Still recovering from tryptophan overexposure...
Let the people pick Obama's successor in Illinois.
The dark side of camera phones. Via McGuff.
Time to start thinking about Christmas gifts!
Confessions of an unrepentant BlackBerry addict. Yeah, I'm like that, too. Via Rob on Twitter.
Is it time to consider moving up Inauguration Day?
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performs Shaft. Can you dig it?
Foes of stem cell research now face tough time. As well they should. Via Oliver Willis.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Bacon really does make everything better.
This sounds about right.
House Speaker Tom Craddick's critics say they've got enough signed pledges against him to make his re-election all but impossible.But Craddick's opponents have yet to coalesce around a challenger seeking to replace him, ensuring that behind-the-scenes jockeying for one of the most coveted political offices in Texas could continue right up until the Legislature convenes Jan. 13.
If this were a retention election, like some states have for judges, I feel confident that Tom Craddick would be voted out. The problem is that this is basically a multi-candidate special election, and under any scenario I can think of at this time, Craddick will have more votes than any of his eight or so challengers. I don't know if House rules require a majority or not, but even if it goes to a runoff, I have to think he'd be enough people's second choice to hang on to his office. More simply put, as Patricia Kilday Hart noted in a nice overview of the Speaker's race, "You can't vote for speaker a guy named 'Anybody But Craddick'". I hate to say it, but until it's Craddick versus one consensus candidate, not Tom Craddick Versus The World, he's the favorite.
[Rep. Burt Solomons, R-Carrollton, a former Craddick ally who recently announced his own candidacy for speaker,] said he has about 15 members who are ready to emerge publicly as his "second wave" once it becomes evident he can be elected speaker."They just want to feel comfortable that there can be life after Tom. That's all there is to it," Solomons said. "It's not as if they dislike Tom. It's not as if they want to hang him on a tree. But they also understand where we are, here. A lot of that is sinking in now because of the reality of the numbers."
Solomons won't say how many of his GOP colleagues make up his first wave of support.
"I have enough to make it clear that Tom can't win, but when they stand up, it makes it more clear," he said. "I think we are two or three weeks away from getting this thing decided."
That sounds a lot like the old newsgroup claim that the lurkers support me in email. I'm skeptical of Solomons' statement because I'd bet that other Speaker hopefuls could say the same thing to some degree. I hope one of them is right, but until members put their cards on the table and make their intentions known, it's all wishful thinking.
Nice little slideshow from the Houston Press about some downtown eyesores. I daresay it's a largely uncontroversial list, though I personally have no particular beef with the look of either the Alley Theater or the George R. Brown Convention Center. But hey, eye of the beholder and all that. As noted, only one of those buildings is likely to get a facelift soon. Now I'd like to see a similar list for the rest of Houston, since Lord knows there's ugly buildings in other places, too.
We've been waiting for this for a long time: A study of the effects of red light cameras in Houston.
Mayor Bill White's administration plans next week to release a report on whether the 70-camera system has achieved its stated mission of reducing crashes at intersections.The study, compiled for the Houston Police Department by researchers at Rice University and the Texas Transportation Institute, is said to show that monitored intersections are safer.
"The percentage of accidents caused by people running red lights where there are red-light cameras goes down," the mayor said last week.
White's office declined to release the report, in the works more than a year, saying it still needs clarification on some points.
A favorable study could give HPD a green light to install dozens more cameras, despite the controversy among some who criticize the program.
Critics argue they aren't effective at reducing wrecks. Rather, they say, the city is mainly interested in collecting the $75 fines.
Well, the critics used to say that the cameras were in violation of the state constitution, but they were wrong about that. Whatever the study says, I rather doubt that these people are going to change their tune. The question is whether they'll have data on their side, or if they'll have to find a new angle of attack. I'm looking forward to reading the report, and I hope it helps to at least settle a few questions about the implementation of the cameras here.
The Star Telegram talks about what the election of Wendy Davis to the State Senate means.
With Davis, they now have 12 members -- one more than the 11 votes needed to block legislation in the 31-member Senate -- and hope to expand to what they would consider a lucky 13 if Chris Bell wins a runoff for a Houston-area seat.[...]
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, who has led Senate Democrats since 2003, said that senators from both parties traditionally put the interests of their districts above partisanship, with Democrats and Republicans often coalescing along rural-urban lines or forming blocs based on particular issues.
Nevertheless, she said, "there are a few core what I'd call non-negotiables for Senate Democrats." She said they will be "absolutely united" against any attempt to revive a voter identification bill, a measure Democrats blocked last year in a confrontation with Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the Senate's Republican presiding officer.
Other non-negotiables, she said, would include legislation that Democrats perceive as attempts to weaken the state's public education system or diminish voting rights. Moreover, she said, Democrats are likely to "congeal" around other issues such as insurance, healthcare and consumer protection.
[...]
Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, who grew up in Saginaw, said that Democrats, with their strengthened bargaining position, might refuse to support certain items in the budget unless they have assurances that state children's health programs will be fully funded to their satisfaction.
The new Senate configuration also dilutes conservative Republican control of the chamber, Watson said, and creates "a greater opportunity" for bipartisan cooperation. "It swings power back toward the center -- not all the way there, but it moves it in that direction," he said.
The Senate requires a two-thirds vote to bring up legislation, meaning 11 senators can stop a bill from coming to the floor. Davis' added vote makes it easier for Democrats to forge a bill-stopping bloc.
In particular, it makes the caucus less dependent on the health of Sen. Mario Gallegos and the transitory goodwill of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst; you may recall Dewhurst's attempt to pull a fast one last year when Sen. Carlos Uresti was home sick. Davis' presence gives them some slack. It also means they're less dependent on the whims of Sen. Eddie Lucio, who wasn't exactly a model of dependability. All these are very good things. Given the budget battles that are likely to come up next year, having more leverage and one more voice for progressive principles will be huge.
And of course, we can still do better than that. If having twelve Democratic Senators is good, having thirteen would be super. That means doing whatever needs to be done to get Chris Bell elected on December 16. If we're really lucky, this will be the last legislative session with Rick Perry as Governor. Wouldn't it be great if it was with the most Democratic legislature he's had to face since his first term? Please go visit Chris Bell.com and see what you can do to help. Thanks very much.
Finally, you have to wonder if the Democratic establishment up in North Texas isn't kicking itself over a couple of missed opportunities to make even bigger inroads in the Senate. Sen. Chris Harris, whose district covers parts of Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant counties, won with an unimpressive 54% of the vote against a complete non-entity named Melvin Willms. One can only imagine what might have happened had he faced a challenger of Wendy Davis' qualities and resources. I can't wait to get statewide precinct data to see what might have been there. And in Dallas County, Sen. John Carona was re-elected with 56.3% against Rain Minns, who I thought was smart and ambitious, but also young and way underfunded. Given how much more Democratic Dallas is these days, you'd think Carona (and for that matter, US Rep. Pete Sessions) would have had a bigger target on his back, but it wasn't to be. 2012, anyone?
I know, I know, it just sounds wrong. But hear them out.
Tofu tamales in Texas?One family-owned Houston business is making money selling vegan tamales.
Members of the Chiu family, owners of Banyan Foods, don't take themselves too seriously and have heard plenty of tofu jokes.
The business's red chile and green chile tofu tamales package proclaims: Santa Anna, Chiang Kai-Shek and Stephen F. Austin "are rolling over in their graves right about now."
Their path towards tamale-making began three decades ago. Carol Chiu and her former husband and two sons moved to Houston from Taipei, Taiwan, hoping to go into the import-export business.
But shortly after arriving, she bought some tofu at a local grocery store that she discovered had spoiled.
"How about we make tofu?" said Carol Chiu, company president. "The whole family loved tofu."
[...]
In 2001, the family began selling tofu-stuffed egg rolls.
"It was a way to put tofu in a customers hands in a recognizable form," said Gary Chiu, Banyan Foods vice president.
They added an assortment of other soy foods and entrees, including tamales. In 2005, they began making tamales of tofu instead of more traditional fillings like chicken, pork or beef.
"There's skepticism," Gary Chiu said of the tofu tamale.
A tamale fan since first tasting one a few years ago, Gary Chiu wanted to make a healthier, yet still tasty, version of tamales.
"I think a lot of them would make the healthier choice," he said.
He doles out samples of the corn husk-stuffed food at local Whole Foods Market stores several days a week.
"I expected people to say, 'This is not bad,' " Gary Chiu said. "People were saying, 'This is as good as my grandmother's tamales from the border towns.' "
We've had their eggrolls. They're pretty good. And though I believe it comes from a different company, Tiffany has bought soy taco meat and soy chorizo, both of which are pretty decent and a whole lot less greasy than the real thing. Both of our girls love tamales, so I feel confident that I'll see these in our fridge sooner or later. And that's all fine.
But I still draw the line at tofurkey. Some things just should not be messed with.
So I'd said before that I'd made an attempt to compile a Genius list based on something like "Zoot Suit Riot" and got nothing but jazz songs. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. Still, I thought I'd give it another chance with a swing number, this time "Jump, Jive & Wail" by the Brian Setzer Orchestra. And the results were much more interesting. First, as listed:
1. "Jump, Jive & Wail" - The Brian Setzer Orchestra
2. "You and Me and the Bottle Makes 3 Tonight" - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
3. "What You Need" - INXS
4. "Tush" - ZZ Top
5. "Burning Down the House" - Talking Heads
6. "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" - They Might Be Giants
7. "Late In the Evening" - Paul Simon
8. "Something To Talk About" - Bonnie Raitt
9. "I Wanna Be Like You" - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
10. "December 1963 (Oh, What A Night)" - Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
That's different from the previous attempt. Maybe having Brian Setzer be a part of if gets it tagged more as "classic rock" than anything jazz-related, with some obvious swing stuff thrown in to make it feel right. Moving on to the list as played:
1. "Jump, Jive & Wail" - The Brian Setzer Orchestra
2. "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" - The Police
3. "Ding Dong Daddy of the D-Car Line" - Cherry Poppin' Daddies
4. "Statesboro Blues" - Allman Brothers
5. "Rocky Mountain Way" - Joe Walsh
6. "The Longest Time" - Billy Joel
7. "She Drives Me Crazy" - Fine Young Cannibals
8. "Rock n Roll Hoochie Koo" - Rick Derringer
9. "Can't Help Falling In Love" - Elvis Presley
10. "Cat Scratch Fever" - Ted Nugent
Gotta admire the Cherry Poppin' Daddies/Allman Brothers pairing. That's genre crossing we can believe in. I take back a little bit more of what I've said about Genius' limitations.
Have I mentioned lately how glad I am that Sheriff-elect Adrian Garcia administered such a thorough butt-kicking to Tommy Thomas? Apparently, Thomas has not been particularly gracious or professional in defeat.
Garcia soundly beat Tommy Thomas by 12 points on election night after a bitter campaign. As we first reported, Thomas never called Garcia afterwards. And while Garcia calls his one meeting since with Thomas cordial, it hasn't exactly been easy for Garcia to get vital information out of him. Last week he asked Sheriff Thomas for key documents about spending and the jail investigation."I have not received them," Garcia said. "It concerns me, but we're moving forward."
Stay classy, Tommy. In the end, this won't matter much - unlike, say, the Presidential transition, the things that need to be dealt with in the Sheriff's office can wait a couple of weeks. What's important is that the change is coming, and everyone knows it. Even if Tommy Thomas doesn't want to do anything about it.
I have no problem with this.
Metro has unsuccessfully floated the idea of placing advertising on buses and shelters, but lean economic times call for a renewed effort.The Metropolitan Transit Authority has about 2,000 bus shelters in Houston, and the ads could mean $15 million to Metro in the first five years, according to the transit agency.
Metro, however, remains in the early stages of the proposal, and Houston's City Council would have ultimate say, said Metro board member George A. DeMontrond III.
"There's no sense debating it before we know if it's going to be worthwhile," DeMontrond said during a recent board meeting.
Metro could begin receiving formal proposals from advertising agencies by next summer.
I've already suggested they put ads in the light rail cars - if nothing else, they could be used to help businesses affected by rail construction - so I certainly see no problem with this. What exactly are the objections?
Mayor Bill White and some council members were among those who early on expressed reticence about Metro's plan.White's administration has taken a hard-line stance on billboards that he and other leaders argue clutter the city's skyline.
White suggested that Metro should first approach Houston's beautification groups, which he referred to as "stakeholders," to win their approval.
"I believe that Metro should engage with stakeholders, including people who have fought hard to improve the physical appearance of our city," White said. "Those stakeholders should also engage with Metro to determine if there are sources of revenue that could help us expand mass transit without creating visual blight."
Okay, I guess I understand that. I suppose I don't think of bus stops as being particularly scenic myself, so I don't see adding ads to them as much of a marginal detraction. But fine, let's let the beautification folks have some input on this, as long as they are willing to be open-minded.
Speaking of (not) being open-minded:
If city leaders take up Metro's proposal next year, Councilwoman Toni Lawrence said she would be a hard sell."The money is not reason enough for me," she said. "Tell me something besides money."
What more do you need to know? Seriously, what is the objection here? Metro isn't doing this to increase profits, it's doing it to cover costs. You're going to have to give me a reason for opposing this potential revenue source besides that to convince me you're not just being obstructionist. I just don't see the problem.
The comedienne Rita Rudner once said that the reason men barbecue is because they'll cook if danger is involved. She could just as easily have been talking about frying a turkey.
Deep-fried turkey has been hailed as the solution to a perennial problem of Thanksgiving: a dried-out roast turkey.Deep-fried turkey is juicy and quick. Emeril Lagasse has endorsed it. Martha Stewart has endorsed it. It's a Thanksgiving tradition with a kick. It's also an incredible fire hazard.
The turkey fryers -- which combine gallons of boiling oil, open propane gas fires and often unstable frames -- can easily become flame throwers, fire safety experts say.
Because of the number of fires and burns, national fire safety groups essentially urge people not to fry turkeys. The city's Fire Department has issued a warning about turkey fryers. And Underwriters Laboratories, a nonprofit group that gives safety certifications for everything from hair dryers to space heaters, has refused to put its UL safety mark on any turkey deep fryer.
"There are no UL listed turkey fryers because the turkey fryers on the market do not have the level of safety features we deem necessary," said John Drengenberg, a spokesman for UL.
Most turkey fryers are essentially a large pot over sitting on a frame over an open propane flame, he explained. Most don't have thermostat controls, and there are situations when the hot oil can spill over into the fire. "Then you've got something like a vertical flame thrower in your hands," he said.
Boy, how can you resist something like that? It's probably too late for this year, but if you want to try this yourself, here are plans for a do-it-yourself turkey frying derrick (PDF) that may help reduce the risk of flaming death. Bon appetit, and Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Thanks to hangingfire for the links.
The recount in HD105 can now begin, according to a Dallas district court judge, who ruled he did not have the jurisdiction to act on the Democratic lawsuit over "emphasis votes".
State District Judge Jim Jordan on Tuesday said legal questions over how best to conduct a recount in the House District 105 race should be addressed. But, he said, his court wasn't the correct venue for it."I was looking forward to this case," Judge Jordan said in ruling that only an appellate court or the state Supreme Court has jurisdiction. "It has some interesting issues I would have enjoyed working with. And it has issues that need dealing with."
Judge Jordan issued his jurisdictional ruling after hearing all the evidence and testimony in the case that centers on two hot-button election issues - straight-party voting and electronic voting machines.
Democratic Party attorneys, who filed the suit Friday, said they had not decided whether they would appeal the ruling.
Unless another court gets involved, Dallas County elections officials will begin the recount Monday in the District 105 race using the most recent instructions issued directly to them by the Texas secretary of state's office. Those say that "deselected" or "emphasis" votes from electronic machines should not be counted.
[...]
Among the arguments presented during two days of testimony were whether the secretary of state should be a party to the suit, whether any "emphasis" or "deselected" votes existed and what orders Judge Jordan would have been able to hand down if he did have jurisdiction.
Judge Jordan said Tuesday that if a higher court rules that he does have jurisdiction, he has already weighed testimony, evidence and arguments about the case itself.
"I'm ready to rule if they kick it back," he said.
I'd like to see someone address these issues, too, though ideally it would be the Legislature. In the meantime, let's get this recount going.
Preparing for a new administration in Washington, Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that regulating greenhouse gas emissions would have "devastating implications" for Texas' economy and energy industry.Although the Bush administration has rejected such regulation, President-elect Barack Obama is believed to be more receptive to clamping down on the gases that have been blamed for global warming.
Perry said he plans to discuss his concerns with Obama next week. He is among several governors accepting an invitation to discuss the economic crisis with Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden on Dec. 2 in Philadelphia.
Perry said Texas' economy continues to outperform the rest of the nation. But, he warned, the regulation of greenhouse gases, as outlined in a notice posted by the outgoing Environmental Protection Agency administrator last summer, would run Texas "right off the tracks, into the ditch."
Oh, cry me a polluted river. This is nothing but politics and fearmongering, and I hope President-elect Obama gives it all of the respect and attention it deserves.
Texas' new business tax is $1.2 billion short of what it was expected to bring into state coffers its first year, even after adding extension payments made so far, the comptroller's office said Tuesday.The shortfall means lawmakers will have to rely more heavily on other revenue sources to help offset the cost of subsidizing a cut in local school property tax rates.
Officials said higher-than-anticipated sales, oil-and-gas and cigarette tax collections will more than make up the gap -- but lawmakers also face new demands, including costs associated with damage from Hurricane Ike and the impact on Texas from the national economic downturn.
"What we thought was a surplus very well may not be a surplus at all," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, referring to $10.7 billion in unspent revenue that lawmakers have been expecting when they return in regular session in January.
Comptroller Susan Combs won't issue a new revenue estimate until Jan. 12, the day before the Legislature convenes, said her spokesman, R.J. DeSilva.
Well, you can't say we weren't warned. I'm glad to hear that other revenues made up the difference this time around, but with the economy in recession and oil prices back below $50 a barrel, we should not expect that trend to continue. Of course, the "surplus" of which Rep. Chisum speaks was always more mirage than reality. It's just now the fig leaf is disappearing as well.
"I think we're pretty much on the verge of putting the first year to bed," said Dale Craymer, chief economist for the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association and a member of the state's Business Tax Advisory Committee."We'll know a lot more in year two," he said, when businesses are more familiar with the tax and transitional provisions expire.
[...]
Chisum and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, agreed with Craymer that the tax's true yield won't be apparent until at least the second year.
"Really, we won't know till next cycle," said Keffer. "It's certainly not what some in the business community and some of the right-wingers were saying -- that we're going to be killing business" with higher-than-projected tax collections.
[...]
Chisum said it may take three years of tax collections "before you get a real good feeling of where you are."
I've said it before and I'll say it again: It sure would have been nice to have known at the time that the revenue projections for this new tax that were used during the 2006 special session were not to be taken seriously. How can you budget like that? Those huge property tax cuts, for which this was supposed to pay, look even more irresponsible now. Honestly, how can these guys claim with any credibility at all that they were fiscally conservative and prudent if we couldn't say with any real confidence how much money we were going to have? Unbelievable.
Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, however, voiced concern that lawmakers have so little information now, with the legislative session looming."It was supposed to be money that we could count on meeting a basic promise, but yet here we are on the eve of a session and we have so little data about why it may be failing to live up to the promise that was made," said Watson, a member of the state's Business Tax Advisory Committee.
He said the fact that it's a new tax can't be used to avoid action this session, because that means the Legislature could turn to "old practices of the past, which are to compromise already compromised programs," such as transportation and the Children's Health Insurance Program to bridge budget gaps.
Yes, that's precisely my fear as well. I've seen this movie before, and I know how it ends. There's no possible way that the Republican leadership will admit that we cannot afford that ginormous property tax cut, so the poor and the children can expect to take it in the shorts again. I'm so lookng forward to this next session, let me tell you.
I'm going to take a holiday break from the precinct data, but don't worry, I've got more stuff in the works. And yes, Peter Wang, I promise to do an analysis of the Steve Radack-Dexter Handy race. In the meantime, here are a few other views of the data:
Marc Campos has some pie charts that show voting behavior in Harris County in precincts that are 70% or more Anglo, black, and Hispanic. As someone who's been digging through precinct data for days and days now, I don't think it told me much that I didn't already know, but it's interesting to look at anyway. If you prefer pictures to all the numbers I've been throwing at you, you'll appreciate these charts, so check them out.
Meanwhile, new BOR front-pager Katherine Haenschen takes a look at the counties that had the greatest increase in Democratic votes over 2004. I covered some of this earlier, but she goes into some more depth, and sees some new things. I'm glad the idea that Democrats made gains in places you wouldn't have expected is being more widely recognized. She's got more number-crunching in the works, so keep an eye on it.
And finally, Greg breaks down the Harris County vote into City of Houston/non-City of Houston components. A bigger share of the vote inside city limits like we saw this year would be a very nice thing to continue to have.
Chuck Rosenthal may be gone, but sadly his brand of "humor" lives on at the courthouse.
The Harris County Republican Party chairman is calling for a GOP misdemeanor court judge to resign because, using the courthouse computer system, he circulated e-mail in 2006 that ridiculed blacks, Hispanics, women and gays and contained a racial slur.Chairman Jared Woodfill's move against County Court at Law No. 6 Judge Larry Standley comes 11 months after Woodfill and other party leaders called for the resignation of District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal over his scandalous e-mails. Rosenthal resigned a few months later after the controversy intensified.
Standley, re-elected in 2006 to a four-year term, said his only response to criticism now is that his actions were cleared by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which deliberates in private.
"If there were any complaints filed, they were investigated and they were dismissed," he said.
The commission did look into a complaint about the e-mails and took no official action, according to several officials.But controversy about Standley's electronic messages resurfaced this month when County Court at Law No. 14 Judge Mike Fields, the only black misdemeanor court judge here, failed to win a promotion by Gov. Rick Perry to a vacant seat on a Houston-based appeals court.
Woodfill had recommended Fields, a Republican, for the job. He said he later learned Fields had encountered resistance because his objection to the e-mails in 2006 had strained his relationships with other judges.
With copies of the e-mails now in hand, Woodfill recently had Fields and Standley explain their actions to the party's advisory committee, the same group that helped push out Rosenthal.
Woodfill said merely the content of Standley's e-mails justifies calling for his resignation, regardless of whether the fallout affected Fields.
"When you see racism like that you have to kill it one act at a time," Woodfill said. "Regardless of what party you are affiliated with, you have to stand up and say it was wrong."
"The people have given him the trust of the office of judge, and when you have sent e-mail like that you have compromised the trust that people have given to you," he added. "You surrender the moral authority when you promulgate e-mails like that. They are not funny and they have no business in the courthouse or your personal life."
First things first, kudos to Woodfill for doing the right thing. That can't have been particularly easy for a county party chair after his party just lost a bunch of elections, but he did it anyway, and that's commendable. Too bad Judge Standley doesn't see it that way.
As it happens, I recently went through a mandatory corporate training session on harassment in the workplace. I don't care what the conduct commission said, what Standley did is exactly the sort of thing that would very quickly land you in hot water with HR at just about any private company in town. His lame excuse shows that he doesn't get it, and the snippy comment from his fellow Judge Sherman Ross shows he's not alone in that. I don't know about you, but all of a sudden I'm really looking forward to voting these jokers out in 2010. Thanks in advance for the incentive, fellas.
UPDATE: Mark Bennett has a different view.
Okay, look. This sort of thing doesn't bother me.
Daniel Pue is one of 14 people -- including two other Texans -- who received a pardon from the outgoing president on Monday.Daniel Pue by no means will go down in the annals of high-profile pardons. It's not surprising why. His original crime? Transporting sludge.
He was convicted in 1996 on federal charges of illegal storage, disposal and transportation of a hazardous waste without a permit, according to court records. The waste was pentachlorophenol and creosote sludge. He was sentenced to three years' probation with six months' home detention on each charge. The sentences were to run concurrently. He was also fined $1,000.
[...]
After his sentence, Daniel Pue took seriously the advice of his parole officer who told him to closely follow the restrictions placed on him. His good behavior, she said, could one day make a good case for a pardon request.
He completed his six months' home confinement but never tried to pursue a pardon until his daughter, Karen Flint, decided to take action. As part of a college government class project, she wrote a letter to the president asking for a pardon for her father.
"We were challenged by our instructor to make a difference and write somebody in office," said Flint, 37. "Some students were writing about potholes. I had more important things on my mind. My dad was a top priority."
Flint mailed the letter in February 2003 and got a reply in May 2003 that included paperwork to apply for a pardon. Daniel Pue and his wife completed the application and mailed it. They received a reply about a month later seeking more information, he said.
The Pues didn't hear anything for another two years. Then one day, an FBI agent called about doing a pardon investigation, Daniel Pue said.
The agent interviewed Daniel Pue, his wife, family, neighbors and co-workers, and said the information would be sent to the pardon attorney for review. That was the last Daniel Pue heard about the pardon, until Monday.
I don't know that this guy, or any of the other pardon recipients from yesterday, is any more worthy of this peculiar quirk of our Constitution, but whatever. They're small potatoes, and they benefitted from some good fortune. I'm happy for them. I would not be at all happy if the same kind of good fortune were to be visited on these people.
With a backlog of applications piled up at the Justice Department, high-profile criminals and their well-connected lawyers increasingly are appealing directly to President Bush for special consideration on pardons and clemency, according to people involved in the process.Among those seeking presidential action are former junk-bond salesman Michael Milken, who hired former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, one of the nation's most prominent GOP lawyers, to plead his case for a pardon on 1980s-era securities fraud charges. Two politicians convicted of public corruption, former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) and four-term Louisiana governor Edwin W. Edwards (D), are asking Bush to shorten their prison terms.
Duke Cunningham and Edwin Edwards are the sort of people for whom Presidential pardons get a bad name. And that doesn't even begin to take into account the possibility of all kinds of preemptive pardons for the eight years of unchecked vandalism, destruction, and general lawlessness that has been the Bush regime. I'm not willing to call for the repeal of this Constitutional power the President has, but I think the suggestions in the first comment hits the high points of where changes for the better could be made: No lame-duck pardons, no pardons of Executive branch officials without Congressional approval, and no preemptive pardons. What do you think? WaPo link via Steve Benen.
This would be excellent if it happens.
State Rep. Rick Noriega of Houston, the unsuccessful U.S. Senate candidate who served in Afghanistan and on the Mexican border as a Texas Army National Guard officer, met with President-elect Barack Obama today as Obama worked on filling leadership positions in his administration, according to confidential sources.Democrat Noriega, who lost the Nov. 4 election to Republican incumbent John Cornyn, declined to discuss the meeting in Chicago. Obama's transition team spokesmen also declined to comment.
The meeting appeared to be a potential first step toward consideration of Noriega, 50, for appointment to an administration position, and no specific job was mentioned, according to people close to the process who spoke on the condition of not being identified.
How about director of FEMA? I think we can all agree that Noriega has the experience and the know-how to do an outstanding job, and would be exactly the right kind of person to whip that once-worthy agency back into shape. Stace was way ahead of the curve on this one.
Houston political consultant Marc Campos, a Hispanic Democratic activist, noted on his daily Internet diary today that "there is some grumbling going on in Latino political circles nationwide; there haven't been any Latinos announced for key positions in the new Obama administration -- nothing, nada, zilch. Unless I am missing something, there haven't been any Texans named either. Stay tuned on this one."
Maybe they haven't heard about Bill Richardson or Rep. Raul Grijalva, I don't know. Admittedly, neither is official yet, with only Richardson seemingly sure. But the names are out there. With Rep. Chet Edwards staying home, Noriega would be the first Texan named that I can think of.
"Excellent," fellow state House Democrat Garnet Coleman of Houston said when told Noriega had met Obama for possible consideration for a White House slot."He's got a lot of areas of expertise, particularly his experience as a soldier and an officer, but he has also worked on utilities (for CenterPoint Energy) and also has an understanding of all the issues that cross the state's desk," Coleman said.
Coleman mentioned that Obama, as a former Illinois state senator, knows the value of people who have worked at a detailed level with state policy.
Sources with knowledge of Obama's talk with Noriega indicated the transition team had not yet examined Noriega's personal financial records -- an inspection that precedes consideration of candidates for top-level appointments such as cabinet positions.
Obama's team will stay in touch with Noriega as personnel selections unfold before Obama takes office in late January, the sources said.
I sincerely hope this happens. Whether FEMA or something else, it would be a fine choice, and well deserved for Noriega.
The recount in HD105 has not gotten started yet, but there's plenty of courtroom action in the meantime.
The crux of the Dallas County case involves straight-party voting on electronic voting machines. When someone votes a straight-party ticket but then also selects the name of a candidate within that party in a particular race, electronic machines "deselect" that candidate. If no other candidate is chosen, no vote is counted in that race.On paper ballots, however, if someone votes a straight-party ticket and then selects a candidate from that party in a particular race, the vote for that candidate still counts. Democrats call this "emphasis voting" in both paper ballot and electronic machine voting.
Attorneys for the Democratic Party this week said the state's election law instructs officials to count those votes.
A memo from the Texas Secretary of State's Office to Dallas County elections officials last week said that deselected or emphasis votes from electronic machines should not be counted.
But an earlier memo to all Texas elections administrators and county clerks said to count emphasis votes. That October memo did not indicate whether state officials were referring to paper ballots, electronic voting machines or both.
On Monday, Republican attorneys accused Democrats of trying to use the courts to contest the election results when that can be done only in front of the state House - typically after a recount.
"It just goes to show why it's important to have this type of discussion after the ... [recount] rather than before," said Wade Emmert, who is representing Ms. Harper-Brown.
I actually think it would have been better to have had this argument before we started voting, so that everyone understood the rules going in and so that interested parties could try to better educate voters about the procedures, but it's too late for that now. I suspect what Mr. Emmert means is that this should be done during an election contest, when an appointed chairperson could interview the "emphasis voters" and try to ascertain their intent. We may yet endure that scenario.
Phillip and KT have been discussing the legal aspects of this. While I respect Phillip's arguments, I don't agree with them. I say this because for the first time in my life, I pushed the straight-ticket Democratic button this year. I then went to one specific race, and de-selected the Democratic candidate in that race. This was not an "emphasis" vote, it was a deliberate and intentional choice on my part to not cast a vote for that particular candidate. I don't know what kind of e-voting machines they use in Dallas, but here in Harris taking this action caused a screen to pop up informing me that I was causing that vote to go away. It's certainly possible that someone could dismiss that screen without understanding it, but it was there, and it was more than I had expected. That makes me highly skeptical of this argument. KT sees it the same way.
While I agree that this is a poor time for the Secretary of State to announce these different interpretations of the law for paper (absentee) ballots versus electronic ones, it seems to me there really is a fundamental difference in the two types of ballot. Checking the straight-ticket box on a paper ballot simply marks one box. I can totally understand how someone, seeing the vast swath of unchecked boxes that follow, could want to go to a particular race and literally or metaphorically underline a candidate they really like. With the eSlate, at least here in Harris, clicking the "straight ticket" button fills in the box of every candidate of that party on the ballot. An "emphasis vote" here, in addition to the aforementioned warning screen, blanks out the box for that candidate; the summary screen at the end also informs you that you made no selection in that race. I'm sorry, but the most charitable thing I could say about someone who did all that and walked away assuming they had voted for the person in question is that they are unobservant. I have a real hard time accepting the argument that they intended to cast a vote in the race given these conditions.
Now, this is not to say that we couldn't do a better job with e-voting machine interfaces. Maybe when you cast a straight-party vote, it should gray everything out, inform you that you have cast a vote for every member of that party on the ballot, then ask you if 1) you want to undo any of those votes, and 2) if you want to add votes in races where there wasn't a candidate from your party; if you answer "no" to each, it takes you straight to the finish line. That at least would clear up the intent issue once and for all. But I still don't think that intent is in question here, at least not based on what I've seen so far. Maybe the courtroom arguments will sway me, I don't know. I look forward to hearing them.
UPDATE: I mistakenly misrepresented KT's argument, which was the opposite of Phillip's. The post has been updated to reflect that.
If studying all the precinct data for Harris County seems too daunting, you can get a pretty good representation of the county in a smaller scale by studying HD133, where Rep.-elect Kristi Thibaut unseated freshman Rep. Jim Murphy in a rematch of 2006. With one lone exception, the result in HD133 mirrored the countywide result for every single Democrat that was on the ballot; the exceptional case was for the 333rd Civil Court, where Democrat Goodwille Pierre nipped Judge Tad Halbach in the district. No other district I've looked at comes anywhere near to this similarity.
There's another aspect in which HD133 offers a good lesson on Harris County as a whole, and that's in the matter of turnout, especially when compared to 2006. To illustrate, let's look at how Thibaut did in each year. There's not that many precincts in HD133, so we can look at them individually. Unlike some other districts, HD133 is basically split between CDs 07 and 09, with Westheimer being a dividing line through the district separating the 7th to the north and the 9th to the south. Here's a look at the precincts in each CD from 2006:
CD07 - 2006Pcnct Votes Turnout Murphy Thibaut T Pct T Margin
======================================================
130 1295 54.09 918 320 25.85 -598
356 1249 39.51 786 386 32.94 -400
395 901 49.32 608 246 28.81 -362
437 1100 50.39 766 255 24.98 -511
438 1023 54.71 737 246 25.03 -491
483 1576 34.58 884 598 40.35 -286
492 1029 36.55 652 328 33.47 -324
493 862 45.46 581 242 29.40 -339
499 1267 54.15 896 321 26.38 -575
504 1176 51.47 777 348 30.93 -429
625 856 44.75 501 303 37.69 -198
626 1102 36.83 598 428 41.72 -170
706 182 33.09 103 65 38.69 -38
727 513 19.96 193 280 59.20 87Total 14,131 41.93 9000 4366 32.66 -4634
CD09 - 2006Pcnct Votes Turnout Murphy Thibaut T Pct T Margin
======================================================
96 209 16.76 40 153 79.27 113
338 1067 23.96 355 636 64.18 281
429 823 20.64 230 536 69.97 306
487 653 19.87 216 393 64.53 177
503 349 24.15 105 215 67.19 110
508 846 26.81 261 518 66.50 257
559 707 20.75 238 410 63.27 172
565 517 14.14 101 391 79.47 290
620 1500 28.45 741 660 47.11 -81
765 950 26.55 399 467 53.93 68Total 7621 22.76 2686 4379 61.98 1693
You wouldn't realize it if you just looked at the number of votes cast, but there were actually a few more registered voters in the CD09 half of the district as there were in the CD07 half - 33,490 in CD09 and 33,353 in CD07. But in 2006, the voters in the precincts that largely favored Thibaut stayed home in droves, and she lost by what looked like a large margin, 57.2% to 42.8% using two party numbers. That was close to the average countywide performance, which was 58.0% for the GOP and 42.0% in HD133 for the Dems. It was clear that this wasn't really representative of the district (or the county), and that Thibaut would get a boost from the fact that 2008 was a Presidential year. I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation by applying 2004 turnout numbers to each precinct, and assigning it the same percentage of the vote for each candidate, and estimated Thibaut would net between 46 and 47 percent of the vote under those conditions. Given that everyone expected more robust Democratic turnout this year compared to 2004, it was fair to assume the race would be close to even, before anyone did any campaigning.
Well, it was that and then some. Compare to 2008:
CD07 - 2008Pcnct Votes Turnout Murphy Thibaut T Pct T Margin
======================================================
130 1858 78.90 1383 410 22.87 -973
356 2136 71.65 1245 811 39.45 -434
395 1333 74.43 910 376 29.24 -534
437 1527 73.41 1097 371 25.27 -726
438 1379 77.70 1058 276 20.69 -782
483 2784 64.59 1381 1283 48.16 -98
492 1750 67.15 988 705 41.64 -283
493 1321 72.90 876 388 30.70 -488
499 1810 79.74 1346 410 23.35 -936
504 1688 75.42 1172 473 28.75 -699
625 1330 72.48 798 474 37.26 -324
626 1905 67.43 968 867 47.25 -101
706 342 63.10 174 155 47.11 -29
727 1430 62.83 409 964 70.21 555Total 22,593 71.24 13,805 7963 36.58 -5842
CD09 - 2008Pcnct Votes Turnout Murphy Thibaut T Pct T Margin
======================================================
96 698 62.04 72 600 89.29 528
338 2463 54.86 735 1540 67.69 805
429 2164 55.20 469 1574 77.04 1105
487 1576 50.08 484 997 67.32 513
503 729 51.52 234 450 65.79 216
508 1740 56.92 594 1045 63.76 451
559 2092 64.63 491 1492 75.24 1001
565 1569 46.52 233 1274 84.54 1041
620 3913 67.71 1738 1965 53.07 227
765 2216 60.56 827 1246 60.11 419Total 19,610 59.06 5877 12,183 67.46 6306
Now this begins to look like a district with an even partisan distribution of voters. In fact, CD09 increased its advantage in registrations to 33,402 to 31,712, but thanks to its near-tripling of turnout over 2006, it actually looks like it's of equivalent size. The CD07 precincts jumped by 75%, but that wasn't enough to hold the seat for Murphy. The rising Democratic tide swamped his boat. And that was reflected across the county.
