endorsements

Endorsement Regrets Watch: She’s not going to do that

Why do two West Texas oil billionaires — Christian nationalists waging war against secular public schools — care who becomes the next chief executive of Harris County, hundreds of miles from their homes? Why did a Houston real estate developer give $400,000, a staggering sum in a local campaign, to Republican county judge candidate Alexandra del Moral Mealer? Why did a furniture salesman, who became a celebrity by waving fistfuls of cash and promising to “Save! You! Money!” give $448,000 to Mealer in a single month? What — aside from earnest hopes of good governance — might these megadonors expect in exchange for their money? How much pressure will Mealer face to do their bidding if she wins?

These and other questions arise in reviewing Mealer’s latest campaign finance reports as she enters the home stretch of her bid to unseat one-term incumbent Democrat Lina Hidalgo. As the Chronicle’s Jasper Scherer reported, Mealer has raised $8.6 million since July 1, including $3.7 million in the past month alone. (By comparison, in the 2018 election, then-incumbent Republican Ed Emmett raised $446,000 from July through October). Mealer’s fundraising and spending in this cycle dwarfed that of incumbent Democrat Lina Hidalgo, who has raised $2.4 million since July 1, including $911,000 from Sept. 30 to Oct. 29.

One item that leaps out from Mealer’s reports is the pair of $100,000 donations from the Defend Texas Liberty Political Action Committee. This PAC is funded almost entirely by Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who made their fortunes in oil exploration and fracking and have donated lavishly to far-right candidates for the Texas Legislature and statewide offices. Among other notable gifts: Houston home builder Richard Weekley gave Mealer $400,000, the largest single donation in the July-through-September reporting period. Furniture salesman and philanthropist Jim “Mattress Mac” McIngvale and his wife, Linda, have given more than $600,000 to Mealer. McIngvale often appears in television ads with Mealer and was one of her earliest supporters.

On its face, the donation from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC is puzzling. The Harris County judge has no authority over the causes that have animated Dunn and Wilks: promoting vouchers that would provide state funding for private or religious school fees, outlawing abortion and resisting expanded recognition and rights for LGBTQ Texans. Yet they saw fit to give her as much money as they gave to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a key Republican ally in their right-wing culture wars. A review of the Defend Texas Liberty PAC’s donations, compiled by the nonprofit Transparency USA, shows at least one other donation to a local candidate: $13,000 in 2021 to Mary Bone’s successful campaign for the school board in Round Rock, near Austin.

[…]

Mealer should return the money she received from the Defend Texas Liberty PAC, if only to signal her commitment to restoring good governance unbeholden to special interests and menacing, unholy alliances.

Short of that, well-intentioned voters are left to simply cross their fingers and hope that the candidates they support will demonstrate allegiance to the people they represent, not to the donors who helped get them elected. This board, which made the tough decision to recommend Mealer for the position, expects no less from her. If she prevails over Hidalgo, we urge her to resist any urge to repay donors such as Richard Weekley for their generosity, and to politely ignore the wishes of Farris Wilks, Tim Dunn, and other, like-minded donors — even if it means losing their support in any future campaigns.

She’s not going to do that. She’s delighted to collect their money and will give them her full attention if elected. She is laughing up her sleeve at how she put one over on those naive idiots at the MSM rag. The only correct words to say here were “We’re very sorry, Judge Hidalgo. We retract our endorsement of your opponent and endorse you instead.” I’m not surprised they don’t have the courage to do that. As with the last time, I will stop here before I say something I will later regret. But you own this, Chronicle editorial board. You own this.

Larry Veselka: The Chron got it wrong in the County Judge endorsement

Nov 2nd, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

22 comments

Judge Lina Hidalgo

(Note: The following is a guest post that was submitted to me. I occasionally solicit guest posts, and also occasionally accept them from people I trust.)

A couple of weeks ago the Chronicle Editorial Board endorsed Judge Hidalgo’s opponent in a schizophrenic editorial that any objective reader who read it without seeing the headline first would have thought was an endorsement for reelecting Judge Hidalgo. Harris County voters should take it substantively as one.

The editorial praised Judge Hidalgo, in many ways, e.g.:

-appreciating her “dynamic mix of wonkishness and progressive optimism” and her being an ‘inspiration to many”

-saying “if given the choice, we’d rather live in Hidalgo’s vision of Harris County, where government is inclusive, transparent and ethical, policy isn’t tainted by politics, the air is cleaner, the streets are safer, more children can attend pre-K, and climate change is treated with the urgency it deserves”

-“Hidalgo has made good on her promises, including fairness in distributing Harvey funding on a ‘worst-first’ basis and investments in badly needed air monitors in polluted neighborhoods and early childhood education”

– acknowledging, but unduly faintly in only one sentence, her courageous, tenacious, yet gracious leadership in fighting COVID in a way that probably saved thousands, if not more than ten thousand lives of local citizens;

– her handling of disasters, including Winter Storm Uri with “poise and a clear head”

– “it’s true that [Hidalgo] boasts a proposed budget that that would have increased funding for law enforcement… she never tried to ‘defund’ police… her plan would boost law enforcement funding $97 million more than the previous fiscal year, including pay raises for some ‘frontline deputies.”

So what did they see that was so wonderful about her opponent that swayed their opinion when they said this about her:

– She “can come off as combative, talking over others” and interrupting them;

– The board initially backed someone else in the Republican primary, “citing her lack of experience in governing”

– Asking whether “voters should trust an un-tested first-time candidate” without even mentioning that she was recruited to run by Ted Cruz and his wife;

– Her primary promise of “hiring 1,000 new law enforcement officers…is simplistic at this point” acknowledging how dubious such a promise is in light of the tight County budget;

– Her position in the primary opposing the reform of the misdemeanor bail system and incorrectly blaming that reform for the supposed “spike in violent crime” … “would be a deal-breaker for [the Board]” but they will now rely on her saying that she has changed her position, (will you?);

– “her understanding of the system may be incomplete and in some cases even flawed”

– She admitted that prosecuting polluters is “not first and foremost to her” and she does not think the County should address climate change, which the Board characterized as “grating in a low-lying coastal community baking in industrial emissions.”

The editorial claims that the Board was swayed by Judge Hidalgo’s supposed “failure to respond with urgency to Harris County’s crime wave,” citing as the critical factor the backlog in the Courts, while simultaneously acknowledging that Judge Hidalgo “didn’t cause the backlog … has no control over courtroom decisions on bail … [and] isn’t to blame for the provision in the Texas Constitution that guarantees virtually every defendant, even those with violent criminal records, an initial right to bail.”

The editorial went on to acknowledge that:

– “Harris County is far from the most dangerous place in the country, as Republican hyperbole would have it;

– “Mercifully, violent crime is currently declining and even at its peak, criminologists ranked Houston’s murder rate in the middle of the pack among major cities. Last year’s rate in unincorporated Harris County stayed flat….”

– The “felony backlog is down 23% since January.”

So why would the Board’s ultimate conclusion be in such stark contrast to most of its arguments?

The disconnect smacks of a lack of journalistic integrity. Did the Chronicle’s management override the independence of the Editorial Board, strong-arming the Board into backing down from its true position? The fact that the “News” department ran three front page stories about Judge Hidalgo’s opponent immediately after the endorsement evidences support for the conclusion that the lines between departments were blurred, an unforgiveable breach in journalistic ethics.

The Republicans hatched a plan for the midterms to over-hype an increase in crime coming out of two tough years under pandemic lockdowns and layoffs. Even though the Chronicle admits that violent crime has leveled off or dropped some this year, the Republicans needed something to scare people into voting Republican. This became more important once the decision overturning Roe v. Wade this summer kicked off a surge of renewed enthusiasm by
supporters of reproductive rights to register and drive supporters to the polls. Right-wing multi-millionaires and billionaires opposed to the County’s efforts to prevent flooding and pollution, some contributing as much as $350,000 to $400,000 each, began showering Judge Hidalgo’s opponent with millions of dollars of contributions to pay for deceitful attack ads against Judge Hidalgo. They knew that she could not match the millions flowing in, because Judge Hidalgo pledged in 2018 not to accept any contributions from the County’s vendors. In other words, she lived up to her campaign promise to do what all campaigns should do, but none other do, end “Pay-for-Play” politics. The Republican contributors knew that and knew, if County Judge Hidalgo were reelected with the 10 point lead she had earned over the last 3 1⁄2 years, it would mean the Republican state leaders that have carried so much water for them, and have been so bad for the majority of working people of Texas, could be in trouble. So they had to deliver the hits on Judge Hidalgo’s deserved popularity by funding a massive barrage of misleading arguments in favor of a flawed opponent.

The myriad issues confronting Harris County right now require keeping Judge Hidalgo’s steady hands on the wheel. It would be truly unconscionable for the Chronicle’s flawed endorsement and the millions of dollars in deceitful attack ads to wrest her hands away merely to turn it over to an inexperienced right-winger beholden to Trump, Cruz, and the multimillionaire and billionaire classes. Our democracy and our Constitutional rights are at stake. Embrace the wisdom expressed in the editorial while rejecting its inconsistent conclusion by voting to re-elect County Judge Lina Hidalgo.

Larry R. Veselka is a Houston lawyer and former County Chair for the Democratic Party who has been active in politics for 50 years.

NOTE FROM CHARLES: I’m just going to put this here:

On this Halloween evening, hate to scare the people of Harris County, but the billionaires are trying to buy a county judge seat. From September 30th to October 29th, these 35 people and groups have given Alex Mealer’s campaign $2,672,501.

? is, what do they get for their💰?

— Christopher Tackett (@cjtackett) 9:09 PM – 31 October 2022

A question that maybe the Chron editorial board should have asked themselves.

Endorsement watch: Ash for Garza

Oct 28th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

You can say that again…

Don’t see this often: Libertarian nominee for AG, Mark Ash, endorses Democratic opponent @RochelleMGarza. Ash has run statewide before, getting 2.5% in a 2020 SCOTX race.

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) 1:50 PM – 27 October 2022

Here’s his opinion piece, which I hope gets picked up by some larger papers.

Rochelle Garza

My parents came to America from ex-Yugoslavia with no property or money. They had to learn American English and America’s customs. Like so many immigrants, they built a life in America for my brother and me. And they both became proud U.S. citizens.

Our family’s story of authoritarianism has informed nearly every aspect of my life. It propelled me into the profession of law, to safeguard the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution. It compels me to represent people accused of violating those laws and who can’t afford an attorney. And it is why I am a Libertarian. I fight every day to ensure that the State does not overstep its authority, and to protect our freedoms.

That’s also why I decided to run for Attorney General of Texas. A democracy should offer choices. With only two major political parties on the ballot in an extremely important race, I entered this race to give Texans a third choice.

But on the eve of the election, giving Texans a third choice feels inadequate. The stakes are now simply too high for me to settle merely to be another option for Texans who, like me, love our state, love our country and value our freedoms.

I have thought long and hard how to say this, and I don’t say this lightly. Ken Paxton is the poster child for corruption and authoritarianism. And if he is allowed to continue, we might have to be the ones to flee.

The office of the Attorney General is incredibly powerful and not very well understood. Basically, it acts as the police officer for the state, enforcing our laws. At least, that’s what it’s meant to do. Under Ken Paxton, it is a weapon that is used against innocent Texans. It is also a tool for him to avoid obeying the law himself. Like a bad cop on steroids, he is using his insider knowledge to get away with crimes, and his very great power to take away our freedoms, from intimidating people from voting to stealing property owners’ land.

I know that many voters are reluctant to throw away their votes on a third-party candidate. So if you feel that your vote may not count, then voting for Rochelle Garza is the better choice. Therefore, I am taking the extraordinary of recommending Rochelle Garza for Attorney General over Ken Paxton. Not voting or voting for me may not be enough.

This is a pivotal moment in American history that we are facing. Our way of life hangs in the balance. Ken Paxton isn’t playing politics-as-usual. He is taking pages from the authoritarian playbook. And we cannot afford to play politics-as-usual. That is why I am taking this unheard-of step.

We must kick Ken Paxton out of office in order to save our liberties.

While Rochelle is the Democratic candidate, there is a lot of overlap with our Libertarian values. She believes in legalizing marijuana and is against using public domain to steal our land for an ineffective border wall. I believe not only that she will respect the rule of law but that she will fight for our freedoms.

While we have seen some prominent Republicans endorsing Democratic candidates this cycle, I can’t recall a situation like this before, in which a candidate running in a partisan race endorsed one of their opponents. I’d have to search to find the examples, but it’s happened in primaries and special elections and non-partisan races, usually when one candidate for whatever the reason suspends their campaign. If you can think of a recent on-point example to accompany this, please leave a comment.

Does this make much of a difference in the race? Probably not much. It will be interesting to see if Ash score less than his Libertarian peers, as that will at least provide some kind of metric. And it only really matters if Paxton fails to get at least fifty percent of the vote. Whatever happens, I thank Mark Ash for recognizing the stakes of this race, and doing his part to make a difference.

Endorsement watch: The bonds

Oct 25th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron endorses a Yes vote for the Harris County bond propositions.

The Castlewood subdivision in northeast Harris County was one of many neighborhoods blighted by Hurricane Harvey’s torrential rains. One too many floods inundated the shallow drainage ditches and cracked the asphalt streets. The well-kept character of the affordable single-family homes and small businesses frayed.

Five years later, thanks to the $2.5 billion 2018 flood control bond that Harris County voters approved, Castlewood has transformed. The asphalt roads have been replaced with fresh concrete and lowered to improve drainage. Roadside ditches were replaced with sidewalks and curbs, with an underground storm sewer.

This year, county commissioners are asking voters for another $1.2 billion bond, divided into three separate ballot referendums: $900 million for roads, drainage, and multimodal transportation; $200 million for parks; and $100 million for public safety facilities. If not for these periodic bonds, projects like the Castlewood improvements would either never happen or languish in the planning process for years until funds became available.

Every six to eight years, the county asks voters to authorize leveraging its strong credit — an AAA rating, according to Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch rating agencies — to issue debt for investments into improving county infrastructure. Some bonds are dedicated to specific types of projects — the 2018 bond that included the Castlewood improvements was put on the ballot after Harvey exposed the dire flood control needs across the county — while previous bonds, such as the 2015 $850 million infrastructure bond, were more broadly defined.

While these bonds typically get approved, many voters may be wondering why the county is once again asking them to go back to the well this year, particularly as each bond comes with a slight increase to their property tax bills. Why not fund projects through a pay-as-you-go model, such as the one that the city of Houston has for roads and drainage projects?

The reason is primarily statutory; even if the county wanted to adopt a pay-as-you-go system, it would require a change to state law. The Texas tax system essentially forces counties to use debt as the primary instrument for capital improvements. And because Harris County has a healthy cash balance and credit rating with a rapidly growing real estate market, it can borrow for cheaper than most jurisdictions.

If voters approve the 2022 bonds, each county precinct will receive a baseline of $220 million worth of funding, though some will receive more based on the “worst-first” criteria the county has adopted to prioritize projects based on the number of people they benefit.

The average homeowner would pay an additional $32 per year in property taxes for the life of the bond program — 25 years — based on estimated 2022 tax values. But voters likely won’t see that large of an increase for years, because the county continues to retire more and more debt each year. For instance, the county is spending $54 million less on debt than it did four years ago and will pay off approximately $193 million of its general obligation debt next year. And as more properties get built every year across the county, the tax burden will be spread out even further.

See here for the background. Bond issuances usually pass, and I don’t see anything to suggest these will have much trouble. There are also city of Houston bonds on the ballot, but as of Monday evening the Chron had not weighed in on them yet. I don’t know if their decision to not endorse in the non-criminal courts will carry over from the primaries to the general; if so, then those races still need their attention as well. Otherwise, I think they’re basically done.

Endorsement watch: Briones, Garcia, Garza

Oct 24th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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The Chron attempts to make some amends for their tortured endorsement of Judge Lina Hidalgo’s opponent by endorsing Lesley Briones for Commissioners Court in Precinct 4 over the incumbent Commissioner Jack Cagle.

Lesley Briones

What do we want out of county government? Public safety. Roads. Flood control. The traditional core services of Commissioners Court must be carried out with integrity, focus and competency. But we also want more, particularly in a county where double-digit gaps in life expectancy exist between some neighborhoods. We think we can do better and we think can do both.

So does Lesley Briones, who represents the “yes and” candidate for Precinct 4.

Originally from Laredo, she became a lawyer and worked in litigation and tax law before eventually serving as a civil court judge here. Briones, 42, is bilingual and one of the few candidates we’ve seen whose website has a Spanish-language page.

Thanks to her professional experience, she has a good grasp of the nuances of the crime problem, many of which are particular to Harris County. She favors misdemeanor bail reform but also, as a crime victim herself, expressed an urgency during the Democratic primaries and, now, in the general election to addressing violent crime through smart, targeted efforts. She supports, for example, the micro-zone approach launched last year. And she noted that calls for more boots on the ground — a key platform among Republican candidates in local races this year — need to contend with the already funded but vacant positions in law enforcement agencies.

And while she has detailed plans for the basic services county government must provide, she is also supportive of the quality-of-life efforts we believe county government should pursue. Many of these, she said, can be aided through more strategic grant applications and philanthropic partnerships.

