There’s a lot of Dems looking at the Senate race

Posted on May 6, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox, from Thursday’s “Texas take with Jeremy Wallace” newsletter.

Still a crook any way you look

The more endangered U.S. Sen. John Cornyn looks in early polling against Ken Paxton in the GOP primary, the more Democrats are buzzing.

While a Democrat has not won a U.S. Senate seat since Houston’s Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, Democrats are convinced Paxton has the type of political baggage that could boost the chances of whoever wins a Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate.

Paxton, 62, was impeached by the GOP-led Texas House in 2023. Nearly two dozen articles of impeachment were filed against Paxton, who was accused of bribery tied to an alleged affair, among other claims of impropriety. The Texas Senate later acquitted Paxton, but the details aired in 2023 damaged Paxton’s standing even with Republican voters, according to public polling.

But as I reported yesterday, internal polls from both Republicans and Democrats show Paxton, the state’s attorney general, has a big lead on Cornyn going into the summer. Cornyn told the Huffington Post on Thursday that the race is 10 months out, and he has more than “enough time and more than enough resources to make that up.

Toss in the fact that 2026 is a midterm election when the sitting president’s party typically loses seats in Congress, and you can see why Democrats like Beto O’Rourke have called Paxton a gift to Democrats if he wins the nomination. At a rally last week in Denton, O’Rourke was asked if he would consider running.

“I’m gonna infer from your question that you do not want Ken Paxton to be your next senator,” he told the audience member who asked the question. “If … this is what the people of Texas want — that it’s the highest and best use of what I can give you — then yes, I will.”

Here’s my early list of Democrats who may want to jump in and why (listed alphabetically):

COLIN ALLRED: The Dallas Democrat, who just turned 42, lost to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024 by 8 percentage points but raised $92 million doing so. Allred said he is seriously considering running again.

JOAQUIN CASTRO: The 50-year-old San Antonio attorney is in his 7th term in Congress. He’s been traveling the state over the last few weeks with events in Houston and the Rio Grande Valley.

ROLAND GUTIERREZ: The San Antonio State Senator ran against Allred in the 2024 Democratic primary. While the 54-year-old lost that race, his passion for gun control in the aftermath of the Uvalde school shooting made him a favorite of Democrats who wanted a more fiery candidate in the general election. Gutierrez told me he’s focused on the Texas Senate right now but added, “whatever decision I make about my future, my number one concern is working to make life better for the working families of Texas.”

NATHAN JOHNSON: The 57-year-old state Senator from Dallas knows how to win a tough race. He defeated state Sen. Don Huffines, a wealthy self-funding Republican, in 2018 to win the state Senate seat. The Dallas Morning News reported he was considering the race.

BETO O’ROURKE: The El Paso Democrat, now 52, lost his race for governor in 2022 and came within 3 percentage points of beating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018. While he lost both races, he’s proven to be a prolific fundraiser who can drive out Democratic voters in midterm cycles.

TERRY VERTS: The 57-year-old Houston resident is a retired astronaut and Air Force colonel who is good friends with U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz. Verts has been calling around for potential campaign staffers. While he doesn’t have name identification among Democrats, if he gets in the race, he can present himself as a political outsider much like Kelly did when he won his seat in 2020. Already, he’s using his social media to push back against key players in the Trump administration like Elon Musk and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

We knew about Colin Allred, we knew about Terry Virts, and we knew about Beto. Roland Gutierrez lost to Allred in the 2024 primary for Senate. Joaquin Castro – like his brother – has been on the “potential candidate” list for statewide office since at least 2018. Nathan Johnson is new to the list, but he makes as much sense as anyone else. He has an advantage over both Gutierrez and Castro in that he wouldn’t have to give up his current office to run for US Senate, as he was on the ballot in 2024.

Obviously, not all of them will actually run. One or more might try for a different office – someone needs to run for Governor, Lite Guv, AG, and so on. The combination of 2026 likely being a good year for Dems and four seats being needed to win back the majority should make fundraising easy enough. I’m not going to express any preferences now, not when everyone is in “I’m exploring” mode, but I will say that the best thing they could all do is be all in on candidate recruitment and support for every other office on the ballot next year. Get a strong slate of Congressional and Legislative candidates, in every even remotely swingy district, and then do the same for the reach districts. Get every Dem incumbent in every safe district to get off their asses and campaign like they have a real race. It worked pretty well in 2018, and we’re going to need all the help we can get. The Chron story about the bad Cornyn polls and the various Dem wannabes is here.

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More on the May elections

Posted on May 6, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

In my first post, I promised I’d look for a recap of the school board races from Franklin Strong. Here he is.

That was a drubbing.

I’ve been covering Texas school board elections for seven cycles, and as I have documented over and over again, book bans, attacks on educators and public schools, and attempts to target LGBTQ students do not fare well at the polls. Since dominating the May 2022 cycle—in which organized local groups backed by big-money PACs caught districts flat-footed—extremists repeatedly have been told “no” by Texas voters.

But Saturday night’s election results were next level.

Voters across Texas clearly and consistently punished the people who have been restricting students’ reading and learning. They delivered a message: Texans are sick of book bans, sick of attacks on educators and librarians, sick of leaders waging culture war battles at the expense of good governance.

Consider:

The Fort Bend ISD board of trustees implemented one of the state’s most restrictive book policies last year; on Saturday, voters sent incumbent Rick Garcia, who advocated for the policy, packing. The architect of that policy, resigning trustee David Hamilton, threw all of his weight behind a hand-picked successor, Cheryl Buford. She lost to FBISD parent Angie Wierzbicki, who vocally opposed the new book policy.

In Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, trustee Tammy Nakamura has led efforts to restrict books in the district; she even said she keeps a list of “poison” teachers she wanted run out of the district. And in Katy ISD, board president Victor Perez spearheaded that district’s anti-book crusade. Both lost their seats last night.

Humble ISD candidate Tracy Shannon, who claims responsibility for getting more than 1000 books removed from the district, also lost. So did Clear Creek ISD’s Scott Bowen, who argued for more restrictive policies in his local public library.

Maybe most shocking results of all were in Keller ISD, where a hyper-conservative majority has ruled the board unanimously for years. Keller ISD’s board was installed in 2022 by Patriot Mobile, a Christian-Nationalist phone company that dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into school board races in North Texas. That board has been a disaster, but partisan, extremist candidates kept winning in Keller—until Saturday night. This cycle, all of the candidates favored by the board’s Patriot Mobile bloc lost, and the results weren’t particularly close.

That was a trend for the night, as all three Patriot Mobile trustees in Mansfield up for election lost handily. In fact, of the eleven trustees Patriot Mobile boasted about electing in 2022, seven lost their seats last night.

There’s more, so read the rest. Not every result was good, and as Strong warns the Lege is still out there wilding, so it’s not like we can relax. But the attacks on books and libraries from 2021 and 2023 largely followed bad school board election years, so maybe the results this year will serve to slow their roll a bit. We can sure hope, and we can also keep working to make that a reality.

I mentioned yesterday that one of the disappointing results was from Spring Branch. Diana Martinez Alexander, who was one of the good guy SBISD candidates who unfortunately fell short, sent me this message to remind us all that there’s more to it than what I had suggested:

I would say there is progress in SB – the northside slate won all four northside schools. So the people have spoken and confirmed the results of the judge’s ruling. This is the first time there was a full Latino northside slate. The numbers tell a story – of hope, a desire for change, and a wish for proper representation.

Diana is one of many folks out there doing a lot of hard work to make progress happen in places like Spring Branch. I very much appreciate the perspective.

The Lone Star Project expands on some themes.

Authoritarian MAGA candidates backed by extremists groups True Texas Project, Patriot Mobile PAC, and other hate-baiting agents fell on their faces this weekend. In race after race, these groups launched divisive attacks designed to divide communities against each other – and Texans promptly voted them out. Saturday’s election results are as good an indication as any that Texas is tiring of MAGA extremism. Lone Star Project backed smart, commonsense, community-oriented candidates, and the results speak for themselves.

Maybe the best example is the Tarrant County City of Mansfield where incumbent mayor Michael Evans smoked his opponent who was heavily financed by out-of-town MAGA agitators. Mayor Evans focused on unity, public service, and the mainstream policies that help everyone in a diverse community. Mainstream common sense leadership beats MAGA hate and extremism.

They linked to some news stories about the races in the D-FW area. This might be my favorite.

Voters across Tarrant County delivered a resounding message in local elections, rejecting a slate of conservative-backed candidates in several high-profile, nonpartisan races.

In the three largest cities in Tarrant County, all 11 candidates endorsed by the county Republican Party were defeated, according to Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy.

“It’s surprising,” Kennedy said. “It just shows that there was some pushback already to the administration in Washington. We expect the midterms to go against the party in office in Washington, but it’s so surprising to see it start in these city and school elections. I think some of it, too, was pushback against partisan elections.”

[…]

In Grapevine, incumbent trustee Tammy Nakamura, backed by conservative PAC Patriot Mobile, lost her reelection bid to Matt Foust.

Kennedy described the overall election as a landmark for Democrats in the battleground county that has historically been a Republican stronghold.

“This was one of the real watershed elections for Democrats in Tarrant County in many, many years,” Kennedy said. “Democrats are celebrating for the first time in a long, long time in Tarrant County.”

If Kennedy wrote about this for the Star-Telegram I couldn’t find it, but he did make some comments on Twitter. All I can say is from his lips to God’s ears.

Finally, sigh, we have to talk about Starbase.

SpaceX employees and residents who live at what was formerly known as Boca Chica Village, or Kopernik Shores, voted Saturday to incorporate as a municipality.

The early vote was 212 to 6.

The election was initiated in December after Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. received a petition from more than 10% of the several hundred eligible voters who are residents of Starbase.

Since the petition met requirements of the Texas Local Government Code, the county judge was required to call an election.

Starbase will now be incorporated as a Type C general law municipality, or one with more than 201 but fewer than 4,999 residents.

The move comes as state Reps. Janie Lopez, R-San Benito, and Adam Hinojosa, R-Corpus Christi, are pushing a bill to allow Starbase to control weekday closures of Boca Chica Beach — instead of Cameron County, which is opposed to the proposal.

See here for the previous update. That’s some kind of “Landslide Lyndon” margin right there. Of course there’s an angle to override what the existing government can do. Off to a great start, they are. The Trib has more on the main characters if you’re interested.

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Energy Transfer blames the driver for that fire

Posted on May 6, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It’s what you’d expect them to say.

In the five years before a sports utility vehicle struck Energy Transfer’s pipeline in Deer Park and caused a massive explosion and fire, pipelines operated by the company and its affiliates had been damaged by vehicle collisions at least five times.

That’s what Houston Landing found in a two-part investigation published in December that revealed the Deer Park crash was part of a wider national safety issue that has involved at least 36 pipeline collisions across the United States since 2019.

A lawsuit filed by four people who live and work near the explosion site, accuses Energy Transfer of negligence in failing to protect its pipeline against the September 2024 SUV crash. The company, the suit alleges, “was already on notice of the danger of automobiles crashing into above-ground valves, as well as the resultant risks of explosion, fire, and exposure to noxious chemicals.”

Energy Transfer, in its response to the lawsuit, denies the allegations and has asked a Harris County court to order paragraphs be stricken from the residents’ lawsuit that detail the company’s and industry’s history of pipeline collisions.

The suit contends the Deer Park pipeline structure should have had at least concrete or metal barriers because it was next to heavy traffic along Spencer Highway and near a busy Walmart parking lot. Instead, the suit says, it “was surrounded only by a flimsy chain-link fence.”

Spokespeople for Energy Transfer did not respond to emailed questions and requests for an interview or comment. Brett J. Young, an attorney representing Energy Transfer in the lawsuit, said he couldn’t answer Houston Landing’s questions because of the pending litigation.

In records filed with the court on April 17, Energy Transfer has asked for the court to dismiss the case.

The company also has asked the court to order that 19 paragraphs be stricken from the lawsuit’s original petition. Eleven of these paragraphs involve details about the frequency of vehicles colliding with pipelines and the residents’ allegations that the company failed to have adequate barriers around its above-ground pipeline structure in Deer Park.

Energy Transfer says the claims in these paragraphs, among other issues, are not allowed by law because the company had no duty to control the conduct of an outside individual. Two hearings in the lawsuit scheduled to occur in person and by Zoom at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on June 9 in 55th District Court.

The company describes itself as the victim of a criminal act, an injured party whose pipeline was destroyed by the SUV driver, Jonathan McEvoy, who “chose to end his own life by intentionally crashing his automobile through a barrier fence and into an above-ground natural gas piping system,” court records say.

Energy Transfer contends that the risk of McEvoy’s suicidal act was “clearly not forseeable” and that other pipeline collisions, such as those cited in the lawsuit, were not “similar.” The company’s manager of regulatory affairs, Justin Davidson, said in a sworn statement he had no personal knowledge of any similar event, “meaning one where a motorist intentionally struck and [sic] Energy Transfer pipeline riser.”

See here, here, and here for some background. I must have missed the news of the suit being filed, I don’t have a post about it. This here is just the defense counsel doing their jobs, trying to knock down parts of the plaintiffs’ case. I personally don’t find it convincing, but I’m not the judge. We’ll see how convincing the court finds it.

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Some May election results

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

And then there were two for San Antonio Mayor.

Gina Ortiz Jones

The race to become San Antonio’s next mayor is headed toward a partisan showdown between one candidate loved by national Democratic Party leaders and another who has close ties to the Republicans who control every lever of power in Texas state government.

With all vote centers counted, former Air Force Under Secretary Gina Ortiz Jones and former Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos were leading a field of 27 candidates, taking 27.2% and 16.6% respectively.

Since no candidate took at least 50% of the vote, Jones and Pablos will advance to a June 7 runoff.

Jones has ties to major Democratic donors and lawmakers from two high-profile congressional races she narrowly lost. Many of those allies returned to help her in the mayoral race.

“It feels really good,” Jones said in an interview along the Flambeau Parade route Saturday night, where supporters high-fived her and stopped to take photos with the potential next mayor. “This whole team has worked very hard and it was important for me to just kind of cherish this moment with them, because we know the work is not done,” she said before heading into Knockout Sports Bar with her campaign team.

“We’ve got 30 ahead of us to continue to show voters what I look forward to doing, in concert with the rest of the City Council, to make sure we move our city forward.”