All this is easy to see, and to my mind provides a quick and dirty refutation of Dave Mann's thesis that the Democratic Party in Harris County somehow failed to turn its voters out, but a closer look reveals something else. Thibaut increased her margin in each precinct in CD09, which included flipping Precinct 620 from red to blue. She also cut into Murphy's margin in four of the CD07 precincts - 483, 492, 626, and 706 - while building on the lead in 727. I don't want to reduce this to one precinct, but the gain Thibaut made in 727, which remember is in CD07, is greater than her margin of victory. Obviously, she needed the huge boost she got in the CD09 precincts, which is what everyone expected to happen. The point I'm making, the recurring theme throughout this election, is that she didn't make it on gains in Democratic districts alone. She needed the help she got in the CD07 precincts where she gained as well. At the county level, or in this microcosm of the county, that's the story of this election.
In addition to Loren Jackson, our new District Clerk, two more Democratic candidates who won elections to fill unexpired terms will be sworn into office this week. One is Judge Kathy Stone, who was elected to replace the late Judge Russell Austin in Probate Court #1. Via email from her campaign:
I will be officially sworn in on Wednesday, November 26 at 12:00 noon in Probate Court No. 1, 201 Caroline, 6th Floor. I hope to see you there.
And from Judge Robert Hinojosa, who was elected to serve the remaining term for Family District Court 312:
I am pleased to announce that I will be sworn in as Judge of the 312th Family District Court this coming Saturday, November 29th at 3 p.m., in the Great Hall of Christ Church Cathedral, 1117 Texas Avenue, entrance on San Jacinto.
Congratulations to Judges Stone and Hinojosa!
It's Thanksgiving time, but the Texas Progressive Alliance isn't taking the week off. Click on for the usual assortment of highlights.
jobsanger notes that some racists seem to think this election gives them permission to once again publicly display their sick beliefs in Racist Reaction To The Election.
The Texas Cloverleaf discusses the upcoming study that may result in a mileage based user fee rather than a gas tax for drivers in the US.
John Coby at reports the Texas Ethics Commission Fines State Representative Carl Isett $25,000
BossKitty at TruthHugger watches, with the rest of the world, America: A Spectator Sport or Soap Opera
Off the Kuff analyzes the precinct data for Harris County and declares the coordinated effort to get out the Democratic vote there a success, and that the Democratic base was everywhere you looked.
CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme claims the religious right exposes its dark underbelly with opposition to Prop 8.
McBlogger takes a moment to talk about the deficit, the economy and bailing us out. Because it's, you know, important.
WCNews at Eye On Williamson post on the issues the Texas GOP is grappling with post election in, The GOP brand is tarnished in Texas.
Barnett Shale Radioactive Waste is Bone-Seeking Carcinogen When Airborne and Has 1622 Year Half-Life TXsharon at Bluedaze.
Environment and education have been greatly on the mind of the Texas Kaos community this week. Front pager TxSharon gave us a heads up on Brett Shipp's expose of the Texas Railroad Commission on Bill Moyers Journal Friday, and diarist liberaltexan kept an eye on a Faith Based Initiative: Fundamentalist Religious Attack on Science in Texas.
Neil at Texas Liberal says that Galveston was a disaster before as well as after Hurricane Ike.
Vince at Capitol Annex poses a couple of questions about Tom Craddick's Secret Police and asks exactly why former State Rep. and ex-deputy parliamentarian Ron Wilson is running around the capitol with Parliamentarian Terry Keel and serving as a media escort/hatchet man for the Speaker.
The Texas Blue looks at how Tom DeLay's gerrymandering of the state has actually made Texas weaker on the national level than a fair apportionment would have.
The passing of Jim Mattox prompted a few reminiscences from Texas bloggers and corporate media. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs assembled a few, ahead of Monday's memorial service.
The final cumulative and canvass reports are out. I've been working off of a draft canvass, which did not include provisional ballots, so if you compare those numbers to mine you'll find a few differences here and there. Shouldn't be off by more than a handful of votes, but just so you know.
I've been poring through the data and will have a few more analyses to present before I call it quits on this, but the thing that has struck me about all of this is how little variation there is in candidate performances when you drill down. Adrian Garcia leads the pack wherever you look. The countywide candidates who did better overall do better at the district and precinct level. That seems intuitive and obvious, but I expected some regional variations, and for the most part I haven't seen them. I also expected to see Democratic downballot candidates do better against the top of the ticket, which was the norm in 2004, but for the most part the differences haven't been very great. That too was to be expected to some extent, but beyond the fact that Democrats clearly had less reason to stray, I think it also speaks to the success of the coordinated campaign's message, which was to vote Democratic all the way down the line. With very few exceptions, each Democrat got about as many votes as the others. That was the point of the coordinated campaign, and by and large it worked.
Of course, it wasn't enough to win everything, but given that the standard result for Democrats in Harris County had been to win nothing for over a decade, I don't see much point in quibbling. I think we'll see more of the same in 2010 and beyond, and it'll be up to the Republicans to find a way to break through, as a few of them did this year.
To me, the main question that remains is whether the pattern we saw in early voting this year is the new norm or an aberration. It's been funny to me to see people complain about how Harris Democrats "lost" Election Day this year, even as they were winning 27 of 34 countywide races and picking up a seat in the State House. It's true - other than Garcia (again), every countywide Democrat got fewer votes on Election Day than their Republican opponent. The same was true in absentee balloting as well. But it didn't matter, because the cushion they'd built up in early voting was enough to carry most of them across the finish line. And not to put too fine a point on it, but Democrats lost Election Day in 2004 as well. It's just that they also lost early voting that year, too, by a larger margin so nobody noticed or cared. I'll take what happened this year over what happened then, if you don't mind.
Anyway. Here's another interesting map from Matt Stiles, and a preview of the 2010 battlegrounds in Dallas from BOR. More analysis will be forthcoming here as well.
The Chron had an editorial over the weekend about the new ordinance passed by City Council that would require people to pay red light camera fines before they could register their car.
In an interview with the Chronicle, Houston Police Department chief financial officer and deputy director Joe Fenninger made a convincing case that concerns about the new enforcement system's reliability are unfounded.It's instructive to review how the red-light citation process works. After a vehicle is photographed running a light, a police officer reviews the video of the infraction and confirms the violation. The vehicle's current title is checked and the citation sent to the state's official address of record for the owner, the same destination for registration renewal notices.
By the time cited motorists face the possibility of a hold on their car's registration, they will have already received at least three notices over 84 days offering them the possibility of paying the fine over the phone by credit card, mailing in a check or paying in person at the Municipal Courts building.
A hold would not be imposed until after a citation has been processed through the court system and a judgment rendered. Those who fail to contest their cases in court would automatically be assessed $75 plus a $25 delinquency fee. Although the hold will be removed in two days' time after receipt of payment, presenting a valid receipt will allow citizens to renew registrations at the county even if the hold is still in place.
Since registration renewals are staggered throughout the year, it is unlikely that the new enforcement measure would produce long lines at the county.
"Seems to me that the easiest thing for people to do is to pick up the phone, make the call and give credit card information, and two days later the hold is cleared," says Fenninger. "You can then go ahead and renew by mail." Although city officials are considering a method to allow the fine to be paid at the county when picking up new vehicle tags, the need for such an option is in doubt.
Without an effective enforcement mechanism, the purpose of red-light cameras to prevent collisions and lower subsequent death, injury and damage totals is compromised. Those who criticize possible inconveniences to those ticketed are missing that basic point.
Well, for the most part, this is really just further criticism of the concept of the cameras themselves. That battle was lost in 2007 when the Lege passed Senate Bill 1119, which explicitly gave cities the right to install and operate red light cameras, with a final bow being put on it in February when anti-camera activist Michael Kubosh dropped his lawsuit against the city. Some of the camera critics have not accepted that reality, so they find other ways to carp about them. I think it was reasonable to have these objections, but I also think they don't present that great an obstacle. I think if we were talking about any other kind of scofflaws, this would have been totally uncontroversial.
It's interesting that Paul Bettencourt's office was one of the objectors to this plan, on the grounds that we couldn't adequately ensure we were denying vehicle registration to the right person. If they showed the same level of concern about voter registrations, maybe we would have had over two million voters this year as we should have. Priorities, I guess.
First they found the DNA. Now they're trying to do something with it.
Scientists for the first time have unraveled much of the genetic code of an extinct animal, the ice age's woolly mammoth, and with it they are thawing Jurassic Park dreams.Their groundbreaking achievement has them contemplating a once unimaginable future when certain prehistoric species might one day be resurrected.
"It could be done. The question is, just because we might be able to do it one day, should we do it?" asked Stephan Schuster, the Penn State University biochemistry professor and co-author of the new research. "I would be surprised to see if it would take more than 10 or 20 years to do it."
And hey, what could possibly go wrong?
No, seriously, this is way cool, and there are direct benefits today:
The more practical side of what this new research will do is point out better the evolutionary differences between mammoths and elephants and even humans and chimps, said [George Church, director of computational genomics at Harvard Medical School], who wasn't part of the study.Elephants and mammoths -- comparable in size at about 8 to 14 feet tall -- diverged along evolutionary paths about 6 million years ago, about the same time humans and chimps did, Schuster said. But there are twice as many differences between the genetic makeup of chimps and humans as those between elephants and mammoths.
"Primates evolved twice as fast as elephants," Schuster said. But some animals such as rodents have had even more evolutionary changes, indicating that it might have to do with size or metabolism, said study co-author Webb Miller.
[...]
Miller and Schuster noticed that most of the mammoths they examined had far less genetic diversity than other species that are still alive and that may also give a clue into the biology of extinction.
So the duo are also applying what they learned from the cold Siberian behemoth to their other efforts to help save the endangered Tasmanian devil of Australia. They notice the same dramatic lack of genetic diversity in that modern day creature, Schuster said.
I wish them luck with that.
T-minus 61 days till President Obama...
We are a center-left country. I like the sound of that.
Dealing with modern day pirates.
From the "Conservatism cannot fail, conservatism can only be failed" department. While I agree with Lutz's assertion that serving the corporate overlords is a foundation built on sand - and that's a lesson the Democrats should have learned in the 80s and 90s, but really haven't taken to heart and may well forget again now that they're on the rise - it seems to me that he hasn't given any consideration to the possibility that maybe some of those principles he touts aren't the electoral winners he thinks they are, at least not in 2008. Props for the potshots at TLR and Bob "Judgment-Proof" Perry, though.
You know, if you're going to pick a fight, you really have no grounds to complain when your targets fight back.
Great moments in parenting. Easily the best laugh I've had in weeks. Yes, I'm really 12 years old at heart.
Order a pizza from your TiVo. Unfortunately, it's just Domino's. Link via Dwight.
Loren Jackson's swearing in as our new District Clerk. Congrats, Loren!
Bush burrowing. A couple of years ago, I said it would take "at least one two-term Presidential administration" to undo the damage that the Bush regime has wrought on America. I now think that may be an understatement.
"Charlie Brown, I'm taking over the team." This would be the second-funniest thing I've seen this week. Link via Ta-Nehisi.
Mike Mussina has retired. Best wishes in retirement, Moose, and here's hoping the Hall of Fame comes calling in a few years.
Obama won 197 of 196 "battleground" electoral votes. Now that's a landslide!
My heart is filled with gladness at this news.
I ran into Roy Morales this morning, and he's definitely interested in running for office, again! A little refresher, the last time we talked about Mr. Morales, he was running against Melissa Noriega for City Council. Morales, a Republican, is a retired colonel from the military. He's also been active in a number of civic issues.Morales lost fairly handily to Noriega, but that's not stopping him from seriously considering a run for the City of Houston's top job. He said he's "seriously thinking" about it. Also, that he's talking to "a lot of my supporters."
After talking to a lot of my supporters, we all agree that a Roy Morales for Mayor campaign would be very good for the blogging business. You can do it, Roy! Your public awaits you!
This doesn't really come as a surprise to me, but it's still nice to see it backed up by some data.
The MacArthur Foundation has a message for parents worried about their children's use of the Internet: Chill out. A new study to be released today found that most teenagers steer clear of dangerous sites and use the Web only for research or to communicate with friends.It's just that, as usual, parents don't understand.
"One of the main things we found is that it is highly motivating for kids to learn from peers, whether it's the everyday social stuff or learning about new technology or making videos or doing creative writing," said Mizuko Ito, a University of California, Irvine researcher and the report's lead author. "They're learning a lot of the basic social and technical skills they need to participate in contemporary society. If kids are excluded from participating, they're not learning to engage with media and technology in the way that their peers are."
Two things: First, it never would have occurred to me to prevent my kids from using the Internet. It's such an ingrained part of my life - and frankly the lives of so many of my family members - that I can't imagine a reason to deny it to someone. Obviously, age and maturity level matter, and giving them access to it most certainly does not mean without adequate supervision and boundaries. But the idea from the beginning is that this is something they will want and need to know how to use, and it would be doing them a disservice to not teach them about it.
Second, the stuff about how kids are highly motivated to learn from their peers is just amazingly true, at least in my observation. Olivia is by far the biggest influence in Audrey's life - more so, I sometimes think, than Tiffany and I put together. Olivia is what Audrey wants to be, and does what Audrey wants to do, and I believe that has accelerated her development in a variety of ways. For her part, Olivia has generally been one of the youngest kids in her preschool class, and I believe that has fostered her learning, as she has striven to do what the older kids have done. As such, I can clearly see the benefit here. But even without observing my own kids, it makes sense to me.
Parents, the study said, are tough critics of the notion that updating your Facebook wall or posting a video to YouTube is as necessary as looking up information for a history paper.
Yeah, well, as a degenerate blogger/Twitterer/Facebooker/etc, I don't think I'd have much of a leg to stand on there. So it's just as well.
On a somber note, I am sad to report that Debutant has had a relapse of her leukemia, and is back in Houston for more treatment. Which is to say biopsies and chemo and other nasty stuff. And she'll be apart from her daughter Zoe during this time, and she's still doing combat with her insurance company, and, well, you get the idea. As her sister, my friend Stephanie, wrote to me, "When she is undergoing the chemo, she really has to be careful interacting with people because of germs, but the only germs over the interwebs is computer viruses. The internet really is her lifeline to people." So please, take a minute and leave Deb a note of encouragement as she re-fights this battle. Thanks very much.
It just keeps getting better down in Willacy County.
A county prosecutor who obtained indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday about special treatment for high-profile defendants as a routine motions hearing descended into chaos.Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, who is accusing the public officials of culpability in the alleged abuse of prisoners at a federal detention center, asked presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself. Guerra has complained about Banales' handling of the case, a probe he has dubbed "Operation Goliath."
Attorneys for the vice president and other defendants leapt to their feet in objection, as Guerra pounded the table and accused Banales of giving the defendants special treatment in allowing motions to quash the indictments to be heard before the defendants were arraigned.
"Now all of a sudden there is urgency!" Guerra shouted at Banales. "Eighteen months you kept me indicted through the election!"
Charges accusing Guerra of extorting money from a bail bond company and of using his office for personal business were dismissed in October, but he had already lost the March Democratic primary.
The defendants in the prisoner abuse case, who were not required to be in court, were all expected to waive arraignment, but the hearing never progressed that far.
"Did you think, judge, my grand jury didn't take this seriously?" Guerra said. "They indicted the vice president."
Banales called a recess to contact the chief justice of the state Supreme Court for suggestions on how to proceed, and ordered Guerra to remain in the courthouse.
"I will not obey that order," Guerra said, but agreed to stay if the judge asked him respectfully.
Banales adjourned until Wednesday.
The thing is, I do think his grand jury took this seriously, and if you read stuff like this, it's easy to see that there's some really nasty stuff associated with the detention facility, and it really does need to be investigated. It's just that DA Guerra, whom South Texas Chisme refers to as "DA Hissy Fit", may not be the best person to be in charge of such investigations. I just hope that the underlying problem here doesn't get lost in the circus.
Rick Ehrlich has high hopes for his new car dealership but it's not likely to strike much fear into competitors with lots full of gleaming vehicles from Detroit, Asia or Europe.From a small warehouse near Minute Maid Park, Ehrlich has launched Houston's first electric car dealership, selling the Zenn -- "zero emissions no noise."
Under state law, the cars are classified as "neighborhood electric vehicles," limited to 25 mph and banned from roads with speed limits over 35 mph. But the Canadian-built hatchbacks are hardly golf carts. The same car is sold in Europe with a diesel engine and can take to the highways.
"I don't have any illusions that we'll sell in high volumes, but it's a real car in every way," Ehrlich said. "It can carry two people nearly anyplace in the city for less than two cents per mile, while creating no air pollution."
[...]
Electric cars aren't for everyone, said Dale Brooks, an electrical engineer, president of the Houston Electric Auto Association and owner of three electric cars.
Depending on the model, the cars can travel from 25 to 70 miles on a charge. Only a few come with that critical Texas option, air conditioning. And some are subject to the speed maximums.
But the operating cost is well below that of a gasoline vehicle, with a full charge coming in at less than 50 cents and taking three to eight hours, depending upon the vehicle. Maintenance tends to be cheaper for electric cars, too, with just one-tenth the number of parts as vehicles with internal combustion engines. Most battery systems will last for years.
As a second car for most commutes or errands, Brooks said, an electric car is ideal.
"Detroit has defined what a car should be: a big piece of steel with cool lines that can travel at 120 mph and carry five people halfway across the continent in a day," Brooks said. "But it doesn't have to be that. Many of us live within 10 miles of our jobs and don't need a truck or a large vehicle for our work."
Most of the driving I do during the work week is (or at least has the option of being) non-highway. If a car like this could carry the kids and wasn't subject to that 25 MPH limitation (according to the sidebar, one of the many bills pre-filed this session by State Sen. Rodney Ellis would raise that limit to 35), then it might be practical for me. Obviously, I'd prefer having air conditioning, but could live without it (as I did with my first car, the 1969 Nova I inherited from my grandmother when I was in college) if I had to. I'll have to keep this in mind when it's time to replace the older of our existing cars.
I should note, by the way, that I find it amusing to have read this article on the same day as this one about the end of the Yugo. There's just something poetic about it somehow.
The small town of Santa Fe joins in the school zone cellphone banning brigade.
Santa Fe has joined West University Place in banning drivers from using cell phones while passing through school zones.By a 3 to 2 vote, the Santa Fe City Council adopted the restrictions Thursday night, said Mayor Ralph Stenzel.
The Galveston County city, population 10,000, wanted to protect children after having reports of accidents in school zones triggered by drivers distracted by their cell phones, Stenzel said.
[...]
Those caught breaking the rule can be fined up to $200. Under the rule, motorists cannot use their cell phones while traveling through a school zone when the lights are flashing.
"If they have an emergency or something, they should pull over and stop before using their phone," Stenzel said.
So Santa Fe joins West U Highland Park, San Antonio and probably others that I'm not aware of, with others likely at least studying it. Add into the mix places like Austin looking at banning texting while driving, and I'm thinking we'll see someone introduce a bill in Austin to deal with all this stuff at a statewide level, which you may recall was AT&T's position when West U got into the act. I don't know of such a bill yet, and even if one gets introduced it may well not pass, but I'll be surprised if someone doesn't try to standardize these practices in the spring.
I'll get right to the point: The past couple of weeks have kicked my rear. I don't have the energy to think of anything clever to say about this latest venture into iTunes Genius-land, so I'll just jump straight into the lists. This one was based on Jeff Buckley's cover of the Leonard Cohen classic "Hallelujah", which now that I think about it makes for an appropriate theme, since that's how I feel about this being the end of the week. Here's the first ten songs of the list:
1. "Hallelujah" - Jeff Buckley
2. "There's a World" - Neil Young
3. "Atlantic City" - Bruce Springsteen
4. "Summer Skin" - Death Cab for Cutie
5. "Satellite of Love" - Lou Reed
6. "40" - U2
7. "Rock and Roll" - The Velvet Underground
8. "For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her" - Simon and Garfunkel
9. "Mercy Street" - Peter Gabriel
10. "Gloria" - Patti Smith
And as played:
1. "Hallelujah" - Jeff Buckley
2. "Summer Skin" - Death Cab for Cutie
3. "Are You Ready for Country?" - Neil Young
4. "Bad" - U2
5. "There's A World" - Neil Young
6. "Don't Give Up" - Peter Gabriel
7. "Keep Me In Your Heart" - Warren Zevon
8. "Tempted" - Squeeze
9. "Walking on Broken Glass" - Annie Lennox
10. "Planet Claire" - The B-52s
There was a girl that lived in our neighborhood when I was a kid named Claire. She hated that song in the same way that my sister Eileen hated the song "Come On Eileen". Other than that one, a whole lot of mellow in those songs. Which fits what I want from today just fine. Happy Friday, everyone.
Former Attorney General and longtime Democratic activist Jim Mattox has died at the age of 65.
Jim Mattox, the self-styled "people's lawyer" who took on major corporations during eight years as Texas attorney general, has died.Mattox, 65, died in his sleep Wednesday night or early Thursday morning at his home in Dripping Springs, southwest of Austin, said Democratic consultant Kelly Fero.
A former member of both the Texas and U.S. House of Representatives, Mattox was known as a fierce campaigner. When an opponent called him a "junkyard dog," he said he would act like one to protect children, the elderly and other powerless Texans.
After serving two terms as attorney general, starting in 1983, Mattox ran for governor but was defeated by Ann Richards in a bitter Democratic primary battle.
As attorney general, he built the office into a modern law firm and diversified it with women and minority lawyers. His legal staff handled more than 2 million cases and won judgments totaling more than $2.5 billion for the state.
He closed nursing homes, took on oil companies that had shortchanged Texas on its royalties, sued car dealers for odometer rollbacks, fought to increase regulatory agencies' abilities to deal with polluters, and challenged airlines, Quaker Oats and car manufacturers on the accuracy of their advertising.
I remember Mattox mostly for his contentious 1990 primary for Governor against Ann Richards. As such, I have a somewhat one-sided view of him as a bulldog candidate, who was not at all afraid to go for the throat. But he was very well liked and respected in Democratic and progressive circles, and he was still out there stirring stuff up until the end. That's not a bad way to go, if you ask me. Vince and PoliTex have more. Rest in peace, Jim Mattox.
We may know about Mayor Bill White's political future soon, according to Gardner Selby.
"He's going to make a decision in the near future," said Michael Moore, White's chief of staff. "It will be based on where he could do the most for Texas with his experience and abilities."I touched bases with Moore while preparing a column running in Thursday's newspaper on jockeying among Texans who might want to succeed U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, if she resigns in advance of running for governor in 2010.
Moore said White, who wasn't immediately available, is talking to people around Texas by telephone, sounding out his prospects. Most observers expect White to make a try for the Senate or for governor.
White's goal is to settle his plans well before the end of this year, Moore said. "Days," Moore said, "not weeks."
My guess, as Selby speculates further down, is that this has to do with whether or not he wants to be a part of the Obama administration, and not about any future campaign plans. I know Mayor White has said he'd cosinder running for either Senate or Governor in 2010, but I continue to believe that the Governor's mansion is the best fit for him, and I think that's what he'll ultimately choose. While the conventional wisdom is that he would prefer to avoid a potential race against Sen. Hutchison should she choose to run for Governor as well, I don't think he should be afraid of such a fight. If it were up to me, I'd make that campaign be about how KBH is just a nicer version of Rick Perry, who would want to do all the same things that Perry has done since taking over in 2001, just with a friendlier face on them. I feel confident that Mayor White would have a clear vision for what he'd want to do in Austin, and how he'd be an agent of change at a time when we could really use it, and having seen him run for Mayor as an unknown quantity who wasn't given much of a chance to win at first, I think he'd have a concise message to communicate that vision in a way that voters would find attractive. I think KBH should be at least as worried about running against White as he should be of her.
There's one more thing to consider: If White ran for Governor against KBH and lost, her Senate seat, which I presume would remain in Republican hands if White can't break through, would still be up for a full six-year term in 2012. He could still get a shot at that, potentially with an Obama re-election effort also working in Texas. I think there's a good chance it wouldn't come to that, and that somebody else would be the beneficiary of whatever Team Obama does in Texas in four years' time. But it's something to keep in your back pocket, just in case.
Finally, since I continue to hear chatter that John Sharp is angling to be the Democratic candidate to replace KBH in DC, let me just say that I am not exactly overjoyed at that prospect. I like Sharp, but if he's going to take one more shot at a statewide run, I'd much rather see him aim for Lt. Governor again. At least there, as the leader of a body where Dems are still a minority, his moderate/bipartisan creds would be much more useful. I still can't quite shake the feeling that Sharp is a 1990 candidate wanting to run in 2010, but maybe he'll prove me wrong. All I can say is that the Democrats really need to start building our their bench.
Texas risks becoming a national joke if state educators insist on clouding the teaching of evolution, scores of scientists, science teachers and concerned residents Texans told the State Board of Education on Wednesday.They pleaded with the 15-member board not to confuse public schoolchildren with a watered-down teaching of evolution by requiring teachers to teach the weaknesses or limitations of evolution.
The board is expected to take a preliminary vote in January on new science curriculum standards that will dictate new science books for the state's 4.5 million students.
"Once again, Texas is in the national spotlight, and scientists, science teachers, and education news writers all over the United States are waiting to see what new foolishness is going to happen in Austin this time," Steven Schafersman, president of Texas Citizens for Science, told the board. "Once again our state is going to experience the embarrassment of having anti-scientific, anti-evolutionists on the state board try to game the process and force the new science standards to contain anti-scientific language."
The Texas Freedom Network was at the hearing and extensively live-blogged the event. Start here and work your way up for a ton of details about what happened. I personally have no faith that the idiots and zealots on the SBOE can be deterred from their mission, but maybe there'll be just enough rational minds to outvote them this time. I can't say I have a lot of faith in that, either, but it's all we've got at this time. My advice is to prepare for the blowback, and to get ready to lobby your legislators to take steps to rein these clowns in when it comes down.
It's not the main event, but it's a nice catch anyway.
Houston has been selected to host the 2012 AAU Junior Olympic Games, the country's largest amateur sports event.The Junior Olympics is the annual showcase event held each summer for the Amateur Athletic Union, and includes more than 15,000 participants in 20 sports, with its major focus on track and field competition.
With an estimated 30,000 spectators expected, the economic impact of the event is projected at $40 million.
This is the first time Houston has been selected to host the multisport event.
You already know how I feel about economic impact projections, so I'll just say that Houston has done a pretty good job of landing this kind of event in recent years. Whatever the economics of it, giving people a reason to come visit Houston for a few days strikes me as a good thing. Well done. Thanks to Laban Johnson for the link.
May as well enjoy those indictments of Dick Cheney and Alberto Gonzales while you can, because it sure looks like they won't last very long.
Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney and former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were bewildered Wednesday when the prosecutor in a slew of indictments against them failed to appear in court.Willacy County prosecutor Juan Angel Guerra's no-show ruined hopes their motions would quickly quash cases against their clients and stumped the presiding judge as well.
"At the very least, I expected the district attorney to be here," Manuel Banales said, asking Guerra's office manager, "Do you know where he is?"
The manager, Hilda Ramirez, was subpoenaed by defense attorney J.A. "Tony" Canales after buzz in the courthouse that Guerra was nowhere to be found. She told the judge she had been trying to reach Guerra all day.
[...]
When Banales asked Ramirez if she were concerned for Guerra's safety, she said she didn't know how to answer the question. Guerra's cell phone message box was full much of the day, but an assistant who answered the line late Wednesday said he was not ill.
I'm trying to decide which crime-and-courtroom TV drama this saga most resembles. Maybe "Hill Street Blues", if you could credibly portray Guerra as some kind of tragic anti-hero, or "Boston Legal" if you think it's farce all the way. If you have any better suggestions - and by all means, include your casting if possible - leave them in the comments. In the meantime, if this indictment survives much past the scheduled Friday arraignment, I'll be shocked. Like I said, enjoy it while you can.
Back in 2006, I did a series of posts that examined CD07 election results in the precincts surrounding Richmond Avenue and the route that was proposed at the time for that stretch of the Universities line to try and answer a question originally raised by Rich Connelly about whether support for rail on Richmond would be a loser in that area. My conclusion was not only did Jim Henley not lose votes to John Culberson in these precincts, he likely gained votes, and thus his support for rail on Richmond was an asset, not a liability. Even though rail was essentially a non-issue this year, I figured as long as I was knee-deep in precinct data, I might as well take a look back to see how Michael Skelly stacked up. Here's the data for the last three elections:
2004Pcnct Ballots Culb Pct Mrtnez Pct C/M Pct M/C Pct
===============================================================
39 1809 473 26.15% 1187 65.62% 28.49% 71.51%
60 1625 422 25.97% 1027 63.20% 29.12% 70.88%
123 866 236 27.25% 544 62.82% 30.26% 69.74%
139 1688 773 45.79% 767 45.44% 50.19% 49.81%
177 1024 635 62.01% 310 30.27% 67.20% 32.80%
178 1346 905 67.24% 328 24.37% 73.40% 26.60%
233 1597 837 52.41% 610 38.20% 57.84% 42.16%
569 1791 1065 59.46% 685 38.25% 60.86% 39.14%
802 237 46 19.41% 162 68.35% 22.12% 77.88%Total 11983 5392 45.00% 5620 46.90% 48.96% 51.04%
2006Pcnct Ballots Culb Pct Henley Pct C/H Pct H/C Pct
===============================================================
39 1273 246 19.32% 958 75.26% 20.43% 79.57%
60 1050 202 19.24% 790 75.24% 20.36% 79.64%
123 513 117 22.81% 364 70.96% 24.32% 75.68%
139 1061 423 39.87% 564 53.16% 42.86% 57.14%
177 658 403 61.25% 237 36.02% 62.97% 37.03%
178 968 697 72.00% 231 23.86% 75.11% 24.89%
233 1583 791 49.97% 696 43.97% 53.19% 46.81%
569 1076 556 51.67% 454 42.19% 55.05% 44.95%
802 205 42 20.49% 149 72.68% 21.99% 78.01%Total 8387 3477 41.46% 4443 52.97% 43.90% 56.10%
2008Pcnct Ballots Culb Pct Skelly Pct C/S Pct S/C Pct
===============================================================
39 1800 316 17.56% 1310 72.78% 19.43% 80.57%
60 1524 372 24.41% 1048 68.77% 26.20% 73.80%
123 913 222 24.32% 625 68.46% 26.21% 73.79%
139 1689 677 40.08% 921 54.53% 42.37% 57.63%
177 1076 587 54.55% 437 40.61% 57.32% 42.68%
178 1395 911 65.30% 452 32.40% 66.84% 33.16%
233 2844 1309 46.03% 1370 48.17% 48.86% 51.14%
569 2175 1075 49.43% 995 45.75% 51.93% 48.07%
802 208 47 22.60% 142 68.27% 24.87% 75.13%Total 13624 5516 40.49% 7300 53.58% 43.04% 56.96%
As before, "Pct" refers to the percent of the total ballot, which includes undervotes and votes for the Libertarian candidate. "C/x Pct" and "x/C Pct" are the straight-up Culberson versus Martinez/Henley/Skelly percentages. Precincts 39, 60, 123, and 802 are in Montrose, 178 is Afton Oaks, the epicenter of anti-rail activity back in the day, 177 and 569 are Lynn Park, Highland Village, and St. George's Place, all of which border Afton Oaks, and 139 and 233 are Greenway Plaza.
Overall, there's nothing too exciting here. Skelly lost a few points in 60, 123, and 802, but he had a pretty high standard to meet. He gained a little or more everywhere else, and flipped 233 to blue. He topped Henley by a small margin, with his biggest gains coming in Culberson's strongest turf. Given Skelly's gains in the district as a whole, that's about what you'd expect.
So there you have it. I didn't really have a point to make with this post, I just felt it needed to be included, at least before someone asked me about it. I figure that as there are still hurdles to be cleared for the Universities line, and construction is still at least a year away, this may become an issue again in 2010. Just keep these numbers in mind when Culberson or one of his proxies claims that he has the support of the voters in the area.
Last month, we heard that the city was considering an ordinance that would let the state deny a vehicle registration based on an unpaid red light camera ticket. City Council has now passed that ordinance.
Now, if a driver does not pay after 85 days, the city can get the Texas Department of Transportation to put a "hold" on the vehicle owner's registration that cannot be cleared until the ticket is paid."It's not complex," Mayor Bill White said. "If you get a citation when you're running the red light, then you pay the citation. Or, if you think there's some mistaken identity, then you go and contest it. It's pretty simple. But what you don't have an option to do is just ignore the citation."
Council members Michael Sullivan, Jolanda Jones and Ronald Green opposed the measure, although numerous others had questions about how effectively it could be implemented and whether it would add a burden to vehicle registration for those who may not be aware they were ticketed.
Sullivan said he was skeptical of the ordinance for a number of reasons: what if a couple goes through a divorce and the notice of a ticket goes to the wrong address? What if someone gives away a vehicle as a gift? He also cast doubt on whether the process would be fluid, given that it involves the city, a private contractor that administers the cameras, the county, which handles vehicle registration renewals and the state, which will apply the holds.
I understand Council Member Sullivan's objections, but I still think this is a reasonable step for the city to take. Surely if we were talking about any other kind of violation that had been ignored, it would be uncontroversial. While I am certain there will be some problems - there always are, with any system - I don't expect there to be too many. If there are, it should be fixable. I don't think the possibility of problems is enough to make this unacceptable.
Looks like that trip to Indianapolis has paid off.
The NCAA announced Wednesday that Reliant Stadium will be the site of the 2016 men's basketball Final Four, setting the stage for the city to host one of the nation's premier sporting events twice during a six-year stretch.The Final Four will be held April 2-4, 2016.
Houston already had been scheduled to host the South Regional in 2010 and the Final Four in 2011, which will mark the 40-year anniversary of the city's first Final Four in the Astrodome.
The other winning bids were for: New Orleans in 2012, Atlanta in 2013, the Dallas Cowboys' new stadium in Arlington in 2014 and Indianapolis in 2015.
"We saw an example of what Houston has to offer during the 2008 South Regional and have every reason to think that their future events will be special," said Mike Slive, chairman of the NCAA Division I men's basketball committee.
Houston was competing against nine other cities or regions trying to land the event from 2012 through 2016. Bids from Detroit; Minneapolis; Phoenix/Glendale, Ariz.; San Antonio; and St. Louis were rejected.
"It was definitely not easy," said Shea Guinn, president of SMG-Reliant Park. "This is one of the premier sporting events in the entire world. The fact 10 cities were bidding is a testament to that. We were up against some tough competition."
Great news. Well done, y'all.
That does it. I don't want to be President when I grow up any more.
Sorry, Mr. President. Please surrender your BlackBerry.Those are seven words President-elect Barack Obama is dreading but expecting to hear, friends and advisers say, when he takes office in 65 days.
For years, like legions of other on-the-move professionals, Obama has been all but addicted to his BlackBerry.
But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about keeping e-mail secure, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A final decision has not been made on whether he could go against precedent to become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.
Boy, do I feel his pain. There are solutions for encrypting email on a BlackBerry, over and above the normal encryption of BlackBerry-transmitted emails, but I suppose a higher level of paranoia than even that would be called for here. As for the public records stuff, it's not the BlackBerry per se that's the issue here, it's the personal email correspondence, which falls into a grey area and is subject to abuse by the unscrupulous, that's in question. Better to be above suspicion and do things the prescribed way, even if that means unhooking from the grid. Being President may be a great gig, but that's a high price to pay if you ask me.
Here's some more news on the indictments handed down by a South Texas grand jury against Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzalez, State Sen. Eddie Lucio, and others.
Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra himself had been under indictment for more than a year and half before a judge dismissed the indictments last month. This flurry of charges came in the twilight of Guerra's tenure, which ends this year after nearly two decades in office. He lost convincingly in a Democratic primary in March.Cheney's indictment on a charge of engaging in an organized criminal activity criticizes the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.
You can see a copy of the indictment here (PDF).