This kind of robust vision for county that doesn’t skimp on the core services but wants to leave things better than it found them is even more appealing because she promises to deliver it without partisan politics.

The incumbent has struggled to do that as of late.

Much of the rest is about Cagle’s failures, though they have more nice things to say about Briones at the end. They give Cagle no inch on his budget-preventing quorum breaking, noting how Cagle’s actions stand in contrast with his previous words. I’m never going to not be mad about their County Judge endorsement, but at least they got this right. My interview with Lesley Briones from the primary is here if you want to know more about her.

Over in Precinct 2, they endorse Commissioner Adrian Garcia for another term.

Adrian Garcia

To hear Adrian Garcia tell it, his first four years as a Harris County commissioner were a repudiation of his predecessor, Jack Morman.

Garcia, a Democrat, likes to say that he brought Precinct 2 — which encompasses Aldine and Northside, along with much of east Harris County, including Galena Park, Deer Park, Pasadena, La Porte and Baytown — “out of the stone age.”

Garcia claimed Morman, a Republican now running to reclaim his old seat, was tracking the precinct’s infrastructure projects in a red notebook with pencil and paper. Lower-income neighborhoods that Garcia claims were long neglected under Morman are safer, healthier and more vibrant with better sidewalks, hike-and-bike trails and parks. Parts of the county that for years were acutely vulnerable to flooding would now have first dibs on flood mitigation projects.

That narrative of rebalanced priorities certainly benefits Garcia politically; it also has some truth to it. Garcia, 61, former Houston police officer, city councilman and Harris County sheriff, has delivered on a number of the issues he ran on in 2018, from criminal justice reform to environmental justice to health care. Few would argue that his precinct is worse off than when he took office, and in some corners it is markedly better.

[…]

No, Garcia isn’t perfect. But even his detractors would acknowledge that he’s been effective. Morman’s personal style may be more agreeable, but his vision for the office lacks ambition. We want a county commissioner who will continue to use the levers of power to make their constituents’ lives tangibly better beyond fixing potholes and digging drainage ditches.

Voters should send Garcia back to Commissioners Court for another term.

I’ve seen more ringing endorsements, but I’ll take it. The editorial board really has a burr in their saddle about the redistricting of Commissioners Court, for which they ding Garcia, and I just have no patience with the argument that Democrats need to be angels about that while Republicans are actively working to completely repeal the Voting Rights Act. When the Legislature, and Congressional Republicans, and especially the cabal on SCOTUS, make even a small step in the direction of actual fairness and equity and racial equality, then I’ll be willing to hear those complaints. Until then, please spare me. My interview with Commissioner Garcia is here.

The third spoke in the Sunday trifecta is Rochelle Garza for Attorney General, because no decent person supports a repeat and unredeemed criminal for elected office.

Rochelle Garza

Rochelle Garza, Democratic candidate for attorney general, may or not enjoy a good joke. Although we see her smiling and laughing in photos and newsreels, we didn’t ask her that question when she visited with the Chronicle editorial board a few days ago. If she happens to be a connoisseur of jokes, we have one she might appreciate:

A lawyer walks into the HR department of a major law firm. Filling out a job application, he includes the following information on his resumé:

Under felony indictment since 2015 on securities fraud charges; trial postponed repeatedly (although under order from a judge to sit for a deposition in the case next month)*** Under FBI investigation for assisting a real estate developer who allegedly hired a woman with whom he, the applicant, was having an extra-marital affair*** Is being sued by four former top aides in the office he now heads; they claim they were fired in violation of the state’s whistleblower protection law for reporting their boss’ potential crimes to the FBI*** Instigated a frivolous lawsuit seeking to throw out 2020 presidential election votes in states where he did not reside or represent; court laughter ensued*** Faces court sanctions from the state ethics association for peddling false claims about 2020 voter fraud*** Was warm-up act for former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021,“Stop the Steal” rally*** Recently headed major investigation into human trafficking and child sexual assault; rank incompetence wrecked investigation*** Vacancies abound in his sprawling office; can’t seem to find attorneys eager to work for him.

A job applicant with such a resume would be laughed out of any law firm in the land, any corporation with a legal department, any government agency. We Texans, though, have elected such a man as our attorney general — not once, but twice and some among us want to make it three times. Ken Paxton is his name. As long as he remains in office, the joke’s on us.

You get the idea. My interview with Rochelle Garza is here. You know what to do.

Also in the endorsement bucket: Ginny Brown Daniel for HD150 over her wingnut incumbent opponent, and Sen. Joan Huffman for re-election in SD17. Note what they say about Huffman’s role in redistricting at the state level this cycle, and compare it to their words about redistricting in Harris County. See what I mean?

Endorsement watch: Another smattering

Oct 23rd, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

The Chron endorses Cam Campbell in HD132.

Cam Campbell

Texas House District 132, stretching from just south of Interstate 10 in eastern Katy to U.S. 290 in Cypress, features a handful of high school football powerhouses. Voters there fittingly get to choose between two gridiron lovers in Republican incumbent Mike Schofield and Democratic challenger Cameron “Coach Cam” Campbell. Campbell believes Cypress, Katy and the rest of the western suburbs can become the “Fort Worth to Houston’s Dallas” with the right leadership and partnerships.

Campbell, 40, is a 2000 Cypress Springs graduate and a former University of Houston football player. He teaches children about safe play for a community outreach program of the Texans. He also has a sports facility construction company and has gone by “Coach Cam” since coaching for KIPP Houston High School.

Control of this district has swung back and forth between parties in recent years. Schofield was several years ago named “Freshman legislator of the year” by Republican members of the House but lost his seat in 2018 by just 113 votes to Gina Calanni, then won it back in a hard-fought 2020 election. This time, Schofield got some help through redistricting.

In our interview, Campbell criticized the gerrymandering, but he is running the electoral version of an aggressive no-huddle offense to drive voter engagement and turnout to overcome the influx of likely GOP voters. He talked at length about voter research and outreach tools his campaign is using. Given the redrawn district’s tilt, it’s not surprising his opponent has far outraised Campbell, but he appears to be making the most of his limited resources. Campbell’s high energy and attention to detail truly felt coach-like to us.

We appreciate Campbell’s vision of what the district and the Katy-Cypress area can be. He wants to sit on the Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee in the House, in part to attract industry and promote his district.

Campbell said he’s passionate about promoting literacy and reducing gun violence, which he hopes to turn into legislative priorities if elected. He’s also been outspoken on the campaign trail about reproductive rights and LGTBQ rights. He favors marijuana legalization and greater environmental protections.

My interview with Coach Cam is here. I thought he was pretty impressive, so give that a listen if you haven’t. The Chron notes that they had endorsed incumbent Rep. Schofield before, and also that he didn’t bother screening with them this time. That is a trend that is unlikely to reverse itself anytime soon.

The Chron also endorsed Carla Wyatt for Harris County Treasurer.

Carla Wyatt

Voters expecting shy, bookish candidates for Harris County treasurer, content to pore over spreadsheets in anonymity, have a surprise in store from Republican Kyle Scott and Democrat Carla Wyatt. However the race turns out, the county is about to get a charismatic, hardworking newcomer to oversee the office that processed some $20 billion coming in and out last year.

Wyatt earns our endorsement because she has two decades of experience working for the county, including in the budget office and public infrastructure. She also holds a doctoral degree in environmental toxicology, and she ran emergency communications during Hurricane Harvey. She has creative ideas for how to reach more residents and make it easier for people to interact with the office. In the budget office, she led an IT group that created interactive dashboards for county employees to see where money was going.

[…]

“I’ve created these relationships and I understand where all the little rocks and pebbles are, because I helped put some of them there,” Wyatt, 51, told the editorial board. “I think it’s important for whoever is in this office to have the experience and relationships to create checks and balances and be able to work across party lines and department lines.”

She wants to make it simpler for residents to find out whether the county owes them money and to propose ways to broaden the use of credit and debit card transactions in county business.

Scott’s campaign is centered around accountability and transparency, and he talked with us about wanting to serve as a check on wasteful spending. We especially appreciate Scott’s desire to bolster financial literacy and actively engage residents. His background as a former board trustee and communications executive at Lone Star College prepares him well for the task.

“Usually in the treasurer’s race, all you hear is, ‘I’m a watchdog,’ without explaining what that means or demonstrating knowledge of what you’re actually watching, and so many folks feel in the dark about where the money’s actually going,” Scott, who has a Ph.D. in political science, told us. “If you can talk about it clearly and bring some light to that, it’s appreciated.”

We endorsed Scott’s GOP primary opponent, in part because we were concerned when Scott said he would be willing to refuse to sign a county check as a final safeguard against wasteful spending by the Harris County Commissioners Court. Changing the county budget is the job of commissioners, not the treasurer. In our general election screening this fall, Scott told us he’d refuse to sign checks only in extreme moments, as in the case of the $11 million Elevate Strategies vaccine outreach contract.

Wyatt had a different take, using one of the several clever analogies she employed in her interview with us. “The treasurer can’t stop you from walking into a fire, but I can tell you that there is a fire,” she said. “I can tell you that the stove is hot.” She sees the treasurer role as an advisory one and said, in the case of a contract like Elevate Strategies, that delaying alongside advising could be used. But she stopped short of saying she’d refuse to sign a check. That’s closer to our understanding of the treasurer’s job.

Wyatt as noted defeated incumbent Treasurer Dylan Osborne in the Dem primary. My interview with her from the primary is here. I like Dylan, I knew him before he ran for Treasurer, I voted for him in the primary, but I agree with the Chron’s assessment of Wyatt: She’ll be a fine Treasurer. But even if I had concerns about her, I’d have much bigger concerns than the Chron seems to have had with Kyle Scott’s pronouncement that he’d be a self-appointed veto of county spending activity he doesn’t like. Yeah, sure, now he says it would be used in limited emergency instances, but that’s not what he said in the primary and the Treasurer doesn’t have that power. Seriously, do we really need another undemocratic veto point in our government? It’s a ridiculous idea – in truth, even if the Treasurer explicitly had this power it would be a dumb idea – and it disturbs me that the Chron isn’t more than just “concerned” about it, especially given Scott’s past campaigning on the idea. Good for them for not endorsing him, but come on. Don’t be a sucker.

Finally, the Chron endorsed Sen. John Whitmire for re-election in SD15, an easy and obvious call, and former District Clerk Chris Daniel in his rematch against incumbent Dem Marilyn Burgess. They still have more races to get through, but at least they seem to be picking up the pace.

Endorsement watch: Dudding and Warford

Oct 22nd, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron endorses Janet Dudding for Comptroller.

Janet Dudding

In 2005, Janet Dudding found herself mucking out her home in Bay St. Louis-Waveland, Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina sent a 32-foot storm surge across the town.

“The first time I cried was when the Red Cross truck came around,” she told the editorial board. “I’m supposed to be the one giving help. There I was going to get a hot meal because there is no electricity, no streetlights, no water.”

That experience — and the city’s struggle to get back on its feet financially — had a profound impact on Dudding and is among the reasons she is running for Texas comptroller as a Democrat against the Republican incumbent, Glenn Hegar.

Trained as a lawyer and formerly a state legislator known for pursuing abortion restrictions, Hegar was first elected as comptroller in 2014. In his 2018 re-election bid, this board endorsed Hegar, 51, for keeping “his head down and focused on his job” instead of pandering to primary voters. Sadly, we can’t say the same four years later. Now he appears more interested in attracting national headlines and preparing for the next stage of his political career.

We urge voters to elect Dudding, 63, an actual certified public accountant running to be the state’s accountant. She says her main objective would be holding government accountable to people, not special interests. That’s the job we want done, and she has 35 years experience running audits, administering teams and leading investigations to show she can do it.

I was thinking about that earlier endorsement as I read this. The 2018 version of Glenn Hegar had a good argument that he was a down-the-middle public servant doing his job in a normal way. The 2022 version of Hegar isn’t in the same ZIP code as that argument, and it’s not just for the more recent aggressions against Harris County, either. The Chron has some more examples of things I’d forgotten about or not been aware of in the editorial. Based on his behavior in the Legislature, none of this is surprising, but compared to Hegar’s first term as Comptroller, it really stands out. This is what happens when “doing a good job” is not an asset in your primary.

You can listen to my interview with Janet Dudding here. If you like the idea of a Comptroller who’s focused on the day-to-day Comptroller stuff and not looking for extracurricular activities to make their application for the next job more sparkly, Janet Dudding is your candidate.

The Chron also endorses Luke Warford for Railroad Commissioner.

Luke Warford

In a perfect world, the Railroad Commission’s mission statement of protecting Texas’ natural resources and promoting the oil and gas industry would not be contradictory. There’s an alternate reality in which the commission could be at the nexus of the global energy transition, laying the groundwork for emerging technologies such as hydrogen and geothermal energy while helping oil and gas producers become cleaner and safer.

That’s the vision that Democrat Luke Warford has for an agency that long has treated “regulation” of the state’s oil and gas sector as an afterthought. Warford, 33, a former Texas Democratic Party operative and energy consultant, is not running just to be another watchdog bureaucrat; he wants to fundamentally modernize an agency that is becoming as anachronistic as its name.

Warford isn’t your central-casting roughneck or wildcatter. He studied at the London School of Economics and worked at the World Bank before transitioning to consulting, where he worked with oil and gas majors as well as wind and solar clients seeking access to global energy markets. His knack for helping businesses adapt to a changing economy could be an asset on the commission. His solutions range from simple — he mentioned modernizing the agency’s antiquated website to make it more transparent and accessible to the public — to cutting edge, such as using methane leak detection technology pioneered by the Southwest Research Institute.

His desire to be an agent of change is rooted in watching his father, who owned a CD store, struggle to make ends meet once the internet changed the way we listened to music.

Warford told the editorial board that this personal experience has helped him forge connections with oil and gas workers who fear global decarbonization will render their jobs useless.

“Out in Midland, a couple of weeks ago, a geologist said to me, ‘Hey, you know, I’ve made my career in this industry, I’m sending my kids to college from work I do in this industry, but I’m sick of coming home and having my kid, my neighbors, think that I’m poisoning their air and their water,’” Warford said. “He was worried about what his job prospects are gonna look like in 10 and 20 years, even if oil and gas production continues, as automation happens. To be able to understand that on a personal level, I think, is effective.”

By contrast, the current commissioners, led by Chairman Wayne Christian, 72, the Republican incumbent, are more interested in raking in campaign cash from oil and gas producers and letting the industry police itself.

My interview with Warford is here. Christian was a lousy legislator, and unlike Hegar didn’t do anything in his first term in statewide office to try to change that narrative. He’s a toady and a waste of space, and Luke Warford would be a vast improvement even if he’s a lone voice for sanity on that Commission. That’s a question he addresses directly in the interview, by the way. Go give it a listen, and then vote for Luke Warford.

Endorsement watch: Four from the appellate courts

Oct 21st, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

The Chron knocks out its appellate court endorsements in one piece.

Justice Julie Countiss

1st Court of Appeals, Chief Justice: Julie Countiss

The current chief justice of the 1st Court of Appeals, who is stepping down, is Sherry Radack, a Republican who has served on the court since 2002. (Former Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack is her husband.)

Voters are choosing between qualified candidates from each major party as well as a seasoned independent vying to take on the role of administering the court. We believe Justice Julie Countiss, who serves on this court now, has the edge because Radack has begun showing her the ropes of being the court’s administrator.

Elected in 2018 as part of the Democratic sweep, Countiss, 51, has two more years left in her term. If she wins this election, the Texas governor would appoint a replacement for her current place on a court that currently has seven Democrats and two Republicans. Prior to becoming a justice, Countiss was a lawyer with the Harris County Attorney’s Office and focused on ridding the county of illicit, dangerous businesses. With four years appellate experience now, Countiss praised the collegial culture of the court under Radack’s leadership and said she seeks to continue it.

[…]

1st Court of Appeals, Place 4: April Farris

Justice April Farris, 37, was appointed to the 1st Court of Appeals by Abbott in 2021. A Republican, she graduated from Abilene Christian University and Harvard Law School, and clerked on the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, known as one of the most conservative in the country, for Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod. As an appellate lawyer for a private firm she represented large companies including ExxonMobil and Uber. Farris then worked for the Texas Solicitor General’s Office representing the state. Her experience includes both civil and criminal cases. She is well-regarded on a court with seven Democrats, and her conservative background likely adds rigor to the court’s process.

Judge Mike Engelhart, 52, is a Democrat and has presided over the 151st Civil District Court in Harris County since 2008. He argues that the 1st Court of Appeals needs more justices with experience serving as a trial court judge. He was the civil administrative judge when Hurricane Harvey hit and helped the criminal-court judges when their building was damaged by the storm, managing the compromises and accommodations to host 23 additional courts.

[…]

14th Court of Appeals, Place 2: Cheri Thomas

The Republican incumbent, Justice Kevin Jewell, said he is the first to arrive at the courthouse in the mornings. Not only does he move through his cases with efficiency, he credits his leadership with making the court as a whole more timely. He helped implement a policy change that rewards staff attorneys with bonuses based on productivity. When the district courts are struggling with a massive backlog of cases, we like to hear about hardworking judges and efficient dockets. Appeals courts, however, are more deliberative than the trial courts.

