroactively reassuring to me. It also had an actual, positive effect, unlike the fear-mongering and snipe hunting our state leaders engaged in. Put this down as another innovation from 2020 that we should keep on doing in the future.

Ken Paxton’s attempted jihad against Harris County

Dec 24th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Wow.

Best mugshot ever

Attorney General Ken Paxton tried to get the Trump administration to revoke millions in federal COVID relief funding that Harris County budgeted for expanding mail-in voting earlier this year, newly revealed records show.

Paxton wrote in a May 21 letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that Harris County’s plan was an “abuse” of the county’s authority and an “egregious” violation of state law. The letter was obtained and published by the Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

“We respectfully ask the department to scrutinize its award of CARES Act funding to Harris County in light of the county’s stated intent to use federal funding in violation of state law, and to the extent possible, seek return of any amounts improperly spent on efforts to promote illegal mail-in voting,” Paxton wrote. “Without implementing adequate protections against unlawful abuse of mail-in ballots, the department could be cast in a position of involuntarily facilitating election fraud.”

The letter to Mnuchin illustrates the lengths Paxton went in his efforts to stop Harris and other counties from making it easier to vote by mail during the pandemic, which included suing Harris County as it tried to send mail ballots applications to all 2.4 million of its registered voters. The mail-ballot application push was part of the county’s $27.2 million plan to expand voting options, funded in large part through CARES Act money.

[…]

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Mnuchin heeded Paxton’s request to investigate how Harris County used the funding.

In a written statement, County Judge Lina Hidalgo said that the loss of the funds “would have knocked the floor out of our citizens’ ability to vote safely” during an important election held in the middle of a global pandemic.

“This attempt to cut off emergency federal funding for fellow Texans is indefensible,” she said. “To do so in secret is truly a shame and I’m relieved this is now out in the open.”

Members of the Texas Democratic Party accused the attorney general of “picking fights” to distract from his personal life.

“In the middle of the biggest pandemic in American history, every Texan should have been afforded the opportunity to vote as safely as possible. Indicted Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton continues to try to pick fights to distract away from his personal life and his abuse of office. Paxton is a carnival barker who has made Texas a laughingstock with his ridiculous inquiries and lawsuits. To restore trust in the Attorney General’s office, we must all band together to vote him and his abuse of power out in 2022.”

I suppose if there’s one thing that the year 2020 has been good for, it’s to serve as a reminder to me that I am still capable of being shocked. I can’t say that I’m surprised, because it was clear from the beginning that then-County Clerk Chris Hollins’ aggressive efforts to make voting easier, ably funded by Commissioners Court, were going to draw a heated response. I guess I had just assumed that the lawsuits filed by Paxton and others against the various things that Hollins pioneered were the response, with bills filed in the 2021 Legislature the culmination, but I had not expected this.

It is interesting that Paxton chose to fire this particular shot in secret. We would have found out about it at the time if he had succeeded, of course, but it’s strangely out of character for Paxton to do something like this under cover of darkness. Say what you will about Ken Paxton, the man does not lack confidence in the correctness of his positions. I don’t know what his motivation was for not being front and center about this – I mean, we saw the lawsuit he filed to overturn the election. Shame, or fear of being publicly dragged, are not inhibitions for him. Maybe he was afraid of spooking Secretary Mnuchin, who is generally less cartoon-y in his villainy. I’m open to suggestion on this point.

The story mentions that this letter came from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which led me to this:

CREW obtained Paxton’s letter to Mnuchin as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Treasury Department, which remains ongoing.

The lawsuit in question is over the appointment of Louis DeJoy as Postmaster General. We might never have found out about this scurrilous and cowardly action otherwise.

I was going to spend more time in this post pointing out that Paxton’s allegations were 1) essentially baseless, and 2) should have been made in a lawsuit, as this would have fallen squarely under his law enforcement authority if Harris County were indeed breaking the law as he claimed, but honestly that CREW article laid it out thoroughly, so go read that for those details. The main takeaway here is that this wasn’t just a partisan dispute, which could and should have been carried out in public as so many other mostly ginned-up voting “controversies” this year were, it was 100% unadulterated bullshit from our despicable Attorney General. He’s not feeling any pressure to step down from his fellow Republicans, and do brace yourself for a pardon from our Felon in Chief, so it really is up to us to vote his sorry ass out in 2022. The Texas Tribune has more.

More on the TDP 2020 audit

Dec 23rd, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

I’m very much looking forward to seeing the final report, but I don’t have a clear idea of the objectives from this story.