Willacy County has become a prison hub with county, state and federal lockups. Guerra has gone after the prison-politician nexus before, extracting guilty pleas from three former Willacy and Webb county commissioners after investigating bribery related to federal prison contacts.Another indictment released Tuesday accuses state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies. Guerra announced his intention to investigate Lucio's prison consulting early last year.
Lucio's attorney, Michael Cowen, released a scathing statement accusing Guerra of settling political scores in his final weeks in office.
"Senator Lucio is completely innocent and has done nothing wrong," Cowen said, adding that he would file a motion to quash the indictment this week.
Last month, a Willacy County grand jury indicted The GEO Group, a Florida private prison company, on a murder charge in the death of a prisoner days before his release. The three-count indictment alleged The GEO Group allowed other inmates to beat Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. The death happened in 2001 at the Raymondville facility, just four days before de la Rosa's scheduled release.
In 2006, a jury ordered the company to pay de la Rosa's family $47.5 million in a civil judgment. The Cheney-Gonzalez indictment makes reference to the de la Rosa case.
Vince and XicanoPwr, among many others, have more. You can also find related information at the SEIU's Eye on Wackenhut blog. This ought to be quite the circus, so buckle up and enjoy the ride.
UPDATE: More on the detention center in question.
The race for Congressional District 7 was one of the top campaigns in Harris County this cycle. It attracted a lot of local and national interest, various polls showed it to be competitive, and there was a boatload of money spent on TV ads. In the end, the race was closer than it had been in previous years, but was still a double-digit win for incumbent John Culberson over challenger Michael Skelly, 56.95 to 43.05 in the straight-up R-versus-D matchup.
A lot of people thought Skelly would do better than this - I know I thought the final result would be closer. It's important to remember, however, that CD07 was nobody's idea of an even potentially competitive district four years ago, and that even in losing a lot of progress can be made. Let's take a look at the numbers. Here's how Skelly did in comparison to Barack Obama, Rick Noriega, Adrian Garcia, Jim Henley (who was on the ballot this time in a successful bid for HCDE Trustee), the average Democratic judicial candidate, and the Democratic State Rep candidate for the relevant districts:
Dist Obama Noriega Skelly Garcia Henley County StRep
======================================================
CD07 41.11 40.05 43.05 45.55 41.07 38.32 n/a
126 33.49 33.24 35.44 39.21 34.16 32.49 30.61
130 36.01 36.25 38.13 42.22 37.28 35.56 n/a
132 42.49 42.18 43.78 47.58 43.73 42.01 n/a
133 40.00 38.77 40.40 44.28 39.59 37.13 36.58
134 49.35 46.90 52.19 52.06 48.38 43.94 56.67
135 38.70 38.87 40.49 44.78 39.80 37.94 37.82
136 32.14 30.27 34.44 35.61 30.62 28.32 n/a
137 60.13 59.21 61.77 62.61 60.78 58.78 n/a
138 37.65 38.59 38.99 45.25 39.23 36.78 34.56
146 48.52 48.80 51.30 54.62 50.93 46.43 n/a
147 66.03 64.19 67.31 67.65 65.39 63.15 n/a
149 42.41 41.18 41.94 46.06 42.49 39.89 39.05
Other than Garcia, who is in a class by himself and who led him everywhere except HD134, and Obama and Henley in HD149, Skelly led every other Democrat on the ballot wherever they were in CD07. With the exception of Ellen Cohen in HD134, he did better than every State Rep candidate who faced a Republican as well - Chad Khan (126), Kristi Thibaut (133), Trey Fleming (135), Ginny McDavid (138), and Hubert Vo (149). I have to say, I find it hard to find fault with that kind of performance.
Another way of looking at this is to map the way CD07 has evolved since 2004. Here's Skelly against his predecessors:
Dist Martinez Henley Skelly
==============================
CD07 34.19 39.36 43.05
134 43.03 52.06 52.19
Not134 31.30 34.72 40.24
The trend is pretty clear. What isn't clear from these numbers is just how much better Skelly's performance was in the HD134 portion of CD07 than Henley's in 2006. (HD134 is almost, but not quite, entirely within CD07. There's one substantive precinct in Al Green's CD09, and one precinct with basically no voters there as well. For these purposes, when I say HD134, assume I'm referring to the all-but-one-precincts that are within CD07.) The difference here is that HD134 was a lot more Republican than you might have thought it would be. In 2006, seven Democratic candidates out of 19 got a majority of the vote in 134 - Henley, Cohen, Bill Moody, Jim Sharp, Richard Garcia, Mary Kay Green. and Andrew Burks. The average countywide Dem received 48.42% of the vote there. In 2008, exactly three Democrats cleared 50% - Cohen, Skelly, and Adrian Garcia. Henley got 48.38%; Sharp got 47.93%. The average Democratic judicial candidate, as we have already seen, got 44.08%. What that means is that while Henley was exceeding the average in HD134 by three and a half points, Skelly topped it by eight. That's mighty impressive.
(In case you're curious, by the way, the average Democratic judicial candidate got 43.60% in HD134. That puts a slightly different spin on this year's judicial results than I had suggested before, as John Kerry got 45.01%. It may just be that the voters there lean more Republican at the local level than they do at the top of the ticket. If so, the difference this year was profound.)
By the way, since there's been so much fixation on straight-ticket voting since the election, Culberson beat Skelly in the straight ticket votes, 103,445 to 63,826. Skelly beat Culberson among those who voted individual races, 59,729 to 58,652. Not that it really means anything, since despite all the aversions cast on them for the judicial races, straight-ticket voters are still voters. But I thought I'd point it out.
Couple more points. You may recall earlier this year when Culberson said his race was the most important on the ballot for local Republicans. Here's how he described it to Miya Shay:
[He] told me yesterday that he sees the District 7 race as a "Firewall" for county wide Republicans. "I believe that if we don't get my re-election numbers into the 60s percentage, then every Republican in Harris County could lose." Culberson says that's why the Democratic party is running such a rich guy, basically to beat him down.. and bring the Repub party along. In essence, he says he can still win his seat, while Harris County Repubs lose all of theirs.
Give the devil his due, because he was right: He didn't get into the 60s, and most Republicans lost. It's very simple - there are a lot of voters in his district, mostly in the western end of it, and they usually vote heavily Republican. But not so much any more, as we've been seeing, and it had an effect both in the overlapping State House districts as well as in Harris County as a whole.
What will happen next in CD07? Alan Bernstein suggested that since Culberson (and Mike McCaul in CD10) faced his toughest challenge yet successfully, he may get a breather:
Seeing that the Obama push and the Democratic money was not enough to turn those districts the other way, potential Democratic challengers for 2010 may balk at taking on these House members.
That's certainly possible, and it was my immediate thought when I saw the election night returns. But who knows? The trend is clear, and while there won't be Barack Obama on the ticket in 2010, there might be Bill White, who would presumably actually campaign here. Especially if someone notices the purpling of HDs 126, 132, and 135, there may well be more Democratic challenges in that part of the county. I think Culberson is unlikely to see a challenge like Skelly's in two years' time - unless Skelly himself decides to try again, of course - but I do think he's seen his last easy race, until and unless redistricting rescues him.
Finally, a word about HD134, which is a key part of this district. I knew HD134 was mostly Republican in 2006, and I expected it to be at best 50-50 this time around. I was surprised to see how relatively red it turned out to be. Which is why it continues to amaze me that the Republicans totally punted on giving Cohen a serious challenge. They had a candidate who was attractive on paper, but he never did a thing, and wound up running more than ten points behind the GOP average in the district. I remember Bill Kelly, who had been Cohen's campaign manager in 2006, telling me early on that Cohen would work the district as hard as she'd done before, because there were a lot of voters there who had not yet ever cast a ballot for her, and they were not going to take any of them for granted. To say the least, he was right about that. My guess is that things are more like 2006 than 2008 in 2010, but I bet Team Cohen won't take that for granted, either.
I suppose this was to be expected.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority joined 10 other transit agencies across the nation Tuesday as they urged Congress for help with financing deals imperiled by the credit crisis.The move is the latest attempt by Metro and the other agencies to avoid millions in default payments triggered by the collapse of insurance giant American International Group.
AIG provided payment guarantees on lease agreements between Metro and several banks. Those deals required payment guarantees from insurers, such as AIG, with high credit ratings. The deals guaranteed by AIG now are in technical default as a result of the insurance giant's slashed credit rating.
Transit leaders urged the Treasury Department to take over the role of AIG and other insurers, according to a news release from the American Public Transportation Association.
[...]
Officials warned congressional leaders that 31 of the nation's largest transit systems could face $2 billion in payments in the coming months if their contracts with bailed-out banks go bad.
The good news is that in Barack Obama we have a President who is from an urban area, owes his election to urban areas, and actually cares about urban policy. As such, one can reasonably hope that he will see this as a priority. Of course, you never know what Congress will do, and for sure there will be plenty of other requests like this as the effects of the financial crisis continue to be felt. So it's yet another obstacle we'll have to sweat out and hope for the best.
That's not too much to ask, is it? it would make them very happy, and would be good for everyone who benefits from the sound application of scientific principles. Which is to say, all of us.
The verdict from Texas scientists is nearly unanimous: 98 percent favor the unadulterated teaching of evolution in public school classrooms, according to a report released Monday as the State Board of Education prepares to weigh in on the controversy.A vast majority of the scientists say students would be harmed if the state requires the teaching of the "weaknesses" of evolution, according to the survey conducted for the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, an organization that works on issues involving religious freedom, civil liberties and public education.
"With 94 percent of Texas faculty ... telling me it (teaching the weaknesses) shouldn't be there, I tend to believe them," said Raymond Eve, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Arlington who did the study.
More than 450 biology or biological anthropology professors at 50 Texas colleges and universities participated in a 59-question survey. Many of those faculty members help determine admission of students into Texas' colleges and universities, Eve said.
"Their responses should send parents a clear message that those who want to play politics with science education are putting our kids at risk," he said.
The full report is here (PDF). This is all very simple, really. Societies that teach their children science will raise innovators and be economic leaders. Societies that do not, will not. Which kind of society to do you want to live in? PDiddie and Vince have more.
Carrolton Republican Rep. Burt Solomons gets in the Speaker sweepstakes.
"I did file this morning. I believe it's time for a change," he said. "We are in a position now, as Republicans and for the entire body, to have a different governing style. ... I've been a past supporter of Tommy (Craddick), I like him, but I think it's a whole different management style. I've had a number of members calling me about problems they forsee. We (the GOP) have been trying to govenrm the House and we're at a crucial turning point, and I think it's time to let another Republican - since we have a slim majority - have a shot at how we're going to govern.""We have different management styles," he said. "We have different perspectives on the body, and in my opinion I believe the body wants to have more meaningful input into the issues of the day, how we're going to govern, into our rules, into everything. I believe it's time to try to ensure that happens. And that's really what this is about. It's really putting the entire body in a position to feel good about being public servants, address the issues of the day and make sure that everybody has equal input. Everybody."
Mr. Solomons' entrance into the speaker's race makes 10 candidates, five of them Republicans.
I'm not sure that having more Speaker candidates makes Tom Craddick's demise any moer likely at this point. I'd feel much better if the news were about more members throwing their support behind one of the challengers. I don't suppose it hurts to have more out front opposition, or a broader field of opponents. It's just that "the field" can't be elected Speaker, and whoever doesn't get the brass ring may find they're better off begging for forgiveness and a return to Craddick's embrace. I hope that won't happen, but I won't count on it till the list of wannabees starts to get winnowed down. BOR, who declares that the anti-Craddicks now form a majority in the House, and The Texas Cloverleaf have more.
A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers.The indictment criticizes Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees by working through the prison companies.
Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.
Another indictment charges state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies.
That sound you just heard was all hell breaking loose. I am flabbergasted. More here, here, and here.
By the way, not to minimize the national aspect of this story, but the charges against State Sen. Lucio could have a profound impact on the upcoming legislative session. The Democrats will have at least 11 members even without Lucio, but still. If nothing else, it has the potential to really shake up the political structure in South Texas. Stay tuned.
Some things need no introduction.
They may have lost ground in the last election, but state House Republicans are playing up their two-seat majority for all it's worth: They're asking for "unlimited" corporate and personal contributions to raise money and finance strategy sessions this week at the fancy Lost Pines Resort & Spa, where donations and access to top leaders go hand in hand.GOP House Caucus meetings are held before every legislative session, the next one set to begin in January. But critics, including fellow Republicans, said the economic downturn, the party's recent electoral losses and the way the money is being raised -- by doling out access to GOP leaders based on the amount given -- is particularly ill-timed and tone-deaf.
"It's very startling to me that we are going to a resort to plan our strategy and charge someone for access to members of the Legislature," said state Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, who is challenging House Speaker Tom Craddick for the leadership post. "My door is always open. They don't have to pay for access."
This year, for $5,000, contributors will receive two tickets to "VIP dinner & Strategy Meetings," a single golf outing and other benefits. Those giving $10,000 get six VIP dinner tickets plus two golf outings with a "Preferred House Leader." Chip in $25,000 or more and you get 15 VIP dinner tickets, four golf outings with a "Preferred House Member" and prominent company advertising at the event, which begins today.
The news media is not allowed to attend the event.
I can't imagine why. Make up your own jokes, I got nothin'. BOR has more.
I'm just going to dive into this one, because the numbers pretty much speak for themselves. The following is a comparison between 2004 and 2008 in Harris County in various Republican districts. I'm comparing John Kerry's performance to Barack Obama's, Guy Clark's to Adrian Garcia's in the Sheriff's race, and three candidates who were on the ballot each year, for similar but not exactly the same offices - JR Molina, who was the high Democratic scorer statewide in 2004; Kathy Stone, who was the top votegetter and percentage performer for Dems in Harris County in 2004; and Jim Sharp, who broke through to win a First District Court of Appeals race this year. Here are the numbers:
2004Dist Kerry Clark Molina Stone Sharp
==========================================
CD07 35.7 32.6 34.8 37.5 35.7
CD22 35.6 32.3 38.4 36.2 35.7
SD11 32.0 32.5 34.4 35.7 35.2
126 32.0 31.2 32.9 34.0 33.4
127 27.0 26.8 28.3 29.5 29.3
128 31.8 33.5 35.5 36.5 36.7
129 32.2 31.7 33.4 35.1 34.0
130 23.4 23.0 24.2 25.1 25.1
132 28.8 28.9 30.3 31.3 31.2
133 43.9 42.4 44.0 46.1 44.5
134 45.6 40.6 43.3 47.3 44.3
135 33.9 33.3 35.5 36.3 36.3
136 29.8 26.1 28.1 31.5 28.9
137 55.3 54.8 57.1 58.0 56.8
138 39.7 37.4 40.3 42.5 40.8
144 35.5 37.3 39.9 40.4 40.5
145 57.0 59.7 65.1 63.3 62.3
148 58.3 57.4 62.0 62.3 61.1
149 46.6 46.1 47.9 48.8 47.9
150 26.7 26.5 28.1 29.2 29.0
2008Dist Obama Garcia Molina Stone Sharp
==========================================
CD07 41.1 45.6 39.1 40.6 41.1
CD22 36.2 44.0 38.0 39.3 39.6
SD11 35.3 43.1 37.1 38.5 38.8
126 41.9 46.8 41.7 42.7 42.9
127 31.5 38.0 32.0 33.7 33.8
128 33.8 42.4 37.6 39.3 39.9
129 36.3 42.2 36.1 37.6 37.8
130 28.8 34.4 28.2 29.5 29.8
132 40.1 45.6 40.4 41.9 41.9
133 52.2 56.0 51.4 52.4 52.7
134 49.5 52.2 45.5 47.1 48.1
135 41.3 47.6 41.5 42.8 42.8
136 33.9 37.6 30.1 32.7 33.3
137 61.8 66.7 63.1 63.5 63.7
138 44.3 52.8 45.0 46.4 46.7
144 40.6 50.4 45.0 45.8 45.9
145 62.3 75.6 71.4 69.5 69.7
148 60.0 69.6 62.8 62.5 63.2
149 54.7 58.8 55.2 55.9 55.8
150 35.1 41.7 35.5 37.0 37.1
If these numbers don't make your eyes bug out, I don't know what would. Here's what I see when I look at them.
- John Kerry scored 44.55% in 2004, Barack Obama got 50.42%. That's a six-point increase overall, but as you can see the increase was not uniform. The gains in HDs 126, 132, and 150 particularly stand out to me. This is the flip side of the coin I've been talking about: Just as the Dems could not have made this huge stride in Harris County without doing so much better in traditionally red areas, so can the Republicans no longer hope to dominate county politics if they're not running up the score in places like those. While there may have been a turnout boost for the Dems this year that was aided by the dynamics of a Dem-friendly environment and an inspirational candidate, the trends that led to these numbers aren't going away.
- Despite winning at least one marginal state house seat every year since the new map was rolled out in 2002, the Democrats do not have any more seats at risk now than they have had in years past. Scott Hochberg, who was supposed to have been drawn out of the Lege in 2002, is safe. Hubert Vo is safe. Ellen Cohen is likely safe, even though her district isn't blue like those two. Kristi Thibaut will have a tough fight in 2010, but that's the only pickup opportunity the Rs will have, and they'll have to defend Ken Legler in HD144 while worrying about someone emerging to knock off Patricia Harless, Gary Elkins, or Bill Callegari. I know which position I'd rather be in.
- Even if the battlefield in 2010 is just 133 and 144, how will the Republicans protect their incumbents in 2011 for the next decade? Take a look at that Stiles map again, and ask yourself how they keep those three safe going forward. I think it's impossible, and they'd be better off trying to consolidate rather than spread what remains of their base too thin in what will surely be a futile attempt to maximize what they can retain.
- And while you're at it, ponder how a new Congressional district might fit into the western part of the county. My guess is that CD07 will shift back to the farther reaches of Harris, perhaps even stretch into Fort Bend, and we'll see a reconstituted version of the old 25th arise to once again represent central Houston with a Democrat.
- Just to keep beating this point into submission, the Democratic gains from the strong-R districts played a huge role in the bluing of Harris County. If you just take HDs 126, 132, 135, and 150, and have them perform at 2004 levels instead of what we saw this year, by my rough estimate the Dems would have lost about 20,000 votes, with the Republicans gaining that much. That not only swings nearly every race back to the GOP - by my reckoning, only Adrian Garcia, Debby Kerner, Jim Henley, and Kathy Stone could withstand a 40,000-vote hit to their totals and still win for sure - it's more than we could squeeze out of the Democratic districts. If we could have jacked up turnout in the four Hispanic districts - HDs 140, 143, 145, and 148 - to the same 67% level that the strong Rs performed at, we'd have gotten about 45,000 more voters total. But since about a third of those voters would be going Republican, the Dems would net 15,000 votes. Doing that on top of what we did this year would net us three more judges - everyone but Ashish Mahendru - plus Brad Bradford, but David Mincberg and Diane Trautman would still fall short. Again, the point is that Democratic voters are everywhere in the county, and we cannot be narrow in our focus when it comes to turnout strategy.
- For all these reasons, I strongly disagree with Dave Mann and his claim that the election was a failure due to poor Democratic turnout. We did get a boost in Democratic turnout, it was just spread out over the entire county instead of being concentrated in a few familiar places. Which as I've just said is a good thing, because we wouldn't have won squat otherwise. I agree with Greg, and with Ed Martin and Matt Angle: Democratic turnout was fine, we won partly because we found new sources of Democratic performance, including in places we weren't really looking, and we did about as well as we could reasonably expect under the circumstances. For crying out loud, we gained six points and nearly 90,000 votes in four years. That's outstanding.
I think I'm about out of steam here. Tell me what you think, and I'll have more to come soon.
UPDATE: Burt Levine's comment reminds me that I forgot to explain my inclusion of HDs 145 and 148 in this comparison. Simply put, as you can see by Kerry's score in those districts, they might not have appeared as solidly Democratic in 2004 as you might have thought they were. Whatever the case then, it's not the case now, and so I included them to further illustrate how the GOP's fortunes have receded.
Loren Jackson, our newly-elected District Clerk, will be sworn in this afternoon to fill out the unexpired portion of former Clerk Charles Bacarisse's term. He gets to start right away instead of waiting till January because it's an unexpired term. The ceremony will take place at 3 PM in the Jury Assembly Room at 1019 Congress. See Stace for the invitation. And congrats to Loren Jackson, who will officially become Harris County's first serving countywide Democratic elected official in a decade.
Miya passes along a tidbit I had not heard before:
It appears that often talked about possible Mayoral Candidate Bill King is steering away from that bid. We first heard rumblings about it before the elections, but things sure have firmed up since then. Although King is never the type of person to open or shut the door completely, the door is definitely much more in the closed position than the open.While a multitude of reasons have been bantered about for his second thoughts, the two main factors appear to be Gene Locke's possible candidacy, and the faltering economy.
Locke's name surfaced last month, with Miya speculating his arrival would prevent former Governor Mark White from getting in. I think there's room in the field for three serious candidates, and on the assumption that Peter Brown and Annise Parker aren't going anywhere, that would leave King as the odd man out. Seems strange that there wouldn't be a Republican with a hope of winning in the race, but there you may have it. It's still way early, so take all this with the requisite amount of salt for now.
Hey, kids you know what time it is: It's time for another Texas Progressive Alliance blog roundup. Click that link and read those highlights.
Barfly at McBlogger takes a moment to remind all of us that we better not fu*k with Barbie.
Ruth Jones McClendon gets the Speaker's race dangerously wrong says CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme.
Vince at Capitol Annex takes a look at the race for Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives and provides answers to two important questions: is a secret ballot legal and will a secret ballot doom Tom Craddick?
Phillip at BOR counts heads for the Speaker votes, and finds that Craddick's ceiling of support is much lower than most realize.
The Texas Cloverleaf attempts to stop the H8 in Denton, with over 120 people; and explains why the marriage amendment in Texas, and other states, is not valid.
TxSharon atTexas Kaos warns of what should be unthinkable, but in too many Texas towns and cities is a real danger: Imagine If This Pipeline Explosion Happened In Your Front Yard.
Dembones at Eye On Williamson maps the Democratic resurgence in Williamson County in The color purple.
jobsanger looks at a change coming to the Democratic Party in Dean To Resign as DNC Head, and another change that is needed when he has his 1st Disagreement With Obama over kicking Lieberman out of the Senate Democratic Caucus.
Neil at Texas Liberal posted this week on the subject of Ass Headed Demons. An upcoming new feature on Texas Liberal is going to be the Ass Headed Demon list. Stay tuned and see who makes the list. It might someday even be you!
Off the Kuff analyzes where and when the vote was in Harris County.
Donna at Texas Education ponders her future as a Catholic in these days of Eucharastic litmus tests.
BossKitty at TruthHugger recognizes that Disasters Increase BioHazards - Global Health Is Personal and sees the media flashing more stories about "green living" "low carbon footprint" and "fuel economy". But underlying all that, is the unspoken reality that floods, fires, earthquakes, etc, unearth buried hazards from past and present irresponsible behavior, and are seeping back into our lives.
John Coby at Bay Area Houston says Stephanie Simmons was a candidate for State Senator in Texas Senate District 17 running as a so-called "Democrat", but her campaign donations say otherwise. See Raising Campaign Cash 2008: Stephanie Simmons.
The week-long drama of Paul Bettencourt's continuing attempts to suppress the last of the Harris County votes, the Texas Democratic Party's legal action against him, and the anticlimactic outcome was dutifully chronicled by PDiddie at Brains and Eggs.
Looks like the neocon flamethrowers in the media barely waited for the ink to dry on Election Day results to commence with their right-wing fabrications. The Texas Blue takes a look at the first salvo.
Over 300 protests took place over the weekend against California's Proposition 8, which reversed marriage equality in that state. North Texas Liberal has stories and photos from the protest march that took place in Washington, D.C.
And the winner is...December 16.
Gov. Rick Perry today announced a special runoff election to fill the vacancy in Senate District 17 to be held on Dec. 16, 2008. A special election to fill the seat left vacant by the resignation of Sen. Kyle Janek was held during the November 4 general election; however no candidate received a majority of the votes, as mandated by state law.Early voting will run from December 8 through December 12.
Not December 20, as I had surmised (I had this funny idea that runoffs and special elections were generally held on Saturdays - not sure if I was nuts to think that or not), but still, nine days before Christmas, and not a single minute of voting to be held on a weekend. You think the Republicans might be hoping for miniscule turnout here? If you want to help combat that, get thee to a Bell campaign HQ location and do what you can.
File this under "Privatization Blues".
The $863 million IBM Corp. contract to consolidate the computer data centers of 27 state agencies offered the promise of doing more for less.IBM and its partners -- the Team for Texas -- would modernize and streamline how the agencies store and protect their data. And the state would save $178 million over the seven-year term of the contract, which began in April 2007 .
But many of the agencies involved say they are actually paying more to get less, as indicated by IBM's customer satisfaction score in August that hovered just above poor.
In the past few weeks, the agencies have won a powerful ally in Gov. Rick Perry, who called for work to stop after IBM's failure to back up some critical data came to light. IBM now faces the possibility of losing the contract if the company does not quickly fix the backup problems that have plagued the mammoth project.
As state officials wait to see whether IBM delivers on its promise, the question remains: How did this much-ballyhooed project go so wrong?
Interviews with industry experts and state officials suggest that the state and IBM share the blame.
State officials, including legislators, were unrealistically ambitious by requiring the contractor to move quickly to centralize all the functions of the data centers, which all had different equipment and applications, said Jim Moreno , who retired as a system administrator in May after 17 years with the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
And IBM overreached with an aggressive plan that did not reflect the true cost of the work, critics say.
Yeah, that sort of thing never happens in outsourcing situations. No one could have predicted that!
The Texas secretary of state's office gave the IBM team, which includes Pitney Bowes, Unisys and Xerox, a customer satisfaction score of 0 on a scale of 1 to 5."Team for Texas seems unable or unwilling to correct shortcomings that have been evident for months," the secretary of state's assessment said.
The Texas Facilities Commission said, "August was a bad month for IBM performance," citing one example when a 15-minute task took one month to perform.
"I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul." Sorry, couldn't help myself. Some earlier news on this saga is here. Whether the state of Texas has learned its lesson from all this remains to be seen, but most likely the answer to that question is "no".
Ready for some precinct data analysis? Let's get started. There will be a lot of these entries, because there's a lot of interesting data. Today let's take a look at how Barack Obama's performance in Harris County compared to the county Democratic judicial slate, since it was conventional wisdom that as Obama went, so went the judicial hopefuls.
The first question to consider is the coattail effect. I've written before that in 2004, Republican judicial candidates lost a lot more votes compared to George Bush than Democratic candidates did compared to John Kerry. My reason for this is that if you were voting for John Kerry in 2004, you were a real true Democrat, and you went on down the line. Bush, however, seemed likely to attract voters who were only interested in his race, and that was borne out by the numbers:
2004 avg GOP 536,000, Bush 584,000, dropoff 48,000
2004 avg Dem 470,000, Kerry 475,000, dropoff 5,000
Bush may have lifted the tide for the incumbent judges in 2004, but they didn't really need it. There were plenty of Republican voters for them to win. This year, not so much:
2008 avg GOP 540,170, McCain 569,860, dropoff 29,690
2008 avg Dem 558,324, Obama 587,538, dropoff 29,214
Both judicial slates saw an equivalent dropoff from the Presidential vote. This year there were more Democrats voting overall, and that was the difference maker for most. Not for all, since there was a 44,000+ vote gap between the top Democratic judicial candidate and the bottom one, but for 23 of 27.
That's at the countywide level. Going down to the State Rep district level, you begin to see some patterns. For the most part, you'd expect the average judicial candidate to lose around 1000 votes from the Presidential level in each HD. For many of them, what actually happened was in line with that expectation, adjusted for relative levels of turnout and partisan makeup. In fact, in 17 of the 25 State House districts, the judicial candidates received a percentage of the vote that was within 1.25 points of the Presidentials. One of the eight exceptions was HD142, which is an African-American district. In HD142, where Obama received 79.78% of the vote, Democrats voted down the line at a very high rate, whereas the Republican judicials lost over ten percent of the meager vote total McCain got, from 8401 votes for McCain to 7506 for the judges. The result there was an 81.35% share for the average Democratic judicial candidate.
The remaining seven districts that defied the pattern had some shared characteristics with each other. They are:
1. The Bubba districts
In HDs 128 and 144, which cover places in eastern Harris County like Baytown and Pasadena, Barack Obama did significantly worse than the rest of the Democratic ticket:
Dist McCain Obama M Pct O Pct GOP avg Dem avg GOP % Dem %
==================================================================
128 27,322 13,973 66.16 33.84 24,621 14,542 62.87 37.13
144 23,656 16,167 59.40 40.60 21,172 16,563 56.11 43.89
Here, the GOP suffered its biggest and third-biggest dropoffs (they lost 2,517 votes on average in HD127, but Dems lost 1000 votes as well, which was proportionate to the percentages), while the Dems gained votes in each case. These are working-class districts with a white voting majority, both friendly to the GOP. If Obama had any problems locally with that demographic here, these districts are where you can see the effect.
2. The Hispanic districts
There are four State Rep districts in Harris County that are represented by Hispanic politicians - HDs 140 (Rep.-elect Armando Walle), 143 (Rep. Ana Hernandez), 145 (Rep-elect Carol Alvarado), and 148 (Rep. Jessica Farrar). In all four, Barack Obama received over 60% of the vote. But in three of them, the downballot Democrats did significantly better:
Dist McCain Obama M Pct O Pct GOP avg Dem avg GOP % Dem %
==================================================================
140 6,396 11,450 35.84 64.16 5,111 11,943 29.97 70.03
143 6,729 10,299 39.52 60.48 5,270 10,982 32.43 67.57
145 7,574 12,508 37.72 62.28 5,999 13,082 31.44 68.56
148 13,421 20,137 39.99 60.01 12,198 19,119 38.95 61.05
I'm including HD148 for comparison, even though I consider it to be one of the non-exceptional districts. If there were any remaining Hillary diehards who refused to embrace Obama, I'd have to say this is where they'd be found. Clinton dominated these districts in the primary, so perhaps some of her loyalists refused to push the button for Obama. That did not carry down the ballot, however, and it wasn't just the judicials who did better than Obama. Everyone from Adrian Garcia (76.2% in HD140, 73.2 in 143, and 75.6 in 145) to Rick Noriega (71.0, 69.3, 73.0) to the statewide Dems, the appeals court candidates, and the rest of the county slate did better than Obama. Maybe McCain still had some unique appeal to these voters, but my guess is they just never got as on board the Obama Express as others did. I'll refrain from making any remarks about the lack of effort from the Obama campaign to reach these voters like what they did in some other states and move on to the last group. I will, however, make the point that it was only Barack Obama who really underperformed here. Whatever antipathy some voters may have had towards the Presidential nominee was limited to him. Be sure to look at Greg's take on this as well.
3. The Lawyer districts
Whereas those five districts showed an increase in votes for the downballot Dems over what Obama got, the last two had the exact reverse outcome:
Dist McCain Obama M Pct O Pct GOP avg Dem avg GOP % Dem %
==================================================================
134 35,430 34,740 50.49 49.51 35,977 28,357 55.92 44.08
136 37,958 19,490 66.07 33.93 37,472 16,391 69.57 30.43
These were the only districts in which the GOP judicial incumbents gained votes over John McCain. They weren't the only ones to do so - John Cornyn did, though Rick Noriega lost about half as many votes as the Dem judicials, and thus was closer percentagewise; Wallace Jefferson also gained votes, as did a couple of the appeals court judges in HD134 - but the effect is striking. My hypothesis here is that these are two of the most affluent districts around, covering places like River Oaks, West U, Bellaire, the Galleria area, and Memorial, and they probably have more lawyers per capita than the rest of the county. It's not a shock to me that they might have preferred the status quo on the local benches at a higher rate than everyone else, if only to preserve the devils they knew. As foolish as the prediction-making business is, especially this far out, I'll bet that the new judicial incumbents perform much like their ballotmates in four years' time, and for the same reason. Someone please make a note to remind me to check that in 2012.
And finally, since there's been so much written lately about "funny names", I present the following:
Dist Obama Pereira Pierre Mahendru Murray Mincberg Trautman
===================================================================
128 33.84 35.80 36.10 33.73 35.35 33.19 33.78
144 40.60 42.88 42.69 40.20 41.99 38.80 39.15140 64.16 70.44 69.12 66.51 67.63 64.86 64.35
143 60.48 67.53 66.37 63.60 65.29 62.29 61.03
145 62.28 69.21 67.39 64.32 65.73 62.14 61.10
148 60.01 60.55 59.46 58.74 58.50 53.42 54.23134 49.51 42.11 41.65 42.50 41.76 39.69 39.59
136 33.93 28.94 28.95 28.40 28.66 28.03 27.37Other 51.86 50.82 51.12 49.57 50.55 47.96 48.57
You can make of all that what you will. I note with some interest that Ashish Mahendru did better than the three other unsuccessful Democratic judicial candidates in HD134; perhaps that's a statement about incumbent Sharon McCally, who had the lowest Republican performance in Harris County in 2004 when Kathy Stone opposed her.
How's that for a start? Much more to come soon, so stay tuned.
There's still one more election to go before we can put 2008 to bed, and that's the runoff for the special election in SD17. Democratic candidates got a majority of the vote on November 4, and Chris Bell came out with a 27,000 vote lead over Joan Huffman, and garnered more votes than Huffman and Austen Furst combined. I see a real sense of urgency among local Dems to finish the job on this race, and I have a good feeling about it going into the race.
We don't yet know when the actual runoff will be - you can put my marker down for December 20, as I'm sure Governor Perry wants this to be as low a turnout affair as possible - but campaign activity is well underway. If you're in Fort Bend, the Bell campaign will officially open its local headquarters there this Saturday from 1 to 3 PM. The address is 869 Dulles Avenue, Ste. E in Stafford, which is where the Lampson HQ was before. Phone banking is going on now, so if you can't wait till Saturday for the pomp, head over today for the work. Let's get that Democratic caucus in the Senate up to 13.
The Texas Observer tells of some pre-filing mischief by State Rep. Debbie Riddle.
House Bill 50 would bar undocumented immigrants from paying in-state tuition. Similar bills failed last session. HB 48 would allow for state investigations into employers who have "knowingly" hired illegal immigrants. The Texas Workforce Commission could, through a tribunal process, strip the employer of state-issued licenses. (Call it the Brown Scare: "Mr. Smith, are you now or have you ever been the employer of an ILLEGAL ALIEN?")
None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who has watched The Riddler in action. She's basically a hater, and this is her idea of good public policy. But while HB50 is just noxious, I'm rather amused by HB48, which would seem to be a pretty burdensome regulation on businesses. I thought conservatives were supposed to be against that sort of thing. I guess now we know what's more powerful than the free market ideology, at least for The Riddler.
A third bill, HB 49, has received much less attention. It would create a new misdemeanor offense -- Criminal Trespass By Illegal Aliens -- that would appear to apply to a virtually limitless number of border-hoppers. Under the legislation, cops would be authorized to arrest individuals believed to be "trespassing" in Texas, among other federal immigration violations. Riddle's new trespassing crime is in fact a state application of long-standing federal statutes that prohibit illegal entry into the U.S.In recent years, federal prosecutors, working with the Border Patrol, have clogged Texas border courts with immigration cases. It's part of the Bush administration's "Operation Streamline," a zero-tolerance program that aims to charge, convict, and deport every single apprehended illegal entrant.
That's not good enough for Riddle. Her bill would dramatically widen this dragnet by allowing local law enforcement in on the game. The concern among immigrant rights groups is whether it's appropriate for local cops to essentially enforce federal immigration laws.
Well, that would be one way to ensure that Texas' prison population resumed its previous rate of growth. Enlisting local law enforcement in this kind of task has proven to be an unmitigated disaster for the people of Maricopa County in Arizona under the misadministration of their notoriously xenophobic sheriff, not that Riddle would care; once again, it's the ideology that matters, not the effect. Consider this another good reason to hope for a different Speaker this session, since any Speaker worth his or her salt will ensure a role for the likes of Riddle that's commensurate with her worth and abilities. Stace has more.
As entertaining as the Austin Mayor's race may be, there should be a very interesting battle in San Antonio to replace the term-limited Mayor Phil Hardberger. First term City Council member Diane Cibrian is in.
"I'm moving forward," Cibrian said. "Yes, I am running for mayor, and I'm excited about the future of San Antonio."She said she amended her campaign treasurer's report Wednesday to show that she's seeking San Antonio's top elected office, not a second term in District 8 on the North Side.