We are concerned that the 14th Court of Appeals is known for fractiousness, not collegiality. That’s in contrast to the 1st Court of Appeals where candidates and others familiar with it told us that justices get along well across party lines. Should that be important to voters? After all, wouldn’t lively debate make for a better court? Cases are initially heard by panels of three justices who attempt to come to a consensus. There are split votes, and sometimes a case is heard by all the justices. A good process involves both debate as well as consensus building.

The Democratic challenger, Cheri Thomas, 42, said she was the first in her family to attend college. In 2020, the board recommended Thomas in a primary runoff for Place 7 of this court for her “solid reputation among other lawyers” and the experience she had as staff attorney for this court of appeals. Thomas is an honors graduate of the University of Texas School of Law and a former clerk for U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis. She worked in civil litigation for Baker Botts and the Stuart law firm, where she became a partner. Thomas worked as an appellate attorney at the Texas Workforce Commission.

[…]

14th Court of Appeals, Place 9: Randy Wilson

The challenger in this race, Democrat William Demond, 45, earned an enthusiastic endorsement from the board during the primary earlier this year. As an attorney, he has helped establish constitutional rights twice in cases before the 5th Circuit. One of them established a right to film police officers. He’s been inducted in the Texas Lawyer’s Verdicts Hall of Fame. Demond was appointed by a federal judge to represent Harris County inmates in cases concerning their conditions of confinement during the COVID pandemic.

Justice Randy Wilson, 70, was appointed a state district civil court judge in Harris County in 2003 and served as a Republican for roughly 16 years. Wilson was highly respected. Despite our urging against straight-ticket voting in 2018, he was swept out with other Republican judges. Our feelings haven’t changed. Wilson is still a straight-shooter and knows the law and has the respect of the lawyers who argue before him. He was appointed to the 14th Court of Appeals by Abbott in December 2020.

I have Q&As with Julie Countiss, Mike Engelhart, and from the primaries Cheri Thomas; I also have one with Ted Wood. The Chron doesn’t have anything bad to say about any of the candidates, which won’t stop the usual complaints about partisan judicial elections if Democrats sweep (somehow, those same complaints weren’t coming up when Republicans were winning all these races). I personally see “clerked for Jennifer Elrod” as a huge red flag, since she was out there trying her best to overrule Roe v Wade before SCOTUS got around to it. The reason why the Fifth Circuit is viewed as “one of the most conservative courts” in the country (which is both a misstatement and an understatement, but is generally the formulation we get) is precisely because of radicals like Jennifer Elrod. That doesn’t mean that one of her former clerks can’t be a decent judge, but the burden of proof for that is very much on them. They get no benefit of the doubt from me.

Endorsement watch: It’s Beto, and very much not Abbott

Oct 20th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron endorses Beto O’Rourke for Governor by taking Greg Abbott to the woodshed.

Beto O’Rourke

Not many years ago, a newly elected Texas governor told cheering supporters, “You voted for hope over fear, for unity over division, for the majesty of what Texas is and what it can be. As Texans, the bonds we share transcend our differences.”

The fact that it’s almost impossible today to imagine Gov. Greg Abbott sincerely repeating the words he uttered on that November night in 2014 reflects what his Democratic challenger calls “the darkness that has descended on Texas.”

None of us who loves this state — its beauty, vastness, and lore, its drive and potential, its diversity of people and sense of place, its swagger and audacity — wants to see it descend into something siloed, cynical and small.

Yet, in the eight years that Abbott has occupied the office of governor, his fellow Texans have watched him transmogrify from a shrewd yet reasonable statesman into a rigid and reflexively ideological politician as he accommodates the Republican Party’s inexorable lurch to the far-right fringes. We have watched him grow more sneeringly dismissive of his political opponents in the Legislature and more domineering in his attempts to dictate the local of affairs of the state’s increasingly blue urban areas. He’s become more beholden to former President Donald Trump’s hopelessly beguiled MAGA faithful.

We’ve watched an erstwhile moderate Republican, a politician in the Reagan-Bush mold (we thought), with an inspiring personal story of overcoming a tragic injury to ascend to the highest office in Texas government, expend more time and energy concocting political stunts and signing on to cultural-issue antagonisms rather than taking seriously the challenges that affect the state as a whole. In conjunction with his GOP cohorts, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and disgraced Attorney General Ken Paxton, Abbott’s disdainful approach to governance has come to epitomize the Ugly Texan. No wonder some of our fellow Americans encourage us to follow through on our absurd threats of secession.

A statewide officeholder since 1996, Abbott is asking Texas voters to keep him in office another four years. The question is, why? What, for the good of Texas, does he hope to accomplish in another term that he hasn’t accomplished in the previous two?

We can think of two reasons why he’s running, both self-serving: One, he’s eager to continue his bow to entrenched political power in this state. He’s happy to serve the deep-well source of his campaign largesse and content to exercise power for power’s sake. Two, he’s positioning himself — like his Florida counterpart — to run for president if Trump doesn’t.

Now that voters have a credible choice in Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, we implore them to set aside party allegiance and assess the governor on his actual performance. They need to remember shivering, for example, when under Abbott’s watch Winter Storm Uri in 2021 caused more damage to an ill-prepared Texas than any other state. Several hundred of our fellow Texans died; thousands suffered through days without water and power. Businesses were shuttered. In Uri’s aftermath, Abbott did the barest minimum, if that, to ensure energy reliability in the future.

I’ve read through the endorsement twice, and that one mention in the last paragraph above is the only time you see Beto’s name. The rest is a long list of grievances about Abbott’s many sins and transgressions and incompetence and indifference. To be sure, there’s so much to be said along those lines, but I couldn’t help but be struck by the difference between this endorsement and that of Mike Collier, in which at least as much could have been said about Dan Patrick but the Chron chose to focus on Collier instead. Maybe that was a tactical decision – voters needed to know more about Abbott and about Collier in order to get it right, while both Beto and Patrick are sufficiently well-known that their bona fides could be assumed. I think we know by now that the Chron’s operational logic in these matters is unknowable, so I’ll leave the speculating here. Whatever the case, they got it right and they laid out a strong set of reasons. And among those, I will note, is yet another lamentation about a Republican who turned out to be a lot more of a radical partisan and less of a moderate leader who cared about The People than they had hoped. I sure wonder why they keep making that mistake. It’s like they don’t know their own history.

Anyway. The Chron also endorsed four State House candidates, Democratic incumbents Hubert Vo (HD149) and Penny Morales Shaw (HD148), Republican incumbent Dennis Paul (HD129), and Republican candidate Mano DeAyala, who is running for the open HD133. I’ve not been keeping close track of which races they still have to do, but I don’t think they’ve touched the State Senate yet, and there are still some statewide races as well as civil and county courts. They’ll be busy for at least another week, I figure.

Endorsement watch: A smattering

Oct 19th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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The Chron endorses Stephanie Morales, the Democratic challenger in HD138.

Stephanie Morales

Stephanie Morales began her interview with the editorial board with a story about children who wind up in the care of Child Protective Services, fleeing harsh conditions at home only to find themselves sleeping in somebody’s office because the agency is so strapped for resources. Such are the heartbreaking realities that motivated her to run for the Texas House.

“I knew that there was a need,” she told us. “This is the perfect place for me to run where I can actually make a difference, because we need someone who has been boots-on-the-ground, actually representing kids and parents to truly change the system.”

Morales is a Texas A&M and South Texas College of Law-educated criminal defense lawyer whose cases often involve parents and juveniles in the CPS system. In her meeting with us, she talked at length about the “unintended consequences” of recent legislation meant to improve how the agency works. She displayed an expertise that would benefit the Legislature, and her constituents. She wants to add funding for more trauma-informed courts like the ones in use in Harris County, and to build and fund a halfway-house program for people who age out of the foster care system.

Morales, 33, is running for House District 138, which covers Jersey Village, Spring Branch and other parts of west Harris County. She argues that she’ll be more civically engaged, particularly with supporting children’s needs, than Republican incumbent Lacey Hull. “This district needs someone who will really advocate for them and wrangle resources that we need here,” she said.

She told us that her legislative priorities also would include bolstering protections against flooding, passing whatever “commonsense” gun-safety laws might be possible, improving the credit-recapture system in Texas schools and increasing teacher pay.

Hull was another Republican who didn’t bother to screen with them, and the Chron rightly dings her for her anti-trans activism. This is as noted one of the few competitive State House districts in the area, likely the only one in Harris County that has a chance of flipping. I’ll be very interested to see how it performs in comparison to 2020. You can listen to my interview with Stephanie Morales, who is indeed a strong candidate and would make a fine legislator, here.

Elsewhere, the Chron endorses three Republican Supreme Court incumbents, two Republican CCA incumbents, the Libertarian candidate in CD22, as the Republican incumbent is an insurrection-loving MAGA-head and the Democratic candidate appears to be an apparition, State Rep. Jon Rosenthal, now in a much bluer district, US Rep. Sylvia Garcia, and a bunch of Criminal District Court nominees, slightly more than half of whom are Dem incumbents. They still have a ton of races to get to, and as has been the case in a number of elections they will have to do many of them after voting has begun.

Endorsement watch: You have to want it first, part 2

Oct 15th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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The Chron endorses Jay Kleberg for Land Commissioner over his no-show opponent.

Jay Kleberg

This year’s campaign for land commissioner is a battle over the job description for the state’s oldest public office. The Texas General Land Office manages disaster relief, helps with school funding, leads the Veterans Land Board and stewards the state’s 13 million acres of public land.

Between state Sen. Dawn Buckingham, a Republican, and Democrat Jay Kleberg, voters have a choice between starkly different visions. Buckingham, 54, has focused her campaign on border security, combating inflation and “fighting the Green New Deal.” Kleberg says the job ought to be focused on the basics of the office — “anything else is a distraction,” he has said on the campaign trail — and he believes Texas ought not run away from clean energy or from responding with urgency to climate change.

In an interview with the editorial board, Kleberg, 44, contended that his opponent’s focus areas are her way of angling for higher office. Buckingham declined to participate in the meeting.

“The message I deliver to people is that I actually want to do this job,” Kleberg told us. “It’s an expansive enterprise. It doesn’t have to be a political steppingstone. It doesn’t have to be mired in politics. Whether it be land management, education, veterans, coastal protection or energy, these are things that I think most Texans can rally around.”

We agree, and that is why we support Kleberg’s candidacy.

You can find my interview with Jay Kleberg (and also Janet Dudding) here. It’s easy to believe what he’s saying about what he wants to do as Land Commissioner. For what it’s worth, Dawn Buckingham is quoted in the piece saying something to suggest she would not try to screw Houston and Harris County out of future federal relief funds, which is better than what we have now – admittedly, a very low bar to clear. The Trib has a profile of the candidates and overview of the race, in which Buckingham also did not participate; she does appear to have deigned to respond in this Chron story on the race. I dunno, you want a job, you should be willing to talk about it. I’m just saying. Anyway, vote for Jay Kleberg.

Endorsement watch: Yeah, I’m still mad

Oct 14th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

Here’s that Chuck Crews endorsement I thought we were going to get on Wednesday instead of that giant turd the Chron gifted us with.

Chuck Crews

State Rep. Briscoe Cain’s three terms in the Texas House could charitably be described as harmful buffoonery, full of extreme and divisive social media rhetoric that mirrors his approach to policymaking. But, as Texas Monthly rated him the state’s worst legislator in 2017 and in 2021, he’s inept even at that.

What’s clear to us is that the people in his district — which straddles the Houston Ship Channel and includes Pasadena, Deer Park, most of Baytown and La Porte — aren’t well-served by his leadership. Voters in the Republican stronghold keep returning him to office, but people in this area need a representative focused on chemical plant safety, education and air quality. Cain’s priorities? Election fraud, Twitter trolling and abortion lawsuits.

[…]

While Cain sets a low bar, we hope for more out of a challenger than the bare minimum. Fortunately, Democratic challenger Chuck Crews struck us as direct, capable and thoughtful, with a professional background that would help his constituents. A longtime petrochemical engineer, Crews said he’d put his extensive knowledge of the industry to use right away in the Legislature to make plants mechanically safer and environmentally cleaner for surrounding communities. He said he’d do all he could to improve the energy grid, legalize cannabis and bolster rural health care.

“You can’t throw a rock in this district without hitting a chemical plant somewhere. I’m a chemical engineer with 15 years experience in the field,” Crews told us. “I would be the better representative for this district because I know the work, I’ve crawled through distillation columns to inspect them … we need a representative who actually represents us.”

Crews, 48, said he was a field organizer in O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign for U.S. Senate, his first foray into partisan politics, though he’s also worked numerous times as an elections judge. Prior to 2020, no Democrat had even run for the District 128 seat in more than a decade.

We urge voters there to choose Crews because he is the candidate focused on policy and people, and not on partisan noise.

My interview with Chuck Crews is here. They go on at some length against harmful buffoon Cain, but I’m too bitter to enjoy it right now. You go ahead if that feels good to you, they make a solid case. I will stop here before I say something I might later regret.

They also endorsed in three SBOE races.

The culture wars have turned schools into political battlegrounds, as few things spark voters’ passions more than the future of their kids and, by extension, the future of our state. In Texas, the State Board of Education has the final say on curriculum standards, veto power over new charter schools and shared responsibility for managing the permanent fund that backs the debt schools take on.

In their meetings with the editorial board, the candidates who made the strongest case were the ones who kept the best interests of students and teachers in mind, rather than parroting party platform talking points.

They endorsed Republican incumbent Will Hickman in SBOE6 in a close call over Democrat Michelle Palmer, whose interview is here. I don’t have anything bad to say about Hickman, but Palmer is a star and I will be happily voting for her. In District 7 they endorsed Democrat Dan Hochman against a Republican wingnut, and in District 8 they endorsed Republican incumbent Audrey Young against a Libertarian perennial candidate, a fellow who has run as a Democrat and as a Republican in past elections.

Endorsement watch: Travesty

Oct 13th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

I have to link to this atrocious Chron endorsement of Republican Alexandra Mealer, but I refuse to quote from it. Instead, I’m going to crib from the daily Texas AFL-CIO email newsletter, which had its own thoughts on the matter:

Judge Lina Hidalgo

Our Brothers and Sisters in the Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation are standing tall for the reelection of County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a champion of working families. The ALF today posted a list of Hidalgo’s amazing accomplishments as she navigated a concentration of natural disasters in her first term.

The timing of the statement was appropriate. In a tortured editorial, the Houston Chronicle today endorsed Hidalgo’s Republican opponent. The editorial has so much praise of Hidalgo, so many misgivings about her opponent, and so much acknowledgment of disagreement on the editorial board that it has the clear look of a publisher’s intervention.

Hidalgo beat the Chronicle’s endorsement in 2018 and the labor movement is working overtime to make sure she does so again in 2022.

Statement from ALF Political Director Jay Malone:

“We’re incredibly disappointed in the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board’s decision to back an extremist candidate for Harris County Judge. Not only has Lina Hidalgo consistently invested in public safety – including a proposed 10% increase in next year’s budget – but she also recognizes that security and safety isn’t just about crime, it’s also about keeping families in their homes, helping them to keep the lights and heat on, and expanding opportunities for everyone, regardless of the zip code you live in.”

“Under Lina Hidalgo, Harris County has kept over 70,000 working families in their homes during the pandemic, expanded access to affordable childcare, worked to raise wages for essential workers and improve safety standards on construction sites and in retail stores, and implemented common-sense measures to keep us safe during the pandemic. And she fought back when state leadership tried to prevent Harvey recovery dollars from going where they’re needed, recovering $750 million earlier this year.

“Unlike her opponent, who is funded by West Texas billionaires and county contractors, Lina has taken a stand to end the corrupt system that puts the interests of the rich and connected first and leaves the rest of us with failed drainage, pockmarked highways, and collapsing bridges. The working people of Harris County stand with Lina.”

Throughout her tenure in office, Judge Hidalgo has worked closely with the labor movement to develop, pass, and implement policies to expand opportunity and keep working people safe, healthy, and in their homes. Among the accomplishment of Harris County Commissioner’s Court since Lina was sworn into office in 2019:

Raised the County minimum wage to $15 an hour for employees and certain construction contract workers

Implemented family-friendly workplace policies, including 12 weeks paid parental leave for both mothers and fathers and additional sick leave to care for ill children

Stood up for common-sense public health measures to keep working families safe, despite efforts by Governor Abbott to block them

Expanded access to the polls through innovative programs, such as drive through and 24 hour voting

Established work safe guidelines for grocery and construction workers

Implemented one of the most effective housing assistance programs in the country

Invested in a complete census count to ensure working families in Harris County receive the assistance they need after state leaders failed to do so

Created a fund to provide frontline workers with direct cash assistance

Required those who do business with the County to support and protect workers when considering awards for construction contracts.

Stood up against the Trump administration’s effort to instill fear in our immigrant communities. Judge Hidalgo has worked to fight against family separation policies, planned immigration raids in the County, and the inclusion of a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.

Launched the $84 million Brighter Futures for Harris County Kids initiative to expand access to affordable childcare and youth healthcare

I completely agree. I was especially angered when they blamed the Republican quorum breaking on the Democrats on the Court, for not being flexible enough in their negotiations, as if they somehow could not grasp that Commissioners Cagle and Ramsey have no incentive to bargain in good faith. They get what they want if nothing happens! Even better, they get simps like the Chron editorial board to blame the other guys for their actions. I don’t know if they’re being deeply naive or willfully blind, but it’s infuriating that they can’t see this basic fact. Their ending note that they hope Mealer will somehow overcome her partisan preferences and govern in a manner that is completely at odds with her own campaign has big “endorse Ted Cruz in 2012 on the hope that he’ll somehow morph into Kay Bailey Hutchison 2.0″ energy. How’d that one work out?