Pablos, who was appointed to his secretary of state role by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, had help in the race from a PAC run by the governor’s former political director.

From a watch party at Drury La Cantera’s old Spanish ballroom, Pablos acknowledged that electing a candidate with conservative background would be a major switch for blue San Antonio.

“I want to thank the people of San Antonio who spoke that they want change,” he said. “Our campaign has been based on change. We want to make sure that we take San Antonio in a completely different direction.”

Historically, San Antonio has shown preference for candidates with council experience. The city has elected just one mayor without it in 70 years — Phil Hardberger — making the dominance of City Hall outsiders in this race highly unusual.

See here for more on Ortiz Jones, who twice ran for CD23 but came up short each time. Most of the top finishers in this ridiculous 27-candidate field were Democrats, which should advantage her in the runoff. Just knowing that Pablos is a Greg Abbott minion should be enough motivation for most San Antonio voters, I would hope. We’ll know in a month. The Current has more.

Most of the rest of the action of interest was in the school board races. There was actually quite a bit of good news coming out of them. Let’s start with Katy ISD, one of the many suburban areas that have seen an excess of The Crazy lately.

In an upset victory, early numbers indicate that school board candidate James Cross won the majority of votes over Katy ISD board president and incumbent Victor Perez.

Cross, a longtime Katy ISD educator and principal for whom Cross Elementary is named, carried 58% of votes.

Perez was elected to the Katy ISD school board in 2022. He was named board president in 2023.

Cross has served as a public school teacher and campus administrator for 30 years, and he worked in Katy ISD for the past 22 years as a teacher, assistant principal and principal.

Perez, an outspoken conservative, has led the charge for banning books since taking office. He was also instrumental in instituting a policy that critics say requires students who identify as transgender to be “outed” to their parents.

Cross Elementary, which will open in the fall of 2025, is named for Cross and his wife, Mitzi. Katy ISD has a longstanding tradition of naming schools after influential educators who have shaped the district through their service.

Perez’s campaign platform is largely based on his promises to push conservative agendas through the district. Cross has not publicly identified his personal political affiliations and has vowed to vote without political bias if elected.

This was one of many races covered by Franklin Strong in his Book-Loving Texan’s Guide to the May 2025 elections. There was a second race in Katy that didn’t go as well for the good guys, but if there was only one race to be won there, it was by for the Cross-Perez race.

More good news in Fort Bend, where newcomers Afshi Charania and Angie Wierzbicki won their races for Fort Bend ISD. I’ll quote here from the Guide:

Fort Bend ISD recently adopted one of the most restrictive library book policies in the state of Texas. It forbids books not only for sexual content, but also for “promoting” illegal activity. As you would expect, the district has also been culling books from its library shelves. 

The district’s library book policy was engineered by a five-person, ultra-rightwing majority of board trustees–most of whom were elected without majority support in the district. Beyond its book bans, the board has been a chaotic, embarrassing disaster. In the past two years, Fort Bend teachers and parents have cringed through a messy dismissal of a superintendent, a looming budget shortfall, and multiple trustees attacking parents online and librarians in board meetings. 

That 5-2 majority started coalescing in 2022, when internet troll David Hamilton was re-elected to the board alongside newcomer Rick Garcia. Hamilton is thankfully not running for re-election this year (he’s decided to go collect lawsuits in some other field, I guess) but Garcia is, and he’ll face two challengers. Hamilton is hoping to be replaced by former candidate Cheryl Buford, another book-ban enthusiast.

If voters reject Garcia and Buford, they’ll have a chance to flip the board and restore both competence and sanity to district leadership. Fortunately, both the Place 3 and Place 4 races have strong candidates who can do exactly that. That said, Fort Bend’s problem has never been a lack of good candidates–instead, it has been good candidates running against each other, splitting votes and allowing awful candidates to skate onto the board with less than 50% of the vote. Unfortunately, that could happen again this year in Place 7. I’m putting this in bold because everyone in FBISD needs to see it: Reasonable voters need to unite behind either Allison Drew or Angie Wierzbicki, or Buford will win the seat.

No worries this time. Hopefully the new FBISD Board will now work to undo some of that madness.

Here’s Clear Creek ISD:

With all voting centers reporting in Galveston County, Jessica Cejka is leading in the race for District 1 of Clear Creek ISD’s board of trustees, and challenger Rebecca Lilley remains in the lead against incumbent Scott Bowen for At-Large Position B.

As of 10:45 p.m., over 34% of polling places have been reported for Harris County, according to unofficial results.

While she has acknowledged that results are still unofficial, Cejka said she is appreciative of the voters that supported her, and is looking forward to serving another three years on the school board.

“I’m definitely optimistic, and really appreciate all of the community support that came out to help during the election and the voters that came out,” she said.

Per the Guide, Bowen was an enthusiastic book censor, while Cejka was a good incumbent. Well done here.

Here’s Humble ISD:

In the race for Position 1, newcomer Oscar Silva has maintained the lead with 5,345 votes, while opponent Gracie de Leon has received 4,095 votes.

In the race for Position 3, incumbent Chris Parker has narrowly maintained the lead with 4,773 votes, while challenger Natalie Carter has received 4,678 votes.

In the race for Position 4, challenger Brittnai Brown has maintained the lead with 3,629 votes, while incumbent Ken Kirchhofer and challenger Tracy Shannon have received 2,918 and 2,920 votes, respectively.

In the race for Position 5, newcomer Elizabeth Shaw has maintained the lead with 5,049 votes, while opponents Scott Ford and Judy Castillo have received 3,163 and 1,215 votes, respectively.

Brittnai Brown is the big win here, as challenger Tracy Shannon is a Moms for Liberty wacko. Natalie Carter was a tough loss – she fell short by 43 votes in the end – while Oscar Silva was the better candidate against Gracie de Leon. Not too shabby.

The one place where there’s no good news is Spring Branch ISD, which sadly is the norm there. Perhaps the recent court ruling will help make things a bit better there.

Those are the Houston-area races. There are numerous other’s on Strong’s list, and I will look to see if he provides a recap that I can share. I did get some news from elsewhere via this Threads, um, thread:

View on Threads

In short, multiple loonies thrown out in Grapevine-Colleyville and Mansfield. Thread author Daniel Nichanian had previewed these races at Bolts Magazine beforehand. The Fort Worth Report had more on the Mansfield situation, updated to show the results that were decisively against the wingnuts.

There were two more solid wins in Keller ISD, driven in part by the recent effort to split it into two separate districts, which did not go well with the voters. Lone Star Left rounded up a bunch more good results from the D-FW area and elsewhere in the state, both at the school board and municipal level. A lot of this was below the radar, but Saturday night was a good one for Democrats and sane people, and bad for Republicans and those disconnected from reality. I’ll have more as I can. Congrats to all the winners.

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Lottery Commission bans that thing it said it couldn’t ban

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Things are going great over there.

The Texas Lottery Commission unanimously voted Tuesday to ban lottery courier companies from selling tickets online amid lawmakers’ ongoing criticism of the practice. The vote was an about-face for the agency, whose officials previously claimed the commission could not regulate the services.

Couriers are third-party services that sell lottery tickets through websites or apps, then print and scan the tickets at licensed lottery retailers that they usually also own. The businesses have operated in Texas for almost a decade, but have recently drawn legislators’ ire. Lawmakers fear such online sales enable illegal purchases by out-of-state or underage players.

The ban allows the commission to immediately revoke the lottery license of any retailer that knowingly assists or works with couriers. Lawmakers are currently weighing legislation that would impose similar restrictions.

Sergio Rey, the commission’s acting deputy executive director, said the agency’s administrative branch would immediately begin enforcing the new rules.

Lawmakers and other state officials are pursuing legislation and investigations based on two central issues: the proliferation of third-party lottery ticket couriers and a $95 million jackpot in 2023 won by a single group buying out almost every possible ticket combination.

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office and the Texas Rangers, a division of the Department of Public Safety, are each currently conducting investigations into the lottery’s relationship with courier services.

Amid the mounting scrutiny, Ryan Mindell resigned as the commission’s executive director last week. Commissioner Clark Smith resigned in February.

Ticket sales from couriers collectively make up less than 10% of the lottery’s revenue. But the companies’ ability to market to a wider digital audience has allowed some couriers to individually outsell specific traditional retailers, like local convenience stores. Stores operated by Jackpocket and Lotto.com, the nation’s two largest couriers, collectively sold over $226 million in tickets through 2024, while the top five traditional retailers collectively sold $34 million.

Lotto.com filed a lawsuit less than a week before the lottery commission’s decision asking a judge to block the rule from being approved. There has been no ruling on that request.

Lawmakers, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have also criticized a practice called bulk purchasing, which occurs when nearly all of a lottery game’s possible combinations are purchased by a single entity for an almost-guaranteed win. In April 2023, an overseas group worked with several retailers and one lottery courier service to buy 99% of the nearly 26 million ticket combinations, winning a $95 million jackpot.

In news releases, interviews and public testimony in the Legislature, courier representatives have said their apps and websites have verification procedures that prevent illegal sales like bulk purchases and sales to minors. State law, however, does not currently require such verification processes, meaning those with security measures did so without oversight and at their own discretion.

See here and here for some background. One can certainly make the case that the clownishness of the Lottery lately is a direct reflection of our state government, which has oversight responsibilities for the Lottery Commission. I’ll support anyone who wants to make that point, but I’ll also concede that there are much bigger issues over which to be having that kind of fight.

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Twenty years later, we’re still studying rail into Fort Bend

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Everything old is new again.

More than 120,000 people work at the Texas Medical Center – many of whom commute from Sugar Land and the surrounding areas in Fort Bend County.

The Houston-Galveston Area Council is studying ways to help them get there faster through new public transportation options that could include a rapid transit bus system or light rail.

The Gulf Coast Rail District – a consortium of Houston-area counties and cities that works with both freight trains and public transportation across the region – approached the council to conduct a study of transportation options along the U.S. 90A corridor.

Thomas Gray, a principal transportation planner for the council, led the study. More than 900 residents responded to a survey conducted as part of the study.

“Mainly, people are concerned about congestion,” Gray said. “They’d like to see more public transportation options, but they’d also like just overall improvements to transportation on the corridor.”

[…]

The study is expected to be complete by June. More information can be found on the council’s website.

I agree with the premise here, I would just like to point out that the idea of commuter rail into Fort Bend along US90A has been around for over two decades. Such a line was part of the 2003 Metro proposition; it wasn’t the highest-profile project on there, and it was more of a commitment to study it than to build it, but it was there. Just doing a basic search on my site, I’ve written about this since at least 2010. You’ll note in that post that the same H-GAC did a study on rail into Fort Bend back in 2004. Various facts on the ground have changed – Fort Bend is much more populous, the traffic is way worse, Metro is a far less reliable partner – but the need remains. As to what happens next, well, I’ll believe this when I see an actual plan, with funding and a firm ground-breaking date. Until then, happy studying.

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Weekend link dump for May 4

Posted on May 4, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Happy Star Wars Day to all who celebrate. Please enjoy this sprawling space saga of romance, rebellion, and household appliances.

“Critics warned that the Biden administration put so many conditions on the grants it offered to semiconductor manufacturers that the centerpiece of its industrial policy would fail. Those conditions turned out to be key to the program’s success.”

“Reborn in the USA: has cricket finally cracked the American market?”

On Christmas decorations, the story of Joseph and the Pharoah, and extortion opportunities.

RIP, Virginia Giuffre, the woman who accused Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew of sexual abuse.

“If the administration took the radical action of listening to women, they’d know exactly what women need to feel more comfortable having children.”

“Still, whatever impact it may or may not have within the four corners of the Amica case, the new information reflects an important factual development in the public record concerning DOGE and its activities. The government’s administrative record provides documentary evidence that, at least in some instances, DOGE and its agents are not merely advising but are in fact directing agency action.”

“The difference between the police and the secret police”.

“If we’re dismantling the FCC because of Trump, can one boon, can one silver lining be that we get to say shit and fuck? It would bring a sketch to the next level. Shit and fuck are so comedically powerful.”

“Political and economic turmoil may slow down clean energy, but the sector has built up so much momentum that it’s become nigh unstoppable.”

Hey, remember Sam Brownbeck? That experience didn’t work out so well for the Republicans.

“A year after his presidential ambitions collapsed, Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey can no longer lay claim to the future of the Republican Party. And in Florida, even their present is in jeopardy.” Breaks your heart it does.

“Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre was voted out of his own seat in Parliament as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party won Canada’s federal election”. He can thank Donald Trump, and his own decision to try to emulate Trump, for that result.

RIP, Mike Peters, frontman for the 80s New Wave band the Alarm.

“President Donald Trump personally called Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Tuesday to complain about about a report that the online retail giant was considering displaying U.S. tariff costs on its product listings, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. Within hours of the call, Amazon publicly downplayed the scope of its plan — and then announced that it had been scrapped entirely.”

“The parent company of PBS and NPR sued President Donald Trump on Tuesday following his latest attempt to undermine America’s public media infrastructure.”

“But if you’re a Republican politician committing real crimes you give Donald Trump quite a big piece bundle of leverage over you if the relationship should ever break down or if the political winds change and you want to break with Trump. And that’s even more the case if you’re someone like Ron DeSantis with a history of pretty intense bad blood with the Imperial Top Cheese tied to Ron’s failed challenge to Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. (Yeah, remember that?)”

“A research facility within the US National Institutes of Health that is tasked with studying Ebola and other deadly infectious diseases has been instructed by the Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to stop research activities.”

“The Trump administration has cancelled federal participation in Safe to Sleep, a 30-year campaign to prevent babies from dying in their sleep”. Most pro-life President ever, baby!

“An employee at Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI leaked a private key on GitHub that for the past two months could have allowed anyone to query private xAI large language models (LLMs) which appear to have been custom made for working with internal data from Musk’s companies, including SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter/X, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.”

RIP, Jill Sobule, singer/songwriter best known for “I Kissed A Girl” and “Supermodel”.

RIP, Ruth Buzzi, actor and comedian who had a long career in theater, TV, and movies. She was best known for her roles on Sesame Street and Laugh-In. Mark Evanier has a few words of remembrance.

David Horowitz has died. Whether or not that name rings a bell with you, but especially if it does, click the link and read on.

“But Sarah is right. We’re all on the clock, and celebrating the mere act of living is something worth doing.” You should really read all of this one.