The switch allows her to begin accepting checks of up to $1,000, the maximum contributors can give to mayoral candidates. Council candidates are capped at $500.
[...]
Cibrian will almost certainly face former Councilman Julian Castro, who narrowly lost to Phil Hardberger in 2005. Far less certain is Trish DeBerry, a media consultant and co-owner of Guerra DeBerry & Coody, a marketing and communications firm.
I was a fan of Castro's back in 2005, and I hope to see him get in again this time. I don't know enough about Cibrian or DeBerry to judge them as candidates.
By the way, the next Mayor of San Antonio will be able to serve more than two two-year terms, as the charter proposition that was championed by outgoing Mayor Hardberger was passed by the voters earlier this month. The margin of victory was about 12,000 votes, or 51.6% to 48.4%. Maybe now someone in Houston will use that result to try to alter our own stupid term limits law.
I was very interested to see this op-ed in the Chron by Tory, Christof, and former Houston City Council Member Caroll Robinson, in which they describe six infrastructure projects we should undertake in the near future. Some of these ideas will be familiar to you, others are new. It's mirrored here for posterity, and it's worth your time to read. Heck, if we wind up just doing one or two of them, I'd be happy. Check it out.
My link dump transition team is in place and we expect no interrruptions in service as we bring you the weekend roundups.
Everything you ever wanted to know about becoming a force to be reckoned with on Twitter but were afraid to ask. Link, naturally, via Twitter, in particular The Bloggess.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight and Baseball Prospectus but were afraid to ask.
India's top pitching prospects.
Dixie got itself whistled right past, didn't it?
Grading the election theories.
I'd almost forgotten, I'd made some Election 2008 predictions way back in January. I didn't do quite as well on them as I did on the later ones, but I did come pretty close on the R/D split in the Presidential race for Texas.
The state of Texas will not ask the Supreme Court to overturn the recent Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision that struck down the law banning sex toys. Celebrate that news as you see fit. Link via Grits.
After I published my post about where and when the vote was in Harris County, I got an email from HCDP Chair Gerry Birnberg regarding the voter registration numbers. He writes:
One thing to watch out for as you proceed with your analysis: the voter registration numbers upon which the county clerk's "% of registered voters" numbers are based are materially wrong. Kaufman's "Cumulative Report" uses a figure for voter registration in Harris County of 1,892,656. The actual number of persons who were registered and eligible to vote on November 4 was at least 1,956,000 (probably up to 10,000 higher than that, because of the additional voters who were added to the list after early voting closed, but were eligible to vote in this election; I don't know that number, but believe it to be as high as 10,000). The reason for this difference of over 64,000 between Beverly's 1,892,656 figure and the known figure of 1,956,000 is that Beverly's figures are based on people who were actually on the rolls as of September 19 only, and were never updated after that date. This is significant because we believe that the great bulk of applications received and approved after 9/19 came from Democratic areas and voters, because we had an active voter registration effort underway while the Republicans did not, to my knowledge.
Why this matter in the post-election analysis is two-fold. First, the conclusion that voter registration was down (compared to 2004 registration numbers) in some Democratic areas is probably incorrect. If the 64,000 post September 19 registrations were added to the totals, I suspect virtually every (if not every) Democratic area will have experienced an increase in voter registration, rather than a decline in some areas, despite the TEAM results which reduced voter registrations across the board as the voter rolls were "cleaned up" for the first time at the centralized, state level. Second, and on the negative side, however, is the fact that if correct voter registration numbers are used, there is an even smaller percentage of registered voters turnout than Ms. Kaufman's Cumulative Report indicates. (If the denominator -- registered voters -- is increased, as it should be because the 1,892,656 is incorrectly low -- the percentage resulting from dividing the number of voters who voted by the number of registered voters in any area would decrease.) In other words, we voted even a smaller percentage of registered voters in Harris County than Ms. Kaufman's Cumulative Report indicates.
That's true, and I mentioned the disparity between the voter reg numbers that were reported after the deadline previously. But please note that I'm using the September registration figures for 2004 as well, since that's what the County Clerk uses on its cumulative results page. County Clerk Kaufman's page gives a registered voter total of 1,876,296 for 2004, which is what I used to compare the 2008 numbers to. If you go to the Historic Election Results page on the Secretary of State website and do a County Canvass Report for a race that included Harris in 2004, you get 1,937,072, or about 61,000 more voters, all registered in the latter days of the campaign. I've said 2008 is a unique year in American politics, and it certainly is, but I'd bet a lot of those 61,000 late registrants in 2004 were disproportionately Democratic as well. As such, I maintain I'm comparing apples to apples here.
But look, even if you want to quibble about the numbers, the basic point remains the same. Go ahead and assume that the County Clerk's number is too low by 64,000 or so. Assign all of those voters to the Strong D districts if you want. That gets them from minus 25,000 to plus 39,000, which still lags the growth in the Strong R districts. That's using a silly assumption against data that has a similar undercount from four years ago, and it still yields the same conclusion: You cannot account for the increased Democratic share of the vote - which you may recall is on the order of 88,000 more votes than 2004 - without concluding that there must be more people voting Democratic in strong R districts. That doesn't mean we didn't have better performance in the other districts - we did, and I will demonstrate it in the coming days - it just simply means we shouldn't be myopic about where "the base" is. Our voters are everywhere, and we need to have a turnout strategy that reflects that.
I swear, I am not going to spend much time writing about the Austin mayoral race. There will be much more interesting things for me to blog about in the next few months. But God help me, Carole Keeton Strayhorn is just too entertaining to ignore for too long. I mean, a listening tour? For real? Either you're listening to the people who'll fund your campaign or you're not, and the rest is just show business. But at least I got to crib a funny post title from Ginger, and that's what counts. BOR has more.
Big Jolly becomes the first prominent conservative to call on SBOE member Cynthia Dunbar to apologize for that unhinged rant she published about President-elect Barack Obama just before the election.
We have watched this story for over a week, patiently waiting for Ms. Dunbar to realize that [she was clearly in the wrong], issue the appropriate apology and move on.We have been disappointed. Crazy, wild-eyed, idiotic, 911 Truther conspiracies like this are wrong no matter which side of the aisle you are on. Ms. Dunbar, we are asking you to do the right thing. Ultimately, we are one nation. Our battles should be limited to ideology and direction, not baseless personal attacks. Yes, you do have first amendment protection. But as an elected official, you also have a duty to your electorate, a duty which at times requires you to temper your first amendment freedom to make stupid statements.
You have embarrassed the very people that elected you. You can make it right by simply admitting that. We urge you to do so forthwith.
I appreciate the sentiment, which is echoed by David Benzion, for which he's taken some heat in the comments. Wick Allison noted Dunbar's nuttery, but as far as I can tell via Google, nobody else on their side of the political aisle has even mentioned this. It really would be nice, and it might actually get a result, if some Republican officeholder could bring him or herself to do the same as Benzion and Big Jolly. She is a public official, after all, not just some fringe loony. And given some of the other crazy things being said by other public officials, establishing some kind of standard for the discourse - and let's face it, ruling out this kind of stuff requires a mighty low bar - would serve us all well. I fear, however, that we won't even get that. Which makes me appreciate LST's action, lonely as it is likely to be, all the more.
UPDATE: I had missed that the author of this post was Big Jolly and not David Benzion when I first wrote this, though as noted Benzion is in agreement with it. My apologies for the confusion.
Here's a report on that rally at the University of Texas in favor of domestic partner benefits for faculty and staff that I blogged about earlier in the week.
UT employees said Wednesday that they will take an active stand against a University policy that only affords health care benefits to married couples.Hundreds rallied at the Texas Union Patio for the event organized by UT's Pride and Equity Faculty Staff Association, which represents gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender University employees. UT does not provide health care benefits to non-spousal dependents or employees with same-sex partners on the grounds that Texas law prohibits such extensions.
The association presented a 70-page report on the lack of domestic partner benefits to the administration in April, but in August, UT President William Powers and lawyers from the UT System and University told the organization they were not in a position to help employees seeking extended partner benefits.
"There's a time and place to make a stand, and providing domestic partner benefits to all members of our community is the right thing to do, and this is the time to do it," said Gregory Vincent, vice president for diversity and community engagement at UT.
Vincent told the crowd that the University will not be able to ensure equal benefits for all employees on its own.
"In a real way, we have to partner with the Legislature, partner with universities across the state, partner with [the UT System]," he said. "We may be the flagship, but we cannot do this alone."
Speaking of the Legislature, one of the attendees was State Rep. Elliott Naishtat, who represents UT-Austin. He'll be working on that this session.
Naishtat said a bill that will be drafted for the 2009 Texas legislative session would eliminate the legal issues that hinder UT from extending benefits.If passed, the bill will alter the language in the section of the Texas Constitution that prohibits UT from providing benefits to same-sex partners of employees. The insurance code states that the University can only provide benefits to a dependent, whom the code defines as a spouse. Naishtat's bill will add the phrase "or other qualified individual," and UT could then define who may be included in this category of individuals.
Naishtat said that while many legislators want to co-sponsor the bill, support may be currently lacking, as the bill is in its early stages of drafting.
"I can assure you, though, there will be opposition to it," he said. "Texas may not be the most progressive state, but if this had anything to do with making UT more competitive in football, I'd think you'd see domestic partner benefits in a New York minute."
If it will actually require a Constitutional amendment, I don't see any way that it will happen. An ordinary bill requiring only a majority might make it through, though it would be a big underdog and would almost surely get vetoed if it reached Governor Perry's desk. But you still have to make the effort, because it's a fight that needs to be fought, and if not this Lege and this Governor, maybe the next one will do the right thing. Or maybe UT will realize it has no reason not to do what other schools have done and make this happen anyway. Either way, I'll try to follow the progress of Naishtat's bill in the House. Thanks to BOR for the link. Photos, videos, and links to coverage of the event can be found on Facebook here, here, and here, and the petition, which now has about 1000 signatures, is here.
Today is America Recycles Day. Some people think this is the wrong idea. Treehugger.com makes the case for emphasizing reusable packaging instead of recyclable. I don't particularly care for the way they frame this, but I think they make a provocative point, and I think perhaps we should reconsider such concepts as deposits on bottles and cans. If we can do better than what we're doing now - and in Houston at least, that's sadly not a high bar to clear - we should make the effort. Take a look at what they propose and see what you think.
Dynamo fans have their say about the East End stadium plan and the need for Commissioners Court to get involved for the current financing plan to happen.
Houston East End Chamber of Commerce President Diane Lipton said it's important for the county to join the effort to revitalize the disadvantaged neighborhood.Standing on the proposed site of the stadium, Lipton gestured at the abandoned industrial buildings and empty fields nearby and pledged the blight would be replaced by restaurants, clubs and thriving businesses if the project moves forward.
"The East End is ready for economic growth," added Hedy Wolpa, interim president of the Greater East End Management District. "An investment here in the East End will be a tremendous value to Houston."
Well, if the deal eventually falls through, you can't say it wasn't because the locals didn't want it. Whether this is enough to sway Commissioners Garcia and Lee, I couldn't say. But the more of this there is, the better the chances. While letters and phone calls are your best bet, the revised petition for the Dynamo is here.
Naturally, whenever this topic comes up, someone will say "What about the Astrodome?". That happens in the comments to that Houston Politics post as well as in today's letters to the editor. I've said plenty about why that's not going to happen, but let's just keep this one thing in mind: Between maintenance and debt service, the Astrodome costs Harris County something like a few hundred grand a year. The Dynamo would be doing the county a big favor by turning it from an albatross into something that would generate revenue. The only circumstance under which they would do that is if they got something sweet in return; a complete renovation of the Dome would be first on that list. It's simply not possible that the county could be on the hook for less money up front to foist the Dome on the Dynamo than they would be for the downtown stadium. If the county is going to have a stake in the Dynamo's stadium situation at all, the cheapest option by far is the TIRZ plan. I really don't know why this is so hard for some people to grasp.
While I maintain that only fools make predictions, not all predictions themselves are foolish. I think I did pretty well on mine, all things considered. But not everyone fared so well. For instance, in the comments to this post, the following prognostication was made by someone named Craig Klein:
Sheila Jackson Lee is in trouble in this election and no one seems to know it... Least of all her!There have been significant demographic shifts in District 18 since she last had a Republican opponent.
Inner city neighborhoods in the Heights, Garden Oaks, Mid-Town and elsewhere have been redeveloped and incomes have risen.
Also, the # of African Americans living in the district has stayed basically flat while the # of Hispanics has grown by 65,000.
There were a total of 150,000 votes cast in the district in the last election.
Plus the fact that there is a significant amount of disillusionment with Sheila amongst African Americans, as illustrated by Marcus Davis' considering running against her earlier this year.
John Faulk, the Republican opponent, got a late start but, is working the street hard.
Since she has an opponent this time, she'll give up 40 to 50k votes to Republican voters, many of whom vote straight ticket. Then Faulk just needs a 50% of the new hispanics and new high income whites in the district and he's won!
Sounds great! How'd it turn out?
U. S. Representative District 18John Faulk REP 21,685 17.50% 39,000 20.34%
Sheila Jackson Lee DEM 99,548 80.35% 148,204 77.31%
Mike Taylor LIB 2,658 2.14% 4,475 2.33%
Boy, missed it by that much.
I don't want to spend too much time on this, since it was obviously silly. But as this will serve as my kickoff post for precinct data review, there are a couple of things to note. One, Jackson Lee won nearly as many votes this year as were cast in CD18 in 2004, and her percentage was better than it was 2006, when she won with only 76.62% of the vote. So, you know, so much for Craig's theory. It's actually even worse than that, since there were over 110,000 straight ticket Democratic votes cast in CD18, which as you can see would have put Jackson Lee over 50% even if those were the only votes she'd gotten. And she still got 70% of the remaining votes, so pretty much no matter how you slice it, this was a no-doubt-about-it race.
One last thing: Though Barack Obama got more votes in CD18 than Jackson Lee did (150,226 to 148,204), so did John McCain get more than John Faulk, and McCain's total was high enough at 43,109 to keep Obama's share of the vote lower than Jackson Lee's in the straight two-party matchup. Obama got 77.7% of the R/D share, Jackson Lee 79.2%. Maybe there's still a desire by some to primary her in 2010 for having supported Hillary Clinton this year, but I'd say these numbers show an awful lot of forgive-and-forget. And if that isn't happening, there's no way you'll get her out before she's ready to leave on her own terms. This is her district.
Last week it was reported that Craddick D Rep. Kino Flores of Palmview was being investigated by both the state of Texas and the feds.
The investigation initially involved whether Flores illegally accepted a gift when he traveled at least three times between Austin and McAllen on a plane owned by the LaMantia family, which owns a Budweiser distributorship in South Texas and is developing a $23 million horse racetrack in Hidalgo County.The investigation now has expanded into whether Flores charged the state for the trips, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
Flores is chairman of the House committee that oversees gambling legislation.
His attorney, Roy Minton of Austin, confirmed his client is under investigation.
"The district attorney's office is investigating how Kino paid for his travel expenses, which I believe was a proper way for such expenses to be paid," Minton said. He also said he was aware that an FBI agent had been asking questions.
Burka homes in on the importance of all this.
District Attorney Ronnie Earle's approach to some cases involving ethics violations -- most prominently, that of former speaker Gib Lewis -- has been to offer the public official who is under fire the choice of resign your seat or face prosecution. Normally, the troubles of an individual legislator would not have much impact on the course of Texas politics. But Flores's situation has arisen in the context of a speaker's race. Today, November 13, is exactly two months prior to the formal vote on Tom Craddick's future. Flores is one of a dwindling number of Craddick D's. It is by no means certain that he will be around to take the oath of office on January 13.
And Earle is still in office through the end of the year. If Flores does wind up resigning, then the session will start out down a member, until Governor Perry can call a special election to replace him. Even if Flores quit today, I don't think he could be replaced before the start of the session, which means one fewer ally for Tom Craddick. And if Phillip's exhaustive math is correct, that's one ally he cannot afford to lose.
Again, we won't really know what's possible until all the anti-Craddicks unite behind one candidate. In a perverse way, if Linda Harper-Brown holds onto her seat in HD 105 after the recount, thus allowing the Republicans to maintain a 76-74 majority in the House, that may help winnow the field of wannabes, as the Democrats would likely concede to a Republican alternative. Obviiously, there's a zillion ways this could all play out. But so far, the likely paths seem to lead away from Craddick and not towards him. We can only hope.
By the way, Texas Monthly asked a bunch of Speaker candidates to explain why they should be the next Speaker, and they got some good results, so go check 'em out. I remain a Senfronia Thompson fan, but man, Scott Hochberg is a tough act to follow. Go read his answer and see what I mean.
All of the ballots in Harris County have now been counted, and the results of all the races remain the same.
Before Thursday, for instance, Democratic challenger Josefina Muniz Rendon was ahead of Republican state District Judge Elizabeth Ray by only 135 of the 1.1 million votes cast in the race. The Democrat's winning margin is now 520.In the other closest race, Republican state District Judge Joseph "Tad" Halbach's margin over Democrat Goodwille Pierre shrank to 230 votes from 595.
All other county races were decided by bigger vote gaps and were not affected by the new vote totals. Democratic challengers defeated 23 of the 27 Republican judges on the ballot.
[...]
The final tallies triggered former Houston Police Chief C.O. "Brad" Bradford's concession of defeat in his race for district attorney against Republican Pat Lykos. He had been waiting for the final totals in a contest he ended up losing by less than 5,000 votes.
"I want to congratulate Judge Lykos on her victory and wish her all the best as she moves forward in the District Attorney's Office," the Democrat said after talking to Lykos by phone. "We raised a number of important issues in this campaign, and I hope these issues will continue to be discussed and resolved -- issues such as jail overcrowding, getting alternative treatment for the mentally ill and substance abusers, a public defender's office and reform of the grand jury system."
Lykos said she hopes to meet with Bradford to reminisce about the campaign and discuss ways to develop policies they agreed on, including treatment options for mentally ill accused criminals.
Seems unlikely there will be recounts, so the remaining action is in SD17 for the runoff and HD105 for the recount there. There was, however, some drama with this tally:
During the counting process, the Texas Democratic Party accused voter registrar Paul Bettencourt, a Republican, of delaying the verifications. Jim Harding, the Republican chief of a bipartisan ballot board, which made final decisions on which ballots were valid, accused Bettencourt of supplying the board with faulty records.Bettencourt denied the allegations. After the Chronicle published Harding's statements, Bettencourt firmly asserted his denials in phone messages to Harding, the men said.
In turn, Harding alleged Thursday that Bettencourt's calls were improper attempts to influence how the ballot board did business. He discussed the messages with County Attorney First Assistant John Barnhill, who was unavailable for comment.
Bettencourt said he had merely defended his staff's performance -- without questioning the board's decision to accept some provisional ballots that Bettencourt's workers had classified as incomplete.
Harding's statements were in yesterday's story.
Republican Jim Harding, a retired Houston business executive who chairs the ballot board of about 35 people, said the counting process was delayed by faulty work by Bettencourt's staff.The problems included hundreds of voter forms whose information the registrar's staff masked with white correction fluid and then altered with new information, Harding said.
As ballot board members determined whether ballots should be counted, he said, they wanted to have confidence in the accuracy of the registrar's research.
But "that kind of confidence is not replicated here, and then when they see this 'white-out' all over the place they get nervous," he said.
Also, the board has accepted ballots cast by voters whose registrations had been classified by Bettencourt's staff as incomplete, Harding said. In many cases records showed voters had visited state Department of Public Safety offices where they claimed to have registered to vote, Harding explained, and the ballot board is giving those voters the benefit of the doubt.
Harding said there were more errors and related voting records problems than in five previous elections in which he served on the ballot board.
Some of that will come out when the remaining claims in the Texas Democratic Party's lawsuit against Bettencourt goes forward next year. I can certainly believe Bettencourt has been putting his thumb on the scale, but I'll be a little amazed if he was careless enough about it to get caught out.
David Mauro, one of the BOR bloggers, is in the running for a $10,000 blogging scholarship. He's in second place, but currently trails the leader by about 3000 votes. David is both the only Texan and the only progressive political writer on the list. If you've got a minute, please go the the CollegeScholarships.org site and cast a vote for him. The winner will be announced on November 20, so please go vote today. Thanks!
Harris County Commissioners Court, which is the last remaining obstacle to a deal to build a Dynamo Stadium downtown, remains lukewarm to the concept.
Harris County officials still showed little enthusiasm for the proposed Dynamo stadium Wednesday as supporters tried to up the pressure on Commissioners Court to join a deal that Houston Mayor Bill White said hinges on the county's participation.Dynamo fans plan to gather at the proposed stadium site this morning for a news conference planned by the Houston East End Chamber of Commerce, the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and two other organizations. The project's supporters also were circulating an online petition directed at swaying Commissioners Court.
I'm not sure what petition they're referring to - there's this one that's linked off of HomeForTheDynamo.com, but like the site itself, it's rather out of date as its target is Mayor White and not Commissioners Garcia and Lee. Anyone know what they're using for this?
White asked Harris County in July to contribute $10 million to the project by joining the city's East Downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone at the stadium's proposed site. He said Wednesday the fate of the project rests in the county's hands.Asked what would happen if the county rejects the request, White replied, "That would really be up to the Dynamo."
[...]
If Harris County partners with Houston on the East Downtown TIRZ, each government would agree to forgo $10 million of its share of property taxes from the area to help pay for the stadium. Dynamo co-owner Anschutz Entertainment Group is willing to invest the other $60 million to build the $80 million stadium, team president/general manager Oliver Luck said.
Commissioners Court protocol dictates that formal proposals to participate in such projects must come from the commissioner whose precinct would be affected. The lion's share of the site is in Commissioner El Franco Lee's precinct, while a smaller portion is in Commissioner Sylvia Garcia's.
A member of Lee's staff said he was not granting interviews about the stadium Wednesday.
Garcia said she was reluctant to use tax dollars to build a stadium without voter approval.
"I will keep listening until I hear from the taxpayers that this is something they really want us to do," she said. "I'm going to keep doing my due diligence ... to assess what's best for the county post-Ike and in today's current economic climate."
That doesn't sound like a No to me, but it's a pretty long way from being a Yes. I'll say again, if you're a Dynamo fan and you want to see this happen, rallies and online petitions are nice, but nothing beats a letter and a phone call. If you're not sure whose precinct you live in, I found this map of Commissioner Garcia's Precinct 2, but that's all I could find. Try looking yourself up at HCVoter.net - Commissioner Lee's precinct is 1, and Garcia's is 2, then go here for contact info. It's either that or learn what Plan B is.
I have a draft canvass of precinct data for Harris County, and have been happily slicing and dicing it to see what secrets I can tease out. There's all kind of fascinating stuff in there - right now my biggest problem is figuring out where to begin - so let me give you a preview of some of it.
- Republican strength has eroded across the board in Harris County. Some "safe" State Rep districts are a lot more competitive than you might think.
- The Obama effect: Where the President-elect ran ahead of the pack, where he ran behind, and how that might have affected downballot races.
- West Harris County ain't what it used to be, and that affords plenty of opportunities for Democrats going forward.
- The Adrian Garcia juggernaut.
- Who were the strongest candidates relative to their partymates, and who were the weakest? And how far apart were they?
All this and more, thanks to the magic of Excel and the benificence of the County Clerk's office. Stay tuned!
Back in September, Texans for Public Justice filed a complaint with the Travis County Attorney's office, which handles misdemeanor criminal cases, including those involving state officials, alleging that Dewhurst was insufficiently forthcoming about his trust fund in his financial disclosure statements. Dewhurst is now responding to that complaint by providing information to County Attorney David Escamilla.
"We've cooperated entirely," said Dewhurst's lawyer, famed Austin defense attorney Roy Minton. "We're just in the process of showing documents to them."
[...]In a statement in September, Dewhurst, 63, said he had followed "the advice of my expert legal counsel in filling out and filing my political financial statement to fully comply with the letter and spirit of the law, and it is a fact I do not know the assets in my trust from which I have received income in excess of $500."
But he told the AP in August that he kept abreast of his financial health at an Austin business office that rents space from his political campaign.
"A lot of times I'm over on the (political) committee side doing fundraising calls and things and then I'll have a few minutes and I'll want to go over and take a look at some recent financial numbers, see how we're doing," Dewhurst said. "We pick fund managers and hedge funds and we hold our breath and hope it does well."
Nowhere in Dewhurst's financial disclosure forms does it say the former CIA agent, through a privately held trust, is a major shareholder in a Houston energy and investment company. There's no mention of his far-flung cattle ranches, private bank investments or luxury condo. Nor is there any word of the hedge funds, stocks and bonds or publicly traded fuel distribution company he acknowledges are or have been part of a trust fund estimated to be worth up to $200 million.
It just says the David Dewhurst Trust is valued at "$25,000 or more."
The law requires the "identification of each trust asset, if known to the beneficiary, from which income was received by the beneficiary in excess of $500."
It's too early to say if this will amount to anything. But given all the other drama that's already built up for the 2009 legislative session, as well as Dewhurst's designs on higher office, and this could add up to a major distraction at the least. If I had to guess right now, without knowing anything more than this, I'd say it's likely nothing will come of this. But you never know, and even if this does go away, it may not go away quietly.
Oh, noes!
The dream isn't dead, but it is on hold for the time being.
After months of delays related to the credit crunch, the upscale Sonoma condo and retail project planned in Rice Village has officially hit the skids.The developer said the project is being put on hold due to economic uncertainties and tumultuous credit markets, which has kept it from securing the loan it needs to move forward with the development.
"It's an extraordinarily unusual time," said Julie Tysor, of owner Lamesa Corp. "We just think it's an intelligent thing to just take a breath, which is what many, many developers are doing across the nation."
Last month, residential developers Florida-based Turnberry Associates and Hanover Co. of Houston said they were canceling their respective projects planned for sites in the Galleria area.
Those who put down deposits for units in Sonoma are being notified today that the project is not moving forward. They will have their money returned with interest.
Tysor said the project at Bolsover and Morningside is being put on hold "for the short-term."
"It doesn't mean this development won't occur," she said. "It's an unbelievable site for a development of this nature and we wholeheartedly believe in what we designed. The buyers love the site and lenders love the site."
They just don't love it enough to actually loan the developers the money to build it right now. For sure, that block of real estate won't stay fallow for long. But who knows when those hippie bohemian attorneys will finally be able to call it home.
A portion of Bolsover, a street the developer acquired from the city to build the project, will remain closed.As part of its contract with the city, the developers agreed to build public parking and a plaza by the middle of 2012.
"Just because we're not coming out of the ground today we have plenty of time to do what's right with this tract of land," Tysor said.
Swamplot, which had noted last month that Sonoma was still expecting financing to come through at that time, says that the Bolsover closure is a done deal.
In another development, the city of Houston said Tuesday that developer Randall Davis had successfully completed all work that was required by the extended deadline of Oct. 27.A letter of credit through Amegy Bank for the required changes in the amount of $48,692 had been extended from July 27, 2007 and was granted July 24, 2008, Public Works Department spokesman Alvin Wright said.
[...]
Additionally, the required plugging and abandonment of the 8-inch water line within Bolsover Street, and the relocation of the existing storm sewer inlets to Bolsover and Morningside Drive have already passed inspection, Wright said.
The condition that the developer "eliminate the appearance of the public street" at the intersections of Bolsover and both Kelvin and Morningside has also been fulfilled, according to the city inspection records.
[...]
Wright said even if the work covered under the letters of credit was not completed by the deadlines, the city would not get the property back.
An updated version of the Chron story clarifies this:
Frank Michel, a spokesman for Mayor Bill White, said the city's abandonment of a street for the project has two requirements: one, that developers get utilities in place under the street by Sept. 1, a deadline they met; and two, that they must deliver a pedestrian walkway on the road by 2012.If they fail to meet the latter deadline, the road will revert back to the city, but not until then, he said.
I never did get an answer to my question from Council Member Clutterbuck's office about this, but I suppose it's moot now.
It began with the best of intentions: A grand plan to blanket the city with a wireless ''cloud" would provide cheap Internet access to the masses.When that project failed last year, as it did in many other places, the city turned to a new idea: Wireless ''bubbles" could bridge the digital divide in many of Houston's poorest neighborhoods.
But for those who had high hopes that Houston's flirtations with WiFi would give them free home connectivity, that bubble appears to have officially burst.
Instead, the city is using $3.5 million from a settlement with Earthlink to provide computers and free high-speed connectivity to community centers, nonprofit groups and schools.
And because the network will be password-protected, the wireless connection it provides will be cut off from all but those who participate in classes and programs at the locations.
[...]
City Councilwoman Wanda Adams, who sits on a committee that oversees the initiative and represents some neighborhoods that could be selected for the program, said she does not understand why, if a network exists, people will not have access to it. "My take is, if I'm a student and I live in an area where there is wireless, I should be able to access it if I live within so many feet."
Adams said she supported the project but planned to meet with its leaders and stakeholders to get more clarity.
Nicole Robinson, project director for the initiative, said that after Earthlink failed to deliver on its promise to set up a wireless network throughout all of Houston, providing access to residents was never a part of the city's revised plan.
"We are making sure individuals who don't have computers in the home, who don't have the skill set or training they need, will have an opportunity to make sure they can receive those services. We want to this to impact quality of life. It's about access with a purpose."
Even if the city wanted to make the wireless connection available to residents, such an expansion could be difficult. If too many people access it, the network could bog down. Some could cancel their Internet contracts with Comcast or AT&T, leading them to depend on the city as a service provider, a development that would significantly drive up costs and expectations.
Under the new initiative, a "Wireless Empowered Community Access Network," or WECAN, will be built in 25 super-neighborhoods, 10 of which should be completed in the next two years. The wireless connections will be available on computers inside 15 community centers, schools and other buildings in each network.
That's not quite what we were expecting when last we heard of this. And it turns out that this isn't the last word on the subject.
In multiple interviews over about a week, Sandra Fernandez, a spokeswoman for the Houston Public Library and Nicole Robinson, the initiative's project director, told me several times that residential access was not part of the plan.Robinson said the network would likely "pop up" in the neighborhood on a laptop or home computer, as wireless networks do in coffee shops and bookstores, but a user in that scenario would not be able to connect because it would have "secure access," or would be password-protected.
Those who concluded that the network would be available to nearby residents on their laptops or in their homes may have done so because of a "misconception initially," she said, later adding:
"The city definitely doesn't want to become an Internet service provider."
That was one of the main reasons we decided to write an update, since our original story in March indicated that residents in the neighborhoods would be able to connect. It was also an impression shared by City Councilwoman Wanda Adams. Interestingly, a senior staffer for another City Council member who had been briefed by Robinson was under the same impression: that the service would not be available to residents.
This afternoon, about 3:30 p.m., Michael Moore, Mayor Bill White's chief of staff, told me that other city employees in the information technology department have been working separately to ensure that residents can use the WiFi.
So does that mean it won't be password protected, or that the password will be given out to residents who ask for it, or something else? Maybe we need another update. More here.
While I would not claim that robocalling is a wise way to enhance one's name ID, it helps if the script is the least bit clever, and if the name you're trying to enhance is one that people would recognize, in some form, more often than not. Be that as it may, it does appear to be Carole Keeton Strayhorn's re-introduction as she gears up to run for Mayor of Austin. I doubt that I'd vote for her if I were a resident, but the election in the Capitol City will be the more interesting for her presence. You go, Grandma. BOR has more.
City Council has followed through on its plan to ban so-called Attention Getting Devices, or AGDs.
The ban will not go into effect until January 2010. But scenic advocates cheered the decision, saying the prohibition is a necessary step to clean up Houston's blighted highways and cluttered streetscapes.[...]
Council voted 9-2 to ban the devices. Councilwomen Anne Clutterbuck and Pam Holm voted against.
Holm said she did not want to tell small businesses what type of advertising media they could use: "As an elected person it's not up to me to establish the business plans."
Clutterbuck expressed concern about the ban's exception for non-commercial and holiday displays."
Deciding whether an inflatable Santa Claus is a celebratory holiday use or a commercial use to promote sales is going to confuse the sign inspectors, Clutterbuck said.
"I worry about the enforceability and constitutionality of incorporating this into our law," she said.
I think CM Clutterbuck raises a good point, though I presume the City Attorney has given an opinion on the constitutionality matter. As I said before, I'm ambivalent about this. I guess I just don't think it's that big a deal one way or the other. We'll see if someone kicks up a fuss about it.
UPDATE: I suppose this would be the end of Al Harrington's wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men emporium.
Mac, a mischievous, young Asian elephant who had become one of the Houston Zoo's most popular animals, became ill and died Sunday. He was 2.He entertained visitors with his ability to dance, produce music on wind pipes and stand on his head.
Many zoo staff members, won over by his intelligence, playfulness and occasional headstrong ways, were devastated by the death of the 2,200-pounds-and-still growing animal.
"Everyone shares in the grief. Mac was embraced by the community in the past two years. It was sudden. It was quick, and we just couldn't save him," said zoo director Rick Barongi, who choked up with tears and stepped away from the microphone during a press conference Monday.
Ah, man, that sucks. So, um, any advice on how to discuss this with a 4-year-old when she asks where Mac is the next time we're at the zoo? Thanks.
After composing himself, Barongi returned to the microphone and said a cure or vaccine will be found only if veterinarians devote themselves to finding one.Among the zoo's remaining elephants is 3-year-old Tucker, who was Mac's playmate. But the herd may be growing.
"Shanti's in the early stage of pregnancy," Barongi said.
Let's hope for the best on all counts.
I have finally received precinct data from Harris County. It's going to take me a little while to work through it to start getting some answers about how the votes were distributed - Matt Stiles, who got his draft canvass earlier, produced a colored map from it that you should see - but in the meantime, I want to discuss a couple of trends that are fairly easy to spot even with the data that I had at the time. Here is a Google spreadsheet that compares the number of votes, registered voters, and early votes in each State Rep district from 2004 to 2008. There are two points that need to be made, because I think they go a long way towards explaining what happened these past few weeks.
First, let's look at where the voters are. I began by classifying the 25 State Rep districts in Harris County as Strong D, Strong R, and Swing. They are:
Strong D - HDs 131, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148
Strong R - HDs 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 132, 135, 136, 138, 150
Swing - HDs 133, 134, 144, 149
Note that all four of the swing districts were held by Republicans going into the 2004 election. Dems won HD149 in 2004, 134 in 2006, and 133 this year.
The first thing to notice on the spreadsheet is that there's a whole lot more voters in the strong R districts than there are in the strong Ds:
Dist type 04 voters 04 avg 08 voters 08 avg Change
==========================================================
Strong D 700,638 63,694 676,691 61,517 -25,563
Strong R 860,816 86,082 907,006 90,701 +46,190
Swing 314,842 78,710 310,575 77,644 -4,267
What had been a 160,000 voter registration gap in favor of the Strong R districts is now 230,000. Of the 14 districts now held by Democratic State Reps, only three - HDs 131 (+838), 141 (+582), and 149 (+2,350) - gained voters. Six of the eleven Republican districts grew - HDs 126 (+1,371), 127 (+4,406), 130 (+20,948), 132 (+18,743), 135 (+1,475), and 150 (+9,393). Whether this is demographics or a good illustration of the Bettencourt Effect is unclear, but the challenge to Democrats running countywide isn't. You can't win as a Democrat in Harris County solely by turning out voters in Democratic districts. There's far too many voters outside of those districts, and you need as many of them as you can get.
It's not just registrations. The percentage of voters who turned out increased in every district, though as Marc Campos noted, in some cases that meant the number of voters declined, thanks to the lower registration rates. But as above, the increase was greater in the Republican districts:
Dist type 04 votes 04 pct 08 votes 08 pct Change
==========================================================
Strong D 348,135 49.69% 374,217 55.43% +5.74
Strong R 546,774 63.52% 607,814 67.01% +3.49
Swing 193,423 61.43% 201,785 64.97% +3.54
The rate of increase in the Dem districts was highest, but turnout still lagged the R districts by double digits. What's more, the Republican districts were a greater share of the electorate in 2008 than in 2004. In 2004, 50.24% of all votes were cast in the Strong R districts, while the Strong Ds accounted for 31.99% and the Swings the remaining 17.77%. In 2008, the percentages were 51.34% Strong R, 31.61% Strong D, and 17.05% Swing.
Yet with all these factors seemingly working against the Democrats, the results in 2008 wre completely different, Every statewide Dem won at least a plurality of the vote. All appeals court candidates won majorities. Dems won 27 of 34 contested countywide races, and picked up a State House seat to increase their majority of the delegation to 14-11.