And to think, my day started by reading the print edition endorsement of Chuck Crews in HD128, in which they gave a proper lashing of Briscoe Cain, and thinking I’d get to blog about that and it would all be puppies and sunshine. But that one still isn’t on their site (at least as of last night when I drafted this), and instead this turd is. Where do I send the invoice for that new bottle of Tums I had to buy?

Endorsement watch: Of course it’s Collier

Oct 10th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron writes one of the longest and most effusive endorsements I’ve ever seen for Democratic Lt. Governor candidate Mike Collier.

Mike Collier

Mike Collier won’t just promise to lower your property tax bill, he’ll tell you how he’s going to do it. And if you don’t quite understand all the math and jargony tax code talk, the affable certified public accountant and longtime consultant for investors in the energy industry will make it real simple with a few water bottles or any other props within his grasp.

That’s what he did during his screening with the editorial board last week. When our furrowed brows apparently belied some confusion about the particular loophole he claims is the holy grail to Texas tax relief, the candidate for lieutenant governor grabbed one water bottle that represented a skyscraper in a thriving, highly developed part of town that’s worth $500 million, and another bottle that represented a skyscraper in a run-down, lower-end part of town a few miles away that’s worth $200 million.

“This is full of people paying high rents and is very valuable property,” he says lifting one water bottle. “This is very different,” he says lifting the other, “It’s in a part of town where the values are not nearly as high, it’s only half full and it’s less valuable.”

You’d think the corporate owners of the more expensive property would have to pay more taxes, as homeowners do when our houses are appraised higher. But no. The owner just gets his lawyers to go down to the appraisal district and argue that both skyscrapers should be taxed at a similar level.

Astonishingly, they’ll likely get away with it, just like many other owners of large commercial and industrial properties across the state who each year deprive the state coffers of billions — Collier estimates it’s at least $7.5 billion. Homeowners have to make that up in our tax bills. Why? Because of a simple loophole that lawmakers could fix if they wanted but won’t: the state of Texas doesn’t define what a “comparable” property is.

So the rich guys get to claim it’s whatever they say it is and the apraisal districts often don’t have the time or high-power lawyers to fight them. Collier says he first started studying the problem around 2011 when he saw lawmakers cutting public education by $5 billion and yet his property taxes kept going up.

“I smelled a rat,” he told us.

Collier says he’d pass a few simple tweaks to close the loophole: define “comparable” by such things as location, age, utility. Pass a mandatory sales price disclosure, like most states have. And require everybody to pay their own legal fees in litigation rather than only losers paying.

That isn’t the only way Collier plans to get ordinary Texans some tax relief, but it’s one his favorite ways and one of our favorite reasons for endorsing the Democrat perhaps more enthusiastically than any other candidate on the ballot.

It goes on from there and you should read it. What’s amazing is how much of this very long endorsement is about Collier and his ideas and plans, and how relatively little is about Dan Patrick, despite how easy it would be to write a couple thousand words about why no decent person should think about voting for Dan Patrick. Being good enough and exciting enough to overcome the urge to trash Dan Patrick – that’s really saying something. Let’s hope enough people are listening.

In other endorsements, the Chron recommended Democrat Jon Haire in CD36, partly because Haire is a mensch and partly because incumbent Rep. Brian Babin is an insurrectionist. They also endorse State Rep. Christina Morales for re-election in HD145. As a constituent of hers, I concur.

Endorsement watch: I had totally forgotten who her opponent is

Oct 8th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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The Chron endorses Teneshia Hudspeth for a full term as Harris County Clerk.

Teneshia Hudspeth

As the parent of a young child, Teneshia Hudspeth is familiar with the back-to-school rush for documents, including birth certificates. For families without reliable internet access, that might be more of a challenge than usual. And a trip to the county clerk’s office often means taking off work. So, as Harris County Clerk, Hudspeth helped launch an event in 2021 that let parents and guardians come in on a Saturday to get birth certificates at select offices.

“There were hundreds and hundreds of families who needed this service,” she told the editorial board.

She’s continued the event this year, partnering with local organizations that helped cover the costs of the documents for families that needed it and supplied backpacks. Her office added a service that allows people to order a birth certificate online.

These are the small things that a county clerk’s office can do to improve life and ensure that people are getting their needs met by an office that few residents likely understand well.

[…]

With a full term, Hudspeth will be able to seamlessly continue her efforts to make the office more responsive and accessible to all of Harris County.

Under her watch, the office has digitized thousands of marriage license records, prepared an estate-planning virtual series launching this month, added digital monitors in the courts with information in Spanish and English and overseen upgrades to the annex offices, some of which were begun before her tenure.

Among future plans: an e-certification program, an update to marriage license that will allow couples to add their photographs, and more outreach efforts.

In between is a discussion of the former role that the County Clerk played in running elections. That includes a mention of Stan Stanart, the deservedly former Clerk who is running for his old job and wants to do the election-running thing again. However you judge Stanart as the elected official in charge of elections, know that it was Teneshia Hudspeth doing the real work behind the scenes while he was spending a bunch of money on iPads he never deployed. As the headline indicates, the fact that Stanart is on the ballot just doesn’t stick in my mind – I confront that fact when I do campaign finance roundups, and now as I read this endorsement piece, and in an hour or so it will have flitted right back out of my memory again. This is a happy place for me to be. Please don’t ruin it. Vote for Teneshia Hudspeth, for the betterment of the Clerk’s office and my peace of mind.

You can listen to my interview with Teneshia Hudspeth and hear all the reasons why she is a very fine County Clerk here. On the B-side, the Chron endorsed their first Republican of the cycle, giving the nod to Morgan Luttrell in CD08, a district that unlike some others can reasonably be described as “bright red”. As noted, it is somewhat less crimson now than it was before redistricting, but the voters to shore up Dan Crenshaw and Mike McCaul have to come from somewhere and it’s those “bright red” districts like CD08 that are the obvious source. If you’d prefer an alternative to hoping that Luttrell will “bring more substance with him” when he gets to Congress as the Chron does, you can listen to my interview with his Democratic opponent Laura Jones.

Endorsement watch: You have to want it first

Oct 6th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron endorses Duncan Klussman in CD38, partly by default.

Duncan Klussman

When we gave Wesley Hunt our endorsement in the Republican primary, he made it clear he’d rather go without it. Now, in the general election, we are more than happy to oblige him.

Democratic challenger Duncan Klussmann faces an uphill-both-ways battle, but his years of public service and deep understanding of his district make him our pick for the race.

By all measures, U.S. House District 38 seems tailor-made for Hunt, a West Point graduate endorsed by former President Donald Trump. One of Texas’ two new congressional districts, this one is ultra-red, including bits of River Oaks, the Energy Corridor and western Harris County. Voters there went for Trump by 18.2 percentage points in 2020, a fair indication that Hunt would’ve fared much better there than he did in congressional District 7, where he lost to Democrat Lizzie Fletcher by a few percentage points.

Hunt, 40, was a clear frontrunner in this year’s primaries. Compared with many of his challengers, “steeped in conspiracy theories and fear-mongering,” as we wrote in February, Hunt stayed focused on more substantive conservative priorities, “namely border security, reining in federal spending and funding flood infrastructure projects.” He also boasts an impressive 20-year military record.

It was an easy pick then. This time around, it’s easy to pass.

Klussmann, 59, has a lengthy resume of public service and involvement in the district. His 11 years of experience as a school district superintendent in Spring Branch and his time serving as a Jersey Village city council member give him a distinct grounding in the district itself.

His experience serving local constituents is unmatched and he shows a willingness to work across the aisle to get things done.

As I often seem to do in stories that like to overstate the redness of a given district, going 58% for Trump is not “ultra-red”. It’s just red. There are districts in which Trump got over 75%. If you’re describing a 58% district as “ultra-red”, what can you say about the latter? There’s no description that wouldn’t sound ridiculous. I consider this yet another way in which people fail to understand numbers. Be more measured in your quantitative adjectives, y’all.

Anyway. You can listen to my interview with Duncan Klussman from the primary here. The Chron also issued some endorsements in non-competitive races, giving their nod to Rep. Lizzie Fletcher in CD07, a district that Joe Biden won by thirty points in 2020 and yet whose blueness went unremarked upon; State Rep. Ann Johnson in HD134; and State Rep. Alma Allen in HD131. Don’t bother looking for a pattern in the order of their endorsements. I’ve tried, and all I have to show for it is a minor facial tic. Whatever the race is you’re looking for, they’ll get to it when they get to it, unless they decide they’re not doing endorsements in that race, in which case they won’t.

Endorsement watch: Starting out with Susan

Oct 4th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron kicks off endorsement season with a fulsome recommendation of Susan Hays for Ag Commissioner.

Susan Hays

Hays, 53, lives in Alpine, where she and her husband purchased land several years ago to grow hemp and hops. Her background is as an attorney and lobbyist, including her 2019 work helping craft the Texas law allowing any hemp product with less than 0.3 percent THC.

Like the Republican incumbent, Sid Miller, she has made medical marijuana legalization central to her campaign.

Hays said she’s taken a close look at other states’ cannabis policies and determined that the successful ones have a well-balanced “three-legged stool” of medicinal access, decriminalization and legalization, all working together to curb the black market and ensure people remain safe.

“You have to think of cannabis regulation holistically,” she told the editorial board, speaking of her frustration with Texas’ piecemeal approach and widely-varying regulations.

[…]

Hays promises to lead the department with integrity, and we think she presents Texans with a better shot at competent leadership than we ever had under Miller. If elected, she told us, her constituents “won’t have to worry if I’m off seeking pseudo medical treatment in another state or directing a staffer to commit unsavory acts for a quick buck.”

She vows to govern pragmatically, not politically, sticking to her duties as agriculture commissioner rather than partisan talking points: “That’s not just abortion and guns — it’s the freeze, it’s seeing the elected officials spend taxpayer dollars and money and media space on often made-up issues, issues based in fear, instead of actually governing,” Hays said.

She seeks to revitalize the State Office of Rural Health, a rural hospital program, and commit the department’s resources to improving rural health care, sorely needed in Texas. The agriculture department oversees the state’s school lunch program, and Hays seeks to make sure students — rural, suburban and urban — are getting healthy Texas food rather than processed food from elsewhere.

If you like a circus act that sucks up oxygen and taxpayer money, vote for Miller. If you want a serious candidate well qualified to run the Texas agriculture department fairly, efficiently, and honestly, we can’t recommend Hays highly enough.

If reading the words isn’t enough for you, listen to my interview with Susan Hays and hear her say these things herself. She’ll make a believer out of you. The Chron editorial necessarily gets into the case against Sid Miller, but they only have so much space for that. It’s so abundantly clear that Hays is the best choice, I don’t know what else to tell you.

On a side note, Beto O’Rourke had himself a pretty good weekend for endorsements, picking them up from the likes of Harry Styles, Willie Nelson, and thirty-five members of Uvalde shooting victims’ families. The ad now running that features the mother of one of the victims is just devastating. I saw it during a football game over the weekend, and it took my breath away. I’m not normally moved by ads, especially political ads – they’re just background noise to me, including the ones for candidates I like. This one was different. Wow.

Endorsement watch: Stogner for Warford

Sep 27th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Nice.

Luke Warford

Sarah Stogner, the former Republican candidate for railroad commissioner who forced incumbent Wayne Christian to a runoff and made waves for riding a pumpjack almost naked in a memorable campaign ad, is backing the Democratic nominee for the seat.

Stogner on Monday endorsed Luke Warford over Christian, a former state representative who was first elected to the Railroad Commission in 2016. She said in an interview that Texas’ energy industry is “too important to let corrupt career politicians stay in office, and I’m taking a stand against it.”

Stogner, an oil and gas attorney, lost to Christian by double digits in the runoff. Her campaign turned heads not only for the racy ad but also $2 million in funding she got from a West Texas rancher and friend who had been battling the Railroad Commission over abandoned oil wells on her property.

Stogner said she was supporting Warford, a former state Democratic Party staffer running on fixing the power grid, because she simply believed he would do the job better. She also said in a statement that he is not “your typical Democrat,” calling him “pragmatic and pro-business.”

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

Stogner’s endorsement comes as another Democratic statewide candidate, Mike Collier, has also been picking up Republican endorsements, most recently from former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff on Thursday.

A bit of background in case you need to be reminded about Sarah Stogner. Here’s more from the Chron.

Stogner announced the support Monday and appears in a new video for Warford. Stogner lost in the runoff to Wayne Christian, who is the incumbent and chairs the oil and gas regulatory agency.

“My thinking was, if my endorsement can help him bring some Republican voters to vote for him, it’s the right thing for Texas,” she said.

[…]

Stogner has been an outspoken critic of Christian, pointing to campaign contributions he receives from the oil and gas industry, and to his unwillingness to acknowledge climate change. In recent days, she has also offered support for Christian’s libertarian opponent, Jaime Andres Diez.

“I don’t think that this should be politicized,” Stogner said of the race. “And unfortunately, the incumbent is talking about the (border) wall and pro-life and things that he has absolutely no jurisdiction over.”

The three-member Railroad Commission regulates the state’s oil and gas industry. Christian, a former state legislator and financial planner, opposes new regulations and alternative energy such as wind and solar.

“I’m tired of career politicians mining their pocketbooks and ignoring what needs to be done,” Stogner said.

Here’s the new video:

.
🚨ENDORSEMENT ALERT🚨

Republican primary runner-up Sarah Stogner (@Sarah4RRC) brought national attention to the Texas Railroad Commission race and got 200,000+ votes in the runoff.

Now, she’s endorsing me over incumbent Wayne Christian. 📣

Let’s say #ByeWayne on Nov. 8th. 🗳️

— Luke Warford for Texas Railroad Commission (@LukeWarfordTX) 10:14 AM – 26 September 2022

Whatever one might say about Sarah Stogner, she likely has a lot more name recognition than your typical primary-losing candidate in a downballot race. She is good at getting earned media, which is nice. I’ve said before that I don’t think endorsements like this move a lot of votes, but they probably move a few. And for real, I’ve never seen this many prominent Republican endorsements of Texas Democrats. I don’t know how much that means, but it’s not nothing.

Republicans for Collier

Sep 7th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Two of them, anyway.

Mike Collier

Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, one of Texas’ most prominent Republican local leaders, is backing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s Democratic challenger.

“The one person who I’ll support statewide that will get me a little in trouble: Mike Collier for lieutenant governor,” Whitley said on Y’all-itics, a WFAA politics podcast.

Whitley and Patrick have frequently clashed, and on the podcast Whitley slammed Patrick for waging “war on local elected officials.”

Just days after Whitley made the endorsement that crossed party lines, an out-going Republican state senator from Amarillo has followed suit. Kel Seliger plans to vote for Collier in November, a spokesperson for Seliger told The Texas Tribune. Seliger is one of the most senior Republicans in the upper chamber, but has also famously been at odds with Patrick. Neither Whitley nor Seliger are running for reelection.

At the center of Whitley’s disdain for Patrick is a bill shepherded by the lieutenant governor in 2019 meant to slow the growth of Texans’ property tax bills. The bill requires many cities, counties and other taxing units to hold an election if they wish to raise 3.5% more property tax revenue than the previous year, not counting the growth added by new construction.

But Whitley said the bill put Tarrant County in a tight position because property taxes are a major source of revenue for local governments. Meanwhile, Whitley said Tarrant County jails are housing more than 700 inmates that should be in state custody without additional funding from the state. The COVID-19 pandemic and the inability to make jail transfers contributed to state inmates being held in county jails, Community Impact reported.

“We’re paying 20 million plus a year because the state is not paying anything and yet they’re sitting down there talking about all the cash that they’ve got,” Whitley said.

For Seliger, his vote against Patrick this November comes after years of tensions with the lieutenant governor. Seliger is rare among Republicans in the upper chamber for his occasional willingness to go against Patrick. He has said he’s been punished for voting against a pair of the lieutenant governor’s top priorities in 2017, a bill aimed at restricting local governments’ abilities to raise property taxes and a program that would have subsidized private school tuition and home-schooling expenses. In the following session, Patrick stripped Seliger of his title as chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee. During a 2021 redistricting session, Seliger also voiced concern that Patrick was drawing his district to favor Seliger’s competitor.

[…]

Whitley said he is backing Collier because of Collier’s experience controlling budgets. Collier, an accountant and auditor from the Houston area, is a self-described “numbers guy.” Collier also worked as a landman for Exxon, which Whitley said indicated the Democratic nominee understood the oil business.

“And I just think he’s someone who understands local control. And that’s what I’m looking for,” added Whitley, who as county judge is the county’s top elected official and administrator. “We do everything. We’re the front door for basically all the federal and the state services that the state and the federal government passed laws for us to do.”