[Unsuccessful State House candidate Brandy Chambers’] election night confusion mirrors the second-guessing going on within the Texas Democratic Party, the members of which received every advantage they hoped for in 2020 — enough campaign cash to keep pace with a well-funded GOP, a polarizing candidate at the top of the Republican ticket and historically high voter turnout — but still gained virtually nothing.

The early diagnosis: A national push to avoid in-person campaigning because of the pandemic was ruinous, especially with Latino voters who are key to the party’s fortunes in Texas. Early polls were skewed against conservatives and gave Democrats a false sense of security. Republicans effectively characterized calls to defund the police as a threat to public safety. And the party’s message did not connect with the average voter worried about recovering from the economic hurt inflicted by COVID-19.

Texas Democrats believe the lack of in-person campaign events and door-knocking especially hurt them come Election Day, as Republicans continued to meet with voters.

“This was probably the most difficult thing that we faced — the most impactful thing in our election,” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said. “You had the Republican Party engaged in all of these races in a massive canvassing campaign and bragging about it. … We were left at a very, very severe disadvantage.”

Hinojosa said President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign had advised down-ballot candidates to avoid in-person events and that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee issued similar rules for its candidates, threatening to withhold funds from campaigns if they went door to door.

About two months before the election, Hinojosa said, he’d heard concerns from congressional candidates and organizers who said they “were having a hard time reaching Hispanic voters by the phone. … They really needed to be freed to knock on doors.”

But the national officials wouldn’t budge, he said.

A DCCC spokesman confirmed that there was a nationwide policy directing candidates not to canvass in person during the pandemic but denied that the organization threatened to take away funding from Texas Democrats if they persisted.

[…]

The members demanded 12 action items to move forward, including changes in senior leadership, the creation of a 10-year strategic plan and a request for assistance from states where Democrats had successfully run campaigns this cycle.

“The ultimate goal was ‘let’s start a conversation.’ It was not meant to be petty or divisive,” said Jen Ramos, a member of the state party’s executive committee and co-author of the letter. “We just decided that we’ve got to be firm about this but also really have a means to healing.”

[…]

“Republicans were talking about how we could keep you working,” [SDEC member and letter co-author Kendall] Scudder said. “Democrats were talking about shutting the economy down. Democrats were being the most responsible, but sometimes you don’t love the parent who spanks you. You love the parent that buys you candy.”

Scudder said the party must improve its communication with minority voters and stop pushing only issues that “we ascribe to them as important,” such as immigration for Latino voters or criminal justice reform for Black voters.

[Committee co-chair Chris] Hollins said the committee will meet soon to settle on an initial list of objectives. Revamping party messaging is at the top of his list, too — especially as it relates to the specific identity and goals of the Texas Democratic Party and how they differentiate from those of more liberal states.

See here for the background and some more information about the letter. While it’s important to really understand what happened and learn from it, I hope this committee looks forward at least as much as it looks back. Every election is unique in its own ways, and I think the conditions of 2020 are especially singular. We already know that there’s no debate about issue of in-person campaigning – everyone agrees it was a net negative, and no one has any plans to try it again, so it’s not like this is some new ongoing advantage the Republicans have gained. Figure out what if anything was good about the other forms of campaigning everyone did, recommend ways to build it into future campaigns, and more on.

As far as the messaging stuff goes, I feel like it’s the post-2004 election all over again, though at least this time we won the Presidency. So much time and effort and money and think-pieces were spent on What The Democrats’ Message Needs To Be and How Do We Connect With Those Bush Voters and so on, and then Hurricane Katrina happened and public opinion turned sour on the Iraq War, and Democrats dominated the next two elections. I’m not suggesting that things will magically turn around and get better, nor am I saying that the post-2004 effort had no lessons for us, but I am saying that events can and will shape the political environment in substantial and unforeseeable ways, and that’s why we need to be looking forward as much as possible, while doing everything we can to make the opportunity we have in front of us – fixing the economy, successfully rolling out the COVID vaccine, getting people back to work, protecting our democracy, and more – so that the future environment is as filled with recent positive achievements we can point to as possible. Nothing succeeds like success.

My viewpoint in that paragraph is affected greatly by this WaPo story about the national Democratic reckoning; it’s where the post-2004 parallels occurred to me, because so much of the language was familiar. Again, I agree there’s a ton of value in auditing what just happened so we can understand what went well and what did not, and what we can learn from each. I just don’t want to get too bogged down in that, because what we do now, over the next 12-18 months will, I guarantee you, have a bigger effect on the 2022 election. If we’ve made progress in making people’s lives better, and we’ve been up front about taking credit for it, which is one trick from the Trump playbook that we really do need to appropriate, then we’ll be in good shape.