How could this be? The answer is obvious: More Democrats live in the Strong R districts than vice versa (and also in the swing districts, three of which are held by Democratic reps), and more of them are there now than were in 2004. This is clear not only from the countywide results, but also from some of the state rep races and from the March primaries. Consider some of the State Rep races. In 2004, the winning margins for Republican candidates over their Democratic challengers in HDs 126, 127, and 138 were 69.3/30.7, 70.4/29.6, and 63.8/36.2, respectively. In 2008, those results were 59.4/38.4, 65.7/32.3, and 59.0/41.0 (there were Libertarian candidates this year in 126 and 127). It's highly likely that other Dems did better in those districts, as well as in the others, than they did in 2004. I'll know for sure when I get the precinct data, but it should be clear to see: The Dems gained a lot of ground in the reddest places. They even turned some of them blue. I'd call that the fruition of the "Run Everywhere" strategy.
I'm discussing all this at such great length because I want to make this point crystal clear, and I haven't yet seen it in any of the analysis I've seen so far about turnout, the Latino vote, etc. That point is that Democrats won up and down the ballot despite having fewer voters, in both an absolute and a relative sense, than they did in 2004. The Democratic base doesn't just exist in the same familiar places any more. It's everywhere in the county, and any strategy for winning the county again in 2010 has to take that into effect.
The other topic to discuss is early voting. As we saw this year, early voting increased by a lot, which caused some projections of the final turnout to be far higher than the actual amount. It also made for a change on Election Day, as the usual dynamic of early Republican leads that got whittled into as Tuesday returns trickled in was reversed. The question is whether there was a late surge of Republican voting, or if it was just the case that the Democrats shot their load early and had little left for Tuesday. Here's how these numbers looked:
Dist type 04 early 04 pct 08 early 08 pct Change
==========================================================
Strong D 121,938 35.03% 220,763 58.99% +68.43%
Strong R 212,103 38.79% 341,767 56.23% +44.95%
Swing 77,726 40.18% 114,161 56.58% +40.79%
Voters in all districts went to the polls early at a higher rate than they did in 2004, but proportionally the Democrats did more of this. Voters in the Strong D districts, which as we know are more Democratic than the Strong R districts are Republican, made up 32.62% of the early vote this year, as opposed to 29.61% of the early vote in 2004; for the Strong Rs, the numbers were 50.51% in 2008 and 51.51% in 2004. The flip side of this is that these voters were a much smaller share of the Tuesday vote. Strong D voters were 33.43% of the E-Day vote in 2004, and 30.26% of it in 2008, whereas Strong Rs were 47.47% of the E-Day vote in 2004, and 52.46% of it in 2008. I don't have enough evidence to judge whether or not the Republicans had a late rush to the polls, which is to say if they wound up with more voters on Tuesday than they had originally expected, but it seems clear that the Democrats had a greater shift towards early voting, which put the Republicans in the catchup position afterward.
All righty then. I hope this holds us all off till I work my way through the precinct data.
Texas Democratic Party officials are asking a federal judge in Houston to block what they call illegal moves by Harris County voter registrar Paul Bettencourt as the last few votes are added to the totals from the Nov. 4 election.U.S. District Judge Gray Miller was scheduled to consider the complaint against Republican Bettencourt at 10 a.m. today.
Bettencourt, who was re-elected last week as county tax assessor-collector, denied the allegations in general Tuesday. He said he had to withhold specific comments until he read the lawsuit and consulted with outgoing County Attorney Mike Stafford.
[...]
No results from the overseas and accepted provisional ballots have been made public yet. The mailed ballots generally favor Republican candidates while the provisionals are expected to favor Democratic candidates, according to several political experts.
Since last week's election, Bettencourt's voter registration staff has been checking those provisional ballots against records and reported on each one to a ballot board, whose members are appointed by political parties. Technically, the board decides which votes will be added to the totals before the election results are made official by Commissioners Court, which is scheduled to accept the results Monday.
But, the Democratic officials said in the lawsuit, Bettencourt is providing incorrect information to the board, delaying the counting, refusing to let in observers and has illegally denied voter registrations.
The list of Democratic plaintiffs includes lawyer Goodwille Pierre, who trailed Republican state District Judge Joseph "Tad" Halbach by fewer than 600 votes in the election. In another civil court race, Republican Judge Elizabeth Ray trailed Democratic challenger Josefina Muniz Rendon by fewer than 200 votes.
[...]
Bettencourt said he gave a Democratic representative, Collyn Peddie, a tour of his provisional ballot processing system last week but refused on the advice of the Secretary of State's Office to allow anyone to serve as a monitor.
In an affidavit attached to the lawsuit, Peddie cast doubt on Bettencourt's system based on her one-hour presence. She said she saw provisional ballots "set aside" despite notes showing they had been cast by voters who had registered to vote at state Department of Public Safety offices.
The suit charges that Bettencourt may also be improperly blocking votes only because voters had listed commercial, rather than residential addresses and had not been given a chance to explain any discrepancy.
Bettencourt acknowledged to the Chronicle in July that a few voters' registrations had been delayed because they lived in new dwellings previously listed on property rolls as non-residential.
I realize this has been a long year of unexpected political events, but I totally didn't see this coming. I really don't know how to evaluate it, but if the hearing is this morning, we won't have to wait long to find out. Wow.
UPDATE: Bettencourt has now produced all the ballots, but at least a part of the lawsuit will go on.
In a miniature version of the 2000 Florida vote drama, election officials prepared to work late tonight toward counting the last leftover votes that could switch outcomes in two Harris County judicial elections.The tedious work lurched forward when county voter registrar Paul Bettencourt delivered his reports on about 7,000 ballots that were cast by people not listed on the Election Day voter rolls. Some of those residents had been omitted from registration records by mistake, and their votes will be added to last week's totals.
Bettencourt's move led Democratic Party officials to drop their request today for a judge to order him to complete the tallies and open his staff's work to monitors. However, Democrats said they will press ahead next year with the part of their lawsuit that accuses Bettencourt, a Republican, of illegally rejecting voter registration applications.
He sent his work on the 7,000 or so provisional ballots to a bipartisan ballot board that will decide which ones will be added to the Nov. 4 vote total.
About 1,400 of the 7,000 are expected to qualify for addition to elections for countywide offices, election officials said, in addition to about 400 ballots sent by overseas voters.
[...]
After a court hearing today on the Democrats' lawsuit, their lawyer, Chad Dunn, implied that Bettencourt had dragged his feet on processing the provisional ballots as the deadline for counting them neared.
"We are disappointed ... that it took a lawsuit to get Mr. Bettencourt to do his job," he said. "The Texas Democratic Party will consistently stand up for the voters' right to cast a ballot and have it be counted."
Bettencourt said he already had been doing the work in a timely fashion before the lawsuit was filed Monday.
"All that this type of frivolous action does is reduce the confidence of the public in the voting systems that have been carefully worked out after the 2000 election," he said. "I am absolutely stupefied that the Democratic Party could stoop to this level."
I still think it's unlikely that either of the two races that could be affected by this will be, but at least we'll know soon enough.
The Chron's Jerome Solomon picks up the Dynamo Stadium ball.
We are wise to be skeptical of claims about sports stadiums spurring economic development -- these stadiums seem to spur more growth of the owners' bank accounts than anything -- so don't buy that.UH takes half the profits from parking and concessions for Dynamo games, and the Dynamo want the full $10 bucks from those Black Iguana Margarita sales. Capitalism.
It's a business, but there is nothing wrong with fans pushing to get what their team wants. It works in every other sport, and Dynamo ownership has offered to pay some 75 percent of the stadium cost.
A couple of organizations were at Robertson asking fans to sign petitions in support of a new stadium on the east side of downtown.
This sounds like a go, assuming the city gets assurances that HISD teams will be allowed access to the stadium for football and soccer and TSU gets a proper fit to use the stadium.
I think he's a little unclear about what the holdup is here - the city has made a commitment, but Commissioners Court has not - but he's on board anyway. I'll just note that if you agree with this sentiment, it's never a bad idea or a bad time to contact your elected representatives and let them know. Unless you really do want to know what Plan B is, of course.
Democratic challenger Bob Romano, the trailing candidate in the exceedingly close HD105 race, has asked for a recount.
Democrat Bob Romano said this afternoon he will ask for a recount in his bid to unseat Republican State Rep. Linda Harper-Brown - a race that came down to 20 votes in the incumbent's favor among more than 40,000 ballots cast.Ms. Harper-Brown held on in the razor-thin House District 105 race, when a Dallas County ballot board on Monday accepted 61 provisional ballots, despite Republican allegations of impropriety.
Her already tiny lead shrank -- from 34 to 20 votes -- after the provisional and overseas ballots were added to initial returns.
Romano issued the following statement, via the TDP:
"I am proud and humbled that so many voters in our community believe I should be our district's voice in the Texas House. In the coming days, my focus will be on doing everything I can to see that every ballot is counted and that every voter's intent is known. We must respect the voters, and protect the trust they have placed in our democracy. To that end, I intend to request a re-count of the ballots cast in this election."
On the one hand, recounts generally don't alter election results, the 2004 Democratic primary between Henry Cuellar and Ciro Rodriguez in CD28 notwithstanding. On the other hand, 20 votes is a vanishingly small margin, and it wouldn't take much to alter the outcome. On the third hand, given the stakes - Harper Brown is a key Craddick ally, one he can't afford to lose right now - and given the Republican complaints about the way provisional ballots were accepted, I cannot imagine Harper Brown accepting a different outcome without challenging the result in the House, a la Talmadge Heflin. Let's just say things would get very, very interesting from there if that came to pass.
It had not occurred to me that the University of Texas did not offer domestic partner benefits to its faculty and staff. I've worked for one large corporation or another for years that has had them as a matter of course. Apparently, however, UT employees are still fighting for this basic benefit.
In 2006 the Pride and Equity Faculty/Staff Association (PEFSA) was established as a University Resource Group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) employees at The University of Texas at Austin. As a result of concerns regarding workplace equity for GLBT faculty and staff, a PEFSA subcommittee was formed. The committee conducted research, benchmarked peer institutions, and interviewed faculty and staff on campus. After this yearlong study, the committee produced a 70 page report containing questions and answers regarding domestic partner benefits (DPB). The following summarizes the major findings of the report and the recommendations by PEFSA to the President of UT Austin.Findings
1. UT Austin does not provide benefits to partners of faculty and staff members unless the relationship qualifies as a "marriage" according to Texas law. The consequences are an inequity in compensation and an inherent message that domestic partners are 'less than.' As a result, UT Austin is losing faculty and staff.
- Recruitment and retention: Tenured faculty and seasoned staff are leaving the University and potential hires are declining offers from UT due to the lack of benefits for Domestic Partners.
- Equity: Research indicates that a married employee enjoys significantly greater overall compensation than their non-married counterpart even though both perform identical work. The estimated difference in compensation for a faculty member earning $80,000 per year is $8,108.
- Diversity: Because UT Austin does not offer DBP it undermines both its own non-discrimination policy and its ability to create and foster a diverse workforce.
2. The estimated cost to UT Austin to add DPB is .0058 of the current budget amount for health insurance expenditures.3. Although Texas has a constitutional amendment limiting the definition of marriage to one man and one woman, other universities with similar state laws offer DPB to their faculty and staff.
4. The Board of Regents is not prohibited from providing DPB and is obligated under the Texas Education Code and Texas Insurance Code to provide benefits competitive with those offered by peer institutions and businesses with whom UT competes for employees.
- 8 out of 10 peer institutions provide DPB
- 304 universities including all Ivy League schools offer DPB
- 9,374 employers in the United States offer DPB
The full report is here (PDF). I have to admit, it's surprising to me that UT is so behind the curve on this. Domestic partner benefits just aren't unusual or controversial in the private sector any more. UT needs to get with the times.
For those of you who are connected to UT and want to help President Powers and the Board of Regents do the right thing, there's going to be a rally on the Texas Union Patio tomorrow at noon in favor of domestic partner benefits. You can also sign the petition, join the Facebook group, or just go old school and write to the man:
William C Powers Jr
The University of Texas at Austin
President's Office
PO Box T
Austin, TX 78713
president@po.utexas.edu
There's no reason this can't happen, and there's no reason it shouldn't. Please do what you can to help. Thanks very much.
Tom Craddick's most loyal lieutenants are still loyal to him.
Several House Republicans issued a press statement Monday reaffirming their support for Speaker Tom Craddick's re-election.The list includes 13 Craddick supporters - leaving the Midland Republican short by 63. The list, however, was not intended to be the final word.
Almost everyone on the list is either a chairman or vice-chairman of a House committee and would stand to lose their gavel if Craddick is not re-elected speaker.
"Speaker Craddick has led the House through three regular sessions, four special sessions on school finance and unprecedented efforts to disrupt the House," the members said in their statement.
The full statement and list of names is there. No Craddick Ds are among them, which may or may not mean anything. For sure, Al Edwards will stand by his man. The question is whether there's enough remaining Republicans and other Craddick Ds to add up to 75 members. Karen Brooks thinks there will be, Burka is starting to have some doubts, though he has no faith in the Democratic caucus to be sufficiently unified. All I know is that there's a lot of members unaccounted for. First person to release a list of pledge cards likely wins. Place your bets, place your bets...
The LA Times looks at the national coalition Barack Obama built in winning the Presidency and considers the next obvious target for expansion of the political battleground.
Texas, the nation's second-most-populous state and home to 34 electoral votes, was not a 2008 presidential battleground, and Republican nominee John McCain won there by a comfortable margin. The Obama campaign spent little money there, apart from recruiting volunteers to work in other states.But strategists believe the large and growing Latino population there remains untapped, along with a large black electorate, which could make Texas competitive with a major investment of time and money from an Obama-led Democratic Party.
Similar possibilities exist in Arizona, another heavily Latino state that leans Republican, and Georgia, with a growing Latino population and a black electorate that grew from one-quarter of the overall voters four years ago to nearly one-third on Tuesday.
In turning Florida and Ohio, among other states, this year, Obama organizers focused for months not only on registering new voters but also on tracking down blacks, Latinos and young people who had been registered but never voted.
One top Obama strategist said the campaign had already sought to build the Texas state party, handing over a database with hundreds of thousands of voter names and phone numbers gathered when Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton competed in the state's Democratic primary. Much of the campaign's attention in that effort focused on Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley.
The strategist, Cuauhtemoc "Temo" Figueroa, Obama's top Latino outreach official, said the state could be taken seriously as a presidential battleground if Democrats could win statewide races there in 2010. "I don't know if it's four years or eight years off, but down the road, Texas will be a presidential battleground," Figueroa said.
I feel like I've covered this ground before, so let me just reiterate that until we see an actual, fully-funded, all-out effort by the Democrats to try and win in Texas, we won't know what is possible here. If you want to bring up 2002, I'll simply note that we're not living in 2002 any more, and the political landscape in the state with its increasingly blue urban areas has shifted considerably. It would be nice to have some proof of concept by winning a statewide race, say the Governorship, in 2010 as a dry run. It would be nice if someone could design and implement a real strategy for turning out Hispanic voters at a higher rate instead of just everyone talking about how nice such a thing would be. Most of all, it would be nice if the national establishment would regard Texas as an opportunity for expansion rather than just a cash cow. Team Obama has proven it can win, or at least come close, everywhere it has really made the effort. Texas is the next logical step for them to take. BOR and MyDD have more.
The 29-vote lead that Rep. Linda Harper-Brown had in her re-election effort in Irving's HD105 got a little smaller but did not go away.
Republicans held their one-seat advantage in the Texas House late Monday as incumbent Linda Harper-Brown maintained a victory in the tight District 105 race.However, her already small lead shrank from 34 to 20 votes after a Dallas County ballot board accepted 61 provisional ballots, amid Republican allegations of impropriety.
Her narrow victory could lead to a recount that might have implications for embattled House Speaker Tom Craddick.
But it was unclear whether Democratic challenger Bob Romano would request a recount. He could not be reached for comment late Monday.
"I think it's such a small number that you certainly need to consider the possibility of a recount," said Darlene Ewing, chairwoman of the Dallas County Democratic Party.
Hard to imagine not having a recount in a race with such a narrow margin of victory. Human beings do make mistakes, and it wouldn't take much of one to have a big effect. The odds are, however, that what we see is what we'll get. That's a boost for Tom Craddick's efforts to hold onto the Speakership, as Harper Brown is one of his key supporters. BOR was first to report this.
By the way, if your first reaction to reading the above is "Irving? Since when is Irving nearly electing Democrats?", you should know that Irving isn't what it used to be. Actually, there's a lot of that all across the state, including right here in Harris County. About damn time, too.
Back in January, a Houston delegation set out to lure more NCAA Men's Final Four events to our fair city. They're still working on it now.
Local organizers behind Houston's bid to bring another Final Four to Reliant Stadium will make their presentation [today] to the NCAA Division I men's basketball committee in Indianapolis.Houston is one of 10 finalists vying to host a men's Final Four between 2012 and 2016. Houston is competing against Atlanta, Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Phoenix, St. Louis and the North Texas region. The NCAA decided to keep a larger pool of finalists and did not eliminate any cities after the preliminary rounds.
"There is a lot of tough competition," said Shea Guinn, the president of SMG-Reliant Park. "There is definitely no shortage of interested cities for the NCAA."
Houston is one of the newest players in the men's NCAA Tournament. It hosted the South Regional in March and will again in 2010. Reliant Stadium will host the Final Four in 2011, the 40th anniversary of the city's first Final Four at the Astrodome.
Guinn said Reliant Stadium has the ability to host any year during the next five-year cycle. But with the unlikelihood of getting another Final Four so close to 2011, Houston plans to make bids for 2014, 2015 and 2016.
After Tuesday's one-hour presentation, the NCAA is expected to make a decision on the host sites by Nov. 20.
I wish them better luck than they had for the Women's Final Four.
Alan Bernstein notes that it's never too early to announce your intentions for the next election.
Democrat Jerry Simoneaux Jr. says he thought about running this year for the Harris County Probate Court No. 1 bench, but stepped aside when former judge Kathy Stone entered the race.Now, after watching Democrat Stone win the election, Simoneaux has announced he will run in 2010 for a four-year term on the Probate Court No. 3 bench held by Republcan Rory Olsen.
Any other takers out there ready to announce for 2010?
Well, one possibility is former 164th District Court judge Katie Kennedy, the last Democratic judicial candidate to win in Harris County prior to this year, who has announced via email to Carl Whitmarsh's list that she is giving "serious thought to running for the 280th District Court in 2010 currently occupied by Tony Linsday". That's obviously not official, but it's out there. I am also aware of one other former judicial candidate, who did pretty well in a losing effort earlier, who appears to be set for another run; this person was not ready to make anything public yet. Beyond that, I think it's safe to say that no sitting judge who will be on the ballot in Harris County in 2010 will go unchallenged.
Is it just me, or is anyone else still a bit amazed that this election is actually over? Pending the SD17 runoff, of course. And "amazed" may be in a good way or in a not-so-good way, as you see fit. Regardless, for one big look back at the election that was, have a gander at the Texas Progressive Alliance blog roundup for this week. Click on for the highlights.
Muse enjoyed all things Hillary leading up to the March 4th Texas Primary. There was the Hillary endorsement post that made her mom cry. A high point was the event where Muse fulfilled her lifelong dream to touch Bill Clinton. (Little did she know there would be a more up close and personal opportunity.) She got to see Hillary four times in person, including this event. Even her Prius got in the act: Prius Owners for Hillary!
BossKitty at TruthHugger is angry that Sarah Palin's nasty rhetoric has ignited hateful fallout, she let the white Supremacist Genie Out Of The Bottle, Thanks Sarah - There are still 'stone aged' creatures marching around calling themselves Christians, wearing NAZI paraphernalia! Woe be to anyone who would harm the first family of America! On a more personal note, BossKitty has ideas about what to do when you lose your job ... but, the most daunting agenda on our plate is that our New America Must Reduce It's Seven Deadly Sins if we want to survive as a nation.
Brains and Eggs had the good, the bad, the ugly, and some TBD in a series of election postmortems, and then a little more of each. PDiddie wrapped last week with the finger-pointing and recriminations that marked the last throes of the McCain-Palin campaign, which included an luxury undergarment update.
It's been a tumultuous week for everyone, but at McBlogger it was remarkably calm. We're chalking it up to a change in prescription medications. First up was Donna Keel attacking Austin Interfaith. Then there was an attack on Diana Maldonado by her parish priest and, for us, that was enough religion for all week. The funniest thing we saw was a commercial shot by former celebrities going after Al Franken that made us want to move to Minnesota and vote for him. There was also some funny about people upset that they weren't getting help from the Federal Government, even though they didn't need it. Wrapping everything up was our final farewell to those who loved them some Austin Proposition 2.
Justin at AAA-Fund Blog covered the presidential primacaucus in Texas including Clinton's sweep of Asian American surrogates and both candidates' Asian American outreach . Justin also scolded Hubert Vo, evaluated Noriega's immigration plan, and was amazed that both Barack Obama and Sherrie Matula were "That Ones."
Off the Kuff has some early observations about what happened on Election Day, plus a look at turnout figures and statewide trends.
At Texas Kaos, the bitter and the sweet mix together as we look back on an amazing rollercoaster of an election season. While it looked like there was a contest for the U.S. Senate nomination, Boadicea put together Rick's answers for Democracy for Texas to paint a picture of the candidate, This is Rick Noriega-Texas Progressive Leader Covering the snark beat, our friend from the Soggy North, Fake Consultant, gave some pointers to a hockey mom thrust onto the national stageOn Dressing for Success, Part One, or, How Much is Armani, Anyway? and followed up with more helpful tips in On Dressing for Success, Part Two, Or, We Costume Palin... for 2/3 off! Lightseeker took a reasoned and sober look at a more serious element this election: Respecting Life, Making Hard Choices and finally makes the point that the Nov 4 vote was not an ending, but a beginning, Looking Now, Looking Forward.
Ah the memories at The Texas Cloverleaf during the 2008 election season. The candidates would make their case on WWE Monday Night Raw. We learned that McCain would lose early on, with our own Congressman Michael Burgess advising him on healthcare. We wished Governor Palin well on her first Grandparents Day. We learned Texas Republicans can't figure out education, much less spell it correctly. But we finally came out on top with Barack Obama, and some mixed Texas results. Here is to a classic 2008!
Vince Leibowitz of Capitol Annex focused a considerable amount of energy this cycle covering Texas Democrats' attempts to retake the Texas House of Representatives. From racist mailers and decitful TV ads in Dallas and Houston area House districts to the battle to unseat Texas' most ethically compromised legislator, down to catching Republicans telling blatant lies, this was a busy cycle in Texas. In the primary, he was one of a few Texas bloggers who supported Senator Hillary Clinton, and offered her this open letter when she left the race.
Neil at Texas Liberal offers up his post on early voting in Downtown Houston. The post tells what Democrats Neil enjoyed voting for and also has colorful pictures that will please the eye.
CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme debunks 10 Republican excuses.
In the 2008 primary and election, Jobsanger continued his penchant for supporting losing candidates by backing Bill Richardson, Rick Noriega, Sherrie Matula and Nancy Moffatt, before finally breaking through with a winner in Barack Obama.
What a long strange journey it has been for the Easter Lemming. Gary has started pushing for a poll-workers union after working the primary and then another election this Spring. He found out people read blogs about as much as newspapers! Guess who the Easter Lemming supported? And finally, he ended too tired to party but not too tired to blog with a special mention that MoveOn.Org is bigger and more important than the NRA in politics now.
Hope you caught the Texas Blue on Election Day -- we did a "heckuva job" picking out the states that would and wouldn't matter for an Obama victory on Election Day. We also ran down the biggest federal, statewide and local results of E-D in our Election Day '08 executive summary, checked out how the fight for the Democrats' 75th seat in the Texas House is looking, and did some deconstruction of why the Republicans were never going to win the presidential election, Sarah Palin or no Sarah Palin.
Seems like last week's election is just a distant memory now, doesn't it? Well, buckle up, because the 2009 Texas legislative session is officially underway as today is the first day for pre-filing bills to be introduced in the spring. My inbox is slowly but surely filling up with press releases about the goodies to come. Here's a sample:
From State Rep. Mike Villarreal of San Antonio:
House Bill 133 would require property owners to disclose their real estate sales prices to the local appraisal district. Appraisers currently have access to ample information about working class and middle class homes. In Bexar County, for example, over 95 percent of homes under $300,000 are listed in the Multiple Listing Service. But appraisers do not have access to that information for high-end and commercial properties that operate in the shadow market. As a result, appraisals and tax bills for million-dollar homes and business properties are often artificially low, leaving middle-income homeowners to make up the difference."Fighting for fair treatment for all homeowners continues to be one of my top priorities this legislative session," explained Rep. Villarreal.
House Bill 134 and House Joint Resolution 22 would make several additional appraisal reforms. They would establish a state Office of Property Appraisal to ensure that Central Appraisal Districts use appropriate appraisal procedures. The legislation would also improve the appraisal appeals process, ensure that homes are valued on their residential value rather than speculative value, and make additional reforms to protect homeowners.
Rep. Villarreal stated, "We must have a fair, transparent and reliable way to fund our children's education and other public investments."
I'm a big fan of the sales price disclosure concept. Rep. Villarreal has tried to pass similar bills before without success. I'm hoping things change this time around.
From State Sen. Rodney Ellis:
Senator Ellis' comprehensive legislative package includes:
- SB 104, which will make college more affordable, requiring legislative approval for tuition increases beyond 2008-2009. Tuition rates have spiked by an average of 60% at public universities in Texas since the Legislature deregulated tuition five years ago.
- SB 117, to increase the accuracy and reliability of eyewitness identification procedures.
- SB 116, to require video recording of custodial interrogations.
- SB 115, to establish an Innocence Commission to investigate wrongful convictions.
- SB 169, to give the governor power to grant multiple reprieves in capital cases to prevent the execution of an innocent person.
- SB 110, to prohibit the insurance industry from utilizing credit scores to determine policyholders' rates.
- SB 147, to ensure coverage for losses incurred as a result of compliance with mandatory evacuation orders.
- SB 106, providing the Commissioner of the Texas Department of Insurance with the ability to utilize prior approval on insurance rates that are deemed to be excessive.
- SB 139, to protect the integrity of elections by increasing penalties for deceptive election practices and SB 143 limiting political contributions
- SB 118, to allow eligible voters to register during early voting periods and SB 138 to make election day a state holiday.
There's more, but you get the idea. SB104, which would be a tuition re-regulation law, appears to have widespread support. According to the Quorum Report, Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa has filed a similar bill, with a lot of backers. Here's his press release (Word doc):
On the first day of pre-filing for the 81st Legislative Session, Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa filed S.B. 105, a tuition moratorium bill. Hinojosa's proposal would establish a two-year moratorium on tuition rate hikes and limit future increases to key economic indices.[...]
The bill would impose a two-year moratorium on tuition increases at Texas' public universities. Following the two-year freeze, university regents could increase tuition rates only once a year, and increases would be capped by the yearly increase in the Consumer Price Index, an inflation tracker. As for fees, the bill would allow only for fees approved by the majority of student voters unless the fees are required or allowed by statute.
Senator Hinojosa is joined by a coalition of bipartisan support, including Senators Tommy Williams (R-Woodlands), Jane Nelson (R-Lewisville), Dan Patrick (R-Houston), Mario Gallegos (D-Houston), Chris Harris (R-Arlington), Carlos Uresti (D-San Antonio), Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay), and Dr. Robert Deuell (R-Greenville).
Any time you can get Sens. Patrick and Gallegos on the same side of a bill, it's safe to say it has a wide spectrum of support. Keep an eye on this one - in particular, watch to see who opposes it, and what Gov. Perry and Lt. Gov. Dewhurst have to say about it. The Chron has more.
Last month, I mentioned that City Council was looking at extending the billboard ban to include so-called Attention-Getting Devices, or AGDs. These are your giant inflatable gorillas and whatnot that businesses display to lure in customers. City Council may take action on this proposal this week.
If approved, the ban also would prohibit flashy and motion-driven devices, such as dancing wind puppets, spinning pinwheels, pennants, streamers and strobe and spotlights."I call them attention-distracting devices," said Jeff Ross of the city's planning commission. Ross said getting rid of them will make Houston more competitive with other cities that have banned them, such as Dallas, Austin and St. Louis.
"They distract the eye, create potential safety obstacles, obscure permanent signage and create visual blight," said Tommy Friedlander, who chaired Mayor Bill White's On-Premise Sign Task Force.
Used-car dealers and the balloon advertisers are fighting the ban.
"Maybe some people think they're ugly, but that's a subjective opinion," said Lori Foster of Cypress-based Texas Boys Balloons. Foster called the inflatables an affordable form of advertising, especially for small businesses.
"We provide a real service," said Jim Purtee of Houston Balloons & Promotions. "They add character to the city. People like them, they like the seasonal part of it: Santas at Christmas, Uncle Sam during tax time, pumpkins for Halloween."
Purtee said his clients report sales increase 30 to 100 percent in the weeks after installing a giant balloon. "You can't ban balloons without banning car wraps, those planes flying over Houston with trailing banners or people standing on the corner in a clown costume," Purtee added.
[...]
The Houston Automobile Dealers Association, a group of new-car dealers, supports the ban. But the Houston Independent Automobile Dealers Association, which represents used-car dealers, opposes it. [...]
Also supporting the ban are numerous management districts, super neighborhood councils, real estate groups and Scenic Houston, which led the charge against billboards in Houston.
Officials said holiday displays and residential lawn decorations would be exempted from the ban. The prohibition would apply only to attention-getting devices used for commercial purposes.
That troubles Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck. She asked how the city would distinguish between attention-getting devices and the holiday lights, bows and sparkly stars installed in Rice Village and the Galleria area.
"Both (are) used for commercial purposes," Clutterbuck said. "We deem those as tasteful and the others as tacky."
I sense a tag coming. As I said before, I'm ambivalent about this. I don't doubt that there's a benefit to advertising in this fashion for the businesses that do it, but that doesn't give them a right. I can certainly see where the neighborhood groups are coming from on this. I'd like to hear more debate on the subject. What do you think?
Back in August, a couple of sitting Republican judges, Mike Miller Mark Davidson and Sharolyn Wood, broke with recent history and became the first GOP judicial candidates in some time to seek the endorsement of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus. At the time, there was some speculation that in doing so, they would risk a backlash by conservatives who disapproved of such action. How'd that play out in real life? Well, as we know, the average Republican judicial candidate got about 540,000 votes in this election. Sharolyn Wood beat that average by receiving 544,440 votes; no backlash there. Miller Davidson fell slightly below the average with 538,105 votes. He did, however, receive more votes than 13 of his GOP colleagues; in fact, he was the median votegetter among Republican judicials. That doesn't sound very backlashy to me, either. So, my verdict is that there is no evidence to suggest that either Judges Wood or Miller Davidson suffered at the ballot box for their gesture of equality and inclusion. I suspect - indeed, I hope - many of their soon-to-be-former colleagues will follow their example in 2010. Especially now that it's clear they'll need all the help they can get, I don't see any valid reason why one wouldn't.
UPDATE: Mark Davidson, not Mike Miller. Right race, wrong candidate. Sorry about that.
Clearly, we have not had enough stories about what a terrible thing the Democratic near-sweep of the local judiciary was.
A bit like the weather, partisan judicial races seem to be something many people complain about but few do anything to change.But unlike the weather, change is a possibility.
That fact again gained a toehold in political discussions after last week's near-sweep of district court seats in Harris County by Democratic candidates. It was, in the words of American cultural guru Yogi Berra, deja vu all over again.
In 1994, Republicans swept through the local courthouse like a West Texas windstorm, knocking out 19 judges and leaving a single civil court seat in the hands of its Democratic occupant.
Democrats might now say that the resurgence led by Sen. Barack Obama, in which 22 of 26 Republican judicial incumbents lost, was an overdue payback. The Democrats enjoyed a similar resurgence in Dallas County two years ago.
You know, I do remember some Democrats who made the same complaints back in 1994. The reaction they got, in so many words, from the newly empowered Republicans was "Get over it, losers". I don't see why anyone should expect a different response this time around.
Tom Phillips, the former chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, has long supported an abandonment of partisan judicial races. Elected as a Republican, he even made headway in the Legislature in 2003, as he lobbied for a new selection process in which an independent commission would recommend judicial candidates for appointment based on qualifications, not political affiliation.He was joined in the crusade by former Texas Attorney General and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Hill, a Democrat.
Phillips said Republican Party bosses killed the bill that proposed these changes, the ultimate irony of which was that Hill's daughter, Martha Hill Jamison, was one of the casualties of Tuesday's Harris County massacre.
[...]
Current Texas Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, a Republican, took the occasion of the near-sweep in Harris County to denounce partisan judicial races.
"This is a strange way to select those who guard our legal rights," Jefferson said in a prepared statement after the polls closed. "It is time to decide whether partisan election is the best means to ensure judicial competence. It has become clear that in judicial elections, the public (particularly in urban areas) cannot cast informed votes due to the sheer number of candidates on the ballot."
Jefferson, who was re-elected last week, has opposed partisan races for years. He said he will convene a summit of public officials, interest groups and media to explore the issue of judicial selection, with the conclusion presented to the Legislature.
Yeah, well, that and a five spot will get you a fancy caffeinated beverage at Starbucks. Unless the Chief Justice plans to actively lobby the legislature with a bill to implement whatever recommendations his blue ribbon panel comes up with - never mind find actual sponsors to carry said legislation in each chamber - it's the equivalent of an online petition to save the whales. Nobody will pay it any attention beyond whatever initial splash it gets in the media.
And by the way, if we start to decide that the voters can't make informed decisions in certain races, where do we draw the line? Quick, tell me what the Land Commissioner does, and what the major policy differences were between 2006 candidates Jerry Patterson and Valinda Hathcox. Maybe we need more blue ribbon committees to tell us who we should and should not be electing.
GOPers are privately and quietly vowing to do better in two years."We won't face those additional straight-ticket voters," one judge who was not up for re-election said, referring to the 47,000-vote advantage the Democrats enjoyed last week among those who punched a single button, the same factor that led to the 1994 purge.
First of all, in case we've forgotten, the reason why there was so much talk about a possible sweep in Harris County wasn't so much the Dallas result from 2006 as it was the fact that the average Democratic judicial candidate in 2006 got over 48% of the vote, after getting a bit more than 46% in 2004. That was with the Dems having an 8000-vote straight-ticket advantage in 2006, after getting waxed by a 45,000 vote margin in 2004. The demographic trends favor the Democrats, and it's not going to be any better for the GOP in two years' time.
Consider this: In 2004, there were about a million votes cast in each contested judicial race. In 2008, it was about 1.1 million, or 100,000 votes more. Here's how the average candidate did in each year:
2004 avg GOP 536,000
2004 avg Dem 470,0002008 avg GOP 540,000
2008 avg Dem 558,000
The average Republican got 4000 more votes. The average Democrat gained 88,000 votes. You do the math. And if you're wondering about the off years, here's 2002 versus 2006:
2002 avg GOP 330,500
2002 avg Dem 272,0002006 avg GOP 286,000
2006 avg Dem 262,000
There were 64,000 fewer votes cast in 2006 than in 2002. Republican candidates lost 54,000 votes, the Dems dropped 10,000. I fully expect the turnout in 2010, led by what should be a marquee Governor's race and perhaps including an open Senate seat race, to be much better than 2006, and at least somewhat better than 2002. That should give the GOP some hope that maybe this time they can out-rally the Dems. And they may be right, there may be one more strong Republican showing left in the county. But the trends are still against them.
Republican Joan Huffman, a former criminal courts judge who is in a runoff for a state Senate seat, said in a debate with Democratic opponent Chris Bell last week that she favors the current system. She argued it is more open as it is.Bell had this to say about the system:
"The party in power is usually loath to change the way we select judges.
"And I think if the Republican Party had been serious about wanting to engage in some type of reform in the area of judicial selection, they controlled the state Senate and they controlled the state House and they controlled all the statewide offices, and so that was the time to move in that direction."