This is all nice to see, as is Dan Patrick’s little temper tantrum in response. I’ve said before (many, many times) that nothing will change until Texas’ government changes, and the fastest way for that to happen is for enough people to change how they’ve been voting. I generally don’t believe that endorsements move a lot of votes, but they can move a few, and they can also signal that something is in the air. We’ll know soon enough if this makes any difference – if nothing else, we’ll see what if any effect there is in the precinct data – but I’ll say this much: If Dan Patrick’s political demise can be traced even in part to a fight over local control and bad blood over redistricting, there’s not enough sugar in the world to emulate how sweet that would be. The Chron has more.

UPDATE: And today, outgoing Sen. Eddie Lucio endorses Dan Patrick. I am so glad we are seeing the last of that jackass.

Endorsement watch: Still in reruns

May 13th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron re-endorses Duncan Klussman in the CD38 runoff.

Duncan Klussman

Last fall, Texas Republicans drew a new congressional district in western Harris County. This red-red-red seat was designed to specifically advantage Wesley Hunt, an Iraq war veteran who came within four points of beating U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher in another district in 2020.

The new district — the 38th — encompasses affluent parts of Houston such as River Oaks and stretches into conservative areas such as Tomball and Cypress. Hunt, who won the Republican primary, will be tough to beat. He’s been endorsed by both Sen. Ted Cruz and U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and has a formidable campaign war chest, with $1.8 million on hand as of March 31.

It will take a Democratic candidate with public service experience and a willingness to work across the aisle to make this race competitive. Of the two candidates in the primary runoff, we believe Democrats stand the best chance in November with Duncan Klussmann, a former Spring Branch ISD superintendent.

Diana Martinez Alexander, 48, a Houston ISD teacher and local activist, impressed us, and we admired her command of the issues facing the next Congress. She has fought hard to advance crucial issues near to the hearts of Democratic primary voters, such as voting rights, while also talking up local concerns such as flood mitigation and protecting Texas’ energy grid.

Okay, CD38 is not “red-red-red”. It went 58-40 for Trump in 2020, after having gone 72-27 for Mitt Romney in 2012. To be sure, it’s more red downballot, in the 62-35 range for most of those races, and I’d call that pretty red. I’m not disputing that it was drawn to elect a Republican, I just like a wee bit more precision in my quantitative analyses.

Anyway. My interview with Duncan Klussman is here, and my interview with Diana Martinez Alexander is here. One of these days I’d like to get a full oral history of the candidacy of Centrell Reed. I’ve seen a lot of strange things in this world over the past 20 years, and that whole thing was a new one on me.

Meanwhile, the Chron also re-endorsed Staci Childs for SBOE4.

Staci Childs

The Texas State Board of Education has a lot of power but perhaps not as much as some voters might think. Taxes? Budget decisions? As we wrote back in February: save it for another race. One of the important roles the state board does have, however, is shaping curriculum by setting standards and approving instructional materials. Curriculum has long inspired heated debate here in Texas but it’s especially relevant now in the era of anti-Critical Race Theory hysteria.

That’s why we’re thankful to see two educators in the SBOE District 4 Democratic runoff, including our pick Staci Childs.

Childs is a former teacher from Georgia turned lawyer who kept her foot in the education world through her nonprofit Girl Talk University. As a candidate for SBOE, her focus is on making the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills standards more flexible so teachers have more ability to address specific knowledge gaps for individual students while still helping them get on grade level and move on. Sometimes, she said, students fail to remain at grade level only because they didn’t catch on to a small part of the curriculum. The standards, she told us, should be flexible enough to allow them to get some special attention in those areas, so they can catch up without having to start from ground zero.

“I don’t want to say remedial, because that has a negative connotation,” Childs told us in February. “But we need a serious plan to address the TEKS, since … they do not address these learning gaps.”

My interview with Staci Childs is here and with Coretta Mallet-Fontenot is here. Meanwhile, they picked some dude in the GOP runoff for CD07 (now a 64-34 Biden district, but not called “blue-blue-blue”) and declined to pick either of the yahoos in the GOP runoff for CD29 (68-31 Biden, also not “blue-blue-blue”). Why they chose to spend time on that and not on the ignored judicial races, I couldn’t tell you. Whether they will complete their set of reruns in time for Monday’s start of early voting, I couldn’t tell you either.

Endorsement watch: Reruns

May 11th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The Chron re-endorses Lesley Briones for Commissioners Court Precinct 4 in the Democratic primary runoff.

Lesley Briones

The crowded Democratic race for Harris County Precinct 4 commissioner has narrowed, but the runoff remains competitive. Because of new precinct boundary lines, which include most of western Harris County before reaching into the West University area and curving back up and around Interstate 10, Republican and incumbent Jack Cagle will face the Democratic runoff winner with perhaps less of an edge than usual for incumbents.

Our pick for the spot, Lesley Briones, secured 34 percent of the vote, impressive in a field with three other candidates that got vote shares in the double digits. She will face challenger Ben Chou, who got 25 percent of the vote. At least one internal poll now shows him neck and neck with Briones in the lead-up to the runoff.

We wrote in February that the choice before voters was a tough one. That hasn’t changed. Neither has our endorsement.

Yes, I can confirm that the Chron endorsed Briones for March. That’s fine, and it’s fine if they want to remind us of who they have already recommended as we approach early voting for the primary runoffs – as I noted before, all of their March endorsees who were in Democratic races that went to runoff made it to that runoff, so they have no races on our side to revisit. They had at least one on the Republican side and made a new choice for County Judge. All I’m asking is that in addition to however many ICYMI pieces they go back and revisit the three judicial races that they ignored in March and make a choice now. I swear, it is not too much to ask.

BTW, my interview with Lesley Briones from the primary is here and my interview with Ben Chou is here. All my interviews from March plus judicial Q&As can be found here, and you can add the interviews with Janet Dudding for Comptroller, and Staci Childs and Coretta Mallet-Fontenot for SBOE4, plus a judicial Q&A with Beverly Armstrong for the 208th Criminal District Court.

Where are the endorsements?

Apr 26th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

As you know, early voting has begun for the May 7 election, which includes two Constitutional amendments and the special election for HCC District 2. As of last night when I drafted this, I see no endorsements in any of these elections on the Chron’s opinion page. Are these elections not worth it to them, or have they just not gotten around to them yet? I sure hope it’s the latter, and that they will rectify that quickly. I don’t know what they’re waiting for.

Seventeen days after that election will be the primary runoffs. A quick check of the Erik Manning spreadsheet confirms for me that in all of the Democratic primary runoffs for which the Chron issued a March endorsement, their preferred candidate is still running. In ballot order:

CD38 – Duncan Klussman
Lt. Governor – Mike Collier
Attorney General – Joe Jaworski
Comptroller – Janet Dudding
Land Commissioner – Jay Kleberg
SBOE4 – Staci Childs
HD147 – Danielle Bess
185th Criminal Court – Judge Jason Luong
208th Criminal Court – Kim McTorry
Commissioners Court Precinct 4 – Lesley Briones

You may or may not agree with these, but those are who the Chron picked. They have no races to revisit among them. They do, however, have three more races to consider, which were among those they skipped in Round One:

312th Family Court – Judge Chip Wells vs Teresa Waldrop
County Civil Court at Law #4 – MK Singh vs Treasea Treviño
Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1 Place 2 – Steve Duble vs Sonia Lopez

The links are to my judicial Q&As for those who submitted responses. You can find all the Q&A and interview links from the primary here. More recently I interviewed Staci Childs and Coretta Mallet-Fontenot in SBOE4; I will have an interview with Janet Dudding on Monday. There’s no need to rush if the Chron wants to circle back to these races they ignored originally – they can wait till after the May 7 election, but not too long since early voting there will begin on May 16. It’s only three runoff races (*), plus those two Constitutional amendments and that one HCC race. C’mon, Chron editorial board, you can do this.

(*) There may be some Republican runoffs for them to revisit as well. I didn’t check and am obviously not as interested. I doubt most Republican runoff voters are either, so whatever. The HD147 special election is between the same two candidates as in the primary runoff, so we can assume the endorsement for one carries over to the other.

Endorsement watch: Jaworski and more

Feb 15th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

The Chron finishes off the statewide races by endorsing Joe Jaworski in the primary for Attorney General.

Joe Jaworski

No question, Joe Jaworski would be a compelling candidate for Texas attorney general even if he weren’t the grandson of Texas legendary lawyer Leon Jaworski, best known for being Richard Nixon’s handpicked Watergate prosecutor who ended up arguing successfully for the release of damning tapes that outed Nixon’s involvement in the scandal and led to his resignation as president.

But it sure is poetic to have the grandson of a man famed for his conscience, for being the “chief defender of the nation’s scruples,” as Texas Monthly put it in 1977, running against Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican infamous for his lack of scruples, perpetual scandals and never-ending indictments.

“That’s not enough to vote for me,” Jaworski, 59, a mediator, former Galveston mayor and three-term city councilman, said about his grandfather’s legacy. “But it’s a damn good reason to consider me, because his integrity is in my DNA.”

And consider him we did, along with the rest of the impressive candidates on the Democratic slate, which includes Harris County criminal court-at-law judge Mike Fields, Brownsville attorney Rochelle Garza and Lee Merritt, a nationally known civil rights lawyer.

All of them say they can beat Attorney General Ken Paxton and restore integrity to an office that hasn’t seen it in seven years. They share many priorities, including protecting voting rights and women’s right to choose. Several vowed to use the office both legally and as a bully pulpit to advocate for legislative reforms including expansion of Medicaid.

[…]

Jaworski says he’d waste no time turning “Paxton’s voter fraud” division into “Jaworski’s voter access division,” because, as he told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, “you ought to be able to call the government when your voting rights are being impeded or damaged.” He’d also take small but important steps to champion the voting franchise, including sending letters to all Texas high schools reminding them of the Texas law that requires access for eligible seniors to register to vote.

He’d create a civil rights division at an agency that shamefully lacks one. On border security, rather than targeting individual immigrants and families, he’d go after the cartels that operate exploitative human smuggling operations, in part by funding special assistant U.S. attorneys across the border — a tactic he says was last used by then-AG John Cornyn.

Jaworski also plans to advocate for legalization of cannabis for recreational use in Texas, a priority that might seem minor, all things considered, but that carries weightier significance: Removing “wasteful, petty prosecution from the books,” he says, would “usher in long-overdue social and criminal justice reform.” We agree.

I’ve known Jaworski for a few years, going back to his time as Galveston Mayor and his 2008 run for State Senate. He’s terrific, and it’s not possible to overstate how much better he’d be in the job than the piece of crap felon who’s there now. The other candidates merit consideration as well, with Rochelle Garza being the standout among them. It’s a legitimately tough choice.

They go on to endorse in four more judicial races, and if their intent was only to do the criminal courts, then I believe they’re done. We’ll see about tomorrow. Three of these races were challenges to incumbents, the other is for the new 482nd bench. In order:

Judge Chris Morton in the 230th.

Morton, 49, was elected in 2018 and has presided over high-profile cases in his first term. When the man accused of murdering Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal appeared before him in October 2019, he ordered him held without bond. Last August, he issued an order shielding Texas House Democrats — very briefly, it turned out — from civil arrest by the House sergeant at arms, following the lawmakers’ quorum-busing walkout. And when prosecutors charged a Cy-Fair ISD mother for child endangerment, after she was seen letting her 13-year-old out of her locked trunk at school, he resisted the easy call and told prosecutors they hadn’t made their case.

Agree with them or not, those rulings suggest to us an independence that suits a judge well. And while [challenger Joseph] Sanchez is right to urge more focus on reducing the backlog in Morton’s court, the count there is below the average number in Harris County courts. We recommend Morton in the primary.

My Q&A with Judge Morton is here. I did not get responses from challenger Sanchez.

Judge Hilary Unger in the 248th.

Harris County criminal district court judges are increasingly under scrutiny for bond decisions in cases where the defendant, once out of custody, commits a new crime, including murder. Judge Hilary Unger of the 248th District Court is one of them, given a string of incidents where defendants in her court bonded out and went on to commit serious crimes.

Some would argue that such cases make Unger, 59, unworthy of re-election. We disagree. She is the best choice for Democrats in the March 1 primary for two reasons: Her overall record on the bench is a strong one, and because we do not believe her challenger would do better.

Unger supports the bail reform movement, and insists that nearly every defendant deserves a hearing to consider his or her terms for pre-trial release. But her court has the 10th-highest (out of 23 courts) pre-trial detention number, which suggests she weighs those decisions carefully. She would have fewer defendants in detention if she indiscriminately gave personal recognizance or low bonds. She’s also improving her clearance rate, which in the past three months has been 101 percent.

My Q&A with Judge Unger is here. Her opponent is Linda Mazzagatti, who works in the district attorney’s general litigation office, and has not sent me Q&A responses.

Judge Amy Martin in the 263rd.

Judge Amy Martin has earned Democrats’ support in the March 1 primary after one term on the bench in this criminal district court. Martin, 45, was a defense attorney representing mostly impoverished clients, and with experience in death penalty cases, before she was elected in 2018. We endorsed her then, believing that background would serve her well on the bench.

It turned out to be a solid bet. She’s accessible, big on pre-trial diversion programs for people with mental health or substance abuse cases and has ideas for how to expand those efforts to include people on bond.

Despite those progressive ideas, Martin also has sounded warnings that the “spirit of bail reform” that was behind mostly ending cash bail for misdemeanors has bled over into the way felony judges approach bail. In our conversation with her about her approach to setting bonds, we found her thoughtful, balanced and, well, judicious.

I did not get Q&A responses from either Judge Martin or her opponent Melissa Morris, about whom the Chron also said nice things.

Veronica Nelson in the 482nd.

Democrats are choosing among three candidates with the winner set to face Republican Maritza Antu, the current judge in the 482nd who was appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott to preside over the new court and is unopposed in her party’s primary.

Of the three Democrats seeking the seat, we were impressed with two, Veronica Nelson and Alycia Harvey. We urge voters to choose Nelson, 40, a staff attorney for the county criminal and civil court judges.

She is a former Harris County prosecutor who, over 10 years, gained valuable trial experience as chief prosecutor in the misdemeanor and felony divisions.

As a staff attorney for the judges, she said she spends a lot of time “teaching judges how to be judges.”

She said prosecutors should more often ask for bond hearings, and that judges can be blamed unfairly. Bond is far higher for murder charges than it used to be, she says, and no matter how high judges set it in some cases, defendants are making bail.

My Q&A with Nelson is here and with Harvey is here. I did not get responses from the third candidate, Sherlene Cruz.

The full list of Chron endorsements is here. I’m hoping they will still do the Family court races, but I’m not expecting it. The Erik Manning spreadsheet tracks a gazillion endorsements, so maybe that will help some. Good luck sorting it all out.

Endorsement watch: Almost all of the big ones

Feb 14th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Sunday Chron was full of endorsements, which given the timing and the edition is what you’d expect. Most of them are not particularly remarkable, and I’m not going to spend any time on their recommendations for Beto and Mike Collier on the Democratic side, or Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, or Eva Guzman on the Republican side. Everyone except Collier is obvious, and Collier is both a good choice and the familiar one. Read them as you see fit, but I don’t expect you’ll take much away from them.

There were some other races with more interest, starting with the CD38 primary in which they tapped Duncan Klussman.

Duncan Klussman

Two years ago, Diana Martinez Alexander emerged as top vote-getter in a raucous six-member Democratic primary for a seat on the Harris County Commissioners Court. Now she’s asking party voters to entrust her with their hopes for picking up a seat in Congress, representing the new district Texas lawmakers created following the 2020 Census.

Alexander’s command of the issues facing the next Congress impressed us. So did her background as a teacher in HISD and fighter for causes near to the hearts of Democratic primary voters, as when she told us she’d make voting rights a top priority. “We have to make some progress in protecting our voting rights,” she said. “So that would be the number one priority, because we can’t have anything else if we don’t have a right to vote.”

But we believe it’s another candidate — former Spring Branch ISD superintendent Duncan Klussmann — who will give Democrats the best chance of winning in the fall.

When Texas lawmakers drew the new 38th Congressional District last year, they did so intending to give a Republican candidate the advantage, and the GOP primary field includes well-known and well-financed contenders. Democrats will need their strongest candidate to compete. Despite Alexander’s impressive showing in the March 3, 2020 primary, she lost the subsequent runoff to Michael Moore.

We believe Democrats stand the best chance in November with Klussmann, 58, on the ticket. His priorities are kitchen-table issues all voters worry about. He’d stress getting the supply chain moving, ensuring the Houston area gets federal support for flood mitigation and tackling rising inflation. “Some of us who were around in the 1970s remember when, when my parents were paying 12 percent, 14 percent interest on their mortgages,” he told us. “So we know how that can impact people’s lives.”

Coupled with his experience as superintendent for 18 years, Klussmann’s priorities could help him build broad consensus, something there is far too little of in Congress these days. But he knows fighting for the home team is important, too. He said he’d work to expand Medicaid for Texas and push universal pre-K.

My interview with Duncan Klussman is here and with Diana Martinez Alexander is here; as noted before, Centrell Reed declined the opportunity to be interviewed. Klussman is fine, well-qualified and knowledgeable, and can speak to the experience of being a former Republican, which can certainly be an asset. Lord knows, we’re going to need more people like that. If this election were in 1996, or even 2006, he’d be the strongest candidate on paper. I don’t know how much of an advantage his profile is now, given the shrinking number of crossover voters and potential for some Dem voters to be less enamored with that kind of centrism. I know and trust Diana Alexander and would be inclined to vote for her if I lived in CD38, but you have good options however you look at it.