RIP, Scott Gertner, Grammy-nominated musician and singer who ran two of the more popular live music venues in Houston.

Nomo-mania, thirty years later.

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Here’s the Mayor’s deal with HPD

Posted on May 4, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Can’t wait to see what the budget looks like, because I have no idea how this is all going to work.

Mayor John Whitmire

Houston police officers will receive “the best (benefits) package in anyone’s memory,” Mayor John Whitmire said Friday, but how the city can afford the deal will remain unclear until he presents his budget proposal next week.

Whitmire, along with HPD Chief Noe Diaz and Houston Police Officers Union President Douglas Griffith, announced the results of months of meet-and-confer contract negotiations Friday morning: rank-and-file officers will receive raises totalling 36.5 percent over five years, costing the city an extra $76 million in 2026, and $832 million over the life of the contract, Whitmire said. The police department budget this year topped $1.07 billion.

City leaders for months have projected a deficit of more than $220 million in the upcoming fiscal 2026 budget, stemming in part from last year’s $1.5 billion contract and backpay settlement with the firefighters’ union. Whitmire on Friday said he will present a balanced budget proposal on Tuesday.

Efforts to reduce the projected deficit include a voluntary retirement incentive package offered to municipal employees, implementation of efficiencies identified in a citywide operations study and consolidation of departments, Whitmire said. He also has worked with Harris County, the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Texas Legislature to secure additional revenue and project funding.

“It was always frustrating to me to sit there and listen to other elected officials and maybe even outside critics,” Whitmire said. “They were saying, ‘How are you going to fund this?’ Fund what? The old model that we knew was broken or the new model which you’re seeing going in operation now?”

Controller Chris Hollins must certify the city has enough money to fund the proposed budget, and City Council must approve the spending plan prior to the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

A spokesman for Hollins said the controller’s office was not briefed on the details of the tentative police contract Friday and could not provide comment on whether it represents a good deal for the city.

Whitmire said he and the union approached negotiations with the same goal of gaining “the very best” deal for the officers. Taxpayers, Whitmire said, will applaud increased officer pay because they want funds to go toward public safety.

“Worked with Harris County” sure is a funny way of putting it. Not really clear, at least to me, what the “worked with Metro” part of this is doing for the budget, but I suppose we’ll get some clarity on that next week. Lack of detail and keeping things secret have been a big part of this whole process. And of just about everything Whitmire has done or said he’s doing so far.

The Chron has some more about the proposed deal.

Whitmire said the contract, which he believes will help with recruiting and retention, will make Houston police officers the highest-earning law enforcement officers of major departments in Texas. Austin had recently become the highest-paid after their recent contract agreement, Whitmire said, but those salary increases haven’t yet led to a noticeable increase in recruiting efforts.

He said he thinks retention and recruiting is a more complicated effort than just salaries, as it requires a good culture and strong plan on what to do with additional staff. Whitmire estimated the department would need to bolster its officer ranks by as many as 1,200 more officers.

[…]

As Whitmire works to fulfill a campaign promise to focus on public safety and improve working conditions for police, the city is staring down the barrel of a $330 million budget deficit in the next fiscal year.

Whitmire didn’t say exactly how the city would pay for the new contract, but vowed the new proposed budget would be balanced and that the voluntary retirement package and other savings realized in recent months would pay dividends.

City Finance Director Melissa Dubowski said they were set to unveil a proposed 2026 budget Tuesday that would be balanced and account for the new police contract. Steven David, deputy chief of staff for Whitmire, said the voluntary retirement package would help the city see between $40 million to $50 million in savings in the general fund in the upcoming fiscal year. Officials estimate around 1,057 took the voluntary retirement offer, their final day coming Thursday as they filed into the city hall basement to fill out retirement paperwork and turn in their city-issued technology.

The police union’s proposed contract is a stark increase compared to any in recent memory. The current contract, which was set to expire June 30, gave officers 10.5% in raises over three years – 4%, 3% and 3.5% over the contract. It was roughly in line with previous deals. Officers received 7% raises over two years before that, and 2% in 2021 when that deal expired.

Under the proposed deal, officers will receive 10% raises in July, and then 8% raises in 2026, 6% raises in both 2027 and 2028 and 6.5% raises in 2029, according to documents shown to the Chronicle.

In addition to the salary increases, the new contract also includes extra pay for patrol work and shift differences, which means a first-year officer receiving shift and weekend differential would make around $81,600 starting July 1, officials estimate.

The tentative agreement will also give officers the opportunity to reduce any suspensions of three days or less down to discipline without a suspension and give those suspended five days or less the opportunity to use up to 10 days. Officers will only be orally interrogated by internal affairs if criminal activity is suspected, records show.

Officers who are called to court will also receive a minimum four hours of overtime, compared to the existing two-hour minimum, records show.

I mean, good for the union to get their people paid more. In addition to wanting to know how we’re going to pay for this – the nickel and dime savings the Mayor has scrounged up from here and there won’t cover this, and he still is in denial about the need for more revenue – I’d also like to understand why we can’t expect better performance from HPD, whether as part of this or just as a baseline expectation. Again, we’ll see what the budget says and what Council and Controller Hollins think.

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Whooping cough is way up in Texas this year

Posted on May 4, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is what happens when vaccine rates decline.

Amid the worst measles outbreak Texas has seen in over 30 years, pertussis cases are spiking as well.

Also known as whooping cough, pertussis is surging across Texas and the nation. Already in 2025 Texas’ cases of pertussis are outpacing last year’s count.

Through mid-April, 1,060 cases of pertussis occurred in the state, while 1,928 cases were reported in all of 2024, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).

Two infants have died of whooping cough in Louisiana in the past six months, according to the surgeon general of the state’s health department. These are the first pertussis deaths to occur in Louisiana since 2018.

Nationally so far in 2024 there have been more than 8,000 cases of whooping cough according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At this time last year, over 4,200 cases were reported nationwide.

Like measles, whooping cough seems to be one of those childhood illnesses of past generations. However, it is a highly contagious, potentially fatal respiratory disease.

“I have taken care of … I have had children die from whooping cough,” said Karl Serrao, MD, a Corpus Christi pediatric critical care physician and president of the Nueces County Medical Society.

Serrao said he is seeing an increase in children being admitted to his hospital with pertussis. The infection is easily spread and one in three children who contract the illness will need to be hospitalized he said.

“When we see these kids coming in, they’re having these distressing coughing fits. Babies can experience pauses in breathing,” Serrao said.

Also, like measles, pertussis is preventable with a safe and effective vaccine.

See here for some background. This is not the first time this has been reported on. Basically, we’re at double the rate from last year. You can do the math if that trend continues. There’s nothing I can say about this that I haven’t said ad nauseum about measles. The cause is the same, the problem is the same, the solution is the same. I don’t know what else to tell you.

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Driverless taxis coming to Arlington

Posted on May 4, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Second city in Texas to get them.

Startup May Mobility plans to deploy its autonomous vehicles on the Uber platform by the end of 2025, starting in Arlington, Texas, as part of a multi-year partnership.

The tie-up with Uber offers May Mobility a chance to grow beyond offering shuttles within campuses and planned communities, while Uber adds May Mobility to its growing roster of autonomous vehicle collaborators as it works to integrate self-driving tech onto its platform.

For example, Uber has already begun offering Waymo robotaxis on its app in Phoenix and Austin, and plans to launch in Atlanta this summer. That will put it in competition with Lyft and May Mobility, which recently announced a similar partnership to launch autonomous ride-hail in Atlanta this year.

As with Uber’s other AV partnerships, customers in Arlington will have the option to choose a May Mobility vehicle — one of the startup’s hybrid Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicles fitted out with its self-driving tech — when they book a ride.

The first deployment in Arlington will involve human safety operators behind the wheel before transitioning to driverless. Following initial launch, Uber and May Mobility intend to expand to other U.S. markets in 2026 and “deploy thousands of AVs” over “the next few years,” according to May Mobility.

Austin already had driverless Ubers via Waymo. Lyft is supposed to unleash May Mobility-powered robotaxis sometime this year in Austin as well. I presume Arlington is the second such destination for these things in part because of the 2026 World Cup, which will take place in part at Jerryworld. They’ll need all the mobility they can get.

The Verge adds a few details.

May Mobility currently owns a fleet of autonomous Toyota Sienna minivans, retrofitted with the company’s autonomous hardware and software. The company operates rideshare services in geofenced, easily mapped business districts, college campuses, and closed residential communities, such as Sun City, a retirement community outside of Phoenix.

The deal with Uber is not exclusive to either company. May Mobility also has a partnership with Lyft to deploy autonomous vehicles on its ridehail platform, which launches in Atlanta later this year. Likewise, Uber has been on a streak of striking deals with AV operators as it seeks to become a one-stop shop for robotaxis and autonomous delivery vehicles of all brands. In addition to May Mobility, Uber has partnerships with Waymo, Motional, Avride, WeRide, and Volkswagen for self-driving cars, and Serve, Cartken, and Nuro for delivery robots.

May Mobility has set itself apart by focusing on transportation contracts with businesses and local governments. And while some robotaxis have clashed with cities, May Mobility says its incentivized to address municipal concerns or risk having its contract terminated. The company also recently added to its fleet electric minibuses that can carry up to 30 passengers, which is hopes to launch next year.

I am very curious to know how many people have chosen the robotaxi over the human-driven one in the cities where the robos are on offer. I don’t use these things often, almost always when I’m travelling, but for now I think I’d stick with the analog system. At least until more of the bugs are worked out. What would your preference be? Are you impatient for these things to come to Houston (RIP, Cruise) or are you more than happy to let other cities be the beta testers? Reuters and the DMN have more.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Measles update: We can’t escape the main character

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

No matter how much we might want to.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said during a visit to Texas on Tuesday that measles deserves less attention than other chronic diseases, while downplaying the number of deaths that have occurred in the state’s historic outbreak of the virus.

During a visit to Texas A&M University in College Station, Kennedy said that Europe’s measles deaths are higher than the U.S.’ “four deaths in 20 years,” two of whom were Texas children this year.

He also said more attention should be focused on chronic conditions like diabetes, as well as autism, which Kennedy has previously linked to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. The scientific community has widely debunked the theory, asserting the vaccine does not cause autism.

“Every child who gets measles gets a headline,” Kennedy said during the visit alongside Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. “When I was kid, there were 2 million measles cases a year and nobody wrote about them.”

[…]

He also struck an optimistic note about the state of Texas’ outbreak. He said measles cases are slowing as officials are doing well to manage the outbreak.

While Tuesday’s state measles update shows the number of cases slowing in Gaines County, the heart of the outbreak, areas new to the outbreak, such as El Paso, are showing a faster rise in cases. On Tuesday, El Paso had 11 new cases, a 45% increase since Friday.

Texas health officials were more cautious about whether this slowing of infections could be maintained. On Tuesday the number of measles cases in Texas had risen to 663 cases in 26 counties. Of those, 87 patients had been hospitalized and two school-aged children have died since the outbreak began in January.

“It’s too soon to say. We can really only see trends looking backwards. We’d need to see a few weeks of decline to say that it was trending downward,” said Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services. “There was a lot of travel for the Easter holiday so we’re watching to see if there is an increase in cases over the next few weeks.”

Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine and vocal vaccine proponent, said work remains to contain the outbreak.

“The numbers are still going up,” Hotez said. “This is not a time to take your foot off the gas.”

What a fucking weirdo. There’s so much more that could be said and has been said about this guy, but I don’t have the energy for it now. There’s a very straightforward way to get everyone to stop talking about measles, but RFK Jr is the single biggest impediment to that. I’m going to stop here because I really need to take a few deep breaths and calm down.

In the meantime, measles keeps moving on.

Another North Texas county became the latest to report its first case of measles.

Denton County Public Health (DCPH) announced Wednesday that an adult of unknown vaccination status contracted measles. The case marks the first in Denton County since 2019 during a smaller statewide outbreak.

“Today’s case is further evidence that measles cases are on the rise – and the DFW area is no exception,” said Dr. Matt Richardson, Denton County’s Director of Public Health. “While we haven’t linked this case to an existing outbreak, it highlights two realities: vaccines are important, and if you have signs and symptoms, you should be tested.”

[…]

According to Denton County health officials, the person went to several places after exposure. Most notably, they attended the April 19 Texas Rangers game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Globe Life Field in Arlington, officials said. 39,244 people attended that game.

Arlington is in Tarrant County, so it’s not just Denton that may be at risk. We don’t know yet if this case is connected to the bigger outbreak, but if this patient infected a whole bunch of other people while they were out and about and already sick, it kind of won’t matter. One outbreak, two outbreaks, who’s counting? This again is the concern about the virus turning up in more populated areas. As with the other instances, I very much hope it remains the only one.

And while we’re on the subject, here’s an El Paso update.

The West Texas measles outbreak has spread to the borderlands, with 38 cases confirmed in El Paso County as of Wednesday, April 30. There have also been 14 measles cases in the neighboring municipality of Juárez, Chihuahua and one case in Doña Ana County, New Mexico, according to the data from each state’s health department.

The number of cases in Chihuahua has now exceeded cases in Texas. The surge in measles infections led Mexico to release a U.S. travel alert and launch a vaccination campaign in public locations.

The highest numbers of confirmed measles infections this year are concentrated in Gaines County, Texas near Lubbock, where the outbreak began, and Cuauhtémoc municipality, Chihuahua in Mexico. The two areas have a shared history through their Mennonite communities, which have low vaccination rates, but the outbreak has since leaped to other communities with undervaccinated pockets.

Total measles cases statewide, per most recent data:

  • Texas: 663
  • New Mexico: 66
  • Chihuahua: 713

More than 80 people in Texas, and three people in El Paso, have been hospitalized over the course of the outbreak. Based on rash onset, fewer than 10 of Texas’ current cases are active infections, according to the Texas Department of Health Service, which updates its dashboard every Tuesday and Friday morning. The state is also tracking measles cases that are not linked to the outbreak.

[…]

At least four people have died with measles during this outbreak, including a 31-year-old unvaccinated man from Ascensión, Chihuahua who died in Juárez, Mexican news outlets reported. The others were two unvaccinated school-aged children from Gaines County with no underlying health conditions and an unvaccinated adult from Lea County, New Mexico.

There was also an adult death in New Mexico, though that was a person who was discovered to have measles after passing. I didn’t realize that the Mexican case count was that high. At least they’re trying to do something about it.