What he said. And for what I hope (again!) will be the last thing I'll feel compelled to say about this issue, here's another data point to compare from 2004, when Republicans won all the judicial races and all was apparently right with the universe:
2004 hi GOP 545,012 54.21%
2004 lo Dem 460,283 45.79%
diff 84,927 8.42%2004 lo GOP 524,198 52.08%
2004 hi Dem 482,385 47.92%
diff 41,813 4.16%variance 43,114 4.26%
2008 hi GOP 564,023 51.44%
2008 lo Dem 532,383 48.56%
diff 31,640 2.88%2008 lo GOP 522,687 47.54%
2008 hi Dem 576,834 52.46%
diff -54,147 -4.92%variance 85,787 7.90%
In 2004, when Republicans had a 45,000 vote advantage in straight-ticket ballots, the variance in the spread from the high scoring Republican and the low scoring Democrat to the low GOPer and the high Dem was 41,813 votes, or 4.26 percentage points. In 2008, when the Dems had a 47,000 vote advantage in straight-ticket ballots, the same variance was more than twice as great, with nearly an eight point range in percentages. Yet it was this year, with the much broader range of outcomes and the first sighting of a bipartisan judiciary in over a decade, that has caused so much public hand-wringing. If someone can posit a reason for that beyond Republican sour grapes over losing, I'd like to hear it.
UPDATE: Clay Robison agrees that there will not be a serious effort to change the judicial election process.
Since I posted over the weekend about Karen Derr's intended candidacy for the soon-to-be-vacant District H City Council seat, I have heard of a couple more people who are expressing interest as well. They are:
- Ed Gonzalez, the current chief of staff to Sheriff-elect Adrian Garcia. I'd heard Gonzalez' name in connection with this seat previously but was reminded of it yesterday. Gonzalez, not surprisingly, will have Garcia's support for this election.
- Diana Davila, HISD trustee for District VIII. I had not heard her name before, but apparently she's been looking at this for awhile. She will be making an announcement soon and has several people in her corner, including Sen. John Whitmire, Constable Victor Trevino, and fellow HISD Trustee and former City Council Member Carol Mims Galloway.
- Francisco Sanchez, former Harris County Democratic Party Secretary and Chair of SD15, about whom I know nothing else.
I am sure there will be more. What are you hearing?
UPDATE: And a fourth name, via Carl Whitmarsh: Hugo Mojica, who describes himself as a "lifelong resident" of District H and who has worked for Congressman Gene Green and former Council members Gabriel Vasquez and Michael Berry. I also know a bit more about Francisco Sanchez - he is the current Public Information Director of the Office of Emergency Management of Harris County.
UPDATE: When I was first told about these candidates, I was told about who is supposedly supporting them as well. I have since been informed by Constable Victor Trevino's office that he is not at this time supporting anyone for District H. I apologize for the confusion.
Gary Polland used to be the chair of the Harris County GOP. He's not too happy with the result from Tuesday and he's letting everyone know it.
The Harris County GOP under Chairman Jared Woodfill failed because it had the wrong message or no message. It failed because it tried to sell a discredited brand, it had no war room to counter the media and Democratic echo chambers about real or imagined GOP scandals and it failed to tell the rest of the story about the success of Harris County government under GOP rule (yes, there was a story to be told).As for the local judiciary, the campaign was subcontracted out to political consultant/lobbyist Allen Blakemore by Chairman Jared Woodfill (Blakemore's reign of error is detailed in another article), which is unfortunate since one of the most capable political operatives around, Jeff Yates, was serving as Executive Director of the Harris County GOP and knew what to do, but was never given a chance.
The joint judicial campaign was an expensive failure primarily because it was selling a brand, "Republican Judges", to a dissatisfied electorate that was not buying. What is unfortunate and TCR can now report there was another plan presented last year to Chairman Woodfill and rejected (probably on Blakemore's instructions).
This plan would have presented the highly qualified and experienced GOP judges in a way to encourage voters to split their ticket or to vote straight GOP down ballot. So what was the plan? Bold and simple.
1. Put a face on the judiciary and countywide GOP officeholders and tell the story of individual judges and candidates and how they are making a difference.
2. Define the opposition. Do you know what that $1.5 million campaign had nothing about? The number of under-qualified Democrats on the ballot. We could have made them the face of the Democratic ticket. We also should have done that on the weaker countywide Democrats, which by the way was only seen in the last week to ten days in the Sheriff's race.
3. Set up a war room team to rapidly respond to Democratic media attacks and to tell "the rest of the story."
4. Ensure key officeholders have television training, so we would not have been "trapped" like a deer in headlights in interview after interview as we were.
5. Redeveloping the strong precinct chair system and empowering them with resources and matching public officials to precincts as a team-up approach for getting out the vote.
6. Finally, create a Compact with Harris County, five things the GOP and its candidates promise to do to make our county a better place if elected.
It sure is easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, isn't it? There is, of course, no way to know if this alternate reality would have held down GOP losses as Polland says it would have done or if that's just wishful thinking. Woodfill will be up for re-election as GOP chair in the 2010 primary, so those who agree with Polland can certainly express their opinion at that time. The thing that really amuses me about this list is the "Compact with Harris County", which is just so 1994. Not to put too fine a point on it, but with the sole exception of Pat Lykos, every single countywide Republican on the ballot was already holding the office they sought. If they had some kind of magic five-point plan to make Harris County a better place, what was stopping them from implementing it right away? Color me unimpressed.
Glory, glory, hallelujah! A beautiful election result, a beautiful weekend, and a beautiful list of links to peruse.
Save the Mexico City water monster!
In case you missed the official end of the Opus comic strip.
I have one word for you, Ralph: No. Or if you prefer, "Good-bye".
In what will hopefully be a one-year-only trend, here are many women dressed as Sarah Palin for Halloween, including Texas' own Amanda Marcotte. That link is to Susie Bright's webpage, so it is NSFW.
Rice alum and now former Houston Texan ND Kalu is a class act. From a guy who still remembers those two sacks you registered to kill a Texas drive in that classic 1994 game, let me just say Thank You for all the joy you brought us Owl fans on the field, and for the pride you've brought us after your days at Rice. I salute you, sir.
Eugene Allen served eight different Presidents as White House butler. Read his story, it's really something.
Chocolate covered bacon. I like bacon as much as the next guy, but I'm not so sure about that.
At this point, all the early and Election Day votes have been counted, and only provisional ballots remain.
In the closest of the 27 countywide judicial elections, Republican state district Judge Elizabeth Ray trailed Democratic challenger Josefina Muniz Rendon by 375 votes after the polls closed Tuesday night.But Harris County clerk's staffers added more than 800 ballots to the entire election Friday after discovering that a cluster of mail-in ballots, plus votes from Precinct 414 in east Harris County, had not been counted initially because of a computer error, Clerk Beverly Kaufman said.
The additional votes cut Rendon's lead to 135 votes -- out of 1.1 million cast in that contest.
[...]
In another civil court match, Republican incumbent Joseph "Tad" Halbach's advantage over Democrat Goodwille Pierre stood at 595 votes Friday, up from 351 in the initial count.
The two races apparently are the only ones on the ballot whose outcome could be affected by the ballots that remain to be counted.
[...]
About 3,000 mail ballots sent to county voters overseas in military and civilian functions had not yet been returned before Sunday's deadline, officials said. But Kaufman expects only a few to make it by then, and the voters who used them may not have voted in the judicial races, which were toward the back of a ballot that placed the presidential race more prominently.
A county ballot board, composed of citizens appointed by political parties, also is checking the 7,000 or so provisional ballots. A provisional ballot is used when a voter is not on the registration list but believes he is properly registered. If that turns out to be the case later, the votes are added to the total. Clerk's spokesman Hector de Leon said typically only 10 percent pass the test.
My assumption continues to be that provisional ballots are likely to favor Democrats, but even if that's correct and if there's a higher than usual number of them accepted, I think it's very unlikely to affect the outcome in the Halbach-Pierre race. It's possible that the remaining overseas ballots, which I think will lean Republican, could affect the Rendon-Ray race, but again I don't think there's enough of them out there to make a difference. So, barring anything weird, we've got the judges we're going to get.
The city of Austin is looking at enacting a ban on texting while driving.
The City of Austin's public safety task force approved a resolution Monday that could lead to a ban on texting while driving and a requirement that motorists use hands-free devices.The resolution is a recommendation that the City Council ask City Manager Marc Ott and his staff to develop a proposal, vet it and bring it back to the council for consideration.
Council Member Mike Martinez, who is leading the effort, said he has received dozens of calls in recent months from motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists asking for such a law.
"It is something that needs to be done," Martinez said. "When you see accidents that have happened or you hear about near-misses, it is just a step we can take to ensure the safety of our citizens."
[...]
Debbie Russell, a task force member and president of the Central Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said she was concerned about criminalizing another behavior.
Traffic laws already address erratic driving, she said.
"There are a lot of distractions in the car," Russell said. "Just because this is the newest one ... doesn't mean we have to create a crime for this distraction."
I too deplore the general trend towards criminalizing things we don't like, but I have no complaint about this. It just strikes me as perfectly reasonable to ban texting while driving. Having said that, there is one argument against that I would find compelling:
Russ Rader, spokesman for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said laws that ban texting or restrict cell phone use are well-intentioned but are not always effective because drivers don't think they will be enforced.A study that the institute conducted in North Carolina found that teen drivers actually used cell phones more after a ban was enacted than they did before, he said.
If this study is typical and not exceptional, then I would change my mind and side with Ms. Russell. If such an ordinance would not have the desired effect, then it serves no purpose. I hope some more studies like this are conducted, so a consensus can be formed.
The runoff between Chris Bell and Joan Huffman for the open SD17 seat is underway.
"We are very generous in our funding of public education," Republican Joan Huffman said. "We just do a really bad job of spending that money and spending it wisely."Democrat Chris Bell said otherwise.
"When we look at the challenges facing Texas specifically in the area of education, we can all agree that we need to start bringing in enough money to address some of those challenges," he said.
Texas has ranked below the national average for several years in per pupil funding, and its school district funding methods based on local property taxes have been the subject of political struggles for just as long.
Huffman, a former felony court judge in Harris County, and Bell, a former congressman and gubernatorial candidate, made their remarks during the videotaping of a debate to be broadcast at 8 tonight and 5 p.m. Sunday on KUHT (Channel 8)'s Red White & Blue: The Great Debates.
Bell got 38 percent of Tuesday's vote to 26 percent for Huffman in a six-candidate race that included multiple entries from their parties because it took shape too late for the primaries in which parties could pick one candidate each. The election triggered a December runoff -- Gov. Rick Perry has not yet set a date -- because no candidate got a majority of the votes.
Bell shouldn't have any shortage of workers for this runoff. I've lost count of how many people have said to me that they plan to see what they can do for him since Tuesday. Runoffs are always about getting your voters back out, and it surely helps to have those resources available.
After a bruising first round in the campaign, Huffman and Bell said they would wage a clean fight."I hope Chris and I can pledge to have a civil, spirited campaign based on the issues and a factual discussion of our record," said Huffman, "and that's what I pledge, and I would hope that he would pledge the same."
"I don't think a pledge is really necessary from me because that is the campaign that I have been running," Bell responded.
Republican candidate Austen Furse accused Huffman of having been "soft on crime" as a judge while Houston home builder Bob Perry and tort-reform advocates funded a committee that criticized Bell in campaign mail.
Furse, who finished fourth in the race Tuesday, has endorsed Huffman.
Other than a line about offices Bell had run before in Huffman's rock-climbing ad, the two didn't really mention the other in Round One. Furse was the one throwing rocks at everyone.
For what it's worth, Bell's vote total was greater than Huffman and Furse's combined. If he can get some of Stephanie Simmons' supporters on board, he should be in a very good position. Even without that, he starts out ahead. It's never easy, but I feel reasonably confident about this race.
With the election of City Council Member Adrian Garcia to the office of Harris County Sheriff (woo hoo! yippie! hot diggity dog!), we will soon have an open seat in Council. That means that there will be a May election to replace Garcia, and hopefuls are starting to line up for it.
The first person to declare interest in Adrian Garcia's soon-to-be-vacant District H seat has come forward: Karen Derr.Derr resides in the Heights and is founder and broker for Karen Derr and Associates Realty. She has been active in her neighborhood, recently helping to fund-raise to have a private constable patrol the neighbor. She wrote about this on her blog.
In a press release announcing her intention to run, Derr mentioned better recycling as one issue she is committed to working on.
She volunteers for White Linen Night in the Heights and Heights First Saturday, and is on the board of Opera in the Heights and is the co-chair of the Houston Heights Association Education Committee.
The constable post is here. I'd heard about Derr's interest in this seat some months ago, and Swamplot noted Derr's campaign site last month.
Without knowing who else might jump in, it's impossible to say who might be favored. It must be noted that District H has been held by a Latino since 1993 (now-JP Dale Gorczynski was the last Anglo to win it), and given that Districts H and I are the only two Council positions currently occupied by Latinos, you can be sure there will be some Latino candidates running as well. Expect to start hearing more names soon.
I meant to blog about this Rick Casey column in which he provided an update to the Lloyd Kelley/Ibarra brothers saga but didn't get to it last week.
Two weeks ago I reported that Kelley had withheld another $200,000 or so from the county's check to Erik and Sean Ibarra, claiming expenses not covered in the $1.4 million.Kelley gave them an itemized list that included $20,000 for community activist Quanell X and $95,000 for attorney Tammy Tran for jury consultation and other work.
The brothers hired attorney Randy Sorrels and sued Kelley after growing suspicious about the charges. Sorrels then demanded documentation.
Kelley told me he was certain he could provide invoices and canceled checks proving the payment to Quanell X and at least invoices from Tran, though he wasn't sure Tran had been paid the full amount.
Quanell X told me he did work on the case and was paid, but not that much. And Tran said she wasn't paid anything and couldn't remember if she had submitted any bills.
Later, the two gave even stronger statements to Sorrels, he said.
"I spoke with Quanell X, and he said he didn't receive the money and would tell the truth if he was called on to do so,'" Sorrels said. "He said Kelley is a friend of his, but he would tell the truth."
In addition, Sorrels said, a representative of Tran told him "they never received a dime or asked for a dime. She said the work was pro bono (free), and she never intended to bill for it."
Kelley's response? Wednesday, Sorrels got checks from him for the full $115,000.
Sorrels said the matter is not over. He said he has asked for full documentation on all the expenses claimed by Kelley, including those submitted to the judge.
Meanwhile, he said, the Ibarras have filed a complaint with the State Bar of Texas.
I think the ultimate lesson here is "Don't mess with the Ibarra brothers." Everyone who has done that has come to regret it.
And with the election behind us, we have a new crop of Genius-generated playlists in front of us for Friday random ten fun. First up is a list based on "Fall Behind Me" by The Donnas, and it's notable in that it's the first such list I've generated that can be reasonably said to do a little genre-mixing. Here's the first ten songs as they display:
1. "Fall Behind Me" - The Donnas
2. "Cherry Bomb" - The Runaways
3. "Search and Destroy" - The Stooges
4. "I Will Survive" - CAKE
5. "The Way" - Fastball
6. "Zoot Suit Riot" - Cherry Poppin' Daddies
7. "Tempted" - Squeeze
8. "Life During Wartime" - Talking Heads
9. "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" - They Might Be Giants
10. "Jump, Jive, an' Wail" - Brian Setzer Orchestra
And as played:
1. "Fall Behind Me" - The Donnas
2. "Every Picture Tells A Story" - Rod Stewart
3. "Birdhouse In Your Soul" - They Might Be Giants
4. "Blister In The Sun" - Violent Femmes
5. "Roam" - B-52s
6. "We Care A Lot" - Faith No More
7. "What You Need" - INXS
8. "Marching Bands of Manhattan" - Death Cab for Cutie
9. "Life During Wartime" - Talking Heads
10. "R.O.C.K. in the USA" - John Mellencamp
I talk about genre mixing because the first time I tried to do a Genius list on something like "Zoot Suit Riot", I got a hundred jazz songs - Glenn Miller, Count Basie, that sort of thing. Which I found boring and typical of the main kvetch I've had about Genius all along. So I'm encouraged to see a seed tune from clearly outside the jazz world that could reach in there for stuff like "Zoot Suit Riot" and "Jump, Jive, an' Wail". There may be hope yet for this concept. Beyond that, what I like about this collection is that it's tough to categorize at all - there's harder 70s music, standard 80s pop, some 90s quasi-alternative, and more. That's more of what I want out of Genius, so I love these results. A good way to start off this round.
OK, speculation about who might run for what in 2010 has been going on for weeks, if not months. But with this election (mostly) behind us now, it feels like we've had an official start for it, like the opening of deer season or something. So with that in mind, let's see what the two most-speculated-upon public officials in Texas are saying about their future plans.
[Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison} told reporters she is still on the path of becoming a candidate for governor.She said she would feel more comfortable resigning her current post to run now that U.S. Sen. John Cornyn has won re-election.
"From the standpoint of Texas in the Senate, if I did decide to step down in order to run for governor, Texas would actually be well-positioned because John Cornyn will have had a full term," Hutchison said. "And this really is a better time to be bringing someone new in to build seniority when you've got someone who has it. Four years ago would have been less advantageous."
That's a pretty clever way to ret-con what happened in 2006, isn't it? Here's a thought that got expressed to me recently: If KBH really does step down next June instead of doing double duty, the special election to fill her unexpired term would take place in November of 2009, right alongside a high-turnout Mayoral race in Houston, which would bring a disproportionate number of Democrats to the polls. I'm thinking the GOP would like to avoid that scenario, much as they maneuvered to schedule the tort "reform" Prop 12 vote in 2003 in September. They can't do that any more, since it's no longer a uniform election date, but they could try to make it happen in May of 2010; all she has to do is resign in the fall instead of the summer. Just something to think about.
While speaking at a University of Texas conference Wednesday, [Mayor Bill] White said he is considering a run for Hutchison's Senate seat if she resigns to run for governor, but he also said he may decide to join the 2010 gubernatorial race.The mayor also said he is not "jockeying" for a possible appointment as U.S. energy secretary in the administration of President-elect Barack Obama.
[...]
When asked about the Senate race or running for governor, White said he is weighing both options.
"I like managing organizations, which is more executive. And one of my passions is energy policy and sound economic policy, which is the challenge in D.C.," White said. "But I better be listening to people and thinking in the near future."
I feel pretty confident that Mayor White will not lose focus on his agenda for Houston this year. I also continue to believe that he'll be the Democratic nominee for Governor in 2010. It's the best fit for him, and I think it's eminently winnable, even against KBH. The main argument against this is if the DSCC promises to throw truckloads of money at him, like they didn't do for Rick Noriega (not that I'm keeping score or anything). Who else might want to run for either of these offices is a factor as well.
One thing I would love to see, regardless of which office White runs for, is some of Obama's campaign chiefs coming down here to run one or more statewide races for Democratic candidates. They've proven they can win in red states, and it would put them on the road to making a real play for Texas' electoral votes in 2012. Yeah, I'm wishcasting a bit, but why not? It's time for another challenge, and there's much potential for growth here. C'mon down, y'all, we can use all the help we can get.
Oliver Luck says let's get on with it now that the election is over.
"It almost has to (happen soon)," Luck said Wednesday. "If it doesn't happen by the end of the year, it's the old saying: A no is bad, a slow no is even worse. If there is no resolution by the end of the year, we'll have to go to plan B, whatever that is."[...]
Team co-owner Anschutz Entertainment Group has pledged to carry the brunt of the financing -- between $60 million and $80 million -- and Texas Southern University is willing to invest in the stadium in exchange for the rights to use it for football.
But at least one commissioner believes the county has no business in the negotiations.
"It's strictly a City of Houston deal," [County Commissioner Sylvia] Garcia said in a pre-recorded interview aired Wednesday night on 790 AM.
Garcia, who could not be reached for further comment, suggested a referendum to let voters decide if county tax dollars should be spent on the project.
Negotiations toward a soccer stadium have been under way since before AEG relocated the Dynamo from San Jose, Calif., in late 2005.
Team ownership and the city hoped to have a resolution by summer's end, but the economic crisis, Hurricane Ike and elections have further delayed action.
Window closing"As I said at the city today, at the mayor's office, we have a window now up until the end of the year where we can get this thing done despite the economic challenges that exist in the marketplace," said Luck, who called the speed of negotiations "disappointing" but expressed confidence something could be worked out now that the elections are over.
I'm not convinced that there is a Plan B for the Dynamo at this point, not in this economic climate. I could be wrong about that, but I can't imagine there are too many cities waiting in line to lure a pro soccer team to their backyard with some kind of sweet stadium deal. Plan B may well have to be to ask the city to split the remaining difference and hope for the best.
I don't have a quarrel with putting this up for a vote, but if it's not the county's business, what difference would that make? I continue to believe that a Dynamo Stadium makes sense, and the price for the county is pretty modest, but if Commissioner Garcia sees it otherwise, it ain't gonna happen. In which case, we'll see what Plan B actually is.
Congratulations to Vince Ryan, who I think will do a bang-up job as the new Harris County Attorney.
Many Harris County residents may have been saying "Vince who?" when they learned that voters ousted a Republican incumbent and elected the challenger in the county attorney's race.Democrat Vince Ryan defeated Mike Stafford 51 percent to 49 percent, benefiting from Barack Obama's long coattails and news reports about several Republican county officials' alleged ethical lapses.
Ryan, a lawyer, said he is the right person to be coming into government now. The County Attorney's Office, he said, can play the role of watchdog and try to insist that county officials and employees take the ethical high road.
"What county government needs is a group of watchdogs, not lapdogs," Ryan said. "The County Attorney's Office is an absolute key to the checks and balances on county government."
That's a theme he sounded over and over again during the campaign - listen to the interview I did with him if you need a reminder - and it's one of the reasons I'm happy to see him win. I believe Ryan will not be shy about picking a fight if he thinks someone in county government is doing wrong, or about to do wrong. Needless to say, that's something we've lacked around here of late.
Stafford, 57, said his outlook remains positive despite losing in his bid for a third term. After Commissioners Court appointed him county attorney in 2001, he won election to a two-year term in 2002 and re-election to a four-year term in 2004.Stafford's campaign team didn't have unlimited funds to wage a high-profile campaign and run television ads, so it limited itself mostly to putting out signs, he said.
"We knew Obama was going to energize Democrats, and we ran into what (Commissioner Steve) Radack called a tsunami," Stafford said. "It's part of the election process, and the Democrats won fair and square."
That's very gracious of Stafford to say, but he certainly could have had a bigger war chest if he'd wanted to. One fundraiser a year during his tenure, especially for a guy who was unopposed the last time out, would have banked him some decent money.
As happy as I am for Vince Ryan and the many other Democrats who won, I'm sad for those who lost. It's a long list, much of which is familiar to you. Democrats had a lot of good reasons to get to work for this election, and the many fine people who put themselves out there to represent all of us were a big part of that. I've said this to a couple of them via phone and email, and I'll say it here: Thank You for your effort and your belief. I know I speak for many when I say it was all greatly appreciated.
One of those sad results was in the DA race, where Brad Bradford led early, then trailed by the end of the evening as Republican voting strength on Tuesday caught up to him. Bradford isn't quite ready to concede yet, however.
Democrat C.O. "Brad" Bradford's campaign still was not ready to admit defeat in the race for Harris County district attorney Wednesday, hoping he can garner enough votes from outstanding absentee and provisional ballots to squeak past the apparently victorious Pat Lykos.The Republican former felony court judge held a nearly 5,000-vote lead in her bid to become the county's first female district attorney after all obviously valid ballots had been counted. She declared victory shortly before midnight Tuesday and did not back down Wednesday.
"I feel good about the election," she said.
Bradford declined an interview request, but Harris County Democratic Chairman Gerry Birnberg said the winner should not be crowned until all the votes are counted. He said it is "altogether possible" that enough of the nearly 7,000 provisional ballots cast this election are valid and include votes for Bradford to change the outcome of the race.
"If they went to that effort to participate in the election, by golly, we owe it to them to expend the effort to determine whether their votes should be counted or not," he said.
A provisional ballot is used when a voter is not on the registration list, but believes he or she is properly registered. If a person is registered, his or her vote is added to the total. Typically, only 10 percent of provisional ballots are deemed valid, according to the Harris County Clerk's Office.
In addition, 3,378 mail ballots that were sent overseas have not yet been returned. Those votes will be counted if the ballots were filled out by Tuesday and arrive at the clerk's office before Sunday.
Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman said she doubted those ballots will change the results of any countywide election, but said it is always possible.
"I am not closing any doors." she said.
While I think it's likely that provisional voters skew Democratic, it would have to be a landslide to make up the deficit. Absentee ballots tend to be overwhelmingly Republican, so it's probably better for Bradford if no more of them show up. Obviously, every vote should be counted, but unfortunately I think the odds of them having an effect on the outcome are slim. My congratulations to Pat Lykos on her imminent victory.
I am of course terribly disappointed that Laura Ewing did not win her race for the State Board of Education, which sorely needs the sanity and rationality that she'd have brought to it. On the plus side, her candidacy did help to shine a little light on what a screwed-up body the SBOE is, and just how crazy some of its members are. The crazy certainly doesn't end with Ewing's opponent David Bradley. Remember the name Cynthia Dunbar, who represents SBOE District 10, which runs from Fort Bend (she lives in Richmond) up to Austin. Dunbar published an unhinged rant just before Election Day that predicted we'd be attacked by terrorists "with whom Obama truly sympathizes" and that we'd be under martial law by 2012. The good news is that Dunbar's district is actually pretty purple, and she's up for re-election in 2010. So if you find her kind of nuttiness to be disgraceful and embarrassing, you'll have another shot at removing some of the stain from the SBOE soon. Thanks to Greg for the tip.
No rest for the political junkie around here, as the race for Speaker of the Texas House gets going.
A new race for Texas House speaker kicked off late on Election Night with a growing cast of candidates and anyone's guess as to the outcome.House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, won't surrender without a fight, however, which virtually guarantees another tussle for the top leadership spot.
"The Republicans have maintained the majority in the House, and as long as the Republicans have the majority, we are confident that the speaker will remain speaker," Craddick spokeswoman Alexis DeLee said Wednesday.
That's actually not a settled question, as Rep. Linda Harper-Brown's 29-vote margin in HD105 may shrink as provisional and absentee votes get counted, to be followed for sure by a demand for a recount. I think it's unlikely Bob Romano will prevail, even with such a small deficit to close, but it's not impossible. And if that happens, God only knows what kind of pandemonium may break out.
A recount could take weeks, which leaves the final House margin up in the air. Republicans will either have a slim 76-74 advantage, or the chamber will be deadlocked, 75-75.Craddick barely survived two challenges to his leadership last year when he had an 81-69 majority.
"You can stick a fork in Tom Craddick. It's over," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Jim Dunnam, D-Waco, the day after the election.
With all due respect to Rep. Dunnam, I agree with Vince and to a slightly lesser extent with Burka. It's not the R/D margin that matters so much as whether or not there's a genuine consensus candidate to oppose Craddick. Right now, there's a bunch of hopefuls and a lot of ways this could play out, but nobody wants to be on the losing team. If the Craddick Ds (sorry, not quite ready to retire the term just yet) can be enticed to abandon him - at least everyone is trying to play nice with them for now - and if a minority of Republicans can stand the idea of electing a Speaker with majority Democratic support, then maybe they can all coalesce around someone. And with all due respect to the various Democratic hopefuls, that someone just about has to be a Republican, at least as long as they are the majority. If the numbers were reversed, I'd say it had to be a Democrat, so this is only fair. If it winds up a tie, then let the best person win.
As of late Wednesday afternoon, four Republicans, including Craddick, and four Democrats had filed candidacies for speaker. The chamber's 150 members will choose their leader in January.Rep. Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, jumped into the speaker's race after the election results. He supports private balloting to prevent retaliation for voting against the winner and a ban on incumbent speakers soliciting pledge cards.
"Our schools are failing our children, everything from insurance rates to electric bills to prison expenses to budget growth is quickly getting out of hand. And what has our speaker's answer been? 'Ignore the problems. Keep me in power at all costs. Forget the rules. I know best.' Well, no more," Merritt said.
Other GOP speaker candidates are Delwin Jones of Lubbock and Jim Keffer of Eastland.
Democrats officially in the running: Pete Gallego of Alpine, Allan Ritter of Nederland and Senfronia Thompson and Sylvester Turner, both of Houston.
You can add Scott Hochberg to that list as well. I've touted Senfronia Thompson before, and I still believe she should be first in line if it's a Democrat's time to be Speaker again. But you can't go wrong with Hochberg or Gallego, either, and frankly any of Keffer, Merritt, or Jones would be fine, too, if it must be a Republican. Please, y'all, pick one, settle behind him or her, and bring the reign of Craddick to an end. We deserve better. BOR has more.
Precinct level data won't be available for some time, but let's revisit my discussion of the big counties with the numbers that are currently on the Secretary of State homepage. Here's that spreadsheet again, updated to include 2008 numbers. Note that the makeup of the top 25 counties is slightly different, with Taylor dropping out and Ellis coming in. Some other counties moved up or down in the population list as well.
The first thing to notice is that what had been an 800,000 vote deficit for John Kerry was this year a 75,000 vote deficit for Barack Obama. McCain lost 80,000 votes from Bush's total, while Obama won 645,000 more votes than Kerry. This 725,000 vote gain by Obama accounts for nearly the entire amount of the pickup from 2004. Maybe you're not ready to call Texas a swing state just yet, but this is a huge step in that direction.
The big urbans led the way on this. What had been a 240,000 vote surplus for Bush (I goofed on the math when I first did this) became a 267,000 vote deficit for McCain, or a total turnaround of over a half million votes. Dallas was a 115,000-vote blowout for Obama, who won with 57.5% there. Both Travis and El Paso were at around 65% for Obama, with Travis' margin for Obama (117,000) the biggest of them all, and both Harris (50.43%) and Bexar (52.42%) went blue. Tarrant, which gave just 37% of the vote to Kerry, gave almost 44% to Obama. The big urbans are Democratic turf, and much of the basis for future growth of the Democratic Party.
The big suburbans had a role to play as well. Though none went blue, Fort Bend (48.53% for Obama) and Hays (48.14%) both approached parity. Williamson went from 33.6% Democratic to 42.7% Dem. Collin and Denton both went from sub-30% to around 37%. Brazoria ticked up a notch from 31.0% to 34.8%, and even Montgoemery was a teeny bit less hopeless, going from 21.4% to 23.2%. Hey, I said there was no place to go but up. This shaved a 370,000 vote shortfall for Kerry to a 275,000 vote gap for Obama.
For the remaining counties, the story was one part the collapse of Republican support in Latino counties, as Hidalgo (54.86% to 69.07%), Cameron (49.16% to 64.07%), and Webb (56.92% to 71.45%) all came back strongly to the Dems, though still at below-average turnout levels, and one part everywhere else, where Obama still gained even in bright crimson areas like Lubbock (24% to 31%) and Brazos (30% to 35%). The biggest surprise to me was seeing Bell County, not a place where I expected any gains, jump from 34.07% for Kerry to 44.76% for Obama. I presume Bell's higher than average black population may have had something to do with that. The bottom line here was that a 193,000 vote deficit shrunk to just 65,000 votes.
There's still room for further improvement. None of the Latino counties, which gave Obama his biggest percentages, had turnout levels above 50, except for Nueces, which is more Republican. I expect Harris to get bluer, as should Dallas and Tarrant. The suburbs are ripe for Democratic renewal; both Fort Bend with Richard Morrison and Williamson with Diana Maldonado saw Dems win seats that had been exclusively Republican before. Collin and Denton should be next in line, though that may take a couple more cycles. And this is where a growing share of the vote is; it was 71.3% of the statewide total in 2004, and 72.7% in 2008. Even if the rest of the state doesn't get any more purple - and remember, even outside the top 25, the Republican advantage dropped a little, from about 893,000 votes to 875,000 votes - gains in the biggest counties will eventually swamp it. This is where the action is for the Democrats, and it's the road map for putting Texas in play in 2012, with a stop along the way for the state races in 2010. I'm excited about the future.
By the way, I wrote all this last night, before I saw this Chron story about the statewide trends and the gains the Dems made in urban and suburban areas, though the article is less clear on that point. I think the bottom line can be summed up as follows: Therre were 640,000 more votes cast in the Presidential race this year than there were in 2004. The Democrats had a net gain of 688,000 votes for their Presidential candidate. The Republicans had a net loss of 60,000 for theirs. I know which side of that trend I'd rather be on.
That's the question a lot of people are asking.
Where were the voters who supposedly were going to push election turnout in Harris County to breath-taking heights?They stayed away from the polls, leaving turnout only 2 percentage points beyond the participation rate in the prior presidential race here -- and probably preventing Democrats from sweeping every contest in a formerly Republican county.
That "2 percentage points" figure appears to come from a higher estimate of the total number of registered voters than what's being shown by the County Clerk. A 60.3% turnout rate, which is what the story sidebar gives, yields about 1,964,000 voters. Going by the 2008 results page, the County Clerk uses 1,892,656 as the total registered voters figure. That's lower than what we'd been told before the election. I'm not sure how to reconcile the two; perhaps the CC number doesn't include voters who cast provisional ballots. In any event, if you compare 2004 to 2008 and use the County Clerk numbers, the turnout figure rises from 58.03 to 62.60, a gain of over four and a half points.
Democratic leaders had said total turnout of about 1.3 million would allow them to piggyback on Barack Obama's popularity and defeat all GOP candidates on the local ballot.Democrats indeed made deep inroads Tuesday, unseating most judicial incumbents and ejecting Sheriff Tommy Thomas, but there was no sweep and no giddy showing of voters.
Local Democratic Chairman Gerald Birnberg said his party struggled to get former supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential primary candidacy to return to the polls and vote for Obama and the rest of the party's slate. Clinton was immensely popular among Hispanic voters in Texas.
"The head wind was the demoralization of many of the Hispanic Hillary Clinton supporters and that was a reality we faced throughout the election," Birnberg said.
As Democratic political consultant Marc Campos of Houston pointed out, Tuesday's election totals put turnout in mostly Hispanic state House districts at 40 to 45 percent, compared to 60 to 65 percent in mostly white, suburban districts as well as mostly black districts.
Campos, a Hispanic, said his party's efforts to motivate Hispanic voters was substandard. Birnberg disagreed, saying that among other things, Democrats aimed at Hispanic households with a recorded telephone message from Clinton urging voters to back every candidate.
It's not exactly news that Campos and Birnberg disagree on matters like this, especially on the question of outreach towards Hispanic voters. Campos has been criticizing the local party for not having such a strategy in place for years. As for the "disaffected Hillary voters" thing, all I can say is that once we got past Labor Day, I never heard anyone talk about that any more. I'm sure some of it was still there, I'm just saying it stopped being a hot topic of conversation.
About 100,000 people who voted in the spring Democratic primary failed to vote in the county's general election, according to Rice University political scientist Bob Stein."I don't think they're disinterested in politics. I think it's the way we conduct our elections and how we make it very difficult for people who move around a lot to re-register," he said.
Republican Paul Bettencourt, the voter registrar re-elected as county tax assessor-collector, rejected Stein's theory.
About 100,000 other people easily updated their registrations for the general election, he said. Also, he theorized that turnout would have been much higher if Obama or John McCain or their running mates would have campaigned in Houston.
I've already said that I think having the Obama campaign pay some attention to Texas would have made a difference, so I'll agree with Bettencourt on that point. But let's pause here and break out some numbers, because I think they tell an interesting story. I'm going to compare turnout across the mostly Hispanic and mostly black State Rep districts from 2004 to 2008, since that to me is the salient issue.
HD 04 votes 04 voters 04 pct 08 votes 08 voters 08 pct
=============================================================
140 19,039 48,512 39.25 18,482 45,008 41.06
143 19,566 49,074 39.87 17,712 44,390 39.90
145 21,638 48,909 44.24 20,796 45,985 45.22
148 31,684 60,783 52.13 34,493 60,153 57.34
Tot 91,927 207,278 44.35 91,483 195,536 46.79131 35,807 65,278 54.85 41,132 66,116 62.21
139 36,714 73,284 50.10 40,443 70,569 57.31
141 36,429 74,294 49.03 43,094 74,876 57.55
142 37,838 75,861 49.88 42,392 72,547 58.43
146 49,157 86,964 56.53 52,562 83,463 62.97
147 40,676 76,962 52.85 44,517 75,882 58.67
Tot 236,621 452,643 52.28 264,140 443,453 59.56
Let's stipulate up front that this is a crude measure, since black and Hispanic voters are everywhere in Harris County, and since some of these districts (like 148) have Anglo areas that generally have high turnout. Be that as it may, the first thing that strikes me is that these ten districts combined to lose over 20,000 registered voters since 2004. Now again, maybe what they've done is gained provisional voters - I don't know what the County Clerk's methodology is - but I don't think it can be disputed that this had an effect on final turnout numbers. That the total number of voters went up by 28,000 when the registered voter pool shrank is impressive. But that leaves a big question: Why did the number of registered voters shrink? I'd like to know the answer to that.