One race I didn’t have a chance to get to was the SBOE4 race, which is an open seat as incumbent Lawrence Allen is running for HD26. The primary winner will be elected in November, and the Chron recommends Staci Childs.

Staci Childs

Voters have five options in the Democratic primary for the District 4 seat, but two candidates stood out to us as especially impressive.

Marvin Johnson, a former high school math teacher and chemical engineer who is a lecturer at North American University in Houston, had good ideas for how to improve schools, but he struggled with the narrow scope of authority granted to the state school board.

“What I see right now is not working,” he told us, adding that he was “disappointed” to learn how little say the SBOE has over how schools operate when he first filed to run. He’ll try to convince lawmakers and others to join his call to expand its responsibilities, should he be elected.

We’d rather see Democrats choose a candidate who promises to work full-time to improve school curriculum. We believe Staci Childs, a former teacher in Georgia, is that candidate. Though now a practicing attorney, she’s the founder of an education-related nonprofit called Girl Talk University.

We especially liked her ideas about how Texas’ use of TEKS standards — short for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills — is failing some kids and their schools. Often, she said, all that stands between a student and knowing what’s required is a specific gap in their knowledge left unfilled from a previous grade. A quick effort to identify and bridge that gap can quickly allow them to come up to grade level and pass, without the stigma of being held back.

“I don’t want to say remedial, because that has a negative connotation,” Childs told us. “But we need a serious plan to address the TEKS, since … they do not address these learning gaps.”

I will come back to this race for the very likely runoff, as there are five candidates.

Finally, two judicial endorsements. One is for a challenger, Kim McTorry.

Kim McTorrey

Judge Greg Glass has decades of experience as a criminal lawyer in Harris County, but he’s fallen short of expectations on the 208th Criminal District Court bench. We recommend voters give his challenger, Kimberly McTorry, a defense attorney and former prosecutor, a chance to win the seat in the general election.

While we recognize how difficult bond decisions can be for judges, particularly when the right to bail is enshrined in the Texas Constitution, in the case of Deon Ledet, a twice-convicted ex-felon, it is clear Glass made an egregious mistake.

Prosecutors initially sought to have Ledet held without bail even though he hadn’t been charged with a capital crime, arguing he’d twice previously been convicted of a felony. A magistrate judge set bail at $40,000 initially; Glass subsequently agreed to a request from Ledet’s lawyers to reduce his bail to $20,000. Ledet immediately violated the terms of his pre-trial release, and when two Houston police officers showed up at Ledet’s home to serve an arrest warrant, he allegedly shot and killed Officer William Jeffrey.

Glass, 73, told the editorial board his decision to reduce Ledet’s bond was a mistake. “I really feel sorry for Officer Jeffrey’s family, it’s a horrible thing what happened,” Glass said. “If I could change it, I would.”

[…]

McTorry, 34, would bring a balanced perspective to the courtroom, having practiced on both sides of the docket. While she has only recently begun handling second-degree felonies as a defense attorney, we believe her trial experience as a Harris County prosecutor, where she handled thousands of felony and misdemeanor cases, makes up for that relative lack of experience.

“I believe in restorative justice, I believe in criminal justice reform, but I also believe that a judge should be equally as compassionate about the victims of crimes as they are about those who are accused of crimes,” McTorry told us.

My Q&A with Judge Glass is here. I have one in the queue for McTorry that will run tomorrow.

The Chron also went with an incumbent, Judge Frank Aguilar in the 228th Criminal District Court.

There are those who believe Judge Frank Aguilar of the 228th District Court in Harris County is too quick to side with prosecutors’ arguments in court. But in a county whose criminal court judiciary turned over en masse four years ago, and where concerns about rising crime and lax bond decisions are widespread, we aren’t persuaded that Democrats would be wise to part company with a judge in their party with a tough approach to crime. Whether Aguilar wins or his opponent criminal defense lawyer Sam Milledge II does, the party’s nominee can expect that question of how judges handle bond in violent cases to be central to the November general election.

Those considerations aside, however, we believe Democrats should vote for Aguilar, 64, because he’s spent his first term on the bench learning to be a better judge — training the voters have paid for. His docket clearance rate has been 99 percent for cases in the previous 90 days, about average for all judges, and 86 percent for the previous year, a little better than average. He has about 10 percent fewer cases pending than average.

My Q&A with Aguilar’s opponent Sam Milledge is here; I never got a response from Judge Aguilar. I find this endorsement a bit amusing, since they considered Aguilar the poster boy for why electing judges is bad, a sentiment they extended to after the election. Maybe all that gnashing of teeth was a bit over the top, eh? I know they have an all new crew doing these screenings now, but it still raises my eyebrows a bit that they didn’t come close to acknowledging their previous reservations about the incumbent.

So, as of the start of early voting, the Chron has managed to do nearly all of the endorsements they set their sights on. I haven’t tracked the Republican side closely, but on the Dem side the main omissions I see are Attorney General and five Criminal District Courts. I know they’re not doing county courts and JP races, I’m not sure if they’re doing civil/family/juvenile district court – if they are, add all of those to the tab. I’ve got judicial Q&As queued up through Friday; I don’t expect to receive any more responses at this point, but if I do I’ll add them in. Now go out there and vote.

Endorsement watch: Commissioners Court and Treasurer

Feb 13th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron makes another obvious call and endorses Commissioner Adrian Garcia in Precinct 2.

Adrian Garcia

Among the frequent criticisms we hear about Harris County Commissioners Court is that it’s an opaque repository for political insiders, an entity with limited authority beyond building and maintaining roads, shepherding flood control projects, and rubber-stamping budgets.

When Democrat Adrian Garcia challenged Republican incumbent Jack Morman in 2018 for Precinct 2 commissioner, he set out to break that mold. Garcia, 61, a former Houston police officer, city councilman and Harris County sheriff ran as an advocate for criminal justice reform, environmental justice, and for people without health insurance. He pledged to direct resources to long-neglected neighborhoods in his district, which spans eastern Harris County, North Houston and leafy suburbs such as Friendswood.

As commissioner, Garcia has fulfilled many of those promises and deserves a chance to defend his seat this fall against Morman, who wants it back.

While Republican county commissioners attempt to undo the county’s existing misdemeanor bail reform agreement, Garcia has been a steadfast advocate of staying the course on bail reform since signing on to a consent decree to settle the Harris County litigation in 2019. In a precinct where some county residents are 56 percent more likely to be diagnosed with cancer, Garcia secured funding for air quality monitors. Garcia partnered with the Baylor College of Medicine to bring SmartPods — a one-stop shop for health care services, including clinic spaces, pharmacies and biosafety labs — to medically under-served residents in Pasadena and Aldine. He was the driving force behind bringing a $7.6 million park to Northeast Harris County for children and adults with disabilities, an all-inclusive jewel for an area desperate for green space.

“I have been working tirelessly on all fronts to address all the things that I campaigned on and that my constituents have focused on,” Garcia told the editorial board.

I advocated for Garcia to be the Democratic challenger to Morman in 2018, and I have been happy with him in office. The Chron gripes about a couple of things, including his support of the new map for Commissioners Court, to which I say that setting a good example has gotten Democrats exactly nothing these past few years. If the Republicans in the Legislature and the US Senate want to do something about redistricting, we’re all ears. Until then, I see no point in unilaterally disarming. If I were in Precinct 2, I’d be delighted to cast my vote for Commissioner Garcia. I did not do interviews in this race, but I did interview him in 2018, and you can listen to that here.

Over in Precinct 4, it was a much tougher choice, for which the Chron landed on Lesley Briones.

Lesley Briones

The Democrats running for Harris County Precinct 4 commissioner make a far stronger field than in previous years. And there’s a reason for that: The Democratic majority on the current Commissioners Court significantly altered the precinct and gave it more blue voters, to the potential detriment of incumbent Republican Jack Cagle.

Democrats in the new Precinct 4 — which encompasses much of western Harris County and some territory inside Loop 610 — have a tough choice in a race that’s drawn several impressive candidates.

We settled on Harris County Court at Law Judge Lesley Briones, 41.

The Laredo native graduated from Yale Law School, and then practiced law at Vinson & Elkins LLP before working as general counsel and chief operating officer of the Arnold Foundation. Beginning in 2019, Briones served as a civil court judge before resigning to run for commissioner.

She’s been endorsed by several local elected officials and several groups including the Texas Gulf Coast AFL-CIO and Harris County Young Democrats, and has raised more than $339,000.

Among her ideas, Briones said she’d create a response team that residents could call for ditch maintenance, similar to programs set up for potholes. She’d prioritize constituent services and bird-dog already-funded flood bond projects to make sure they get completed.

[…]

Along with Briones, two other candidates stood out: former Texas Rep. Gina Calanni and Ben Chou. All three offered concise, detailed platforms and plans.

Calanni, 48, is a battle-tested former representative in House District 132. We endorsed her in 2018 and again in 2020. She’s an accomplished legislator, despite only serving one term: she authored or co-authored 11 bills that became law in the 2019 session. She rejected the notion that Commissioners Court ought to stick to the basics such as transportation and flooding, suggesting she’d continue the current practice of Democrats on the court of delving into divisive social issues such as abortion.

On healthcare, Calanni has an intriguing incentive plan for mothers on Medicaid, and we liked her pledge to to hold regular town halls in all the precinct’s neighborhoods.

Other priorities she mentioned, such as combating the school-to-prison pipeline, are important issues, but this is a time for anti-crime initiatives that can show more immediate results.

Ben Chou, 31, graduated from Rice and then worked for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. A former Harris County clerk employee, he touted an instrumental role in the now-banned drive-thru voting program that contributed to record turnout. Chou is sharp and knowledgable. He said he’ll guarantee fixes within 72 hours on reports of road debris and potholes and commits to attend or have a staff member at every super neighborhood meeting in the precinct.

Most impressive was his commitment to ethics. He was the only candidate to pledge not to take financial contributions from county vendors, as all four of the current commissioners do. “Disclosure, I think, is not enough. We’ve got to end the pay-to-play culture in Harris County,” he said. We agree.

I interviewed five of the seven Dems running in this race:

Lesley Briones
Ben Chou
Ann Williams
Gina Calanni
Clarence Miller

The first four listed there are the top candidates in my view, and I don’t envy anyone the decision. We’ll see who makes it to the runoff.

Finally the Chron endorsed incumbent Treasurer Dylan Osborne.

Dylan Osborne

The job of county treasurer is a bit like being a sports official in one respect: they’re usually invisible unless they mess up.

The treasurer’s basic duties are to cut checks for the county, balance its checkbook and account for funds in designated accounts. The office moved about $20 billion in 2021. Incumbent Dylan Osborne has tried since 2018 to increase the 12-person office’s visibility — without any big mistakes. He participated in the November 2020 Protect the Results rally, making the shouldn’t-be-controversial argument that vote counting and transfers of power needn’t be partisan. He also led the office to partner with Unity National Bank, one of the few Black-owned financial institutions in Texas.

He wants to work with some local schools to build programs for financial literacy training, and pitch to Harris County Commissioners Court a plan to help residents combat financial struggles.

“I run an efficient, tight ship, and we’re working hard to make this office an asset to the community,” Osborne told us.

My interview with Dylan Osborne is here and with his opponent Carla Wyatt, about whom the Chron was complimentary, is here. The Treasurer’s office doesn’t get in the news much, and that was one of the things I asked him about – basically, what have you been doing all this time? He had some good answers, so give that a listen if you haven’t. I agree with the Chron’s assessment that while Wyatt would make a fine Treasurer, Osborne has done a good job and has earned the chance to do it for another term.

Endorsement watch: Finally, some judicial races

Feb 12th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

There are so many contested judicial races on the primary ballot, but we’re just now starting to get some judicial race endorsements from the Chronicle. Let’s being this roundup with three criminal district court races, in which the Chron went with the incumbents. First up, Judge Chuck Silverman in the 183rd.

Judge Chuck Silverman

When Chuck Silverman ran for the 183rd Criminal District Court in 2018, his main flaw as a candidate was his lack of criminal law experience. Now, Silverman has three years on the criminal bench under his belt, and while there are still areas where Silverman can improve, we recommend Democratic primary voters give him a chance to defend his seat this fall.

One of the chief criticisms leveled at Silverman, 61, is his relatively high pre-trial detention rate among district court judges. With the Harris County Jail already overcrowded, it’s critical that judges aren’t just locking up indigent defendants without cause. But in Silverman’s case, we believe the numbers don’t tell the whole story. He has built a reputation as a reformer and in 2020, filed a motion to join the historic lawsuit challenging cash bail in the felony court system, saying he wanted “to make the cash bail system obsolete or to make it work better.” We believe he is sincere in his desire for a fairer bond system and that his pre-trial detention figures require greater context.

“Individuals are entitled constitutionally to bail, and they’re given bail, but then the question becomes, what happens when those individuals violate the bond conditions? People are taken back into custody, and then my numbers may go up,” Silverman told the editorial board.

My Q&A with Judge Silverman is here. I did not receive responses from his opponent, Gemayel Haynes.

Next, Judge Abigail Anastasio in the 184th.

Judge Abigail Anastasio

Four years ago, we thought Abigail Anastasio was a qualified, enthusiastic, yet inexperienced candidate for the bench. Now, with three years as a district judge under her belt and a reputation for running an efficient, balanced courtroom, Anastasio has more than earned the chance to defend her seat in the general election.

A former high school teacher, defense attorney and prosecutor, Anastasio, 41, has proved to be a quick study as a judge.

At a time when the case backlog in Harris County remains stubbornly high, Anastasio consistently maintains one of the county’s lowest dockets. Her 101 percent clearance rate for the past year is third-highest of any district court judge and she also has a remarkably high trial rate, even with the COVID-19 pandemic grinding many court proceedings to a halt. She’s accomplished this in part by implementing a scheduling order issuing deadlines for attorneys to meet over the life of a case. Perhaps most impressively, Anastasio has managed to both maintain a low pretrial detention rate and the third-lowest bond population of any district court, proving that efficiency and public safety aren’t mutually exclusive.

Anastasio sets high expectations for how her courtroom should operate, which has won her the respect of both prosecutors and defense attorneys.

My Q&A with Judge Anastasio is here. I will have a Q&A with her opponent, Katherine Thomas, on Monday.

And then there’s Judge Jason Luong in the 185th.

Judge Jason Luong

Jason Luong has faced unprecedented challenges in his first term as judge, juggling myriad duties amid the backdrop of a global pandemic, while maintaining a reputation as a fair jurist. Voters should give him an opportunity to return to the bench.

Luong, 47, a former prosecutor and civil lawyer, didn’t even have a courtroom when he first began presiding over the 185th District Court due to the extensive damage at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center from Hurricane Harvey. Months after the building finally opened back up in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shut down the court system. Luong was part of the group that established the jury selection system at NRG Stadium, allowing courts to resume operating.

Even with those obstacles, Luong still managed to preside over the county’s Felony Veterans Treatment Court, chair the felony district courts’ Bail Bond Committee, and keep his docket relatively efficient, with a stellar 101 percent clearance rate over the past three months. However, we’d like to see Luong preside over more trials, as he’s only held 10 in three years.

I did not receive Q&A responses from Judge Luong for this election. I did get responses from him in 2018, which you can see here. He has two opponents, Andrea Beall and Kate Ferrell, and I received responses from Beall that you can see here.

There are two races among the five they focused on that only feature Democratic challengers. First we have William Demond for the 14th Court of Appeals, Place 9.

William Demond

We recommend William Demond, a Houston constitutional rights attorney, as the best choice for the March 1 Democratic primary for Place 9 on the 14th Court of Appeals. The winner will face Justice Randy Wilson in the fall.

The Texas Courts of Appeals serve as the kitchen sink of the judiciary. When lawyers think something went wrong at the trial level, it falls on the appellate justices to set the legal record straight and ensure that the law is applied properly.

Demond, 44, has the breadth of experience that would fit this court perfectly. He has a background in civil litigation, covering everything from breach of contract cases to administrative law. Not many attorneys can say their case work has helped establish constitutional rights. Demond has done it twice in cases before the Fifth Circuit Court, including the right to film police officers. Recently, he was appointed to represent Harris County inmates in a case concerning their constitutional rights during the COVID-19 pandemic.

He’s already established relationships with some of the sitting justices on the court of appeals and believes he’d be able to fit in seamlessly with an ideologically diverse panel. Demond also assured us he wouldn’t take an activist approach as a judge.

Demond was a candidate for the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2020. I don’t have Q&A responses from him or his opponent Chris Conrad.

Finally, there’s Kyle Carter for the 14th Court of Appeals, Place 2.

Kyle Carter

After 13 years as a civil district court judge in Harris County, Judge Kyle Carter, 45, tells us he’s ready for a new job. “I am asking voters for a promotion,” he said.

We think he’s earned Democrats’ vote in the March 1 primary for Place 2 on the 14th District Court of Appeals in Harris County. The winner will face Justice Kevin Jewell in the fall.

Carter’s Democratic opponent, Cheri Thomas, 43, is a lawyer with an impressive background. She’s worked as a defense attorney focusing on criminal appeals, and for two years was a staff attorney at the 14th District Court of Appeals. She says she made presentations to the justices there in nine cases, and has more recently argued before the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a still-pending case. On Thursday, she was endorsed by the Houston Association of Women Attorneys.