One last thing, which I have not seen mentioned in any of these “what did Dems screw up in 2020” stories is the effect of disinformation, propaganda, and fake news on voters’ behavior. We are seeing the effect of the constant barrage of bullshit coming from Trump and too many Republican leaders to count in the lawsuits, the increasing threats of violence from riled-up fringe types, the outrageous legislation being proposed around the country, and so forth, but that barrage began well before the election, and it’s being aimed at immigrants and people of color as well, with the same dispiriting effect. There was plenty of evidence of this occurring before the election, and I personally believe it’s a key part of the explanation for why Trump did better among Latinos and Asian-Americans than he had done before. Any strategy to improve Democratic performance, whether in Texas or nationally, has to take this into account. We can’t stop the liars from lying, but we can and we must figure out a way to blunt the effect of that lying. If that’s not a pillar of our plans going forward, then those plans are inadequate and not meeting the moment.

Commissioners Court rejects Paxton allegation about Elections Administrator

Dec 3rd, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Straight to the point.

Best mugshot ever

The Democrats on Harris County Commissioners Court on Tuesday rejected an opinion from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in which he said they illegally created an independent elections office and hired an administrator.

The move invites a potential lawsuit from the attorney general, which Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said he was confident the county would win.

“This is another example of (Attorney) General Paxton using his office to attack the voting rights of Texans,” Ellis said.

He noted that Paxton sued to prevent counties from installing more than one drop box for mail-in ballots during this fall’s general election. The attorney general also convinced the Texas Supreme Court to block Harris County’s plan to send mail ballot applications to all 2.5 million registered voters. Paxton also had issued an opinion suggesting the county’s drive-thru voting arrangements violated the state election code.

[…]

In a written response to Paxton Tuesday, [County Attorney Vince] Ryan acknowledged that Harris County had not promptly informed the state of those actions. He said, however, that Texas law says the delays do not change their validity.

Harris County joined more than 100 other Texas counties in creating an independent elections office, which combines the election management role of the county clerk with the voter registration duties of the tax assessor-collector.

The three Democrats on Commissioners Court voted in favor of the change, arguing it is more efficient. The two Republicans were opposed, saying it created an administrator who is unaccountable to voters.

The court was similarly divided in Tuesday afternoon’s discussion. Democratic County Judge Lina Hidalgo dismissed Paxton’s threat as a distraction and said Longoria must be able to do her job.

Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle, a Republican, said Ellis’s criticism of Paxton was unfounded. The attorney general has a duty to ensure the law is followed, he said.

“When Paxton says we didn’t follow the rules, I don’t think there is some evil intent,” Cagle said.

See here for the background, and let’s put aside for the moment the laughable idea that Ken Paxton has any moral authority when it comes to telling people to obey the rules. I dismissed Paxton’s threats as mere bluster, but I’m an Internet smartass. There are no real consequences when I’m wrong about something. I certainly hope Vince Ryan is right about this – and as a side matter, I hope incoming County Attorney Christian Menefee was consulted and is on board with this, because it will be his mess to clean up if Ryan and the rest of us are wrong. I guess we’ll find out soon enough if we’re about to be dragged into a prolonged court battle, or if this was indeed just hot air. The Texas Signal and the Chron’s Erica Greider have more.

Paxton has a tantrum about the Harris County Election Administrator

Dec 1st, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

Someone is going to have to help me understand this, because I’m clearly missing something.

Best mugshot ever

Harris County failed to follow the Texas Election Code when it created an independent election administration office, rendering the office and the appointment of Isabel Longoria as administrator null and void, according to Attorney General Ken Paxton.

In a Nov. 25 letter to the county attorney’s office, Paxton said Harris County did not inform the secretary of state in a timely fashion, as required by law, when it created the new office in July and when an administrator was selected in October to run it.

“As a result, neither the Commissioners Court’s July 14, 2020 order nor the Election Commission’s October 30, 2020 appointment of (Isabel) Longoria to the position holds any legal weight,” Paxton wrote. “In short, the Harris County Office of Election Administrator does not exist.”

Longoria’s appointment should be rescinded, the attorney general said.

County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth referred questions to County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who deferred to the County Attorney’s office. First Assistant County Attorney Robert Soard said all required documentation regarding the election administration office has been sent to the secretary of state.