And getting back to that punk RFK Jr, I commend you to read Your Local Epidemiologist’s account of meeting with several MAHA acolytes, along with several medical professional colleagues, for some open conversation. It went pretty well, and perhaps could be the beginning of some bridge-building. (These folks were also Trump voters because they believe in RFK Jr, but they are way more skeptical of the orange menace. So there’s some hope there as well.) I can say with complete certainty that I would not have had the patience to do what Dr. Jetelina and her colleagues did. More power to them and may they keep on doing it. I’ll do my part by staying away and trying to pick the right times to keep my mouth shut.

I will not keep my mouth shut about this, however, nor will I accept it as some kind of reasonable accommodation:

A Republican-backed bill that could make vaccination exemptions easier to obtain in Texas made it out of the House Public Health Committee on Thursday in a 7-6 vote along party lines.

If House Bill 1586, authored by state Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, is approved by both chambers of the Legislature, the state’s current exemption form would be downloadable as a pdf, bypassing the need to contact the Texas Department of State Health Services directly and having a form sent to an applicant’s home address.

“This bill is about government efficiency,” Hull said on Monday when she laid out the details before the committee. Several health professionals testified against the bill, citing the state’s current measles outbreak in West Texas as evidence that falling vaccination rates put the entire state at greater risk for infections and disease.

Data shows a consistent rise in interest in obtaining exemptions to vaccines since 2003, when then-state Sen. Craig Estes offered a measure that allowed Texans to claim a conscientious exemption in addition to established exemptions based on medical and religious reasons.

Since 2018, the requests to the Texas state health agency for an exemption form have doubled from 45,900 to more than 93,000 in 2024. All requests for exemptions are granted.

You want even more measles, and whooping cough, that’s how you get it.

And finally, the latest numbers.

The measles outbreak centered in northwest Texas grew to 683 cases and spread to three new counties on Friday, according to health officials.

The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services adds 20 new cases since the agency’s last update on Tuesday. Upshur, Eastland and Hardeman counties all reported their first cases associated with the outbreak.

So far 89 people have been hospitalized for treatment and two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, died after contracting the virus. Neither child had received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, and they did not have any underlying medical conditions, according to the DSHS.

Nearly two-thirds of cases associated with the outbreak have been in children and teens. More than 95% have been in individuals who have not received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or whose vaccination status is unknown.

The outbreak has also spread to neighboring states. New Mexico reported 67 cases on Friday, while Oklahoma reported 16. New Mexico has also reported one suspected measles death, an unvaccinated adult who tested positive for the virus after dying.

Texas has reported a total of 14 measles cases in 2025 that are not connected to the outbreak, most of them associated with international travel. Four have been in Harris County, one was in Fort Bend County and one was in Brazoria County.

Texas has reported 37 new cases of measles over the past week, according to DSHS data. The state has been reporting about 50 new cases of measles per week since Valentine’s Day, aside from a two-week surge in late March and early April.

The 20 new cases reported Friday include five in Upshur County, located east of Dallas. The DSHS reported cases in Upshur County in previous updates, but said health officials were still investigating whether they were connected to the outbreak.

Also reporting their first cases were Eastland County, located southwest of Dallas, and Hardeman County, located just south of the Oklahoma border. Eastland County reported two cases, while Hardeman County reported one.

El Paso County reported six new cases, while Lubbock County reported two. Dawson, Ector, Hockley and Potter counties each reported one new case.

The update was the first that did not include any new cases in Gaines County since the outbreak began in late January. The small county along the New Mexico border has reported a total of 396 cases, nearly 58% of all cases associated with the outbreak.

Of the 683 cases in Texas, 201 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 247 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17, according to the DSHS.

Only 30 cases have been in people who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine prior to an infection.

That’s a bit below the average, which is good and is hopefully the start of a trend. It would be lovely if this thing burned itself out before reaching the thousand cases mark. Let’s see what next week, and the week after that, look like before we begin to call it a trend.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Harris County gets in on another lawsuit over federal funding cuts

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Keep fighting.

Harris County has filed a third lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration, challenging its overhaul of the federal government and a slew of federal workforce cuts.

The county is suing along with a coalition of other local government entities and labor organizations across the United States — including the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees. The lawsuit requests that a judge declare that Trump has violated the U.S. Constitution by reorganizing the federal government without congressional authorization.

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee and County Judge Lina Hidalgo said Tuesday that additional hits to the workforce could lead to significant delays in recovery efforts and resource distributions during the upcoming hurricane season.

“We don’t need to discover in the middle of an emergency that the maps are delayed, that the information’s not there, that the people we need to talk to have been fired without a transition plan and indiscriminately,” Hidalgo said.

Since he was inaugurated in January for a second stint in the White House, Trump’s administration has reportedly considered funding cuts and layoffs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a federal agency that includes the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center. The cuts could damage the way information is communicated in the event of a major weather disaster.

The lawsuit asserts the Trump administration has ordered agencies across the federal government to engage in a critical transformation of the federal bureaucracy for the purpose of eliminating waste. A Feb. 11 order from the president’s office implementing the Department of Government Efficiency, led by technology mogul Elon Musk, is also at the center of the 115-page lawsuit.

A press release on behalf of the plaintiffs from Democracy Forward is here, which contains a copy of the complaint. As the story notes, Harris County has also sued over public health funding cuts, and over resciended refugee health grants, a fight they quickly won. Earlier, the county signed onto an amicus brief in support of a previous lawsuit over NIH cuts. There’s no reason not to fight on as many fronts as we can. Keep it up, y’all.

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Waymo brings its self-driving tech to Toyota

Posted on May 3, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I just like to keep an eye on the driverless car scene.

Alphabet-owned Waymo and Toyota on Tuesday announced a preliminary partnership to explore bringing robotaxi tech to personally-owned vehicles.

“The companies will explore how to leverage Waymo’s autonomous technology and Toyota’s vehicle expertise to enhance next-generation personally owned vehicles,” the two companies announced.

The companies said they aim to use the partnership to more quickly develop driver assistance and autonomous vehicle technologies for personal vehicles. Toyota is the world’s largest automaker by sales.

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said the strategic partnership could also result in the Google-owned company incorporating Toyota’s “vehicles into our ride-hailing fleet.”

The Toyota tie-up is the latest automotive partnership for Waymo.

The self-driving company has previously worked with automakers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Stellantis predecessor Fiat Chrysler, Daimler Trucks, Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, Hyundai Motor and China’s Geely. The partnerships, many of which touted long-term tie-ups, largely resulted in automakers producing modified vehicles for testing or for Waymo to use in its fleets.

The partnership with Toyota will not affect Waymo’s plans to deploy Hyundai and Geely vehicles through the Waymo One ride-hailing service in the future, a spokesman for the Alphabet-owned company told CNBC.

Waymo is now serving 250,000 paid rides per week, up from 200,000 in February, before Waymo opened in Austin and expanded in the San Francisco Bay Area in March. Waymo is already running its commercial, driverless ride-hailing services in the San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Austin regions.

We are familiar with Waymo’s autonomous taxi service, though not yet here in Houston. Bringing it to personal vehicles is a big step, one that among other things requires the business to project what the market for personal autonomous vehicles will look like. One theory of the long-awaited technology is that once driverless cars are the norm, most people won’t bother buying them for themselves but will simply use various rideshare services, which will likely mean literally sharing rides with other people. Some people may buy the cars and rent them out as taxis while they’re not using them themselves. Or maybe we’ll keep on owning however many cars per household as we do now. I tend to believe in the latter, but I can see the appeal of simply subscribing to an on-demand auto-taxi service and never having to worry about parking, fuel, maintenance, insurance, etc ever again.

We’ll see. First the personal self-driving vehicles have to be produced and marketed, and who knows when that will happen. Tesla has been promising that for years now, but they have bigger issues to deal with at the moment. Until things change, I’ll be rooting for whoever is competing against them in this space.

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UnidosUS poll of Latino voters about current events

Posted on May 2, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox:

UnidosUS, Voces Unidas, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and Climate Power en Acción released today findings from the 2025 “First 100 Days Bipartisan Poll of the Hispanic Electorate,” the largest national bipartisan poll of U.S. Latino voters. The survey of 1,002 registered Latino voters nationwide, with oversamples in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida and Texas, shows that pocketbook issues continue to dominate the concerns of Latino voters — cost of living, jobs, housing and health care affordability — with immigration rounding up the top five. On the economy, 54% of Latino respondents said it is worse when compared to last year; 60% believe things are going in the wrong direction, and 70% of them hold President Trump and his administration responsible.

  • Click HERE to watch a replay of today’s webinar.
  • Click HERE to see a slide presentation of the poll’s national toplines.
  • Click HERE to view Latino vote results by state.
  • For interactive Latino poll results, see Hispanic Electorate Data Hub.
“Latino voters are frustrated that their economic priorities are being ignored and that a key promise made by President Trump during the election is not being kept. Economic discontent was the most potent driver in the 2024 election, helping President Trump increase support among Latinos. But over half of Hispanic voters feel the economy is worse now than a year ago and nearly as many believe it will be worse a year from now,” said Janet Murguía, president and CEO of UnidoUS.
Key Findings Include:
On President Trump and his Administration
  • 63% have an unfavorable view of the President, and 59% disapprove of the job he is doing.
  • 61% and 52% respectively have an unfavorable view of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
  • Two-thirds (66%) of Hispanic voters believe the Trump tariffs will hurt the economy and lead to higher prices.
On U.S. Congress
  • 60% have an unfavorable view of Republicans in Congress, and 59% disapprove of the way they are handling their congressional majority.
  • 63% have a favorable view of Democrats in Congress, and 58% approve of how they are handling their role in Congress, with 60% saying Democrats should fight hard against the Trump administration and his policies.
  • 59% are not confident that Congress attempts to act in the best interest of Latinos, with only 15% stating they are “very confident” in Congress today.
On Issues, Policies and Political Environment
  • Four of the top five priorities for Hispanic voters continue to be driven by pocketbook issues.
  • #1 Cost of living / inflation (52%) — main concerns are cost of food and basic living expenses, housing affordability.
  • #2 Jobs and economy (40%) — wages, job security, prices, job creation.
  • #3 Housing (28%) — rising cost of rent and cost of electricity, utilities, taxes, home insurance, home maintenance and repairs.
  • #4 Health care (23%) — cost of insurance and prescription medications.
  • #5 Immigration (21%) — legalization for long-residing undocumented immigrants and those brought here as children, cracking down on human traffickers and drug smugglers.
  • 58% disapprove of changing Medicaid policies related to eligibility and coverage to cut $600-$800 billion from the program over the next 10 years.
  • 64% disagree with cutting personnel and offices from programs like Medicaid and Social Security.
  • 62% oppose reducing funds for the federal government’s SNAP program.
  • Two-thirds (66%) of Hispanic voters believe the rule of law is failing and the constitution is being violated.
On the Economic Landscape
  • 60% believe President Trump and congressional Republicans are not focusing enough attention on lowering the cost of everyday necessities.
  • Compared to last year, 54% feel the economy is worse now, with only 19% thinking it’s doing better. 35% say their own financial situation is worse.
  • Looking to the year ahead, 50% believe current economic policies will make their economic situation worse off.
  • Nearly half (49%) blame President Trump for the rising cost of living; 16% blame former President Biden.
  • Two-thirds (66%) believe the tariffs President Trump is implementing will reduce their economic opportunity and security by raising the price for goods and services; 64% believe tariffs were a bad move and that trade will be terrible for the United States.
On Immigration & Border Security
  • 78% of Latino voters believe it is important to deport dangerous criminals, but that President Trump and congressional Republicans should not target long-residing undocumented immigrants without criminal records.
  • Top immigration policy priorities are a path to citizenship for long-residing undocumented immigrants and those brought to the country as children (66%), and cracking down on human smugglers and drug traffickers (46%).
  • Nearly half (49%) of Latino voters feel that the Trump administration’s deportation policies put them, their family and/or friends at risk.
  • As for recent immigration policies and actions, 43% think many people fear immigration authorities will arrest them even if they’re U.S. citizens or have legal status.
  • 60% disapprove the administration’s actions of deporting undocumented immigrants from the U.S. without court hearings.
  • 62% disagree with eliminating birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to an undocumented parent.
On Climate Progress & Cost of Energy
  • 60% disapprove of eliminating funds for programs that help Americans pay their electricity bills to help cut the federal budget.
  • 59% disapprove of cutting federal aid for programs designed to address the impact of climate change and extreme weather events on local communities.
  • 57% disapprove of cutting funds for programs designed to improve environmental conditions in minority communities to help cut the overall federal budget.
“The latest poll underscores a harsh reality: nearly two-thirds of Latino voters believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, with 70% of them holding President Trump responsible. Economic struggles dominate their concerns, from rising costs to job insecurity, and immigration remains a top issue. Latinos, once seen as a battleground demographic, have become disillusioned, with many shifting their support toward Trump only to face broken promises. The League of United Latin American Citizens has fought to protect civil rights and secure victories in federal lawsuits against this administration, but the growing frustration in this poll signals a community that’s fed up and demanding major change,” said Juan Proaño, CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens.
“Economic concerns are still very top of mind for Latinos and climate change is viewed as an economic issue,” Antonieta Cadiz, Deputy Executive Director of Climate Power En Acción, said. “Latinos constantly support legislation that protects communities from climate disasters, lowers energy costs, and invests in clean energy because we’ve seen the benefits firsthand. Often on the frontlines of extreme weather and pollution, Latinos recognize when clean energy policies reduce harmful emissions, improve air and water quality, cut energy bills, and create good-paying jobs.”
“In survey after survey, in Colorado and across the country, Latinas and Latinos continue to identify cost-of-living issues as a top concern that have not been adequately addressed by policymakers,” said Alex Sánchez of Voces Unidas, which co-leads the Colorado Latino Agenda, a statewide public research initiative that publishes relevant and timely in-depth reports about Latinas and Latinos in Colorado. “Consistent with our past research, this recent national poll also shows the energy behind more common-sense immigration policy reforms over just border security. Latinos are telling us that they want humane immigration policies, and they continue to reject the approach of the current administration.”
Murguía also added: “Latino voters are also alarmed and angered by what they’re seeing play out on the threats to our democracy. There continues to be a large gap between Latino voter positions and current actions, including on immigration, where Latinos reaffirm their support for legalizing the long-residing undocumented people and oppose draconian immigration measures like deporting people without due process. And reflecting those concerns, two-thirds of Hispanic voters believe the rule of law is failing and the constitution is being violated. In an environment of razor thin margins, politicians should listen to and act on the call from this influential group: start focusing on efforts to improve economic conditions for working Americans.”
About the 2025 100-Day Hispanic Electorate Poll:
Bipartisan pollster team, BSP Research and Shaw & Co.
  • Total N=1,002 voters
  • N= 150 per: California, Florida, Texas.
  • N= 100 per: Arizona, Colorado.
  • Margin of error +/- 3.1%.
Field Dates: April 11– April 19, 2025
  • Survey available in English and Spanish, according to respondent preference
  • Mixed mode: live phones, text invites, online panels.