That laudable background doesn’t match the experience Carter has gained on the bench. Thomas told us that Carter’s experience as a trial judge doesn’t necessarily prepare him for the more cerebral role appellate justices must play. While it’s true that a justice’s effectiveness greatly depends on legal knowledge, reasoning and writing skills, there are few better ways to prepare for a role in shaping and interpreting the law than 13 years of having to implement them daily.

Carter as noted has been the judge of the 125th Civil District Court since 2009; we was elected in the first Democratic wave of 2008, and has won re-election three times since then. I received Q&A responses from him for this race, and they are here. Cheri Thomas was a candidate for this court in 2020, and I will have Q&A responses from her on Wednesday.

Those of you who have more direct experience with these judges and attorneys, please feel free to leave a comment.

Endorsement watch: Bess and Benton

Feb 11th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

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The Chron finally addresses one of the higher-profile local primaries, and endorses Danielle Bess in HD147.

Danielle Bess

Democrats have to make a choice about how they want to put up a fight in the Texas Legislature. In 2020, the party mounted an aggressive campaign to retake the House, pouring money into what were thought to be competitive races, and failed to make a gain in their overall count. After the recent round of redistricting, the party’s chance of making significant gains, much less flipping the lower chamber, is low. What kind of fighter makes the most sense for a party relegated to the minority for the near future?

When state Rep. Garnet Coleman, who represented District 147 since 1991, announced his retirement last year, an extraordinary group of women stepped forward as candidates. Although she lacks the elected experience that two others in the race have, we recommend Danielle Keys Bess, 38, for her ability to communicate policy ideas in a style that’s both constructive and assertive.

Bess has worked in campaign logistics for several different Democrats in Texas and handled questions on a range of statewide and district-specific issues with aplomb. She has also worked as a real estate agent with the Midtown TIRZ — a taxing authority that Coleman played a central role in setting up — to match buyers with affordable single-family housing built in the district. That background is important in a district where rising costs have led to displacement. Her platform includes the key issues other candidates agree on: voting rights, community infrastructure, Medicaid expansion, investing in public education and women’s rights.

Bess faces two formidable opponents: Former Houston City Council member Jolanda Jones, 56, and Reagan Flowers, 50. Jones, also a former Houston ISD board member, is a powerful advocate and unapologetic fighter for the people she’s represented in the past. But in a House almost certainly to be controlled by Republicans, that kind of fiery fractiousness is unlikely to get results. Flowers has a stellar record as a teacher and nonprofit leader partnering with under-resourced schools to fund science, technology and math. But she didn’t communicate — as Bess did — the urgency fellow Democrats feel in the wake of the last legislative session.

My interview with Danielle Bess is here. Other interviews I did in HD147 include Aurelia Wagner, Jolanda Jones, Nam Subramanian, and Reagan Flowers. All good candidates – the two I did not interview, Somtoo Ik-Ejiofor and Akwete Hines, are also good – and all worthy of consideration. I don’t envy anyone in HD147 the decision. I think the Chron reasonably framed the question, which is about approach and philosophy, and how much you want to emphasize assertiveness versus confrontation. There’s no objectively right answer, there’s just what you want to see in your own representative.

As noted before, I was not able to do interviews in every contested primary. Too many races, too little time. One race that I thought about but ultimately did not cover was in SD17, where the Chron endorsed Titus Benton for the nomination.

Titus Benton

“Right now, Joan Huffman needs a fight on her hands,” says Miguel Gonzalez, 41, a high school English teacher and small business owner who grew up in Victoria and spent much of his life in the district. He told us he’s running in large part because Republicans’ attack on voter access was too harmful to fight from the sidelines.

His opponent, Titus Benton, 40, a former pastor, nonprofit founder and current chief operating officer of an organization that fights human trafficking in Houston, said he was moved by his lifelong calling to love his neighbor.

Both candidates say they come from humble means: “I may live in a cul-de-sac in Katy now but I was free-and-reduced lunch my whole life,” Benton says. They say Senate District 17, which runs from West University down south of Freeport, includes rural, low-income families and a smattering of independents who may be looking for better representation. The candidates largely overlap on issues, from restoring abortion rights to expanding health care access. One exception is guns.

Gonzalez, a gun owner who says he often carries when he goes into the city, says while he opposes permitless carry and doesn’t believe the framers imagined people walking around with AR-47s, he’s OK with open carry because “that’s where we are and you can’t put the milk back in the jug.”

“I’d like to find a funnel and figure it out,” Benton replied. He says he’d fight for a red flag law and try to address the growing “ghost gun” problem that emerged with the advent of 3D printers.

We were impressed with the passion of both candidates, although Benton’s platform seemed more well-rounded: he’d make an economic argument to expand Medicaid, work to close grid weatherization loopholes lawmakers approved last year and says legalizing pot is a “no-brainer.”

Our choice mostly came down to style. Gonzalez calls his “a little bit more combative.” We like his enthusiasm about getting out the vote but his legislative strategy lost us: “We need to follow Mitch McConnell’s lead: no to everything.”

That’s the path to irrelevance in a Senate dominated by Republicans.

That’s also a recapitulation of the theme from the HD147 endorsement. Again, your mileage may vary. In Dan Patrick’s Senate, where even the likes of John Whitmire are steadily being sidelined, it’s not clear that nihilism will be any less effective than a commitment to working across the aisle (unless you go so far as to live there, like the unlamented Eddie Lucio). Anyway, I didn’t interview either of these gentlemen, but the endorsement editorial points to a brief Q&A the Chron did with them (and with incumbent Sen. Joan Huffman) from about a month ago, so check that out if you want to know more. If you’re in SD17 and have some insight on these two, please feel free to share it.

Of note, the Chron also endorsed Josh Flynn in the GOP primary for HD138, over incumbent Rep. Lacey Hull. While they had endorsed Flynn in 2020, their usual preference is to stick with an incumbent unless there’s a reason to turn on them. Apparently, Lacey Hull couldn’t clear this fairly low bar. On the other hand, they did stick with the generally reprehensible Rep. Valoree Swanson in HD150 because the alternative choice was OG terrible person Debbie Riddle, whom Swanson ousted a couple years ago by running to her right. Such great choices in that race. Also, maybe just skip this one, Chron editorial board? I know, neither Swanson nor Riddle showed up to be screened, so there was no time wasted talking with them, but there’s only so much space in the print edition and writing this still took up someone’s valuable time. Moving on to a race of greater interest was surely an available option.

Endorsement watch: Definitely in no rush

Feb 10th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

After a few days of only Republican endorsements, we get three Democratic ones. First up is the most obvious, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.

Judge Lina Hidalgo

Even those who treated 27-year-old Lina Hidalgo like she was born yesterday when she was elected Harris County judge in 2018 must admit that she’s been baptized by fire.

First, quite literally, by a chemical fire. Then a steady stream of other disasters: a global pandemic, an epic winter storm and deadly power grid blackout, and a relentless crime surge.

Many who thought she had no business running against 11-year incumbent Ed Emmett think she has no business keeping the seat. Some — on the right and left — have lined up to oust her.

Three years ago, we admired Hidalgo’s tenacity but weren’t persuaded to endorse an untested newcomer to lead a county of more than 4.5 million people, a budget of $5 billion and a surface area bigger than Rhode Island.

Since then, Hidalgo, who will be 31 by the March 1 primary, has been as tested as any county judge can be.

And we believe she’s passed, from her gutsy urging to close the rodeo days before community spread of COVID-19 was detected, to her bold mask mandate that prompted Republican leaders to cry “tyranny” until they enacted their own mandates, to her prescient warnings for residents to prepare for Winter Storm Uri as they would “a category 5 hurricane.”

She seems to have handled these disasters, and also a daily barrage of personal attacks, insults and condescension, with the poise and steadfastness of a seasoned public official and yet, maintains a wonky earnestness we find refreshing.

They find Erica Davis’ case thin and unconvincing, and note that no one else in the primary is making an effort. You know how I feel about these things. As no-brainers go, this one was one of the no-brainer-est.

Also an easy call, though far lower on anyone’s visibility list, they endorsed Janet Dudding in the primary for Comptroller.

Janet Dudding

Democrats have a choice of a journalist-turned-lawyer, a long-time certified public accountant, and a writer and strategist in the March 1 primary for Texas comptroller of public accounts.

Call us crazy but we believe the best option by far is the accountant, Janet Dudding of Bryan.

Dudding, 62, makes a compelling case for why Democrats should nominate her to challenge two-term incumbent Glenn Hegar in November’s general election.

“I’ve spent my adult life auditing, accounting for, administering and even investigating state and local governments and their grants, taxes, procurement, spending and reporting,” she told us in a screening last month. “I understand how the system works and how we could better utilize it to our advantage.”

[…]

She seems capable of taking the fight to Hegar in the fall, promising to highlight what she describes as his failure to manage the energy efficiency and climate impacts of state-owned buildings, promote the use of alternative fuels in state vehicles and find ways to boost rural broadband access.

Dudding has the most relevant experience and the broadest platform in this race. We urge Democrats to nominate her for comptroller.

Far as I can see, she’s the only serious candidate. Some statewide primary races have very tough choices – Lt. Governor, Attorney General, and Land Commissioner, to be specific – but this one was clear to me from the beginning.

And speaking of that Land Commissioner race, the Chron made their choice and it’s Jay Kleberg.

Jay Kleberg

After a years-long tug-of-war between George P. Bush’s Texas General Land Office and Houston leaders over unallocated Harvey relief funding, we suspect more than a few southeast Texans are eager for a new GLO direction. Democratic voters have high-quality choices in the race for Texas Land Commissioner, all of whom want a land office focused on science and aid, not politics. We recommend Jay Kleberg, an Austin-based conservationist who began working cattle at age 5 on his family’s ranch — the 825,000 acre King Ranch in south Texas.

Kleberg has an MBA from the University of Texas and has done extensive environmental advocacy. In the 2019 film “The River and the Wall,” Kleberg and four others journeyed 1,200 miles along the Texas-Mexico border to explore a wall’s impact on people and wildlife. Tapping into his near-legendary family’s background, and resources, he’s worked to educate Texas children about ranching and expand access to the great outdoors. In recent years, Kleberg has served as the associate director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation, the nonprofit partner of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

“Texas deserves representation that believes in combating climate change and bringing people together,” Kleberg, 44, told us. “If elected, I will refocus the office to protect our most vulnerable communities on the coast … and ensure that we are passing on a more healthy, accessible environment to the next generation.”

[…]

We also think highly of Jinny Suh, a 44-year-old Austin-based lawyer who founded and leads Immunize Texas, a grassroots network dedicated to supporting pro-vaccine legislation. She has also worked as a science teacher.

Suh argues that her history of advocacy in Austin, along with her science and legal background, make her the best choice for land commissioner. She’s racked up several key endorsements, notably the Texas AFL-CIO and some Democratic state house members, and raised money through many small donations.

Kleberg and Suh are the top choices in this race. My interview with Kleberg is here and with Suh is here. Both would be a billion times better than the pampered dilettante we have now.

Four days out from the start of early voting and there are still a lot of big races to weigh in on. Tick tock, y’all.

Here’s the support for challengers to quorum breakers

Feb 9th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

It’s limited, but it’s not nothing.

Rep. Claudia Ordaz Perez

A new coalition that wants to install “better” Democrats in the Texas Legislature is endorsing primary opponents to two House members who were central in intraparty disputes last year.

The Texans for Better Democrats Coalition is throwing its weight behind Candis Houston, who is running against Rep. Harold Dutton of Houston, and Rep. Claudia Ordaz Perez, who is competing against Rep. Art Fierro after she was drawn her out of her El Paso district during redistricting.

The Democratic group is also endorsing Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in her reelection bid as she faces a group of primary challengers including Erica Davis, the top staffer for a Harris County constable.

The coalition launched in October, and it is made up of three progressive groups tied to organized labor: the Texas Organizing Project, Communications Workers of America and Working Families Party. They are prepared to spend about $250,000 across the three primaries, funding field and mail programs in each one, said Pedro Lira, co-director of the Texas WFP.

“We’re in it to win it,” he said.

[…]

Ordaz Perez chose to run against Fierro after the Republican-led redistricting process forced her into the same district as a fellow Latina Democrat, Rep. Lina Ortega. In announcing her campaign against Fierro, Ordaz Perez criticized him for being one of the first House Democrats to return from the quorum break. A number of other House Democrats who remained in Washington, D.C., longer are backing her against Fierro.

In an interview, Fierro defended his decision to return along with two other El Paso-area Democrats, saying they had achieved their three goals from the start: staying off the floor for the remainder of the first special session, bringing national attention to the bill and “light[ing] a fire under Congress” to pass federal legislation protecting voting rights.

“I was on the bad-election-bill battle from day one,” he said, pointing to his efforts to fight it as a member of the House Elections Committee.

See here for the background. I noted both Dutton and Fierro as potential targets for such a campaign, mostly because nearly all of the other non-leavers and early-returners were not running or not opposed in the primary. I am of course all in for ousting Dutton – you can listen to my interview with Candis Houston here – but I don’t know enough about either Fierro or Ordaz Perez to offer an opinion beyond the quorum issue. The money being put up will help, though as we are less than a week out from early voting it might be less effective than it could have been. I’m just guessing about that.

I got an email from this group on Monday morning announcing the endorsements – I’ve pasted it beneath the fold for you. I’m glad to see them also endorse Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who has earned the support she’s receiving. We’ll see if they can make a difference.

(more…)

Endorsement watch: Is there an order to this thing?

Feb 5th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Two more endorsements, for your consideration. The Chron sticks with Sen. Whitmire in SD15.

Sen. John Whitmire

Incumbents get a few extra points in this process because we figure that since taxpayers have effectively funded their on-the-job training there’s no need to toss them out unless they give voters a good reason.

No Texas senator has had more on-the-job training than John Whitmire, a moderate Democrat who has spent nearly a half-century representing Houston under the pink dome, starting in the House.

His primary challenger for Senate District 15, Molly Cook, 30, does bring welcome energy, a fresh perspective as an emergency room nurse and a grassroots organizer, and a concern worth pondering: she argues Whitmire won’t be as effective next legislative session because he’ll have one eye on his recently announced campaign for Houston mayor.

“There’s a lot of evidence that Senator Whitmire has moved on, is ready for his next job,” Cook told us.

She’s right that the 72-year-old Whitmire’s influence has diminished over the years, from a scrappy senator who often made Texas Monthly’s list of best legislators to merely a shrewd survivor often hamstrung by Republicans’ iron grip on the Senate.

The fact that right-wing Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has allowed Whitmire to retain his long-held chairmanship of the Senate’s criminal justice committee and a seat on the powerful finance committee either shows Whitmire is still effective in a divided chamber or he’s made a deal with the devil not to push too hard on Democratic priorities. It’s probably both.

[…]

As for his run for mayor, Whitmire says he won’t start campaigning in earnest for mayor until July of 2023, a month after the regular session ends in June.

My interview with Sen. Whitmire is here and my interview with Molly Cook is here. I definitely get the impression that Sen. Whitmire’s announced candidacy for Mayor has annoyed some people, and that Cook, who has been well-received overall, has gotten some traction with it. How far that may take her, I don’t know. As I’ve said before, Sen. Whitmire has a strong brand and he’s done well with group endorsements. He’s clearly the favorite in this race. But keep an eye on Cook if SD15 gets vacated in January of 2024.

The Chron stays with another incumbent as they endorse District Clerk Marilyn Burgess.

Marilyn Burgess

Every night, after police make arrests, the Office of the Harris County District Attorney sends documents to the district clerk’s office. Until 2019, that meant a trek by staff, in the dark, across Buffalo Bayou from the courthouse to a downtown jail called the Joint Processing Center.

After winning office three years ago, Harris County District Clerk Marilyn Burgess, 67, continued the process her predecessor began implementing e-filing in the district courts, e-subpoenas, e-citations and other paperless solutions. Those reforms eliminated the need for nighttime document delivery across the bayou.

The challenger in this race, Desiree Broadnax, 50, knows all about that nighttime trek across the bayou. She’s a division manager with the Harris County district attorney’s office, where she’s worked gaining relevant experience for nearly 20 years. Her dedication to public safety and an efficient criminal justice system is evident. Given the backlog in the courts and rise in violent crimes, the county needs that. She acknowledged the improved paperless system but said that the District Clerk’s office has been unprepared during natural disasters, its handling of warrants isn’t fast enough and under Burgess the staff’s morale has suffered.

Burgess responded to each of these criticisms persuasively and we believe she is the better choice for Democrats in the March 1 primary. She acknowledged that during Hurricane Harvey, before her term began, the office had not been prepared, but that nonperishable food, inflatable cots and other contingency plans are now in place. She said that delays with warrants depend in large part on the different judges handling them. As for morale, she says that’s been a priority and that her reorganization of the department, eliminating a layer of managers, freed up money to provide raises.