“We feel confident that, after they review this, all misunderstandings will be cleared up,” Soard said.

Longoria said in a statement that the county attorney had advised her there were no procedural issues with the creation of her office; she will continue working.

[…]

The Election Code requires counties to inform the secretary of state within three days of creating an elections administration office. Within six days, it must inform the state of the appointment of an administrator.

Paxton said Harris County waited two weeks to inform the secretary of state it had created the elections administration office and three weeks to formally disclose the hiring of Longoria as administrator, a senior aide in the County Clerk’s Office.

Harris County must take “corrective action” within 14 days, the attorney general said, or the state may take the issue to court. Paxton did not respond to a question asking why his office did not address Harris County’s error in July.

County Attorney Vince Ryan placed an item on Tuesday’s Commissioners Court agenda to discuss the matter.

Here’s the relevant statutes relating to an Elections Administrator:

Sec. 31.031. CREATION OF POSITION. (a) The commissioners court by written order may create the position of county elections administrator for the county.

(b) The order must state the date the creation of the position of administrator is effective. The effective date may not be later than 12 months after the date the order is adopted.

(c) To facilitate the orderly transfer of duties on the effective date, the order may authorize the commissioners court to employ the administrator-designate not earlier than the 90th day before the effective date of the creation of the position, at a salary not to exceed that to be paid to the administrator.

(d) Not later than the third day after the date the order is adopted, the county clerk shall deliver a certified copy of the order to:

(1) the secretary of state; and

(2) each member of the county election commission.

Sec. 31.032. APPOINTMENT OF ADMINISTRATOR; COUNTY ELECTION COMMISSION. (a) The position of county elections administrator is filled by appointment of the county election commission, which consists of:

(1) the county judge, as chair;

(2) the county clerk, as vice chair;

(3) the county tax assessor-collector, as secretary; and

(4) the county chair of each political party that made nominations by primary election for the last general election for state and county officers preceding the date of the meeting at which the appointment is made.

(b) The affirmative vote of a majority of the commission’s membership is necessary for the appointment of an administrator.

(c) Each appointment must be evidenced by a written resolution or order signed by the number of commission members necessary to make the appointment. Not later than the third day after the date an administrator is appointed, the officer who presided at the meeting shall file a signed copy of the resolution or order with the county clerk. Not later than the third day after the date the copy is filed, the county clerk shall deliver a certified copy of the resolution or order to the secretary of state.

(d) The initial appointment may be made at any time after the adoption of the order creating the position.

The relevant sections relating to timing are highlighted in bold. As was noted in the comments to the Chron story, there’s nothing in the laws to say what happens if a county, for whatever the reason, fails to do the paperwork in a timely fashion. Saying that the appointment is null and void for being a few days late is to be the equivalent of saying that because there were a couple of precincts in Wayne County that didn’t exactly balance we need to throw out every vote in the county. I may not be a lawyer, but I can tell when the remedy doesn’t fit the alleged infraction. And if we’re going to be super-technical about it, then let Commissioners Court rescind and re-appoint Longoria today, and notify the Secretary of State later in the day via email, fax, Fed Ex, town crier, and unfurling a giant poster with Isabel Longoria’s picture on it outside the SOS office tomorrow morning. Will that suffice?

This part puzzles me even more:

Republican State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, a frequent critic of local Democrats, urged Commissioners Court to revoke Longoria’s appointment.

“Appointing an administrator of elections in the nation’s third largest county should have been made by following the prescribed legal process to the letter,” Bettencourt said in a statement. “The attorney general’s letter is specific that the duties of that office should be returned to the elected county clerk and tax assessor-collector.”

The dispute is the latest in a series of disagreements between Texas leaders and Harris County officials over how the state’s largest county runs its elections. Paxton and state Elections Director Keith Ingram see their actions as reigning in rogue local leaders; Hidalgo and county officials view them as unnecessary micromanagement.

I mean, we’re aware that all of the election innovation that made Ken Paxton and Paul Bettencourt SO MAD last month was done by the County Clerk, right? Not a non-partisan official whose bosses include the Chair of the Harris County GOP? I’m trying real hard here, but I fail to see what they think they’d be gaining by putting Teneshia Hudspeth in charge of running elections. Do they think she wouldn’t keep doing what she did while Chris Hollins and Diane Trautman were in charge? Have they forgotten that she’s an elected Democrat? Seriously, what is their angle here? I mean, other than being little pettifoggers with a grievance. Like I said up front, someone help me understand this one.

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