As noted, the poll data, which they conveniently broke out by state, is here. The sample for Texas is small, at 150 respondents, and the ones who voted last November went for Harris over Trump by a 57-41 margin, so reasonably Dem-friendly. That said, and without getting in too deep because the margin of error is large (8% MoE for a sample size of 150), the numbers are brutal for Trump, starting with the 31-66 approve/disapprove and going from there. I’ll leave it to you to peruse, with the usual caveat that this is just one result. It’s in line with Trump’s overall terrible numbers, but it’s a snapshot from today. Reality can change quickly, as we have too often seen.

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Beto 3.0?

Posted on May 2, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Maybe.

Beto O’Rourke

Beto O’Rourke, a one-time Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and Texas Governor, is holding town halls across the state.

It’s the kind of thing someone running for office would do.

O’Rourke is not currently a candidate, but on Saturday in Denton, he indicated he could be again in the future.

During one of his town halls at Anderson’s Eatery and Distillery, a woman asked if he would announce his candidacy for U.S. Senate in 2026.

“If it comes to pass that this is what the people of Texas want, that it’s the highest and best use of what I can give to you, then yes, I will,” he said to cheers and applause.

In an interview after the rally with WFAA, he gave a similar answer.

“I’m going to do whatever is most helpful for the people of Texas,” he told WFAA. “Right now, it’s bringing people together at town hall meetings. It’s traveling the state. It’s registering voters. It’s leading Powered by People, our volunteer organization. So, we’ll see what the future holds, but I’m going to do whatever is the greatest good for the greatest number in this state,” he said.

“I’m going to listen to the people of this state, wherever they need me, whatever I can do, wherever I’m helpful, that’s where I’m going to be.”

If he wants to run and he can either defeat Terry Virts and Colin Allred and anyone else who might want to run in a primary, or convince them to drop out and support him instead, then he is indeed the choice of the Democratic primary-voting people. I’ll be happy to support him, and I’ll be happy to support someone else if it’s not him. The alternative is likely to be Ken Paxton, so let’s try not to be too precious about this. The Current has more.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Dispatches from Dallas, May 2 edition

Posted on May 2, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth we have: early voting turnout news for the Saturday election; local issues raised in the Lege; PACs active in area elections and who funds them, when you can find out; various immigration stories, including a lawyer who got sacked for providing pro bono advice; news about new Dallas PD Chief Daniel Comeaux that explains why his interim predecessor is out; the latest from the Tarrant County Jail (nobody died this week); school district updates, including the possibility that Fort Worth ISD may get taken over by the state; the latest on Austin Metcalf’s death and the social media frenzy around it; mass shootings in the state in 2025 so far; and babies named after Luka Doncic. And more!

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Missy Mazzoli, whom I was lucky enough to catch one year at SXSW in an ensemble at a classical music show. Her work in the last fifteen years is a lot broader and deeper than I imagined.

This week we have another grab bag, so let’s jump in:

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Spring Branch ISD ruled to have violated the Voting Rights Act

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

And they are ordered to adopt single-member districts.

A federal judge found Spring Branch ISD violated the Voting Rights Act and ordered the west Harris County district to overhaul its system so that the voices of Hispanic voters can be heard, but the ruling doesn’t come in time for Saturday’s pivotal board races.

Seven months after the conclusion of the federal trial against Spring Branch ISD, the judge ruled on Monday that the 33,500-student district uses a system of elections that dilutes the votes of Hispanic residents on the northside of the district, making it virtually impossible for their preferred candidate to win.

District officials pointed to a letter from the board president Monday afternoon which pledged that board counsel would “analyze all potential avenues for appeal.”

The plaintiff, parent Virginia Elizondo, sued the school district after running twice for the board and losing both times, claiming that the at-large system dilutes the Hispanic vote in a district that has almost twice as many Hispanic students as white students. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 stipulates that a violation would be in a circumstance where minorities had “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice.”

Interstate 10 divides the district socioeconomically. The northside is economically disadvantaged and has a large population of Hispanic residents, while the southside, home to Memorial Villages, is a historically white, wealthy area. Currently, all board members are from the southside of the district.

While outgoing board member John Perez is Hispanic, the court found he was not the preferred candidate of the Hispanic community on the northside of the district. Before Perez was elected, a person of color had never served on the Spring Branch ISD board since the district’s inception in 1946.

“SBISD is a high-functioning school district. But the evidence shows that the District consists of two disparate parts: one located north of I-10, and one located mostly south of I-10,” U.S. District court judge Sim Lake wrote. “South of I-10 the students are more likely to be Anglo, affluent, go to college, and more likely to meet or exceed the State’s academic standards. North of I-10 the students are more likely to be Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, dropout, less likely to meet state academic standards, and more likely to be severely disciplined.”

The district argued that the past election results where northside Hispanic preferred candidates did not win had more to do with politics than race, as the southside is largely conservative and northside voters lean more democratic, but the judge struck down that notion, finding that the plaintiff had satisfied enough conditions, including the three Gingles conditions and senate factors two, five and seven, to show that, based on the totality of the circumstances, a system of geographic representation was fair and warranted.

The judge ordered that the district had 20 days to file a plan for single member districts, composed of either seven districts or five districts and two at-large seats. The plaintiff can file objections to the plan, but once they settle on a system, the district is prohibited from conducting at-large elections in the future and must have elected trustees represent single member districts.

See here for the previous update. Judge Lake, for what it’s worth, was appointed by President Reagan. The Houston Landing adds on.

The ruling caps a roughly four-year legal battle and adds to the growing number of school districts forced to change how voters elect trustees. U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake ordered Spring Branch to switch after this May’s board election from a fully at-large system — in which all seven trustees are chosen by all voters in a district — to one where at least five trustees are elected only by residents of parts of the district.

Lake ruled that the west Harris County district’s at-large election system enables to white voters to dilute votes cast by Hispanic residents. Lake wrote that white voters in the affluent southern half of long-divided Spring Branch “vote sufficiently as a bloc” to quash Hispanic voters’ preferred candidates, a key element that must be proven to establish a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

Lake also concluded that it’s more likely than not that Hispanic voters would make up a majority of at least one potential single-member district, another requirement of a Voting Rights Act violation.

[…]

Spring Branch parent Virginia Elizondo filed the suit against the district in 2021 after she ran two unsuccessful campaigns for Spring Branch’s board. While 57 percent of students in the district are Hispanic or Latino, no person of color had ever been elected to the board until the May 2022 election. (Hispanics make up about 25 percent of potential voters, a demographics expert testified at trial.)

Elizondo argued the lack of Latino board members left families of color in diversifying areas of Spring Branch without a representative who understands their needs.

“Of course, I’m thrilled,” Elizondo said Tuesday of the court’s decision. “This is going to help all of our students and families feel like they have a representative that understands their situation. … I think it’s going to be a difference in, you can actually approach the board and they’ll actually listen to you.”

Spring Branch voters will still cast their ballots in the upcoming May 3 trustee election under the voting system now deemed illegal. After that, Lake gave the district until May 18 to appeal the court’s decision or draw up a plan for instituting a new election system. Lake allowed Spring Branch to elect trustees through all single-member districts or employ five single-member seats and two at-large seats.

[…]

While Lake found Spring Branch’s voting system unjust, he also wrote there’s no evidence that district leaders “failed to provide outstanding educational opportunities” for all students or “failed to act in the best interest of its Hispanic students.”

Critics across the state have taken aim at the at-large election system in recent years with a wave of lawsuits similar to that in Spring Branch. A Houston Landing report found last year the at-large system in several other nearby districts — Cy-Fair, Humble, Katy, Pasadena — often leaves the lowest-income neighborhoods without a local representative. A parent in Humble ISD brought a similar lawsuit against the district last year before recently withdrawing it.

See here for more on the now-defunct lawsuit in Humble, and here for more on the big-picture issue. The Trib recently had a big story about how conservative interest groups have taken advantage of the at large-only systems in several large suburban school districts to elect a slate of wingnut candidates and shift those districts’ policies well to the right. This stuff really matters.

As to what happens next here, let’s take a moment to enjoy the victory and congratulate the plaintiffs. This ruling will almost certainly be appealed, which means that the next stop is the Fifth Circuit, where justice goes to die. That said, past rulings in places like Farmers Branch and Pasadena have stood up, so there’s no point in being nihilistic. We move forward and work to build on what we now have.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The tariff effect on your homeowners’ insurance

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

What can’t tariffs do?

President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs could cause homeowners insurance premiums in Texas to rise even faster this year than they otherwise would have, a new study finds.

Even without tariffs, average premiums in Texas will rise by about $500 this year, according to projections from Insurify, an insurance comparison shopping website. But tariffs on imports such as Canadian lumber and Mexican lime — used in concrete — would push that to $713 a year, Insurify projects, bringing the average annual cost of homeowners insurance in Texas to $6,718 by the end of 2025 — an increase of 12% over last year.

Texas homeowners already pay some of the highest home insurance rates in the nation, especially in regions such as Houston and coastal Texas. Average homeowners and auto insurance rates have seen double-digit increases in recent years, according to data from the Texas Department of Insurance, due largely to costly natural disasters as well as overall inflation.

“In the last five years, 68 billion-dollar disasters have impacted Texas, the most of any state, causing about $108 billion in damages,” wrote Chase Gardner, data insights manager for Insurify, in an email. “Texas is one of the most at-risk states for hurricanes, coastal flooding, drought, hail, lightning, tornadoes, wildfires, ice storms, strong winds, heat waves, and cold waves.”

“All of these severe weather events increase risk for insurers,” he added. “The substantial climate related losses Texas home insurers face force them to pass more risk onto homeowners in the form of higher premiums.”

If Trump’s tariffs take effect and remain in effect, Gardner explained, claims will become even costlier, which will translate into higher premiums.

Here’s a related story about how tariffs will make building a new home more expensive, too. You can thank Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, all the Republicans in Congress, Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton and all of the bootlicking enablers here in Texas.

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Barc-ee’s folds

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is all so weird.

Back in June 2024, a canine-focused Missouri business announced itself as Barc-ee’s. Owner John Lopez told the Springfield News-Leader in Springfield, Missouri that he was hoping his 7,500-square-foot coffee shop, game yard and outdoor dog park could be a community hang, also a place where folks could stop off the road, buy some things, spend time with their traveling pups.

“Most of the time when you’re traveling with your dog, you’re kind of just holding the leash while you’re pumping gas,” Lopez told the News-Leader.

Lopez also wanted to put billboards up along the highway tempting folks to stop at Barc-ees. But Buc-ee’s, the massive gas station and convenience store business that started in 1982 in Lake Jackson and has since become a nationwide phenomenon, thought all of this felt a little too close for comfort. In March, Buc-ee’s filed a lawsuit in U.S. Western District Court of Missouri against the entities overseeing Barc-ee’s, alleging the name and imagery all attempted to mimic the Buc-ee’s brand to benefit Barc-ee’s.

[…]

In the wake of the suit, Lopez decided to comment publicly on the Barc-ee’s Facebook page March 24. First, Barc-ee’s had to close temporarily over construction issues, but also, the lawsuit:

“Although I prefer my business challenges to come with a side of coffee rather than a court summons, this is just a part of the entrepreneur game,” Lopez wrote. “My legal team believes we are not legally infringing on any trademarks. The remarks from a legal team that specializes in trademarks also believe that I could win if it went to trial, but it may not be worth the fight. Beavers are cunning creatures.”

In the following days, Barc-ee’s notified its fans over Facebook that it was facing the potential shutdown of its page. Most of the folks who commented to these posts said, “Why not just re-brand?”

On March 31, Barc-ee’s provided another update, posting an image of an AI dog-human mulling over Photoshop, and telling fans it was “busy reimagining, rethinking and envisioning where all of this is taking us.”

“Many do not realize that what they see is not just an easy ‘quick fix’ solution at hand to resolve ALL that is taking place for us,” read the post. “That interesting herbivore is not the only thing in our arena pushing us to reassess. There have been many things that have forced us into this revising season we are in.”

On April 17, Barc-ees, using an AI image of a different dog-human turning keys over to three women, announced that Barc-ee’s was officially closed for good. But the image of the dog and the keys symbolized it was turning over the land to a business called The Bean & Bubble Babes, who serve coffee, lemonade and bubble tea.

Then came an image of a third dog-human thinking up ideas for a “business plan.” Finally, on April 18, Barc-ee’s posted yet another cartoon dog, this one not quite human but still wearing a baseball hat and seemingly moving on from something. Currently, the Barc-ee’s Facebook page, which still exists as of April 27, tells folks to “stay tuned for new and exciting transformations.”

See here for the background. The thing is, the Barc-ee’s concept is a sound one. Maybe it might work better in a larger city than as an interstate rest stop, but the idea has appeal. What boggles my mind is that anyone could have thought the name would pass muster, given Buc-ee’s extreme willingness to defend its brand name and logo. There had to have been any number of name and image combinations that would have worked for them. Instead, we got the lawsuit, the “temporary” closure, and whatever this descent into Enron 2.0-levels of madness and AI imagery is. In a world where the baseline level of derangement is much higher than I’d like, I greatly enjoy this particular farce. I just hope no would-be Barc-ee’s employees were harmed by all this foolishness.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of April 28

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes Pete Hegseth would stop sending us those weird Signal messages as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Measles update: The liars keep gaining

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It’s hard out there for the facts.

While the most serious measles epidemic in a decade has led to the deaths of two children and spread to 27 states with no signs of letting up, beliefs about the safety of the measles vaccine and the threat of the disease are sharply polarized, fed by the anti-vaccine views of the country’s seniormost health official.