My interview with Marilyn Burgess is here and with Desiree Broadnax is here. I don’t have anything to add to this, so let me just wonder about the Chron’s schedule for publishing these is. I realize, my own interview schedule is a bit random, but so far the Chron has done one statewide race, several legislative races, and now one county race, but hasn’t yet weighed in on some key ones like HD147 or Commissioners Court Precinct 4. I know that the publishing schedule depends heavily on the availability of the candidates – believe me, I feel that in my bones – but it would still be nice to know if they had plans to, say, finish one category before jumping to another like a Jeopardy! contestant hunting Daily Doubles. They’re doing a more limited set of races this year, and they say they’ll be running them “through Feb. 14”, which is barely more than a week away. I just wish I knew when to expect the races of great interest to show up.

Endorsement watch: So many endorsements, so little time

Feb 4th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

The Chron began doing a stripped-down set of primary endorsements a few days ago. They will not be endorsing in county court or Justice of the Peace races, which I for one would argue is of greater value than some of the legislative and statewide contests they will weigh in on, but that’s just me. Anyway, with early voting bearing down on us they have a lot of ground to cover even with their smaller field of play. Here are the first few Democratic races they’ve touched on.

Susan Hays for Ag Commissioner.

Susan Hays

“Farming is hard, but ethics should be easy,” Susan Hays has said often on the campaign trail. Unfortunately for Texans, we’ve had an agriculture commissioner whose seven-year tenure has been full of ethical lapses and embarrassing errors in judgment.

Sid Miller, 66, has twice been investigated by the Texas Rangers, given hundreds of thousands in bonuses to employees, taken taxpayer-funded out-of-state excursions and pushed more fees on farmers and businesses. Two Democrats, Hays and Ed Ireson, are running to put an end to Miller’s bumbling reign. We think Hays is the best choice for Democratic voters.

Hays, 53, grew up in Brownwood, about two hours west of Waco, and lives in Alpine, where she and her husband purchased land several years ago to grow hemp and hops. She’s worked as an attorney and a lobbyist. In 2019, she advocated for and helped craft the Texas law allowing any hemp product with less than 0.3% THC.

“As part of working on that hemp bill, I saw up close and personal just how dysfunctional the ag department is,” Hays told us. “Aside from Miller’s corruption, when you have a leader that’s disengaged, it’s hard to get things done. … I decided in large part to run because of that experience.”

Wouldn’t that be nice? An honest person who knows the issues and wants to do the work? I may need to sit down for a minute.

Next up, Rep. Alma Allen.

Rep. Alma Allen

Despite what she described as a “brutal” and “very mean” legislative session last year, Alma Allen, 82, is seeking her ninth term as state representative for District 131 on Houston’s south side.

She is running against James Guillory, 47, who was raised in the district in a family that owned a gas, grocery and real estate development business. He once asked Allen to mentor him with hopes that, as he told the Chronicle, “she would pass the baton” to him, but to no avail. He has the endorsements of the Houston Police Officers Union and Houston Black Firefighters Association. He did not articulate substantial policy differences with the incumbent. He pushed the idea of “a new way for a new day” in the Legislature and the energy he would bring to interacting with the community, giving an example of delivering water to high schools when students were asked to stop using water fountains during the pandemic.

Allen told the board she hasn’t decided when she’ll retire, but is grooming others as her possible successor. She said she’s running again so her district can benefit from her experience and in particular her deep knowledge of House rules, which she has used to pass bills and scuttle others she opposed as she did in this past session.

Last year, she stopped fellow Democrat Harold Dutton’s bill targeting HISD for state takeover by declaring a point of order several times and finally getting an admission that the bill would make it easier for the state to take similar action against any school in the state.

“I believe in local control,” Allen told us.

I like Rep. Allen. She does good work and is an asset on the Public Education committee. I’m also not particularly inclined to support HPOU-backed candidates at a time when bail reform is still urgently needed.

The Chron went with Chase West in HD132.

Chase West

Both candidates in the March 1 primary for Texas House of Representatives District 132 are impressive, but short on political experience.

Cameron Campbell, 39, is a former University of Houston football player and teaches children about safe play for a community outreach program of the Texans. He has gone by “Coach Cam” since coaching for KIPP Houston High School. He also has a sports construction company, which builds sports facilities like softball and baseball fields. He handled all of our questions with charisma and presence all while feeding a toddler on his lap.

His opponent, Chase West, also 39, spoke about having to work two jobs to make ends meet, and about the ups and downs of losing a job during the pandemic. Since then he has grown his own recording studio business. The uncertainty he experienced informed his decision to run. He said he wants to make government work for working people.

Campbell and West have similar policy positions, and both favor marijuana legalization and greater environmental protections, for instance.

But we recommend voters choose West in this very competitive match-up. His responses to questions about state policy were more focused.

One example of why we feel that way emerged as the candidates discussed climate change. Both acknowledge it as a serious threat but West had a nuanced understanding of what a transition to a low-carbon future means.

“Of course climate change is real, but oil and gas is not the devil,” West told the Chronicle. “We need them, but we also need to focus on solar, wind and geothermal.”

My interview with Chase West is here. The nominee in this race will be an underdog, but their performance against the baseline of the 2020 numbers will tell us something about how to proceed going forward.

And finally, they went with Rep. Harold Dutton in HD142. If you listen closely, you can hear me sighing.

Despite our differences with Dutton and his continued efforts to enable a takeover, he gained our endorsement two years ago because we believed he acted in good faith to force accountability.

At age 76 and after 37 years in the Texas House of Representatives, he has the seniority to shape bills. His willingness to buck the party line also has some value in a Legislature defined by partisan battles. When not in Austin, Dutton practices law in Houston, a skill which comes in handy in the give and take of the Legislature.

Last year, however, Dutton did more than simply disagree with his fellow Democrats. After an intraparty spat, he appeared to flip-flop on a measure that requires transgender student athletes to compete on teams that correspond with the sex listed on their birth certificates. Dutton allowed the bill to advance out of the education committee he chaired.

Fellow Democrat Alma Allen, who represents District 131 in Houston, had used a point of order to stop a proposal by Dutton to move the state takeover of HISD out of the courts. The next day, Dutton revived the sports bill. We called this a “reckless, unconscionable move.”

When Dutton met with the editorial board last month, he said his shift had to do with a misunderstanding about scheduling the vote, not an effort to spite fellow Democrats. We’re still concerned that he acted in bad faith.

His challenger, Candis Houston, 44, is the president of the Aldine American Federation of Teachers, a position she initially held while working full time as a teacher. Unsurprisingly, Houston has been endorsed by a number of unions as someone teachers can count on for support. She has criticized STAAR testing, called for investments in the grid and says she would stand up for voting, reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights.

She acknowledges that she does not have experience in an elected office but notes, “Everyone at the Capitol was new at some time.” She has taken part in union trainings regarding legislation, attends school board meetings and lobbied at the Legislature, but she offered few specifics about how she would shape policy. As a candidate, she is block walking but has spent only $10,000 in funds and has no cash on hand according to a Jan. 31 report.

Yeah, no. How about some accountability for unconscionable recklessness and harm done to kids who absolutely don’t deserve it? Vote Candis Houston, whose interview you can find here. The way to get better behavior from elected officials is to enforce consequences for behaving badly. It’s not that complicated.

On primarying the quorum breakers

Jan 16th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Of interest.

Working Families Party, a political party and relative newcomer to Texas politics that backs Democrats aligned with their platform, aims to spend in the ballpark of half a million dollars this cycle, WFP Texas Co-director Pedro Lira told the Signal.

Much of that money will go to door-to-door canvassing.

“At the end of the day, when you can really connect with people face to face, that’s really what motivates people to get out to vote,” Lira said. “We’re trying to build a real base of working class people. You can’t do that without involving those people.”

[…]

In partnership with CWA and Texas Organizing Project, WFP is also bankrolling “Texans for Better Dems,” a new political action committee that will primary Democrats in the state legislature who returned from Washington D.C. to restore quorum, a move that caused a rift in the state party and led to the creation of the Texas Progressive Caucus.

“We were incredibly proud of the Democrats who fled the state to deny Republicans quorum. It’s exactly the kind of leadership that we need from our elected officials,” Lira said. “We were also just as disappointed to see some of those Democrats come back. And it’s because those Democrats gave Republicans quorum that bills like the abortion ban and the anti-voting legislation were able to pass.”

Lira said the PAC was created specifically to primary those Democrats.

This was a thing I wondered about, and had seen some speculation about a few months ago when the quorum was freshly broken and tempers were high. I tried to keep an eye on it during the filing process, but there was a lot to keep up on, and if any WFP-backed candidates were out there, they didn’t make their presence known in a way that was visible to me. Now that we’re well past the filing deadline, let’s revisit this.

The first question is who the potential targets would be. I did a little digging into who among the Dems were here during the quorum break in Special Session #1, and who came back during Special Session #2 to bring the attendance count to the required level – this was in response to a private question I was asked. Long story short, I trawled through the daily journals on the Texas Legislature Online site, and found enough record votes to mostly fill in the picture.

For the first special session, I identified the following Dems who were present in Austin: Ryan Guillen, Tracy King, Eddie Morales, John Turner, Abel Herrero, Terry Canales, and Leo Pacheco. (There’s one I can’t identify; I suspect it was Harold Dutton, but he shows up in the next session, so it doesn’t really matter.) Guillen is now a Republican, Pacheco has since resigned, and Turner is not running for re-election. According to the SOS Qualified Candidates page, none of the others have primary opponents.

For the second special session, we can add these legislators, who were either there from the beginning or who showed up while the quorum was still not established: Dutton, Art Fierro, Mary Gonzalez, Bobby Guerra, Oscar Longoria, Eddie Lucio Jr, Joe Moody, James Talarico, Garnet Coleman, Armando Walle, and Ana Hernandez. Lucio and Coleman are not running. Talarico is running in a different district, HD50, which is open now that Celia Israel is running for Mayor of Austin. Fierro was paired with Claudia Ordaz Perez in redistricting. Of the rest, only Dutton and Gonzalez have primary opponents, and Dutton was a target well before the quorum break issue. Gonzalez, who has had primary challengers in the past as well for other reasons, faces someone named Rene Rodriguez, about whom I could find nothing. If the goal was to primary these Democrats, it sure doesn’t look like that goal was achieved.

Now, the WFP may well be playing a longer game. As we know, there wasn’t much time between the passage of the new maps and the start of filing season. Maybe they decided it was better to wait until 2024, or maybe they decided to focus more on races like CD35 (they have endorsed Greg Casar) and CD30. Maybe they’ll back Ordaz Perez and David Alcorta, the other candidate in HD50. Who knows? If they intended to make a bigger splash than that, I’d say they came up short. We’ll see what happens after this election.

Re-endorsement watch: This time it’s Anne

Nov 26th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Time to start thinking about those HISD and HCC runoffs, kids. The Chron has started thinking about them, because they have issued their endorsements for the runoffs. Of the four HISD runoffs, three involve candidates they endorsed the first time around: Incumbents Sue Deigaard and Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca, and challenger Janette Garza Lindner. In the District VII race, the candidate they endorsed did not make it to the runoff, so they had to try again, and this time they went with the incumbent, Anne Sung.

Anne Sung

Now it comes down to incumbent Anne Sung, a 42-year-old, Harvard-educated, former award-winning HISD physics teacher, strong advocate for special education and truly experienced board member who unfortunately made some poor choices that dimmed our view of her performance. In 2018, she joined colleagues who met secretly with former Superintendent Abe Saavedra, which state officials say violated Texas’ open meetings law. Three days later she voted to swap Saavedra for interim Superintendent Grenita Lathan.

Sung apologized and said she only wanted Saavedra’s advice on state oversight issues and didn’t know of plans to hire him until moments before she voted for it. That excuse wasn’t quite sufficient. Still, incumbents only lose our endorsement when there’s a qualified replacement, and now we don’t believe there is one.

In the runoff, Sung faces Bridget Wade, 53, who touts her service as former Briargrove Elementary PTO president and carnival chair. She also sat on the Episcopal High School Board of Trustees.

In our interview with Wade, she talked about putting kids first and restoring integrity to the HISD board but she failed to articulate specific plans for doing so. Parroting phrases such as “best practices” and “school choice” offers little.

Far more concerning has been Wade’s willingness to pander to the right wing of the Republican Party, where she derives much of her support. She doesn’t just oppose HISD’s mask requirement, she dismisses it, without an ounce of introspection, as a “partisan political battle.”

It’s not a partisan act to implement policies that keep kids and teachers safe. It’s a partisan act not to. Communicable diseases are spread in the community and they’re fought the same way.

Last month, Wade cheered on some unmasked parents who became upset at having to wait to speak at a long meeting and began surrounding Superintendent Millard House II and shouting him down: “You do not walk away from us!” one yelled at him during a break. “You work for us!”

“Exactly right!” Wade responded on Twitter. “And the good woman who screamed that will know I work for you.”

Yelling and dysfunction are not the way. Not for parents. And not for HISD board members. We believe Sung understands that. She was never one of the disruptive voices and we believe she’s learned her lesson from the shenanigans of the past.

Her experience and dedication to HISD students speak for themselves. We urge voters to back Sung in the runoff for District VII.

See here, here, and here for the previous endorsements. As I said before, Sung is in a tough spot, as she trailed Wade on Election Day and doesn’t have nearly the campaign cash as the challenger. The district was also a Republican one in the pre-Trump days, though perhaps if the runoff voters see Wade as in the Trump mold that could help Sung. She has her work cut out for her. Early voting for the runoff starts Monday and runs through the following Tuesday, December 7. Get ready to vote again.

Endorsement watch: Wrapping it up

Oct 20th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The Chron counsels a Yes vote on Prop 2.

For 30 years, the Texas Constitution has allowed the Legislature to authorize cities to issue bonds to raise needed funds to more quickly build roads, bridges and other vital infrastructure. On Nov. 2, and in early voting that begins Monday, voters can give counties that same authority.

We recommend that they do so by voting yes on Prop 2.

Counties, just like cities, need all the tools available to keep up with the basic needs of residents. In places such as Harris County, with more than 2 million residents living in unincorporated areas, this is not just a good idea but an urgent necessity.

Issuing bonds means taking out large loans secured by promises to use a portion of future property tax revenues to repay them — usually at low interest rates and over decades. Doing so means residents’ daily lives are improved right away rather than years later.

This is especially important here. By 2050, the population of the Houston area is expected to double. Just imagine how much more time you will spend staring at the rear fender of the car in front of you on the 610 Loop in 30 years if the county doesn’t continue investing in mobility solutions, from mass transit to smarter highways, better roads and safer and more plentiful bike lanes.

Harris County has dozens of infrastructure projects on its wishlist, from highway to transit to bike trails. Building those projects would increase nearby property values and add new properties to the tax rolls as well. That new revenue would repay the bonds and ease pressure to raise tax rates.

The Chron had earlier recommended a No vote on Prop 3, and unless they have some late endorsements sitting around, that’s all we’ll get from them on the Constitutional amendments. As noted before, the guidance from Progress Texas is a No on 3, 4, and 5, and a Yes on the others. The H-Town Progressive podcast differs slightly, recommending a slightly qualified Yes on 4 but concurring with the rest. I’m leaning in that direction but could still be persuaded otherwise on Prop 4. The Austin Chronicle is a Yes only on 1, 2, 6, and a No on the rest.

Finally, for those of you in The Woodlands, the Chron says incorporate yourselves by other means than the proposition on your ballot.

Nearly 50 years after George Mitchell charted the master-planned community that is The Woodlands, an inevitable fight has broken out beneath the tall trees 28 miles north of Houston over how to best protect the founder’s vision of suburban utopia.

In a 5-2 vote Aug.13, the board of Texas’ only “township” decided to put incorporation on this fall’s ballot. If passed, The Woodlands — beloved by residents for low taxes, low crime, green parks and good schools — would become an incorporated city.

Supporters say it’s time for The Woodlands’ residents to fully govern themselves, electing a mayor and a city council who can draft a charter, pass noise ordinances and zoning rules, and establish a dedicated police force so the community doesn’t have to depend on Harris and Montgomery counties for law enforcement.

Township board chair Gordy Bunch told us The Woodlands, because it’s not a city, is missing out on as much as $30 million in COVID relief funds — and that Montgomery County hasn’t properly shared.

Opponents ask “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?” The unusual governance system is central to what makes The Woodlands appealing to families and businesses.

[…]

It’s unclear to residents we talked to, and to us, how daily life in The Woodlands would really change with incorporation — and more importantly, if it would improve. The township — whose board is elected, albeit at-large, without distinct districts — already uses local tax revenue to provide some services and contracts out others, such as trash pickup.

But running a full-fledged city — including having a direct role in roads and other infrastructure and establishing a police department from scratch — is different. The question isn’t whether costs will go up for residents but how much.

No one we talked to could say for sure. And that’s a problem. Township board members say they have a plan to keep the tax rate consistent over the first few years but their critics say they’ve seriously underestimated the startup costs of incorporation.

Eventually, incorporation may well be the best option for this growing community whose need for autonomy, efficiency, transparency and influence over its own destiny will only increase.

But the current effort feels hasty. While incorporation has been the topic of conversations and public meetings and research for years, the decision isn’t something that should be rushed through in a low-turnout election in a year where distractions, including the pandemic, abound.

I have no skin in this game. Mostly, I hope the Woodlands does whatever will make them the biggest possible pain in the ass for Montgomery County’s government, because that would be hilarious. Whether this would be the best way to go about doing that or not, I have no idea.

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