The other point to make is that while turnout did indeed rise more in the black districts than in the Hispanic ones, it was still below the countywide average overall and in every district except 131 and 146. So again, the question has to be asked, what happened? I can't answer these questions without access to much more fine-grained data points. But maybe someone who has access to that data can tackle them.
One more thing: Everyone overestimated the turnout on Election Day based on the high volume of early voting. How much more voting was done early this year than before? Here are the figures for these districts:
HD 04 early 04 total 04 EV% 08 early 08 total 08 EV%
=============================================================
140 4,750 19,039 24.95 7,877 18,482 42.62
143 5,371 19,566 27.45 7,052 17,712 39.81
145 5,666 21,638 26.19 8,996 20,796 43.26
148 9,169 31,684 28.94 18,164 34,493 52.66
Tot 24,956 91,927 27.15 42,089 91,483 46.01131 13,420 35,807 37.48 26,189 41,132 63.67
139 11,787 36,714 32.10 26,097 40,443 64.53
141 15,087 36,429 41.41 29,333 43,094 68.07
142 14,623 37,838 38.65 27,730 42,392 65.41
146 19,766 49,159 40.21 32,063 52,562 61.00
147 14,722 40,676 36.19 26,519 44,517 59.57
Tot 89,405 236,621 37.78 167,931 264,140 63.58
Let's file those numbers away for future reference. I think the percentage of voters who came out early may have peaked a bit this year, thanks to the heavy efforts to make them do exactly that, but I suspect it won't come down too much from there. The one factor I can't judge is how many people decided that it was a greater hassle to vote early, based on the huge increase in that propensity by others, and will go back to the fuddy-duddy way as a result. My guess is we'll see at least 50% participation in early voting as the new norm, but it won't go past 60% unless there's another concerted push to get people out early. Hold these thoughts for 2012!
I should have seen this coming.
Talk in Austin is that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is reassessing plans to resign from the Senate to challenge Republican incumbent Gov. Rick Perry in 2010.She still intently plans to run but may choose to retain her Senate seat while campaigning.
The reasoning?
Her resignation would enable Perry to appoint a successor who could snipe at her from Washington, essentially putting Hutchison in the middle of a D.C-Austin crossfire.
Hutchison may announce an exploratory campaign for the governor's race in December or early next year. Hutchison spokesman Matt Mackowiak declined to comment.
Point one: The talk I've heard is that unless KBH does resign her seat, nobody will truly believe she's going to run against Rick Perry. Point two: If she doesn't resign to run, you can bet Rick Perry will bludgeon her for it. Point three: As with everything else in the Waiting For KBH saga, treat such stories as rumor and innuendo until proven otherwise. That said, I say pick your poison and stick with it, KBH. There is no easy way out. Link via Greg.
As I start to get back to blogging about things that don't involve campaigns or votes, here's a reminder from Chron soccer writer Glenn Davis that we're still waiting for some action on the mythical Dynamo Stadium.
So what is the holdup with the stadium in our diverse city?Surely Hurricane Ike and the election have slowed things down.
The city of Houston and Mayor Bill White have done their job, having secured land by Minute Maid Park.
Now it is up to Harris County officials, including commissioners Sylvia Garcia and El Franco Lee, to not miss out on this golden opportunity by making a decision on a new midsized stadium that not only would benefit soccer but other sports and constituents in our community.
Still, the value of a stadium has been overlooked in this process by many outside the soccer community.
The county will decide on $10 million that is needed to get the ball in motion. A number that is only a fraction of the costs that went into other stadiums.
The issue was brought to Commissioners Court back in August. I've lost track of what deadlines, if any, may still be in play. I suppose the Dynamo are biding their time and either hoping for the best or exploring other options. Of which there may not be so many now, thanks to the lousy economy and tight credit market. Perhaps now that County Judge Ed Emmett has put his re-election behind him, he'll be willing to pay attention to stuff like this that presumably wasn't that high on his priority list before.
The Chron reprises a theme it sounded prior to the election.
The mood was somewhat somber and confused today at the Harris County Civil Courthouse, a day after voters gave nearly half the incumbents their walking papers."Though we anticipated it would be close, to see really good judges swept out is still stunning," said civil District Judge Patricia Kerrigan, a Republican who, with all precincts reporting, had more than a 2,500-vote lead.
[...]
The straight-party Democratic voting that ushered in a new batch of civil and criminal district judges in Harris County was not the surprise. It was why the three civil-court Republicans who survived were able to do so.
"It doesn't seem that qualifications were the criteria voters used," said Kerrigan. "There are some very good judges who were voted out."
I'm going to say this again, for what I hope will need to be the last time: Did anyone who is expressing all this worry now do the same thing back in 1994 when the Republican wave swept out one experienced Democratic judge after another? The reason for it then was the same as the reason for it now - a change in the county's partisan mix brought about by demographic and cultural trends that culminated in the election. The courts survived this mass exodus fourteen years ago, and it will survive it now, and again in 2010 if we see a repeat. I for one will not be losing any sleep over this now that these trends favor my party.
Still working through a backlog of random observations from last night...
- Is it just me, or does anyone else have a hard time believing it's actually all over?
- One way of looking at how Harris County is changing: In 2004, running unopposed, Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack received 200,147 votes out of 306,949 ballots cast in Precinct 4, for 65.21% of the total. In 2008, running against Democrat Dexter Handy, he received 191,785 votes out of 339,115, or 56.55%; straight up against Handy, he got 60.07%. If current trends in Harris County continue, and especially if Radack steps down after this term, that will be a winnable seat for a strong Democratic candidate.
- Similarly, Justice of the Peace Russ Ridgway in Precinct 5, Place 1 got 174,202 votes against a Libertarian candidate in 2004, with 285,955 ballots cast, for 60.92% of the total. Yesterday, Ridgway got 162,916 votes out of 310,750, or 52.43%; his Democratic opponent, Peter Rene, won 123,452 votes for a 43.17% tally against Ridgway's 56.83%. This isn't your daddy's west Harris County any more.
- Chris Bell heads into the runoff with a 27,000 vote lead over Joan Huffman. He and Stephanie Simmons combined for 52.16% of the vote in SD17. Runoffs always come down to turnout, and finishing first early is no guarantee of finishing first later. But I think he's in a decent position. Look for a lot of money to keep pouring into this one.
- I'm wondering who will be the first sitting Republican judge to announce a switch to the Democrats, and when it will happen. Anyone want to speculate?
- What do you suppose Orlando Sanchez's platform will be when he runs for re-election as Harris County Treasurer? I'm thinking "You can't get caught in a scandal if you don't actually ever do anything" would work.
- As Grits notes, the Democrats made gains in district and appellate court races in counties besides Harris, such as Bexar, where two sitting Republican judges were ousted, and El Paso. I will once again echo the call to field a strong and full slate of candidates for the Supreme Court (as we did this year) and the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2010. The breakthrough is coming.
- To emphasize a point I made before, here's how the result in CD24 up in the Metroplex compares to 2004:
2004County Marchant Page M Pct P Pct
=========================================
Dallas 64,973 43,416 59.94 40.06
Denton 25,544 12,610 66.95 33.05
Tarrant 63,918 26,573 70.63 29.37Total 154,435 82,599 65.15 34.85
2008County Marchant Love M Pct L Pct
=========================================
Dallas 60,774 57,717 51.29 48.71
Denton 25,968 17,995 59.07 40.93
Tarrant 64,998 35,937 64.40 35.60Total 151,740 111,649 57.61 42.39
So Kenny Marchant lost 3000 votes while one unheralded Democrat gained 30,000 over the previous unheralded Democrat. Democratic gains were across all three counties in the district. Maybe it's time to mount a more serious challenge here. Yes, I know, redistricting is coming, and the CD24 of today may not bear any resemblance to the CD24 of 2012. I don't think that's a good enough reason not to try, however.
- So, um, when would it be okay to start thinking about the 2009 Houston elections? Maybe after the SD17 runoff.
Coming soon - more numbers!
Just some observations before I can get my hands on precinct data...
- First and foremost, let me say Congratulations to all the winners. This was a long and hard-fought campaign, and everyone involved deserves our praise and thanks for their involvement. Regardless of the outcomes, it's very good to see meaningful races with qualified and honorable candidates everywhere on the ballot. Thank you, all of you, for all of your dedication and effort.
- I'm sorry to see Rep. Nick Lampson was defeated by Pete Olson, in one of the bright spots for the GOP locally and nationally. Challengers Michael Skelly (on the low end of a 55.91-42.34 score) and Larry Joe Doherty (down 53.89-43.14) also fell short, while Reps. Ciro Rodriguez and Chet Edwards were easily re-elected. The latest word I have on Congress is a net gain of 17 seats for the Democrats, which is on the low end of the pregame estimates, but which will still give them over 250 seats. I have to wonder if any of these districts (besides Edwards' CD17, which will never be a cakewalk for him) will see strong opposition in 2010. If this wasn't the year for a Dem in CDs 07, 10, or 22, when would it be?
- Somewhat amazingly, it appears that convicted felon Sen. Ted Stevens won re-election in Alaska, confounding polls that had him trailing by double digits after the verdict came down. TPM suggests calling this the "Stevens Effect", to replace the should-be-retired "Bradley Effect".
- In a further sign of Dallas County's blue shift, GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant in CD24 won re-election with a relatively scant 55.91% of the vote. Marchant's share of the vote has declined from 64.0% in 2004 and 59.8% in 2006, in all cases against token opposition. He could be the Mike McCaul of 2010, or he could see a big change one way or another in his district for 2012.
- The Democrats did win one of the Appeals Court races that includes Harris County - Jim Sharp won the Court 1, Place 3 seat that Sam Nuchia lost in the GOP primary to Ed Hubbard by 50.57-49.42. All other Democratic challengers for the 1st and 14th Courts of Appeals lost by margins ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 votes, out of 1.5 million cast. They all carried Harris County, but only Sharp's 58,000-vote margin there was enough to make up for ground lost elsewhere. In the Austin area, Woodie Jones knocked off Chief Justice Ken Law, author of the infamous "checks aren't cash" decision in the Tom DeLay appeal, for the 3rd Court.
- Republicans managed to hold onto four judges in Harris County, with the Dems winning the other 23 judicial races. As was the case across the board, the GOP won on Election Day, which in those cases was enough to wipe out the Dems' lead in early voting.
- In the end, the straight-ticket advantage for the Dems in Harris was 390,284 to 342,974. About 62% of all votes were straight ticket, which is a slight drop from a bit more than 64% in 2004. The 47,000 vote Democratic lead is nearly the mirror image of the 45,000 vote Republican surplus from 2004.
- Turnout fell short of all of the optimistic projections. In Harris County, the total number of voters is given as 1,184,820, out of an also-lower-than-expected 1,892,656 registrations, for a 62.6% turnout. That represents 450,000 ballots cast yesterday after the 730,000 of early voting, so a bit less than 62% of all votes were cast in Harris during early voting. Statewide, the tally with a handful of precincts still out was 8,042,270 in the Presidential race, which is given as 59.24% turnout. Again, I have to wonder what might have happened had there been a concerted effort by the Obama campaign to organize and turn people out in Texas, rather than use Texas to turn out voters in other states. I plan to be a little bitter about this, which takes a wee bit of the joy out of the Presidential result from last night, and I daresay I will not be the only person to do so.
- A quick scan of county returns suggests Hispanic turnout wasn't all that. Places like Cameron (43.31%), El Paso (47.44%), Hidalgo (42.73%), Maverick (40.43), and Webb Counties (44.37%) were all well below the statewide level. Rick Noriega generally scored a higher percentage of the vote in those counties than Barack Obama, all of which were strongly Democratic, but not by very much. There needs to be a real strategy for getting these voters out to the polls going forward, because Democrats aren't going to win statewide without maximizing these counties.
- Fort Bend County wound up with a fairly modest 67.60% turnout, considerably lower than the 85% estimate I'd mentioned on Monday. A mere 48,000 votes were cast yesterday, meaning about 76% of the total were early votes. In the end, McCain won Fort Bend by 4000 votes out of 202,000, thus officially making Fort Bend a swing county. And in some good news, Richard Morrison won election to the Fort Bend County Commissioners Court with 50.93% of the vote. Congratulations, Richard! Dems wound up with a slight advantage in straight-ticket ballots here, 68,426 to 66,615.
- Looking ahead to 2010, I'll predict that Ken Legler, who won by 900 votes in HD144, and Kristi Thibaut, who won by 500 in HD133, are the big targets. Legler's district is trending away from the Republicans - I'll know how much once precinct data is available, but I'll bet at least a few countywide Dems carried it - while Thibaut received a nice boost from Presidential turnout, exactly the opposite from 2006. She will need 2010 to be more like 2008 to win re-election. Rep. Hubert Vo, who had been seen by some as vulnerable, won a fairly resounding 56.3-43.7 victory. I'll be a bit surprised if he gets a strong challenge in 2010. Freshman Rep. Ellen Cohen also cruised, winning 55.5-42.2 over the invisible Joe Agris. I'll want to see if either of those districts have turned blue overall, or if Cohen and Vo ran as far ahead of the pack as they'd done in 2006. Other districts where precinct data will tell an interesting story should be HDs 126 and 135, where incumbent Republicans Patricia Harless (59.40%) and Gary Elkins (58.39%) won with a smaller amount than you might expect, and 127, 129, and 138, where Joe Crabb (65.67%), John Davis (58.53%), and Dwayne Bohac (59.02%) had larger ones.
- You can also expect to see a full slate of Democratic judicial challengers in 2010, which will make this year's ballot seem compact in comparison. County Judge Ed Emmett and new District Clerk Loren Jackson will have to defend their seats, with County Clerk Beverly Kaufman and County Treasurer Orlando "I am too doing something!" Sanchez on the ballot as well.
- Finally, let me say again that I greatly enjoyed playing a pundit on TV last night. My counterpart David Benzion was a pleasure to work with, as was news anchor Len Cannon, Doug Miller, and the entire KHOU crew, all of whom did a great job. I just hope I was up to their standard. Oh, and Lucy Noland is taller than you think. At least, she was taller than I thought.
Much more to come later, when the numbers are out.
It's been a hellaciously long day, and I'm going to work tomorrow. Yeah, I know, brilliant move on my part. Here's a wrapup of what has happened, with much more to come once I regain my senses.
- With 869 of 874 precincts counted, Obama will win Harris County by a small amount; it's 50.45 to 48.83 as I type this, a 19,000 vote cushion for Obama. Republicans carried the day, and cut into the early vote lead enough to salvage a few wins. Turnout will be short of projections - it's 1,154,953 at this writing, or just shy of 62%. We will be studying this one for a long time to figure out where more votes could have been found.
At the state level, it's 55.4-43.6 for McCain. I have to wonder if Obama had spent a few bucks here instead of Georgia, Arizona, and North Dakota if he could have moved the needle a bit more. Maybe he'll try in 2012. I sure hope so. Obama trails by about 900,000 votes, or half of Kerry's deficit. I'll be taking a hard look at the county-by-county results as soon as they're set.
- I thought Rick Noriega would outperform Obama in Texas and in Harris County. He didn't, though he did get a higher percentage of the vote in Harris than Obama did. Cornyn probably lost some votes to the Libertarian candidate that went to McCain, as he fell short of McCain's percentage. Again, one has to wonder what effect more money might have had. Not enough to win, but perhaps enough to make it truly competitive. Now we all get to wonder what happens when and if Kay Bailey Hutchison steps down for a run at the Governor's mansion.
- Democrats fell short in other statewide races, with Sam Houston and Susan Strawn above 45%. You want to know why we needed Obama to spend some money here and not ask Texans to work on races in other states? It's because of Sam Houston and Susan Strawn. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
- In Harris County, Republicans held onto County Judge, Tax Assessor (sigh), and at the last minute, District Attorney. Dems won the other administrative offices, with Adrian Garcia being the top vote-getter overall in the county, and as of this writing all but three judicial races. Look for more Democratic gains in 2010
- Wendy Davis wins in SD10, Joe Jaworski loses in SD11, and Chris Bell will go into a runoff against Joan Huffman. Stephanie Simmons was a huge factor, winning almost 14% of the vote - her total added to Bell's is a majority. Austen Furse finishes a dismal fourth, barely breaking 10%. Everyone who has reason to dislike Allen Blakemore will celebrate that.
- In the State House, the Dems lost two incumbents - Dan Barrett and Juan Garcia - plus the open seat that had been held by Robby Cook. Chuck Hopson held on by 102 votes. Dems picked up six seats - Diana Maldonado (HD52), Joe Moody (HD78), Chris Turner (HD96), Robert Miklos (HD101), Carol Kent (HD102), and Kristi Thibaut (HD133). For those keeping score at home, that's four TexBlog PAC candidates. Sadly, Sherrie Matule did not win. Neither did Joel Redmond or Bob Romano, who appears to have lost in HD105 by about two dozen votes. Barring anything happening with the inevitable recounts, that's a three seat pickup for the Dems. Not enough for a majority - it's now 76-74 in favor of the Republicans - but perhaps enough to oust Tom Craddick from the Speaker's office. Suffice it to say that the beginning of the next Legislative session will be very interesting.
I'm about out of steam, and there's way too much data to study. That will wait till later. For now, it was a pretty darned good day to be a Democrat, in Texas and elsewhere, even if there were some opportunities that were left on the table. Again, a post for another time. Thank you, and thanks to KHOU for letting me flap my gums on their station, and good night.
Republicans are making up some ground in Harris County. Hard to know which precincts have reported and which haven't, but with about a third of the boxes in, the straight ticket advantage is down a bit to 46,000 for the Dems, and every Republican at the countywide level has inched up. At least one judicial candidate, Sharon McCally in the 334th Civil District Court, has taken a lead, albeit a tiny one. Ed Emmett is looking strong, and Paul Bettencourt has some breathing room. This will be a late night.
Republicans have some good news in State House races as well. They're leading in four Democratic districts, at least two of which look like solid pickups for them. Chuck Hopson in HD11 and Juan Garcia in HD32 are still in it, but the clock is ticking. Kristi Thibaut has fallen a bit behind Jim Murphy here in HD133, but it doesn't look like any of the precincts friendly to her have been counted yet. Joel Redmond in HD144 is a bit further behind. The Dems still lead in several pickup opportunities - Diana Maldonado (HD52), Chris Turner (HD96), Joe Moody (HD78), Miklos, Kent, and Romano in Dallas County. Some of these haven't updated since early voting. In the end, we may not get much movement in the State House, which would be very good news for Tom Craddick.
Wendy Davis is still leading in her State Senate Race. Chris Bell is almost surely headed to a runoff against Joan Huffman in SD17. Joe Jaworski is trailing in SD11, and probably cannot make up that deficit.
In case you hadn't noticed, Fort Bend County was essentially 50-50 (PDF) after early voting. Democrats had a 3000 vote advantage in straight ticket ballots. Republicans are catching up a bit in the E-Day results so far, but it's clear: This ain't Tom DeLay's Fort Bend County any more.
Some good news for the Dems around the state: They lead in seven takeover races for the State House: Joe Moody (El Paso), Chris Turner (Tarrant County), Diana Maldonado (Williamson County), Robert Miklos, Carol Kent, and Bob Romano (Dallas County), and Kristi Thibaut (Harris County). They trail in the open Dem seat in Bastrop (Donnie Dippel versus Tim Kleinschmidt), they trail in the Tarrant seat they picked up in a 2007 special election (Dan Barrett) and they trail by a smaller amount in Juan Garcia's Corpus Christi seat. Romano was not on anyone's list as a possible pickup, so discount that one. I think Garcia will come back, and Dippel has a good shot, but it's not looking good for Barrett. Joel Redmond in Harris County is close, Sherrie Matule not so close. Picking up five seats is within reach.
Also good news: Wendy Davis leads Sen. Chris Brimer in Tarrant County. Chris Bell is leading the special election in SD17, but he's below 50%. Stephanie Simmons is at 14%, and her votes added to his would put him over the top. But that's not how it works. Joan Huffman is running second, 14 points behind Bell, and Austen Furse is an embarassing fourth, just below ten percent.
Links:
SD17 special
SOS Statewide
Harris County Cumulative
Williamson County cumulative
Here. And it's very good news for the Democrats. The first number you need to know:
Straight party
Republican Party - 208,962
Democratic Party - 258,053
That's 55% Dem, and that 50,000 vote advantage is carrying them to leads in most races. Ed Emmett has a small lead over David Mincberg, Paul Bettencourt has a small lead over Diane Trautman, and Adrian Garcia is leading Tommy Thomas by over 100,000 votes. All Democratic judicial candidates are leading by at least 20,000 votes. Oh, and Obama is up by seven points, just as Zogby predicted. Stay tuned!
In preparation for tonight's Election Dissection Blogger-rama, here are a few useful links to bookmark:
Election Night Results, hot off the presses from the Secretary of State.
Harris County election night results. Hit "Refresh" often.
For you Twitter users, the boys at the Burnt Orange Report will be tweeting out stuff here. And no, that's no nearly as dirty as it sounds. You can also get on-the-spot reports from around the country at the Twitter vote report.
For national stuff, there's too many links to name. I'll probably be hitting Kos, FiveThirtyEight (which gives you ten reasons why you should ignore exit polls), and TPM Election Central a bit too obsessively. But I'm sure there will be plenty of other sites to check, and I expect to have an advanced case of carpal tunnel syndrome when it's all over.
How about you? Where (besides here) will you be checking?
(Cross-posted from the KHOU blog. I'm still not sure how I'm going to keep everything updated. Please bear with me, and light a candle for my fingers and wrists.)
LIsa Falkenberg gets old school.
Those of us who passed on early voting and will trek to the polls today have been deemed by some pundits and professors procrastinators, indecisive or indifferent.I'm not offended. If you think about it, the rush to the voting booths is a beautiful illustration of the excitement stirred up by the most important presidential election in many of our lifetimes, certain to make history by producing either the first black president or female vice president.
But for me, it's all about fuddy-duddy nostalgia.
Long lines buzzing like telephone wire, the camaraderie of the common experience, the tension of knowing you're taking part in the final act of a high-stakes drama. The little "I voted" stickers, badges of pride that, like team jerseys or face paint, seem way cooler the official game day.
Fine by me. Just vote, that's what matters.
Falkenberg also got a local turnout prediction for today:
Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman told me Monday that she thinks the number of Election Day voters could rival the early voting turnout."I was hoping that at least half the people would wait until Election Day," she said. "We've got 728 polling places open (today) so I hope someone will show up."
She's joking, of course, about that last part. She believes the number of souls who voted early and by mail, 730,000, could be doubled today, a turnout totaling more than 1.46 million voters.
That would represent an astounding 74 percent of about 1.96 million registered voters in Harris County.
Hey, if 85% turnout in Fort Bend is being seriously considered as a possibility, who's to say this can't happen? I think that's a tad bit high, but if we really are going to get 68% statewide, then 70% here in Harris, if Harris is again destined to outperform the state by a little bit, is certainly within reach. Who knows?
Today will in most respects be a pretty normal day for me, at least until the polls close. Tonight I'll be on your teevee to tell you what it all means. Before that, if you vote today or spend time at a polling location, please leave a comment and tell me where you were and how it went. I'd love to get some anecdotal evidence if I can. If you see a problem, please be sure to report it. And above all, have fun and enjoy what's happening. Today is truly a special day.
UPDATE: For what it's worth, the two polling places I drove past on the way to work both appeared to be busy. They were Hogg Middle School, in my precinct, and Roberts Elementary.
Well, I thought I was done with interviews for this cycle, but as you saw yesterday that wasn't quite the case. It is unequivocally so now, and as such I will now re-present my complete list of interviews for the November cycle. I hope you found them useful.
Rick Noriega, US Senate
Rep. Nick Lampson, CD22
Michael Skelly, CD07
Larry Joe Doherty, CD10
Eric Roberson, CD32
Mark Thompson, Railroad Commission
Laura Ewing, SBOE district 7
David Mincberg, Harris County Judge
Adrian Garcia, Harris County Sheriff
Brad Bradford, Harris County District Attorney
Diane Trautman, Harris County Tax Assessor
Vince Ryan, Harris County Attorney
Loren Jackson, Harris County District Clerk
Debra Kerner, HCDE Trustee
Jim Henley, HCDE Trustee
Dexter Handy, Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 3
Richard Morrison, Fort Bend County Commissioner, Precinct 1
Chris Bell, SD17
Joe Jaworski, SD11
Wendy Davis, SD10
State Rep. Ellen Cohen, HD134
State Rep. Dan Barrett, HD97
State Rep. Juan Garcia, HD32
Joel Redmond, HD144
Virginia McDavid, HD138
Trey Fleming, HD135
Sherrie Matula, HD129
Kristi Thibaut, HD133
Joe Montemayor, HD127
Diana Maldonado, HD52
Ernie Casbeer, HD59
Joe Moody, HD78
Chris Turner, HD96
Robert Miklos, HD101
Here's a guide to all the judicial Q&As I did for this cycle, sorted by the type of court for which the candidate is running:
Judge Jim Jordan, Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court.
Martin Siegel, Court of Appeals, 14th District, Place 7.
Leslie Taylor, Court of Appeals, First District, Place 5.
Bert Moser, Court of Appeals, 14th District, Place 4.
Mike Miller, 11th Civil Judicial District Court.
Dion Ramos, 55th Civil Judicial District Court.
Al Bennett, 61st Civil Judicial District Court.
Larry Weiman, 80th Civil Judicial District Court.
Kyle Carter, 125th Civil Judicial District Court.
Mike Engelhart, 151st Civil Judicial District Court.
Robert Schaffer, 152nd Civil Judicial District Court.
Andres Pereira, 190th Civil Judicial District Court.
Steven Kirkland, 215th Civil Judicial District Court.
Shawna Reagin, 176th District Criminal Court.
Randy Roll, 179th District Criminal Court.
Hazel Jones, 338th District Criminal Court.
Peter Rene, Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5, Place 1.
With early voting all finished, let's take a minute and ponder the possibilities for the Presidential race in Texas. I'll leave it to Greg to ponder the whys and wherefors of Texas' evolving suburbs. I'm just interested in some numbers. Let's take a look and see what we can see.
Here's a Google spreadsheet of the 25 counties with the most voters from 2004, with the Bush/Kerry results for each. Together, these 25 counties accounted for two-thirds of Bush's vote (3,020,947 out of 4,526,917) and a bit more than 70% of Kerry's total (2,219,495 out of 2,832,704). Bush won 57.2% of the vote in these counties, compared to 61.1% overall. No Democrat can hope to be competitive statewide until the big counties become favorable to them, especially considering that the Bush margin was bigger in the remaining smaller counties than it was in these (+801,452 for Bush in the top 25, +892,761 in the smaller counties). The good news there is that the big counties will be a larger slice of the pie this year and going forward. But first things first.
And those first things are the big urban counties, which are the six most populous in the state: Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, and El Paso. They were relatively Democrat-friendly in 2004, with Bush winning them by a 53.2-46.0 margin. Kerry carried El Paso and Travis (56.1 and 56.0, respectively), came close in Dallas (48.9), trailed farther behind in Harris and Bexar (44.6 and 44.4), and was crushed in Tarrant (38.9). The total Bush margin was +139,130, with over 3.3 million ballots cast.
I think it's safe to say that Barack Obama will do better in these six counties than John Kerry did. I'll go so far as to say I'll be surprised if he doesn't win them, perhaps by as much as Kerry lost them. Travis and El Paso should be big wins for him, probably over 60%. He'll win Dallas, perhaps by a five or six point margin. Bexar, I have no idea - it's a weird county electorally - but it should be at least close to 50-50. He'll lose Tarrant, but I'd expect him to get around 45%, and could do better. And Harris - ah, Harris - let's just say I'm one of many fervently hoping for a win there. At the very least, we have that Zogby poll, heavy early voting turnout, and some positive voter registration trends. My initial inclination was to say it'll be 50-50 there, but I'm feeling more optimistic than that now. I predicted 52-48, so let's stick with that, though the margin could be greater (or not). Somewhat conservatively, I'll estimate Obama +100,000 overall for these counties but +200,000 is possible.
The big suburbans are a much greater challenge, but there's some hope there. I see Denton and Collin as being somewhat like what Williamson and Fort Bend were a couple of cycles ago. They won't be competitive for Obama, but they won't be the blowouts that they were for Kerry, either. Thirty-five percent strikes me as being reachable goals in those two counties. That may not sound like much, but a 35% showing by Kerry would have added about 60,000 votes to his total while subtracting an equivalent amount from Bush. A hundred thousand vote swing here, a hundred thousand vote swing there...you get the idea. Williamson, which has come a long way for Democrats since 2004 and is on the verge of electing its first Democratic State Rep, should be about ten points bluer this time around. Fort Bend may be on the cusp of flipping - if Harris doesn't just flip but blows past the 50-50 mark, it's not hard to imagine Fort Bend tipping as well. Hays ought to be blue. Brazoria, like Denton and Collin, will still be very red, but again not quite as much as before. About the only place where I don't see any real hope is Montgomery, which may be slightly less red this time around just because a 78% showing is a hard act to follow.
Putting some numbers to the suppositions, I can see Obama shaving off about half of Kerry's 370,000 vote deficit here. It could be more if turnout is higher in the friendlier places, and it could be less if the needle doesn't move as much as I think it might. It's a little hard to guess because I don't have any idea at this point what the voter registration numbers are. The goal for 2012 has to be to get these areas close to parity.
The rest of the counties are a mix. Galveston and Jefferson should be better for Obama, perhaps enough to put Galveston back in the blue column. Hidalgo and Webb (55 and 56% for Kerry, respectively) should be big for Obama, as the Clinton Democrats come home in droves. Cameron (49% Kerry) should be blue again, and Nueces (42% Kerry) should improve. Obama may do a little better in Lubbock, Smith, and Taylor, for the same reason he may do a little better in Montgomery - it would be hard for him to do worse than Kerry. As for the Central Texas trio of Bell, McClennan, and Brazos, who knows. Probably not much different is my best guess. Kerry lost these counties by a combined 200,000 votes, with Bush doing a smidge worse (59.8% than he did statewide. Because he should do better in the favorable counties, and can't really do much worse in the unfavorable ones, Obama will cut that deficit, perhaps by half.
Put it all together, and I can see Obama cutting that 800,000 vote deficits in these counties in half, or even three-quarters. Recent polling has Obama about ten points behind McCain in the state. Let's assume we do get 9 million votes cast when all is said and done. In order to finish ten points down - that is to say, lose by a 45-55 margin - Obama would need to draw within 900,000 votes of McCain overall, as 4.95 million to 4.05 million represents a 55-45 finish. The more he can wipe out the Kerry deficit from the Top 25 counties, the closer he can come to achieving that end without having to make up too much ground in the rest of the state, which for the most part isn't very Dem-friendly. While it's hard to see these parts of the state getting much worse for Obama than they were for Kerry, again because there just isn't that much room to go down, it's also hard to see him get much closer. The best hope is that the relative levels of turnout in the big counties is significantly higher than that of the smaller ones.
All of this is voodoo mathematics, of course, but if I had a gun to my head and were forced to make a guess as to the outcome, I'd say 55-45 is a reasonable possibility, plus or minus about three points. Remember, we make predictions in order to quantify just how foolish we are. With that in mind, what do you think the final score will be for Obama and McCain in Texas?
It's Election Day. Need I say more? Here is the weekly TPA roundup to peruse while you wait on line at the polls, or wait till the results start coming in.
Bradley from North Texas Liberal lets us know that you should be careful not to lose your vote if you have to use an electronic voting machine, like TV personality Oprah Winfrey almost did.
jobsanger believes an avalanche of new voters could produce some surprises on election day, including the possibility that Georgia will turn blue, and even though an amazing 23% of Texans think Obama is muslim, a huge turnout in the urban areas and South Texas could produce some surprises in Texas, and early voting totals show this is happening.
Justin at AAA-Fund Blog is glad that 60% of Asian Americans polled in Harris County support the Democrats. He also is glad that voting this year was not a chore as it often feels. Justinurges everyone to support AAA-Fund's five Texas endorsees: Rick Noriega, Al Green, Nick Lampson, Hubert Vo, and Sandra VuLe.
It's been an exciting week for Democrats. First up was Hank Gilbert asking a Cornyn staffer to take a walk from a Rick Noriega event. Then there was Texas Blogger (and current TPA Chair) Vince Leibowitz spanking the Mike McCaul campaign for their amateurish content theft. Finally, we at McBlogger received word that Dr. Dobson had traveled to the future and didn't like what he saw. Which is something you'll probably love.
Vince at Capitol Annex tells us how State Rep. John Davis (R-Clear Lake) is sending out his wife to attack Netroots backed candidate Sherrie Matula (D-Houston). In return, he opens John Davis' own personal Pandora's Box and tells the world about Davis' record.
The Texas Cloverleaf notes that Barack Obama leads John McCain in fundraising in Denton County of all places! In nonpartisan news, while Obama is raising money, Ron Natinsky is spending it. The Dallas City Councilmember is spending your tax dollars on trinkets bearing his name. In shocking news, a 9 year old is electrocuted by a McCain-Palin yard sign. No, we couldn't make this stuff up if we wanted to.
After record breaking early voting in Williamson County, Eye On Williamson is ready for the general election. The HD-52 race has been the focus of attention this election cycle. The issues concerning voters in HD-52 include the Trans-Texas Corridor, insurance reform, and the economy. No matter the issue Diana Maldonado is the best choice in HD-52.
WhosPlayin looks at the early voting turnout in Texas' 26th Congressional District, and thinks Ken Leach just might be able to upset incumbent Michael Burgess. WhosPlayin asks you to guess whether this incident of political suppression happened in Liberia or Texas. (Hint: It was Harris County, Texas.) Most of all, WhosPlayin wants Denton County residents to get to the polls and VOTE!
Off the Kuff takes his last looks at early voting, and makes fun of some whining by Republican enablers Texans for Lawsuit Reform.
El Paso is going Democratic in a big way. As El Paso goes so should South Texas. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme is looking for a blue, blue
Thanksgiving!
BossKitty at TruthHugger is laments pre-election jitters, Oh The Stress Of It All - Op Ed, and how many years will it take to recover because, Divided We Fall.
Neil at Texas Liberal says think about the future when you vote. Don't be like Galveston voters who in 1886, 14 years before the 1900 hurricane, voted no on building a seawall. Texas Liberal also offers up a post on how Texans have voted for President since 1948, and, finally, submits for your review some election predictions.
Over at TexasKoas, TxSharon tells us that somebody is finally looking at the Barnett Shale Gas Wells . Its called accountability and its about time.
boadicea provides some excellent resources/talking points on the ACORN non-story. Give a look.
Txsharon kicks off a lively debate on the the training of 4000 troops in the use of non-lethal weapons for possible domestic use.
Dwight tells about the Twitter vote report, which aims to capture in real time reports about voting conditions, technical problems, and so on. You can go to that page for a feed of what's being reported, and if you yourself are a Twitter user, to make use of the #hashtags technique to add in your own observations. You can also help out via text messaging or the good old fashioned telephone - see Dwight's post or the Twitter vote report page for the details. We've got all these ways to shine light on problems as they occur, we may as well use them, right?
Note the comments in Dwight's post from Rorschach about restrictions on the use of electronic devices near polling places. Rorschach is not a reliable source of information, but even if he's absolutely correct here, I don't see how that's an insurmountable obstacle. You can always make a mental or written note of whatever questionable thing you observe if it happens while you're on line, then tweet about it to your heart's content once you're outside and beyond the 100 foot line. The point is not to be silent if you see something that's wrong. Tell the election judges if it's something they can and should fix (that's what they're there for), and tell the world. Thanks very much.
I don't know what else there is to say after this incredible Presidential campaign except "Just vote". You know what's at stake. You know who's saying what. You know what you need to know, and now you need to do something about it, if you haven't already. I've discussed turnout projections ad nauseum; tomorrow we find out the truth. It's all up to you. Thanks very much.
Oh, and if you don't know where you should be voting, try this. As someone once said, just do it.
Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade is predicting that 68 percent of eligible Texans will vote this presidential election - outdrawing the George W. Bush and John Kerry contest by 12 percentage points."There is a lot of energy across Texas regarding this election," Ms. Andrade said. "We have seen it in early voting and I think it will translate into heavy voter turnout on election day."
Since 1970, Texans have exceeded a turnout of 68 percent only once, in the 1992 presidential election when Bill Clinton defeated two native sons also on the ballot, George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot.