About two-thirds of Republican-leaning parents are unaware of an uptick in measles cases this year while about two-thirds of Democratic ones knew about it, according to a KFF survey released Wednesday.

Republicans are far more skeptical of vaccines and twice as likely (1 in 5) as Democrats (1 in 10) to believe the measles shot is worse than the disease, according to the survey of 1,380 U.S. adults.

Some 35% of Republicans answering the survey, which was conducted April 8-15 online and by telephone, said the discredited theory linking the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine to autism was definitely or probably true — compared with just 10% of Democrats.

The trends are roughly the same as KFF reported in a June 2023 survey. But in the new poll, 3 in 10 parents erroneously believed that vitamin A can prevent measles infections, a theory Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has brought into play since taking office during the measles outbreak.

About 900 cases have been reported in 27 U.S. states, mostly in a West Texas-centered outbreak.

“The most alarming thing about the survey is that we’re seeing an uptick in the share of people who have heard these claims,” said co-author Ashley Kirzinger, associate director of KFF’s Public Opinion and Survey Research Program. KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.

“It’s not that more people are believing the autism theory, but more and more people are hearing about it,” Kirzinger said. Since doubts about vaccine safety directly reduce parents’ vaccination of their children, “that shows how important it is for actual information to be part of the media landscape,” she said.

“This is what one would expect when people are confused by conflicting messages coming from people in positions of authority,” said Kelly Moore, president and CEO of Immunize.org, a vaccination advocacy group.

Numerous scientific studies have established no link between any vaccine and autism. But Kennedy has ordered HHS to undertake an investigation of possible environmental contributors to autism, promising to have “some of the answers” behind an increase in the incidence of the condition by September.

Putting liars into positions of authority surely doesn’t help with this. Maybe copious amounts of mockery such phony authorities can help, but I feel like it will take a lot more than that. I’m not smart enough to know what a fix might be.

I don’t have any other news items, so let’s just get right to the numbers.

The measles outbreak centered in the South Plains region of Texas grew to 663 cases on Tuesday, according to health officials.

The latest update from the Texas Department of State Health Services adds 17 new cases since the agency’s last update on Friday. More than 95% of cases seen during the outbreak have been in individuals who have not received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, or whose vaccination status is unknown.

The latest update adds 23 hospitalizations that had not been reported earlier in the outbreak, increasing the total number of hospitalizations to 87, the DSHS said. More than 13% of cases have resulted in hospitalizations, and two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 6-year-old girl, died after contracting the virus.

The DSHS estimates that fewer than 10 of the Texans who have contracted measles — less than 1% of the total — are actively infectious. An individual may be infectious up to four days before a rash appears and up to four days after it’s gone.

Texas has also seen 30 measles cases in 2025 that are not connected to the outbreak, most of them associated with international travel, according to the DSHS. Four have been in Harris County, one was in Fort Bend County and one was in Brazoria County.

Ten of the 17 new cases reported on Tuesday are in El Paso County, which has now seen 32 cases associated with the outbreak.

Gaines County reported three new cases. The county has seen the lion’s share of infections with 396 in total, nearly 60% of all cases associated with the outbreak.

Lamar County also reported three new cases, increasing its total to 17. Lubbock County reported one new case, bringing its total to 48.

The DSHS said there is ongoing measles transmission in 10 counties: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Lynn, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.

Of the 663 cases in Texas, 200 have been in children younger than 5 years old and 245 have been in children and teens between 5 and 17, according to the DSHS.

Only 28 cases — about 4% of all cases associated with the outbreak — have been in people who received at least one dose of MMR vaccine prior to an infection.

The DMN has more.

Ten counties remain under “ongoing measles transmission” status: Cochran, Dallam, Dawson, Gaines, Garza, Lynn, Lamar, Lubbock, Terry and Yoakum.

The state’s update does not include a confirmed measles case in Collin County reported by health officials on April 23. That case, which involved a student who attends Willow Springs Middle School in Lucas — part of the Lovejoy Independent School District — is this year’s first instance of measles in a child in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It was not immediately clear whether the child’s measles case was connected to the ongoing outbreak that began in Gaines County in West Texas.

Earlier this month, an adult in Rockwall County who had recently traveled to West Texas tested positive for measles. It was not immediately clear if this person’s illness is connected to the outbreak, according to a public health alert issued by the county’s health authority.

The first confirmed measles case in Rockwall County, which was reported in late February, is not believed to be connected to the West Texas outbreak either.

Measles cases in Oklahoma and Mexico are linked to the West Texas outbreak. Tuesday’s update does not include the rise of viral cases in these two states. New Mexico reported 66 cases as of April 25, and Oklahoma reported 12 cases as of Tuesday. Together with Texas, the measles outbreak has grown to 741 cases.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I continue to be worried about El Paso, and until further notice I’m now worried about Collin County. I hope my fears are overblown.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

School districts have those “our insurance is too expensive” blues

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Hopefully, the Lege will do something to help.

Hurricane Harvey ravaged the Port Aransas Independent School District when it hit in 2017, damaging every classroom and prompting weeks-long school closures. The district is still facing ripple effects today, but in a new form: its insurance costs have skyrocketed, forcing superintendent Sharon McKinney to choose between giving teachers raises and insuring school buildings.

School districts across Texas have struggled to keep up with rising property insurance costs as severe weather batters school buildings. Insurance costs for districts have increased by 44% statewide since 2020, according to financial data from the Texas Education Agency.

Now, state lawmakers are considering two proposals to help offset these costs – at least in coastal counties, where the crisis is particularly acute.

A provision in House Bill 2, the major school finance package that passed the House last week, would reimburse school districts in the 14 coastal counties covered by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, the safety net insurance plan, for property insurance increases above the state average.

And a bill filed by state Rep. Todd Hunter, a Corpus Christi Republican, would give districts in coastal counties a credit against recapture payments for wind and hail coverage. Hunter’s bill covers Tier 1 and 2 counties, which would include Harris County and Houston ISD. (Because it includes Tier 1 only, the provision in HB 2 excludes Harris County.)

“You don’t want education to suffer because you’re worried about getting money to cover buildings for the kids,” Hunter said in an interview.

At the hearing on Hunter’s bill, school superintendents from three districts near Corpus Christi told lawmakers that high insurance costs have restricted funds that could be used to pay teachers and provide services for students.

In Port Aransas, McKinney said, the school district now spends 10% of its $10 million annual budget paying for property insurance. In Rockport, the cost to insure school buildings has nearly tripled from $1 million in 2019 to $2.8 million in 2024, said Rockport-Fulton ISD superintendent Lesley Austin.

Austin said Hunter’s bill “would honor the original intent of recapture” by not imposing “hardship because of where we’re located.”

Many school districts are reducing coverage in order to keep costs down, which increases risk for taxpayers. “This is not a strategy, it’s desperation,” Austin said in the hearing.

[…]

State Sen. José Menéndez, a Democrat from San Antonio, filed a bill directing the State Office of Risk Management to study the costs of insuring public school property and to “develop a statewide strategy” to lower those costs. The bill hasn’t been heard in committee, but Hunter said the issue should be studied.

It’s unclear how much Hunter’s bill would cost the state due to “insufficient data” about how much school districts are currently paying for windstorm and hail insurance, according to the fiscal note by the nonpartisan Legislative Budget Board.

An analysis by the nonprofit Texas Association of School Business Officials estimated that the reimbursement provision in HB 2 would cost the state $170 million over the coming biennium.

These bills are a decent response and should make a difference, if they pass. You can’t take anything for granted in the Legislature, especially for things that aren’t wingnut-approved agenda items. Even widely popular things can get nuked by the nihilists if they’re feeling bored or cranky. It would be nice if the Lege spent some time working on the root causes of the insurance premium problem, but that would mean first acknowledging climate change, and we know how likely that is. At least they’re willing to deal with the consequences, for now.

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One more thing about microtransit in the Heights

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is from the latest edition of the Woodland Heights Civic Association newsletter, which I got in my inbox late on Friday.

METRO recently announced a new micro-transit service (in partnership with the City of Houston and Evolve Houston) to provide an all-electric METRO Community Connector to the Heights.

In a recent article in The Leader,  METRO Chair Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock notes,  “This new service is already transforming transit and people’s lives by providing direct access to buses and trains and ultimately meets essential needs like attending wellness appointments or getting to the grocery store.”

The service is supposed to bridge the gap between ‘the first and last mile’ of a rider’s trip, where transit access is challenging. With the addition of the North and South Heights Zones the service is now available in five neighborhoods. The other service areas included in this program include the  Downtown, Second Ward, and Third Ward Zones.

On its website, METRO touts climate-friendly, electric vehicles with seating up to five passengers that travel within a designated zone. To schedule the service, would-be riders must download the Ride Circuit app and request their ride. In the Heights area, two routes are available, which intersect with each other: Heights North and Heights South.

The Heights North route is loosely bound by 12th Street on the south, Alexandria on the west, 25th and Link on the North, and Cordell Street on the west side. On the east, it is bounded by Walton to Calvacade under 45 to Fulton and the METRO Red Line off to Link Road and Cavalcade, then back to Cordell Street.

The Heights South route is loosely bound on the South by White Oak, on the west by Yale, on the North by 12th Street, on the east by North Main to Beauchamp, and then back to White Oak to Quitman, which will take you to the Red Line that intersects with North Main.

The service is available to specific neighborhoods, and METRO states these routes are in response to the community’s need for convenient access to public transit. The service is supposed to bridge the gap between ‘the first and last mile’ of a riders trip where transit access is challenging.

Climate-friendly, electric vehicles that can seat up to 5 passengers operate within a defined zone. A rider wishing to use the service must download the Ride Circuit app to request a ride anywhere in your designated coverage area. In the general Heights area, there are two routes available for Heights residents, Heights North and Heights South.

Metro’s Community Connector service is available through a partnership with the City of Houston and Evolve Houston.

We asked Evolve Houston a few questions we’d heard from neighbors regarding their service, Evan Hargrove, Senior Program Manager for Evolve Houston responded.

1. When the Woodland Heights neighborhood was built as one of Houston’s first suburbs, the streetcar line ran along Houston Avenue, ending at Bayland. Is there a reason why the dividing line in the South Heights route is on Beauchamp Avenue instead of Houston Avenue?

“Yes, our top priority is safety for both passengers and drivers. We intentionally avoided streets in close proximity to highways or feeder roads, which is why Houston Avenue, bordering the freeway, was excluded from this first version of the zone.

That said, the zone is flexible and not permanent. We continuously evaluate pick-up and drop-off data and adjust the zone as needed. If we see consistent feedback or usage trends near Houston Avenue that improve access to METRO Rail and bus stops, we’ll absolutely consider updating the boundaries.

2. Your FAQs mention that users can request rides within the designated area. Can users request specific pick-up and drop-off points, like from their home to their office? Or does it have to be a METRO stop or transit point?

“Yes, you can request pick-up and drop-off at any location within the service zone. For example, if you live near Jeni’s Ice Cream on 19th Street and want to go to the public library on Heights Boulevard, you can use the shuttle to get there directly.

While the entire zone is available for travel, please note that trips going to or from METRO Rail and bus stops may have reduced wait times due to our routing priorities.”

3. Is there an option for people who don’t have access to the Ride Circuit app? Or is the service only available through the app?

“The service is currently app-based, but if someone doesn’t have the Ride Circuit app, another person (such as a family member or caregiver) can book the ride on their behalf.

4. What led to the expansion into the Heights area, and are additional expansions planned?

“The Community Connector is a pilot program designed to test and learn from various service zones. Each area serves a different community with unique needs—Heights is very different from Downtown, Third Ward, or Second Ward, and that’s intentional. Expanding to the Heights allows us to gather insights, understand usage patterns, and evaluate demand. As we collect data and receive community feedback (which is incredibly valuable), we can improve the service and explore additional zones. If you or others have suggestions or feedback, please feel free to reach us at communityconnector@evolvehouston.org – we truly welcome and appreciate it.”

See here and here for the background. At least we know Metro has made some attempt to communicate about this service to at least part of the area it’s now serving. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I have reacted as strongly as I have to this news is 1) I don’t think the Heights is the right place to be testing this out, whatever the vision of it is, because we’re a wealthy neighborhood that is mostly residential and is very well served by existing transit, and 2) I remain mad that such a small and limited new service is what this Metro board has decided to roll out to us rather than the much larger and more ambitious projects that we the voters approved in 2019 that would move a whole lot more people around and serve a much larger portion of Harris County. I can’t escape the feeling that this little shuttle, which is not allowed to drive on main roads because it’s not safe for it to do so, is intended as a low-end substitute for Uber and Lyft. That’s not what public transit is supposed to be for. We deserve so much better.

(Note: Since the publication of the previous post, I’ve seen the microtransit shuttle parked in the neighborhood, with the driver inside or leaning up against the vehicle outside, two more times. I have not seen it in motion since the first time I saw it.)

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Two action items

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Wanted to pass along a couple of notices of action items for those of you looking for something to do this week. Item #1, from the inbox:

On Thursday, May 1, 2025, attorneys, judges, law students, and others committed to the rule of law will gather to stand for the rule of law. Lawyers will reaffirm the oaths they took to support the Constitution.

In Houston, this will be a brief rally at 12pm at the Jury Assembly Plaza, 1200 block of Franklin Street between Fannin and San Jacinto.

Background
In response to serious threats to the justice system from the executive branch of the federal government, lawyers, judges, law students, and others will gather to demonstrate a commitment to the principles of judicial independence and the independence of the legal profession as critical elements of the democratic process.

Of particular concern to Houston lawyers are the administration’s defiance of multiple court orders and arrests of judges, and threats against law firms, including the Executive Order targeting a Houston-based litigation firm.

More details including day-of-event contacts for English and Spanish outlets as well as logistics in the attached document.

Here’s the attached file, which has a lot more information. This is an action by and for lawyers, but you don’t have to be a lawyer to participate. Just someone who respects the rule of law and wants to see that upheld. This is a national day of action, so you don’t have to be in Houston, either. Look for an event near you.

Item #2, also from the inbox:

Press Conference: Victims of Texas’ Cash Bail System Speak Out Ahead of Governor’s Planned Round Table and Press Conference

WHAT:
People who have been negatively impacted by the state’s cash bail system will join the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Texas Organizing Project, Pure Justice, and the Texas Civil Rights Project at a press conference ahead of the governor’s round table and press conference on so-called “bail reform.”

Victims and family members will share their personal experiences when they or their loved ones were locked up in jail for long periods of time, simply because they were unable to pay bail.

Criminal justice organizations will discuss the unconstitutionality of Senate Joint Resolution 1/ House Joint Resolution 16, and their continued opposition to S.J.R. 5/ H.J.R. 15 and Senate Bill 9/ House Bill 75 as they are currently written. If passed, these bills would make it easier to eliminate due process for everyone accused of a crime at a time when the Trump administration is unfairly painting people as criminals without evidence. The group is calling on state lawmakers to block or amend these bills and pass meaningful bail reform.

WHO:

Nick Hudson (he/him), senior policy and advocacy strategist, ACLU of Texas
Nick designs, supports, and manages strategic campaigns to reduce arrests, combat police violence, decrease mass incarceration, end wealth-based detention, and reduce racial disparities throughout the justice system.

Synnachia Mcqueen (he/him), community leader with the Texas Organizing Project
Synnachia was arrested for a crime he did not commit. When he requested bail, the court denied it, issuing a “no bond” order because he was on probation. As a result of this blanket denial, he lost his job, his family, his friends, and the ability to be a present father to his three daughters.

Sarah Knight (she/her), mother of Jaleen Anderson
Sarah’s son died in a for-profit Louisiana prison where Harris County sent him after denying him bail.

Fawnya Doiron (she/her), mother of Zach
Fawnya’s son Zach died after a brutal assault in the Harris County Jail while he was being held due to unaffordable bail stemming from a drug charge.

WHEN:
Wednesday, April 30, 2025 at 11:30 a.m. CT.

WHERE:
Midtown Park
At the corner of Anita Street and Main Street
2811 Travis Street
Houston, TX 77006

That’s today, I only got the email yesterday afternoon. Greg Abbott is out there trashing judges because he doesn’t care about any of this. Let’s make voices other than his be heard.

If you can’t make it to that event, there are other ways to get involved and make your voice heard on this, as my blogging colleague Neil Aquino documents. Abbott is singing from the Trumpian songbook, and he’s got help. We have the numbers to counter him and the high ground to stake out. Please do what you can.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bird flu is all around us

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Still not human to human transmissible. But that may not be the case forever.

Texas health and wildlife officials have detected avian flu in mammals including skunks, raccoons, foxes and domestic cats across six counties in the state’s Panhandle region.

The discovery, which follows the revelation that dairy cows and humans have both tested positive for the virus, suggests it’s moving to a new stage of contagion. The development also comes as the Trump White House moves ahead on drastic cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which oversees efforts to contain disease outbreaks.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), the Department of State Health Services and the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab found the new infections among mammals in Deaf Smith, Hansford, Lubbock, Ochiltree, Parmer and Randall counties. Data shows that transmission among mammals primarily happens when they eat infected animal carcasses, state officials said, although “mammal-to-mammal transmission is possible.”

Avian flu has already decimated U.S. poultry flocks, sending egg prices through the roof. To date, more than 168 million chickens have died or been killed due to the outbreak.

Angela Rasmussen, a U.S. virologist working in Canada, told CBS News program 60 Minutes on Sunday that the virus’ jump from chickens to other mammals suggests there’s reason for concern that continuing evolution could enable it to jump between humans.

“The fact that this virus can infect so many different types of mammals is a huge concern in terms of its ability to infect people,” Rasmussen said.

While the Biden administration was slow to take action to contain the spread of avian flu, Rasmussen told 60 Minutes that the Trump White House appears to be on an even worse trajectory due to its ongoing cuts at the CDC.

“Many of the people who were working on this, at least at CDC, have — have been fired from the federal government,” Rasmussen said. “So the influenza division at CDC has been decimated, and in fact, there is a communications ban that has been put on these federal workers.”

TPWD officials urged Texans working in wildlife rehabilitation to be cautious when intaking wild animals and for people to take protective measures such as donning gloves and face masks if they handle wild animals. Those who think they have encountered wild animals with avian flu should contact a TPWD wildlife biologist, they added.

See here, here, and here for some background. The risk right now for most of us is pretty miniscule – basically, stay away from animals that aren’t pets, with some allowance for livestock and zoo animals, and you’re fine. But the flu evolves and so that could change, and right now the people that are best suited to track this are not able to do their jobs to the fullest extent. That’s a big risk, and it’s a risk that the federal government doesn’t even recognize. Hope for the best, there’s not a whole lot else we can do at this time.

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Starbase Soon-To-Be-A-City

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I guess we’re all assuming this will pass.

Angela Piazza/USA TODAY NETWORK via REUTERS

Nearly 10 years after SpaceX, Elon Musk’s effort to colonize Mars, began operating in a small community in Cameron County just a few miles inland of the Gulf Coast, employees who live there and other residents will vote next month to incorporate their Starbase community as Texas’ newest city.

If the majority of them vote yes on May 3, the leaders they elect at the same time will have the responsibility of creating a city from the ground up.

What does it take to have a fully functioning city?

A few of Starbase’s first steps as a newborn city can be anticipated because state law sets certain requirements for raising and spending public money and how governing bodies can operate.

Texas generally gives municipalities a lot of discretion on how to manage and govern themselves, according to Alan Bojorquez, an attorney who specializes in city governance.

“The reality is, Texas cities under the law are not required to do much,” Bojorquez said.

He emphasized that much of what the new city of Starbase will do will ultimately depend on what services and programs city officials and residents want the city to provide.

See here for the background, and read on to see the things that cities are required to do. I’m going to guess that 1) Starbase City will do the bare minimum of those things, at least at first, and 2) yes, this will indeed pass, likely be a wide margin. For those of you who live there, and especially those of you who live there and are skeptical about this whole thing, I wish you the best.

Posted in Election 2025 | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

I got those unwanted speed trap blues

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Fascinating.

Daragh John Carter hates a speed trap near his home so much he began posting about it on Facebook before eventually escalating to standing near it and warning passing motorists it was coming.

His actions frustrated a Houston police officer enough that Carter was cited for jaywalking, with the traffic police noting he was the resident who posted about the speed trap on Facebook. Rather than pay the fine, Carter has opted to contest the tickets in court, where a trial is tentatively set for April 29, he said.

“I have read the sections of the Texas Transportation Code … and I do not believe I violated either one of them,” he said. “No different than if I was cited for speeding, but knew I was driving at or below the speed limit.”

What might at first glance seem like a sympathetic quixotic quest to anyone who’s ever gotten a municipal ticket is actually part of larger, more sweeping conversations in public safety on how to balance desire for safer streets with the cost-intensive speed traps that can be ripe for abuse and how the city might find savings as it stares down a $330 million municipal deficit while overtime spending in the police department spikes each year.

Carter said the citations were the culmination of a growing dispute in his neighborhood over a speed trap along TC Jester Boulevard.

Carter said he’s always objected to the trap because even if you’re watching your speed, it’s easy to break the posted 35mph speed limit along that stretch of road. The area in question is near the bottom of a hill, where a driver might eclipse the speed limit even if carefully monitoring their surroundings, Carter said.

“The reason HPD runs radar there is that it’s like shooting fish in a barrel,” he said.

Jodi Silva, a spokeswoman for the Houston Police Department, said the department set up the traffic enforcement in response to growing concern from nearby residents about dangerous driving. The officer’s job is to issue citations in areas that are of particular concern.

Soon after Carter became frustrated with the speed trap, he said he began posting in the neighborhood Facebook group warning people about it. Then he stood down the hill from the traffic patrol and telling passing motorists, he said.

But Carter’s decision soon drew the ire of one of the officers orchestrating the speed trap, Carter said. That officer, Matthew Davis, tracked down Carter and wrote out a citation for jaywalking after telling him he was interfering with a police investigation, Carter said. On the citation, Davis also mentioned that Carter had been the one posting on Facebook.

There’s more, so read the rest. I can think of plenty of places in Houston where I’d love to see a cop busting speeders – hell, Studewood between White Oak and 11th is often a racetrack. We can all think of road stretches where the speeding is egregious and dangerous, and as such my initial reaction to this was “what the hell is this guy complaining about”. But now I get it, and as you can see from the pictures there’s nothing but the road where that speed trap is, so there’s much less of a threat to pedestrians, children playing in yards, and so on, thus lessening the safety impact. And that citation doesn’t sound like jaywalking to me either, it sounds more like spite. So go ahead and fight it. There’s an April 29 court date. I’ll be interested to see how that goes.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Terry Virts

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

We may have an astronaut candidate for Senate.

Terry Virts (Credit: REUTERS/Ivan Sekretarev/Pool)

In the latest sign that Democrats are turning a new leaf after their dismal 2024 defeat, astronaut and political neophyte Terry Virts is planning to launch a run for the US Senate in Texas, GZERO Media has learned. He plans to challenge incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, according to a Democratic operative familiar with the race. Virts’ pending announcement comes as former Rep. Colin Allred, a fellow Democrat, is reportedly planning another Senate bid, just six months after his eight-point loss to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

The latest internal battle. Whether it’s young versus old, or pro-fight versus pro-fold, the Democratic Party is undergoing an identity crisis following US President Donald Trump’s resurgent victory in November. If Virts indeed runs, it will likely set up a primary with Allred, in what would be another battle between the old guard and the upstarts.

Virts didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from GZERO Media.

Who is Virts? Born in Baltimore, the 57-year-old astronaut first learned how to fly at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, graduating in 1989. He served for another decade in the US military, where he flew F-16s, before joining NASA in 2000 – the Johnson Space Center is based in Houston, creating his Texas links. He retired 16 years later. Over the last decade, Virts has been more of a talking head, setting up a podcast that ran for two years and even appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience in 2020 – take that, Kamala Harris. He’s now built a solid social media following.

See here for some background. I go into this knowing nothing about Terry Virts. It’s important to remember that there’s a gap between “planning to launch” and actually running – not all campaigns get off the ground. But it’s encouraging that we’ve got interesting people at least taking a serious look. I look forward to welcoming him to the race. Link via The Downballot.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

San Marcos and Austin marijuana ordinances struck down

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Strike one.

A state appeals court has shot down a voter-approved ordinance that decriminalized marijuana in San Marcos.

The Fifteenth Court of Appeals last week overturned a ruling that denied a temporary injunction to block the law’s enforcement in the city, according to a report from the Texas Tribune.

In the ruling, Judge April Farris cited that state law makes marijuana possession a criminal offense.

Over 80% of San Marcos voters approved the ordinance, Proposition A, in 2022.

After Proposition A was passed, the San Marcos Police Department was no longer able to:

  • Issue citations for possession of drug residue or paraphernalia
  • Arrest or cite people for misdemeanor possession of marijuana up to four ounces, unless it’s part of a felony investigation
  • Use city funds or personnel to test a substance’s THC levels
  • Cite the odor of marijuana or hemp as probable cause to search

The ordinance only applied to the San Marcos Police Department; other law enforcement agencies in the area were exempt.

Attorney General Ken Paxton sued San Marcos in early 2024 over the marijuana decriminalization ordinance — along with four other Texas cities that had similar ordinances or policies, including Austin, Killeen, Denton and Elgin.

See here for the background. Here’s strike two.

A Texas appeals court ruled Thursday that the City of Austin cannot enforce its law that prohibits police from citing and arresting people for carrying a small amount of marijuana. This is the second time this month that the appeals court has ruled in favor of the state against ordinances that decriminalize marijuana.

The state’s 15th Court of Appeals overturned the decision by Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer, who had dismissed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit against Austin last year, ruling that there was no legal justification to try the case. The court determined the city law “abused its discretion” by putting up any barrier to the full enforcement of drug-related laws.

Last week, this same court overturned a lower court ruling that denied a temporary injunction to prevent the City of San Marcos from enforcing its voter-approved ordinance to decriminalize marijuana because it conflicts with current state law.

“Consistent with the City of San Marcos, we conclude that the ordinance in this case is also preempted by state law,” according to the ruling about Austin’s ordinance penned by Judge Scott Field.

This is another blow to the progressive drug movement that swept into various cities across the state. Austin Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes called the ruling another example of the state stepping on local decisions.

“This court ruling is a huge letdown. Austin voters made their voices loud and clear in 2022, and instead of respecting that, the State has chosen to ignore their will,” Fuentes said.

[…]

Hays County District Judge Sherri Tibbe dismissed Paxton’s lawsuit, upholding the argument that the state was not injured when San Marcos reduced arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession and that it allowed for resources to be used for higher-priority public safety needs.

The Office of the Attorney General appealed this decision. In February, the case was assigned to the 15th Court of Appeals, where the state’s attorneys argued that the San Marcos ordinance obstructed the enforcement of state drug laws. The city argued the policy was voter-driven, but the court disagreed, granting the temporary injunction while litigation continues.

Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer dismissed Paxton’s lawsuit against Austin last year, ruling there was no legal justification to try the case.

Both Tibbe and Soifer’s rulings have now been overturned by the 15th Court of Appeals.

This puts the fate of the ordinances in doubt and some cities have already given up on trying to fight the state.

Paxton’s lawsuit against Elgin was resolved last summer via consent decree, meaning neither side is claiming guilt or liability but has come to an agreement.

In the North Texas suburb of Denton, where voters approved decriminalization by more than 70%, the implementation of a marijuana decriminalization ordinance has stalled after City Manager Sara Hensley argued it couldn’t be enforced since it conflicted with state law.

The case against Killeen, which was filed in Bell County a year ago, is still pending.

See here for more on the original lawsuits, and here for more on the dismissal of the Austin case. We know that other cities, including Dallas, passed similar ordinances last year. I cannot see any way that they are ever enforced. That’s strike three.

I sympathize greatly with the organizers who pushed these initiatives and the people who voted for them. Texas’ stringent anti-marijuana laws are archaic and harmful, and they need to be greatly relaxed. Efforts like these, run by Ground Game Texas, have been a response to the intransigence of state legislators and Dan Patrick. There was a time when cities would freely go their own way on a wide variety of matters, citing “local control” as the guiding principle. But Republicans no longer care about local control, because they have control of the state government and they will brook no dissent from the decadent liberal cities. Passing these local decriminalization ordinances may feel like a victory, but it’s all chalk art on a sidewalk just before a thunderstorm. The only way to achieve this kind of needed progress is a complete change of state government. That’s an enormous challenge, to say the least. But it couldn’t be clearer that there aren’t any workarounds. This strategy is dead. We can complain all we want about it, but that won’t change anything. Change who runs the state, or we keep getting what we’ve been getting, and what that is will keep getting worse. Accept it and we can move forward.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How much does Houston want to piss off its neighbors?