Doing the math, there are 13.5 million registered voters in Texas. Sixty-eight percent turnout translates into about 9.1 million ballots cast. I had contemplated the possibility of almost nine million voters a month ago, and thought it was unlikely at that time. I'm still skeptical, but less so now. The final early voting totals were very strong, and it really won't take anything extraordinary at this point to get us the rest of the way there.
In early voting in the state's top 15 counties that ended Oct. 31, 3.5 million have cast their ballots, representing 42 percent of the registered voters in those counties.
From the Texas Weekly chart, we know that the Top 15 represents 61.3% of registered voters in Texas. Assuming the other 239 counties turned out early at the same 42% rate, some 5.7 million ballots have already been cast. We would need 3.4 million ballots on Election Day, of which about 2.1 million would come from the Top 15, to get to 9.1 million overall. This says that 60% of the total vote in Texas has already been cast.
Applying all this to Harris County, if we have the same turnout as the projected total for the state, we should expect about 1.3 million votes here. Harris actually turned out at a slightly higher rate than the state as a whole did in 2004; using that as a guide, we get to about 1.35 million. On the other hand, if 60% of the total vote in Harris has already occurred, we'll finish at about 1.22 million. That works out to 63% turnout here. Note that this implies an Election Day total of between 500,000 and 600,000, more or less. E-day turnout in 2004 was about 650,000, so a less busy day than that seems likely, even though the final result will blow past the 2004 total.
Finally, I ran into Burt Levine at lunch today, and he told me that they're expecting another 100,000 votes to be cast in Fort Bend tomorrow. Fort Bend has already had over 50% turnout in early voting, and another 100K would bring them up to a mind-blowing 85%. I would take the under on that bet, but just the possibility of it shows again what an amazing year this has been.
Here's your proof. For other foolishness, see here and here. Feel free to contribute in the comments.
He-didn't-ask-but-I'll-say-anyway: I think Obama wins Harris County with 52% of the vote, and I think Democrats win a majority of the county races here. What do you think?
Well, I thought I was done with interviews for this cycle, then an opportunity to chat with Mark Thompson, the Democratic candidate for Railroad Commissioner presented itself, and I was able to get it done. Thompson was not who I expected would be the nominee to oppose incumbent Michael Williams, but he's worked hard and traveled all around the state on a tight budget to talk to voters about who he is and why he's running. He's even managed to put an ad on TV in some markets, and just announced an endorsement from 2006 gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman. We had a nice conversation, though as we were not in a particularly quiet place, there is some background noise. As always, let me know what you think.
PREVIOUSLY:
Vince Ryan, Harris County Attorney
Chris Bell, SD17
Loren Jackson, Harris County District Clerk
Brad Bradford, Harris County District Attorney
Diane Trautman, Harris County Tax Assessor
Michael Skelly, CD07
David Mincberg, Harris County Judge
Debra Kerner, HCDE Trustee
Joel Redmond, HD144
Laura Ewing, SBOE district 7
Virginia McDavid, HD138
State Rep. Ellen Cohen, HD134
Adrian Garcia, Harris County Sheriff
Trey Fleming, HD135
Dexter Handy, Harris County Commissioner, Precinct 3
Sherrie Matula, HD129
Joe Jaworski, SD11
Jim Henley, HCDE Trustee
Rick Noriega, US Senate
Kristi Thibaut, HD133
Joe Montemayor, HD127
Rep. Nick Lampson, CD22
Richard Morrison, Fort Bend County Commissioner, Precinct 1
Larry Joe Doherty, CD10
Diana Maldonado, HD52
Eric Roberson, CD32
State Rep. Juan Garcia, HD32
Ernie Casbeer, HD59
Joe Moody, HD78
Chris Turner, HD96
Robert Miklos, HD101
State Rep. Dan Barrett, HD97
Wendy Davis, SD10
With early voting over, we're kind of in a dead spot news-wise, much like the Sunday before the Super Bowl. There are a few things to think about as we wait for Tuesday.
Democratic Chairman Gerald Birnberg said excitement about Obama and Hispanic voters' identification with the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, hometown legislator Rick Noriega, could push the total Harris County voter turnout to 1.3 million, above the record-high 1.08 million in 2004.Bush carried Harris County in the presidential contest then, with 585,000 presidential votes, more than in 2000.
I'm not going to quibble with the turnout assessment - it's right in line with my own, after all. I'm not convinced that higher turnout is necessarily good for Democratic candidates. I think that's truer in non-Presidential years in general, but this year, with the enthusiasm gap being what it is, I think beyond a certain point, increases in turnout may indicate more Republicans bothering to show up than might have been originally expected. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with the turnout so far, and I'm happy with the idea of 1.3 million or more showing up to vote in Harris County. I think the odds favor that being good for the Democrats. But this is a unique year in so many ways, and that makes me hesitant to accept conventional wisdom like that. I'll say it again - nobody really knows what to expect.
The massive early vote appears to support the Democratic argument. Using public voting records and their eyes, political scientists, officials and strategists in both parties say the dominating forces in the 12 days of early balloting were African-American voters stimulated by Obama's candidacy and other voters with a Democratic voting history."Even in areas like Katy, where all these people who are showing up are supposed to be in white, Republican (precincts), they are blacks and Hispanics who voted in March (in the Obama-Clinton match) and who are coming back to vote in the general election," University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray said.
But many of those voters will vote for Obama and stop. Some may be former Clinton supporters for McCain. Others will vote Democratic to the back of the ballot, giving a lift to the entire ticket, down to the obscure judicial races.
What do you mean by "many"? In 2004, the average Republican judicial candidate in a contested race got about 40,000 votes less than George Bush did. That sounds like a lot, but it was less than 7% of Bush's total. I think the aggressive push by the HCDP to get support for the entire ticket will result in a smaller dropoff than that, perhaps less than five percent. That still adds up to 30,000 votes or more, but it also doesn't take into account the possibilty that some number of Republicans will show up to vote only for McCain/Palin. I mean, if Palin fired up the base and raised the enthusiasm level on that side, doesn't it follow that some of those voters are only interested in that race? If you'd asked me a couple of months ago, I'd have assumed a greater level of dropoff in the Democratic races than in the Republican ones. Now I'm not so sure about that. The point I'm making is simply that single-race voters will not be a single-party phenomenon. Even in 2004, there was a dip in Democratic participation after the Presidential race. It was a bit less than 10,000 votes from John Kerry to the average judicial candidate, but it was there.
As for the Hillary-to-McCain factor, all I can say is that at this point, there's no polling evidence to back that up. PUMAs, such as they were, are basically extinct now. Democrats are voting for Obama at or above the levels for which they voted for Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000. With all the prominent Republicans that have come out for Obama lately (quick, tell me the last Democrat of any note to publicly back McCain), I'd pay more attention to the R-to-D crossover possibility.
Bearing in mind again that nobody knows what's going to happen, I want to highlight something that the Republicans are saying:
Numerous studies show the growth of Democratic-leaning minority populations in Harris County has outstripped changes in the Anglo population, leading Birnberg to see a Republican vote this year no greater than 600,000. An overall county vote of 1.3 million or more would leave Republicans on the losing end."That's a sweep," he said.
Republican counterpart Jared Woodfill sees an opposite picture.
The March primaries drew 407,000 voters to the closely contested Democratic race and 169,000 voters to the less dramatic, McCain-dominated Republican contest. If the parties had voted at equal strength in the primaries, in a county that has been dominated for decades by Republican voters, the chairman said, it would still leave room for an additional 500,000 voters participating in a turnout of 1.3 million.
"We may draw more independents than we may draw someone who is considered a Republican partisan," he said.
Remember when the Harris County GOP was full of swagger? When they boasted of their built-in advantage at the polls? Now they're talking about how they "may draw more independents". Never mind the fact that independents on the whole nationally have leaned strongly Democratic since 2006, with a not-insignificant number of indies being former Republicans. If you're a Republican hoping to hold on this year, does that quote fill you with a warm feeling?
How about this quote?
GOP pollster Mike Baselice said he doubts the GOP will lose the early vote: "I'm not seeing much news here. Republicans need to be in the low 50s on early vote, or it's 'game over."
Again, this strikes me as being considerably short of braggadocio. Maybe Baselice is just being coy, or maybe he wasn't quoted in full, I don't know. But what I note is that he doesn't say that Republicans will be in the low 50s in the early vote. He just says they need to be, which we know from other stories is the norm. Maybe I'm reading too much into that. All I'm saying is this is pretty weak compared to what I'm used to hearing from these guys.
One last bit of Baselice wisdom, also from the Statesman:
In total, 299,325 Travis County residents, or about half of registered voters, cast their ballots by the end of the two-week early voting period. In 2004, about 40 percent of the county's registered voters cast ballots early.Early votes this year amounted to 84 percent of the total Travis County turnout of 355,708 in the 2004 election.
[...]
In Travis County, Democratic primary voters outnumbered Republicans nearly 4-to-1 in early voting as of Wednesday, when the most recent statistics were available, Beatty said. Half of the hard-core supporters for both the Democrats and Republicans have already voted, Beatty said, but enough people who haven't voted in primaries -- the less partisan voters -- could tip some local elections.
"We've never seen anything like this election," Beatty said, adding that he thinks Democrats will make gains throughout the state.
Mike Baselice, a Republican political analyst, cautioned against predicting a Republican demise based on early voting numbers.
He pointed out that more people vote in the Democratic primary in Texas than in the GOP primary, yet Republicans control the state government.
There's also evidence, he said, that the surge of early voting Democrats may lead to a smaller Election Day turnout, and that some of the new primary voters that Democrats are putting in their column could be "casual Republicans" who may vote Republican on Tuesday.
It's news to me that more people vote in the Democratic primary in Texas than the Republican primary. Here's a look back:
1996GOP Primary = 1,019,803
Dem Primary = 921,2561998
GOP Primary = 596,839
Dem Primary = 654,1542000
GOP Primary = 1,126,757
Dem Primary = 786,8902002
GOP Primary = 627,068
Dem Primary = 1,003,3882004
GOP Primary = 687,615
Dem Primary = 839,2312006
GOP Primary = 655,919
Dem Primary = 508,6022008
GOP Primary = 1,362,322
Dem Primary = 2,874,986
Totals are from the highest turnout race in each year. Looks like a mixed bag to me. Most years it's pretty close to even, with 2000 (Bush running for the Presidential nomination), 2002 (Tony Sanchez versus Dan Morales for the Dem gubernatorial nomination, plus a three-way fight for the Senate nomination), and 2008 (I think we know what this one was about) being the exceptions. I agree that this year's primary turnout doesn't tell us much about what November turnout will look like, but one, that's not what he said, and two, GOP strategist Royal Masset has written in the past about how increases in Republican primary turnout in in downballot races across the state have correlated to increases in Republican performance in those counties in the general elections. Efforts to spin the Democratic primary turnout as some kind of negative just amuse me.
And again, "casual Republicans"? Where's the in-your-face attitude? I almost miss it.
As always, you can make whatever you want of these numbers so far. Baselice and crew may just be doing a little rope-a-dope, I can't say. I'm just not used to that tone of rhetoric coming from them.
A lot of people who took the official advice to stay put and shelter in place during Hurricane Ike are saying they won't be doing that the next time a big storm comes this way.
More than eight in 10 Harris County residents responding to a survey for the Houston Chronicle heeded local officials' advice to ride out Hurricane Ike at home, but only 56 percent said they would stay home if another hurricane threatened the area.The survey also showed that 78 percent of respondents rated local government's handling of the hurricane recovery as excellent or good. Respondents weren't asked about the performance of federal agencies, which are providing most of the recovery money.
The 82 percent who reported that they stayed home during Ike reflects a concerted effort by state and local officials to avoid a repeat of the disastrous mass evacuation prior to Hurricane Rita in 2005, when 110 people died and many motorists ran out of gas en route to other cities.
[...]
In the Zogby International poll for the Chronicle, however, 28 percent said that based on their Ike experience, they would evacuate if another hurricane bore down on Houston. Another 16 percent weren't sure what they would do.
[Houston Mayor Bill] White and [Harris County Judge Ed] Emmett attributed the finding to several factors, including the inconvenience experienced by families who had no power for weeks and uncertainty about how severe or destructive the next hurricane might be.
"It's a free country, and people are free to make their decisions," White said. "If somebody felt like their structure was particularly unsafe or it would be an extreme hardship to be without electricity, then they need to take that into account."
Emmett said that after speeches he has given since Ike struck, residents have told him they might leave prior to the next hurricane, partly because of the power problem.
The county judge said he reminds these people that if they had left, they likely would have seen news reports of damage in their neighborhoods and been tempted to rush back to check on their property.
In that circumstance, "you're better off staying where you are," Emmett said. "The time to make your plan to leave is after you lose power and you've secured your house."
I've said before and I'll say again, I think emotion and one's level of risk tolerance influence this decision-making process more than rational appeals from government officials ever will. I also think that whatever people did last time, a significant number will want to do the opposite the next time, just based on the fact that whichever choice you make will suck, so the alternative will look better by default. I think once we come to terms with this, we'll be in a better position to know what to do each time.
Matt Yglesias points to this story about putting a Costco store in an urban location, in this case downtown Vancouver, and the benefits of such a thing.
The new store is a feat of engineering and an unusual mix of uses. It is built in a hole bordered by GM Place, the Georgia viaduct and the escarpment on the eastern end of Vancouver's downtown. The 127,000-square-foot store, built by Concord Pacific, has two floors of parking below it, two floors of parking above it, and then, above that, another four towers of residential condos with 900 units. [...] To appeal to what is expected to be a slightly higher proportion of downtown shoppers, the store stocks a bigger variety of home-ready meals -- chicken parmigiana, prawns and pasta, souvlaki, lasagna, and the like -- electronics and leather goods, said Ross.
We now have a Costco in a basically urban area as well, the one that just opened in Greenway Plaza. It has some similarities to the Vancouver location, with an apartment complex adjacent to it, though it's clearly more suburban than urban in design, and where it it more urban there are some obstacles to a fuller use of that concept. But the Vancouver store's willingness to cater to a walk-in crowd gives me hope that ours will learn to take advantage of the Metro rail stop that will eventually be near it. At least we know that they're aware of the possibilities at a corporate level.
I suppose one of the side benefits of a massive increase in early voting is that scurrilous last-minute attack mailers like this one from Jayne Davis, wife of Rep. John Davis in HD129, will have less impact than it would have in the older days. What amazes me about this mailer, besides the faux-handwriting font (which totally reminded me of this, in tone as well as in form) and the fact that it was apparently sent to one of Sherrie Matula's kids (must be nice to have enough bling from TLR to not have to worry about the size of your mail universe) is the fact that nowhere in this clearly political piece of mail is any form of disclaimer identifying it as such, as required by Texas law.
Davis is at this point the poster boy for ethics violations - since 2006 he's had three TEC complaints resolved against him that resulted in fines (for personal use of campaign funds, hiding expenses behind a credit card, and improperly reimbursing himself with campaign funds) and has two more pending (for using his campaign cash on gas supposedly for officeholder and campaign activities, but with no calendar items to back them up, and for sending mail that was identified with a non-existent PAC). If there were a three-strikes law for such violations, he'd already be doing a life sentence. You'd think a guy who's been in office for as long as Davis has, and whose consultant (the he-sure-does-get-around Allen Blakemore) has been running campaigns since the earth's crust cooled, would be capable of something as simple as ensuring that political advertising meets the legal requirements of it. Of course, guys like Blakemore do know the rules, but since they also know that there's essentially no punishment for this kind of malfeasance, they don't give a crap about them. Do whatever sleazy thing it takes to win first, accept the pitiful consequences while issuing meaningless apologies afterward. If there's a better example of exactly the sort of thing we need to get out of Austin (or in the cases of Ken Legler and Austen Furse, keep out of Austin) than just about everybody Blakemore represents, I don't want to know what it is.
On a tangential note, there's also this kind of last minute attacks, which are just as pernicious if not as malicious, at least from a professional perspective. I'm sure there's plenty more where these came from, since the whole point is to get them done when there's no time to respond. Anyone out there seeing something along these lines? Leave a comment with the info. Thanks!
Hope you're enjoying your Halloween weekend. Here are some hopefully not-too-scary links to get you through the rest of it.
"I mean, when you see 700 shambling dead zombies walking toward the Civic Center up the bridge, it would probably get the Secret Service's attention." It would certainly get mine.
This time of year, I get a lot of referrals from search engines looking for Ronald Clark O'Bryan. This is why. Be sure to read the comments as well.
Purple tomatoes, anyone?
What's really wrong with the Post Office? Not much, when you think about it.
I can't possibly say which challenger in Texas I'd most like to see win, or which incumbent I'd most like to see get beaten. There are just too many good possibilities to name. I couldn't pick just one outside of Texas either, but I do have a short list, and the execrable Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss is most definitely on it.
Pick a narrative and stick with it.
"Be afraid! Gay, Mexican abortion doctors are coming! Run for your lives!"
The movie critic's guide to life.
Like so many other ordinary, everyday, average Americans, Joe The Plumber has a public relations firm. Well, don't you?
Daughter of slave votes for Obama (via).
The "Whassup?" guys are voting for Obama, too.
I get a ton of email every day, including a bunch of press releases from various candidates, interest groups, and whatnot. Some get read, a few get used, many get tossed aside as I have no interest in the sender or the subject; as often as not, I have no idea why I'm on that particular list. And every once in awhile, I get one that just pegs the Irony-O-Meter so much it makes it whine. This one, from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the lord and master of the State Supreme Court and much of the rest of the Republican Party in this state, is too funny for words. They wail and gnash their teeth about the nefarious influence of trial lawyers in the campaign finance reports while they're busy dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars in various State Rep races. Bryan Daniel, the GOP challenger in HD52, got nearly a quarter of a million from TLR in the past few weeks, which is half his entire take for that time. Who's zooming who here?
Seriously. TLR complaining about the amount of cash any other entity is spending to influence the elections in Texas is like Homer Simpson grumbling about someone going back for seconds at Shoney's breakfast buffet. Get that thing out of your eyes, fellas.
Of course, if TLR really is concerned about the pernicious effects of high-dollar campaign contributions, they are welcome to join me in endorsing the concept of putting limits on how much any individual or PAC can donate in a given year. Give me a ring, y'all, I'll be happy to have you on board with this.
A lot of questions are going to get answered on Tuesday. One that may not have a clear resolution is the matter of who will be Speaker of the Texas House. If the Democrats wind up with a majority in that chamber, it's virtually certain there will be a change from current Speaker Tom Craddick. If not, there still may be a change if the Dems make some gains.
At least one Republican, Rep. Jim Keffer of Eastland, has been actively campaigning for the post."Regardless of how the Republican and Democrat numbers change in the Texas House, there is a majority desire for a new speaker," Keffer said. "The sentiment for change is not personal, members in the Texas House just want bipartisan leadership which is committed to restoring the rules of conduct and fairness."
Democrats, as well, have been mobilizing for swift post-election movement, should the minority party suddenly become the majority.
In fact, the Democrats plan to meet on Wednesday to get all their members on the same page while reaching out to anti-Craddick Republicans. Craddick certainly still has plenty of supporters. The best shot at ousting him lies in unelecting some of those folks. But the gamesmanship that will begin on Wednesday will be important as well. The next legislative session won't wait until 2009 to get started.
How many candidates for any political office can day they've had nearly the entire cast of a highly praised TV show campaign for them? Probably not too many, I'd guess. Here's how that went.
If that doesn't impress you, perhaps the Financial Times' endorsement will.
US presidential elections involve a fabulous expense of time, effort and money. Doubtless it is all too much - but, by the end, nobody can complain that the candidates have been too little scrutinised. We have learnt a lot about Barack Obama and John McCain during this campaign. In our view, it is enough to be confident that Mr Obama is the right choice.At the outset, we were not so confident. Mr Obama is inexperienced. His policies are a blend of good, not so good and downright bad. Since the election will strengthen Democratic control of Congress, a case can be made for returning a Republican to the White House: divided government has a better record in the United States than government united under either party.
So this ought to have been a close call. With a week remaining before the election, we cannot feel that it is.
Mr Obama fought a much better campaign. Campaigning is not the same as governing, and the presidency should not be a prize for giving the best speeches, devising the best television advertisements, shaking the most hands and kissing the most babies.
Nonetheless, a campaign is a test of leadership. Mr Obama ran his superbly; Mr McCain's has often looked a shambles. After eight years of George W. Bush, the steady competence of the Obama operation commands respect.
But hey. John McCain just got Dick Cheney's endorsement. And who wouldn't want that?
The city of Duncanville, which recently escalated its ongoing war against swingers, scored a victory in court this week.
Jurors have found a Duncanville man accused of operating an unlicensed sexually oriented business from his home guilty on all 10 counts.Jim Trulock, who hosts swingers parties at what's known as the Cherry Pit, had challenged 10 citations, five accusing him of operating a sexually oriented business without a permit and another five accusing him of operating a sex club.
He will face a fine of $7,500 for the Class C misdemeanors.
[...]
City prosecutor Kim Lafferty said Web advertisements and observations made by city officials at the home provided ample evidence that Mr. Trulock operated a sexually oriented business.
On Monday, several witnesses who had been patrons of the Cherry Pit invoked the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer questions on grounds that doing so could be self-incriminating.
At issue in the case is whether the Cherry Pit qualifies as a business and therefore violates a city ordinance.
The city contends that because people must pay to get in, it is a business.
But [Ed] Klein, the defense attorney, said his client isn't operating a business and that residents are entitled to privacy.
Mr. Trulock and the home's co-owner, Julie M. Norris, 30, also face criminal charges involving Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code violations and suspicion of engaging in organized crime.
Court dates related to those charges are pending.
Yes, they got them on the misdemeanors, and will presumably pursue the felonies next. The citizens of Duncanville may sleep more soundly now. Links to earlier DMN coverage are in that story, if you've tuned in late.
I'm going to toot my own horn here:
My guess would be 675,000 early votes [in Harris County], which should yield about 730,000 total votes.
And here's here's today's Chron story about the final tally:
After shutting the doors Friday night on 12 days of early voting, officials said 678,312 citizens had voted at the county's 36 sites, and an additional 55,459 had returned completed mail ballots before Tuesday's deadline.The combined figure of 733,771 equals about 37 percent of the county's registered voters and for the first time may be higher than the number who vote on Election Day for the offices of president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and several local positions.
A few more early votes may be added later to Friday's total; lines were so long at the Lone Star College site on Tomball Parkway in north Harris County and at other locations that voting was extended past 9 p.m. to accommodate voters who arrived by the 7 p.m. deadline, officials said.
Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. The final version of my spreadsheet fills in the details. Here's what the final daily tracking chart looks like:
Nearly identical in form to the 2004 graph, except for the sightly less steep incline between Thursday and Friday. So what does this portend for Tuesday?
Predictions by County Clerk Beverly Kaufman and partisan strategists for Tuesday's turnout hover at or slightly below the amount of the early vote turnout.A combined total of about 730,000 for early voting and 700,000 more on Tuesday would put total county turnout above 1.4 million, or 73 percent of all registered voters.
Total turnout here was 59 percent in 2004, including about 405,000 early votes.
Put me down for the under on that bet. 1.3 million, which would be about 67% turnout, feels like a more realistic target. Let me stress again, we're in uncharted territory. One point four million is certainly attainable, and in this unique environment I wouldn't rule anything out if it's remotely plausible. I'm leaning slightly to the conservative side on this, and will be happy to have underestimated the end result.
Once again and for the last time, the big question is what does it all mean from a partisan perspective. For the final time, here's how the vote broke down in the EV locations that have Democratic State Reps and the EV locations with Republican State Reps:
2004Dem 163,569 39.69%
Rep 234,631 56.93%
Dtn 13,928 3.38%
2008Dem 320,145 47.20%
Rep 336,604 49.62%
Dtn 21,563 3.18%
The shift is obvious. Now of course, the whole point of early voting is that you can go wherever it's convenient, or least crowded, to do your business. I cast my early vote in HD131's The Power Center, which is not where I live; in fact, I don't think I've ever early voted in HD148, as I usually go to the West Gray Multi Service Center in HD134 or the Fiesta in HD146 instead. But a lot of people do cast their early votes in the same State House district where they live. So what we're seeing in these numbers is a pretty good harbinger for Dems to begin with. Now consider what Dr. Murray wrote a few weeks back:
If we have a bigger eligible voter list, which party's candidates will likely benefit from that change? One way to look at this is to take precincts that the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates won decisively in 2004 and compare registration gains this year in these precincts since the March 4th party primaries. I selected the top 20 precincts that the Republican nominee George W. Bush won with a total vote of more than 2,340. I then pulled out the top 20 precincts for Democrat John Kerry where he received more than 1,380 votes four years ago. Since March 4, the voter rolls in the top Republican precincts from 2004 have added 7.52% new total registrants, and the top Democratic precincts have added 7.85%. So by this measure, the registrations over the last six months look like a push for the two parties.But, there is a very big difference in these two sets of precincts. The top 20 Democratic precincts were, in 2004, and remain, heavily minority boxes with very few Republican voters. For example, in the March 4, 2008 party primaries these precincts cast 25,676 votes in Democratic primary and just 1,097 in the Republican primary. This means the registration gains this year will almost certainly add to the total vote for Harris County Democratic candidates. The top twenty 2004 Republican precincts were, of course, carried by George W. Bush, but there was a sizeable Democratic minority (16,990 of 75,583 voters) in these predominately GOP boxes four years ago. That Democratic minority has grown since November 2004, if the March primary is any indication. For example, in precinct 764, which has had the largest registration gain in the county since November 2004 (+4288 as of yesterday), the vote in the March 4 Democratic primary was 2,185 compared to just 999 Republican primary voters (Precinct 764 in 2004 was split for the 2008 election and now also includes precinct 388). Overall, the top 20 Republican precincts in 2004 had almost as many Democratic voters in the March primary (18,869) as Republican voters (19,551).
That adds up to a fair amount of hope for me, though I've always got Greg to keep my paranoia engaged.
The SOS does not have final early voting totals from the Top 15 counties yet. I figure they'll have that, plus a projection of statewide turnout, by tomorrow. After that, the only thing left to say is wait til Tuesday. I'm counting down the hours now. The Statesman has more.
I was sure the Chron would still be doing endorsements right up until Election Day, but I'm glad to see they beat that deadline by finishing the last of them off today. First, they make their choices for Constable:
Jack Abercia for Constable, Precinct 1: A Democrat and four-term incumbent, Abercia knows the constable's duties from top to bottom, having started his career at the county in the 1970s. Since 1991, Abercia has kept a steady, guiding hand over Precinct 1, which includes the downtown area. Under a longtime arrangement, the Precinct 1 constable is responsible for executing all mental health warrants in the county. Abercia has made a special point of keeping current on developments in this critical area. During Hurricane Ike, Abercia says the Precinct 1 Constable's Office worked a 24-hour schedule. He is mindful of concerns about a lack of communication between county and city of Houston law enforcement agencies but says problems in Precinct 1 are being resolved.Gary Freeman for Constable, Precinct 2: A Democrat and 20-year incumbent, Freeman emphasizes the importance of civil process work done by his office. He says his employees are willing to go "all over the state" to track down those who owe child support. Freeman says the contract deputy programs in force in his southeast Harris County precinct provide significant benefits to all taxpayers in the area by freeing up officers under other jurisdictions. Freeman says interagency communications are "not near as bad" as 20 years ago and that a new radio system used by the county has been a "godsend," but he concedes communications with the Houston Police Department need to be worked on.
Ken Jones for Constable, Precinct 3: A Democrat and seven-year veteran, Jones considers his constable's office a business, with the taxpayer as the No. 1 customer. He says his office reflects the diversity of his east Harris County precinct with staffing that is one-third women, one-third African-American and one-third Hispanic. Jones is proud of his office's record serving civil process, citing prompt service as the key to good results. Jones believes that contract deputies are a "very good program" but concedes the contract deputies program is very expensive.
Sam Pearson for Constable, Precinct 5: The Democratic challenger, Pearson would bring long service in law enforcement and an impressive academic background to the Precinct 5 Constable's Office. A sergeant in the Harris County Sheriff's Department, Pearson holds a master's degree in criminal justice management from Sam Houston State. Throughout his career the Virginia native has been a teacher and trainer. Pearson notes that the southwest area of the county is diverse and Precinct 5 needs a change in leadership. He says he has kept pace with new technology and is a strong advocate for improved communication with the Houston Police Department.
And for Justice of the Peace:
Russ Ridgway for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5, Place 1: In this largest JP precinct in the state, with more than a million residents, Republican incumbent Ridgway has performed well in his first full term in office. He has reduced a massive backlog of cases inherited from his predecessor and modernized operations with online dockets and a Web site to access legal forms.Jeff Heintschel for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 8, Place 1: In the contest to replace retiring incumbent Molly Maness-Barnes in this east Harris County precinct, the Chronicle recommends area native Jeff Heintschel, a Democrat and practicing attorney with extensive court experience. Heintschel pledges to be on the bench full time, to pay close attention to truancy issues and to learn to speak Spanish.
In each case, the Chron limited itself to contested races. And in each case, they proved me wrong, by going with Pearson over incumbent Phil Camus, and Heintschel over Republican Holly Williamson. Both of which, of course, are fine by me.
So how did I do in my endorsement predictions? Let's take a look.
President/Vice President - I'm pleased as punch to say I called that one wrong.
US Senate - I was correct.
US House - I called them all correctly.
Railroad Commissioner - Correct.
State Supreme Court - Two out of three. I got Jefferson and Yanez, but suggested that the Chron would go with Sam Houston if they endorsed Obama for President. They did not, sticking with Dale Wainwright instead.
Court of Criminal Appeals - Correct.
State Board of Education - Correct.
State Senate - All three were called correctly.
State House - Of the 14 contested races, I missed the mark on three: HDs 129 (I guessed Matula, they went with Davis); 133 (I leaned towards Murphy, they picked Thibaut); and 138 (my choice was McDavid, theirs was Bohac). I got the other 11 right.
Countywide offices - I called them all correctly except for Tax Assessor, where I thought they'd stick with Bettencourt, and District Clerk, which I saw as a tossup but maybe with a lean towards Chang.
County Commissioner - Correct.
Judicial races - I didn't make any specific predictions here, just a general observation that they'd recommend candidates from each party. Which they did, so I got it right, but the degree of difficulty on that one was pretty low.
So there you have it. Either they're getting easier to predict, or that correspondence course I took in mind control is starting to pay dividends.
Who knew the Lege was so busy right about now? Well, too little time and too many stories equals one combo blog post, so here goes...
Small businesses may lose bid to change new state tax
Small businesses are unrelenting in their push to change a state tax that many say has left them gasping, but budget leaders suggested Thursday any revamp can't cost the state tax money, at least, not much."We're still a billion short of what we want to raise. We don't want to add to that misery," said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, but he added, "We still don't want to do anything that would cause people to have to go out of business."
Changes that don't have a big price tag could be accomplished in the legislative session that begins in January, he said, but not pricier proposals like one by the National Federation of Independent Business/Texas to raise the small-business exemption from $300,000 to at least $1 million.
After a Business Tax Advisory Committee meeting dominated by concerns from small businesses, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Steve Ogden said changes are needed, "but I don't know what those changes are," and he doesn't know whether small businesses will see relief.
"What I expect to happen, because it happened in the last session, is that the bill is going to have to be revenue neutral," said Ogden, R-Bryan, so any reduction in one area will need to be made up somewhere else.
Um, maybe try putting a greater share of the burden on bigger businesses? I understand some companies with offices in the state have done pretty well of late. Just a thought.
Texas lawmaker challenges in-state tuition law
State Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, formally requested the opinion from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Sept. 18 -- three days after a California appellate court allowed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of California's in-state tuition law to move forward."We are not giving in-state tuition to everybody in Texas ... so we're in direct violation of U.S. law," Berman said. "We have a lot of students from around the world going to school here in Texas on student visas who are here legally. They either pay out-of-state tuition or international tuition, while if you're here illegally, you pay in-state tuition. We're rewarding people who are violating our laws, and we're penalizing people who are here legally."
Legal experts said the Texas opinion request is premature. Supporters of the state law, passed in 2001, said Berman is playing politics with a case that may never affect Texas.
[...]
Michael Olivas, a University of Houston law professor who specializes in higher education and immigration law, filed a letter on Thursday with Abbott's office in response to Berman's request. The letter, signed by Olivas and six immigration lawyers and law professors, said the case is still being litigated in California and any opinion would be premature.
The letter also argued that the Texas statute is constitutional under state and federal law.
"I think Representative Berman is simply making mischief," Olivas said. "Texas would never be bound by anything a state court in California did. They're different statutes. They're different states. They have different residency statutes. And in our system, one state is not bound by what another state does in the state court system."
In Texas, students qualify for in-state tuition if they graduate from a Texas public school and have been in the state at least three years.
Who knew ol' Leo cared so much about the way they do things in California? Next thing you know he'll be eating granola and getting rolfed.
State Senate panel's reversal impedes mayor's pollution fight
A Texas Senate committee this week quietly withdrew recommendations that would require the state's environmental agency to adopt stringent new limits on hazardous air pollutants.The reversal came four weeks after the Senate's jurisprudence committee unanimously backed the series of nonbinding, but potentially influential, recommendations in advance of the legislative session that begins in January. It also dealt a blow to Mayor Bill White's efforts to clean Houston's air.
Sen. Jeff Wentworth, a San Antonio Republican who chairs the committee, said he had second thoughts about the recommendations after hearing from a Senate colleague and business lobbyists who asserted that the committee had overreached.
"We probably shouldn't have done it," Wentworth said of the initial push to require the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to limit certain air toxics, adding that the Senate's natural resources committee is the appropriate venue for such deliberations. "It wasn't what we were asked to do."
[...]
The reversal also angered Sen. Mario Gallegos, a Houston Democrat and committee member who missed Monday's eight-minute meeting in Austin because of a doctor appointment.
"It raises a big red flag," Gallegos said, adding that he would propose a bill incorporating the recommendations during the legislative session. "We voted unanimously for it, and then all of sudden it's not in our jurisdiction."
Wentworth said he changed his vote because of "procedural concerns, not the substance" of the recommendations. Sen. Chris Harris, an Arlington Republican, also switched his vote.
[Elena] Marks, the mayor's environmental policy director, said she is hopeful that the matter will be heard in the natural resources committee. "It can't be that they belong nowhere," she said, "but that's where we are."
And that's precisely where Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and the lobbyists for the polluters want you to be. It's why we so need some real change in Austin.
Normally, I wouldn't bother to comment on a story like this, but there's an aspect to it that I can't resist.
At a time when Gov. Rick Perry is ordering state agencies to cut their budgets and brace for economic decline, the Texas House of Representatives is renovating its members lounge with new furnishings, televisions, a refrigerator and other upgrades.Aides to House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, confirmed that state tax dollars are being used for the upgrade, which also apparently includes $30,000 worth of antique wood as well as new carpet and food-service improvements. They declined to immediately provide cost figures.
Watchdog groups said it was the wrong time to spend government dollars on a members-only lounge for politicians.
"That's completely inappropriate," said Michael Quinn Sullivan, president of Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, a taxpayer advocacy group. "Now is not the time to be engaging in extravagant dalliances. Now is the time for the Legislature to show leadership by restraining itself."
As you know, for the most part stories of legislators spending money on themselves or their staffs don't bother me. The amount of money involved is generally negligible. In this case, the funds have already been allocated - if you're going to get outraged at stuff like this, you should have done so during the budget and appropriations process, when it might have made a difference. I don't have a quarrel with anyone who wants to raise a fuss about stuff like this, but I do think the fusses that get raised tend to be out of proportion to the issue itself.
What caught my eye about this story is the following:
Craddick's office said the project is being coordinated by state Rep. Tony Goolsby, R-Dallas, chairman of the House Administration committee.Goolsby said two new TVs, a refrigerator and a new food service line were included in the upgrade, but the 19-year House veteran otherwise had scant details about the expenditures.
Goolsby said he hadn't kept up with it because he's been too focused on his own political survival in a district where supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama -- and presumably his opponent Carol Kent -- are highly energized.
"I'm up to my ass in a damn campaign," Goolsby said. "This is the only job I've got and I'm trying to save it. Obama's got people coming from the rafters."
That's remarkable. As Burka notes, Craddick's office could have easily swatted this aside. Yet instead, they put the responsibility on a guy whose re-election is endangered, and whose re-election they may desperately need to ensure Craddick's return as Speaker. I don't know if this makes Craddick confident of his ultimate fate regardless of what happens to Goolsby, or just resigned to it. Either way, it's pretty amazing. Vince and BOR have more.