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is me, shaking my head.

Mayor John Whitmire

A proposal to cut Houston in on revenue generated through the county’s toll roads is threatening the city’s relationship with county officials and neighboring jurisdictions.

The legislation making its way through both the Texas House as House Bill 5177 and Senate as Senate Bill 2722 would allocate millions of dollars generated through the Harris County Toll Road Authority to the City of Houston. The funds have traditionally gone to the county, which has used them for various mobility projects and improvements throughout the 34 cities and hundreds of miles of unincorporated land that make up its four precincts.

Harris County commissioners and local officials in cities such as Friendswood and Pearland see the legislation as a “cash bailout” for Houston’s projected budget deficit.

“Let’s be clear, this is a bailout bill, not a transportation bill,” Commissioner Lesley Briones said at a House Committee hearing Thursday evening. “It sets bad precedent. It’s based on bad policy, and it jeopardizes regional partnerships.”

But Mayor John Whitmire said 60% of the county’s toll roads are within city limits and its responsible for providing emergency services for those roads. He argued that, since Houston is responsible for providing emergency services for the toll roads that run through the city, it should be entitled to its slice of the pie.

“Houston spends millions of dollars a year supporting the toll road operation. Have for 50 years. This should have been a discussion when the toll road was created back in the early ’70s,” Whitmire said. “The toll road authority is running a $300 million surplus, and I’m sitting here with a lean budget. I need more police and fire.”

Critics, such as Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen, who testified during Thursday’s hearing, pointed to the many fire departments that serve cities other than Houston as well as the Emergency Service Districts, volunteer departments and constables that assist in responding to calls outside Houston.

Although Whitmire said he supports the legislation, he said he was not involved in drafting it. Republican state Sen. Paul Bettencourt authored the first version of the bill.

“I was asked if I could use a reasonable amount — to be determined by the legislature — for public safety inside Houston,” Whitmire said. “It would be irresponsible not to accept an offer to improve Houston public safety.”

[…]

It’s a bold step, [political analyst Nancy] Sims said, and one that could ultimately harm the city in the long term. County officials have previously worked with the city on various infrastructure projects, which they may not be as inclined to do should their funding be cut.

“I think in the long term, he’s putting additional funding at risk by taking on people he’s cooperated well with over the last year,” Sims said. “If they’re genuinely upset over this, then they may say, ‘Well, look, you got our road money. We don’t need to help you build any more roads.'”

Whitmire said he isn’t concerned by potential retaliation from county officials, who he insisted he was “the best of friends” with. He said that, since each of the four commissioners also represent a portion of Houston, it’s in their best interest to continue cooperating with him.

Commissioners, on the other hand, are unified in their opposition to the legislation. Although Briones said during Thursday’s hearing that she has enormous respect for Whitmire, she suggested the county would be unable to continue funding some of the projects it partnered with Houston to complete.

See here for some background. I do not understand this strategy. I do not understand why Whitmire feels the need to lie about how much Houston actually does spend on emergency response on the toll roads. I do not understand why he wouldn’t just take those concerns to his “best friends” on Commissioners Court rather than let an enemy like Paul Bettencourt shove this down their throats. Is that how he treated his “best friends” in the Senate back in the day? I do not understand why you would piss off people with whom you do want to do constructive work, or why you would hamper their financial ability to work with you in the future. I do not understand why we’re not talking about trying to get assistance from the state on fixing our massive and expensive water infrastructure issues, which would greatly benefit all of us and might even make selling our excess water to the state to help them with their water problems more feasible. If there’s some grand eleven-dimension chess strategy to this, I just do not see it.

I mean look, it’s not that long ago that I was loudly and frequently complaining about how Harris County directed a disproportionate amount of its resources towards lightly populated areas outside Houston, and never seemed to care all that much about the state of the city even as it was more than half the county’s population. It’s not that long ago that we had a Commissioner that was more obsessed with a soapbox derby track in Hockley than anything in Houston. That was then, this is now. Harris County has had a better relationship with Houston for several years, starting with Judge Ed Emmett and his willingness to work with Mayor Parker, and accelerating after Democrats became the majority on the Court. The city is in a much better place with the county, at least when we’re not wantonly tearing out infrastructure that had been built by the county. Why would we want to jeopardize that? Why would someone who claims his ability to work with other politicians is an unparalleled strength for the city because of his fifty-year stint in the Legislature act that way? Make it make sense.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Weekend link dump for April 27

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“It’s become this thing that I wish it was not there. What’s going through this guy’s mind? He said I was lying. I’m not lying. He said I begged him to be in the movie, but there’s no world I would ever beg a non-actor to be in a movie. But we were desperate to get the Plaza Hotel.”

“Inside Canada’s Northern Super League: A new soccer competition created by players for players”.

“I’ve had a lot more success after leaving the incel community behind and just realizing that your life isn’t really all that hopeless. You realize, ‘I believed this for so long, how many years of my life did I lose?’”

“Maybe the thing that most endangers the tradition of throwing eggs at people to express disapproval is not the price of eggs. It’s actually the price of tech—the decreasing price of tech. So it’s not that we have an egg shortage, we have a privacy shortage.”

“Here’s what I envision – a small group of researchers and lawyers, let’s call them the DOJ in Exile. This small office I’ve created pulls together all these stories and all those to come. My team orders them into things that are awful but simply not part of the criminal law, those that could prosecuted with creative but serious-minded uses of available statutes and those which appear to involve straightforward criminal conduct. Then they break them down into specific statutes. They name names. They can produce what amount to indictments in waiting. I could go through many more permutations here. But the concept and question is what would a real Justice Department be doing right now? Since it’s not a real Justice Department with the ability to compel testimony, make arrests and bring criminal charges we don’t have the need for secrecy. You can discuss and publicize what you’re finding.”

RIP, Pope Francis, the first non-European head of the Roman Catholic Church in more than a millennium. He changed a lot about the Church. I hope the next Pope carries on his mission.

“We have a lot of questions about what was in Kristi Noem’s stolen purse“.

“Meghan Markle has been embroiled in a plagiarism dispute after a British author described “striking similarities” between her own books and a proposal by Markle for a children’s TV show.”

“At this point I think it’s safe to say that any lazy, absurd, ridiculous-seeming premise for how the evil conspirators wind up accidentally revealing their plot to the protagonist has to be acceptable as a real possibility. Go ahead and try to come up with some plot device that seems too incompetent or too recklessly dumb for the current administration. I don’t think you can.”

“Harvard sued the Trump administration in federal court on Monday over its multibillion dollar cuts to the University’s research funding, accusing the White House of undertaking an arbitrary and unconstitutional campaign to “punish Harvard for protecting its constitutional rights.””

“A lot of people will respond by saying ‘he didn’t mean autistic people like you.’ But that doesn’t make it any better.”

“Talking to the guy is sometimes like listening to really rusty nails on a chalkboard. He’s just the most irritating person I’ve ever had to deal with, and that is saying something.”

“To protect yourself, more so now than ever, I think it is a great idea to take a burner phone, to not take your technology, to not take anything on your technology that you would be afraid of any government entity knowing or having. The concept of privacy is completely different when you enter the United States.”

Womp womp. Too bad, so sad.

“And once it’s normal, why not go along with it? To resist would be such a hassle, a distraction even, from the cool good shit like winning a World Series. Evil seems incongruous with the pomp silliness of the ceremony; the president cracking dumb jokes in an ostentatious room with curtains that make the color gold seem complicit. Would the administration really make everything so loud and shiny if they were doing something worth being ashamed of? This is the problem with people who feel no shame.”

“Democrats Need to Make Republicans Fear the Consequences of Attempting a Dictatorship”. The DOJ In Exile project seems like a good way to accomplish at least some of that.

“9 ways Capitol rioters got a better deal than wrongfully deported dad”.

Look, I’m not saying that JD Vance killed the Pope, but I’m not not saying it, either.

Three Men and a Baby, also known as the Sean Astin story.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently ordered modifications to a room next to the Pentagon press briefing room to retrofit it with a makeup studio that can be used to prepare for television appearances, multiple sources told CBS News.”

“All of this is, to put it mildly, a humiliating climb down for the President.”

RIP, Steve McMichael, Hall of Fame lineman mostly for the Chicago Bears, who was on the 1985 Super Bowl champion team.

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Harris County sues over public health funding cuts

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Keep fighting.

Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee and officials from three other states sued the Trump administration Thursday over its decision to rescind $11 billion in public health funding for state and local health departments.

The decision to pull back the funds affects about $20 million that had been allocated to Harris County through a series of grant programs set up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the lawsuit. Harris County has used the grants to establish a wastewater surveillance program, train community health workers and offer vaccines to the community.

“Harris County was set to receive millions of dollars to support critical public health services—programs that help us detect and prevent disease outbreaks, run vaccination clinics, and keep our residents healthy,” Menefee said in a news release.

Officials from Nashville, Tenn.; Columbus, Ohio; Kansas City, Mo.; and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees joined Harris County in filing the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Attorneys general and other officials from 23 states filed a similar lawsuit over the cuts earlier this month in federal court in Rhode Island. That suit argues the Trump administration did not provide facts to support the cuts, and says they will result in “serious harm to public health.”

The Trump administration argued the funds are no longer necessary because the COVID-19 pandemic is over. But Menefee said the money is essential to combating other public health threats such as the ongoing measles outbreak, which has sickened more than 600 people in Texas.

See here and here for some background, and here for a copy of the press release. Harris County had signed on to an amicus brief in support of a previous lawsuit over NIH cuts. As the story mentions, these cuts have also cost the Houston Health Department up to $42 million in grant funding, which would be a significant blow. The stakes here are high.

I should note, for what it’s worth, that the Trumpsters have been retreating from some of the fights it had picked. They also quickly caved after the filing of a lawsuit over refugee health grants. No guarantee we’ll get that kind of outcome here, but it is increasingly the case that fighting back is a winning move. Always good to see that being practiced here.

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What is this microtransit for, anyway?

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Since I first blogged about the arrival of those Evolve Houston microtransit shuttles in the Heights a week or so ago, I have seen one of those shuttles three times. The first time it was in motion and presumably in use, turning from Pecore onto Beauchamp. The other two times it was parked on the street near my house, with the driver inside. I was out for a walk the first time I saw the shuttle sitting there, and since the driver’s window was down, I went over and said hello to him, and asked him if he was waiting for a passenger. He said no, he had been told to park and talk up the shuttles to whoever came by; basically, he and the shuttle were serving as advertisements for the service. I asked if he had given any rides so far that day (it was around lunchtime) and he said no. I thanked him and wished him well and went on my way.

I was driving the second time I saw the parked shuttle, a couple of days later, so I didn’t have the chance to talk to the driver. I assume he was following the same instructions as before but can’t confirm that. The shuttle itself is of course its own advertisement for the service, whether it’s in motion or at rest, but I do wonder how much other publicity Metro has given it and its new expansion of that service. They did tweet and post to Facebook about it, a couple of days before I saw the Chron story and Facebook group post that alerted me, but I didn’t see either of those posts until I went looking for them. I didn’t see anyone share it on their own wall or Twitter feed. Maybe the next email from our civic association will mention it, we’ll see. Metro could have done more to make the people who might use this thing know that it exists, is what I’m saying.

(Update: After drafting this post, I saw another parked shuttle with the driver sitting inside, on Friday in the parking lot of the strip center on Yale between 19th and 20th.)

The social media posts did lead me to Metro’s “community connectors” page, and that led me in turn to more questions about this service. First, the actual area served is smaller than I originally thought, with the south zone being smaller than the north zone, only extending as far west as Yale. The North Zone approaches Shepherd but stops a block east of it, which suggests to me that these shuttles are not safe to drive on a busier and higher-speed road like that. It has a couple of other effects that I’ll get to in a minute.

One of the stated purposes of this microtransit initiative (that no one asked for) is to increase ridership. We don’t know (because Metro won’t tell us) how many people are using these shuttles, but I take that to mean that it will help people get from their homes to Metro’s main services and/or from the bus and light rail lines to other destinations. Solving the “last mile” problem for folks who may need it, in other words. I count seven bus lines that run through “the Heights”, all of which go through or border on those microtransit areas (26, 27, 30, 40, 44, 56, 66) – you’re never more than a half mile away from a bus stop, which sort of limits the usefulness of the shuttles. On the plus side, both the Quitman and Cavalcade light rail stops are included, so that’s good. I suspect those will be popular destinations for riders.

Beyond getting a ride to the light rail stations, where else might a shuttle rider want to go? This is where I struggle to understand Metro’s purpose in deploying this to the Heights. Where would one take this shuttle, given that it’s daytime only (and thus not an option for, say, going to a restaurant with limited parking or the Heights Theater)? You could go to the HEB on Shepherd, if there’s an accessible entrance from the side, but not to the Kroger on Shepherd and 11th or the one on Studemont just south of I-10. You can get to the two post offices and to the Heights hospital on 19th, so that’s something. I’m really not sure where else you’d need to go. What am I missing?

Anyway. I’m tempted to download the app for this thing and then take it to someplace in the North Zone from my house in the South Zone, and compare travel times to riding my bike there. I’ll report back if I do. Have you tried this, or are you tempted to? Where did you/would you take it?

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Another CD18 contender

Posted on April 27, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

From The Downballot

Zoe Cadore, who works as a lobbyist for an energy company, became the latest Democrat to enter the special election for Texas’ 18th District on Tuesday. Cadore, a former congressional staffer who was Miss Houston in 2013, is competing with several other candidates in the Nov. 4 all-party race to replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner in this safely Democratic seat.

I don’t know that “lobbyist for an energy company” is going to be the kind of vibe that catches on with CD18 voters this year – unless maybe it’s a renewable energy company – but we’ll see. Politico teased this last month (spoiler alert: it’s not a renewable energy company she works for), I found that when I googled her name, as this was the first I’d heard of this. Hard to break through when Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards and Isaiah Martin are out there raising money. Cadore’s name was among those of the non-money-raisers, and I didn’t give her any thought because I’d not heard of her. My bad, but we’ll see how she does from here. It’s going to be hard to break through. Here’s a brief profile about her if you want to know more.

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