How the hemp industry wooed Greg Abbott

Posted on September 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Some interesting stuff here, and a reminder that some things are eternal.

Colton Luther, a 29-year-old from Houston who hosts the cannabis podcast “Puff and Prosper,” isn’t your typical Austin lobbyist.

But in July, Luther sat across from Gov. Greg Abbott, pitching ideas for how the Republican might regulate the state’s booming hemp industry.

“He came to us with straight shooter questions on the true infrastructure of the industry,” Luther recalled. “We were able to tell him every single facet on how this gets regulated correctly.”

Luther is a part of an influential circle of hemp business leaders who say they helped push Abbott to veto a proposed ban on THC championed by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and shaped his eventual executive order stepping up regulation of their products.

The group, a mix of industry insiders and newcomers, held behind-the-scenes meetings with Abbott and commissioned several influential polls, including one by Donald Trump’s own pollster, that showed the ban’s unpopularity with GOP voters. At least one member also doled out hefty campaign contributions to the governor and House Speaker Dustin Burrows.

The coordinated activities, reported for the first time by Hearst Newspapers, formed a key part of the broader hemp movement that emerged this year and illustrate how politically influential the nascent industry has become in Texas. Their strategy focused on free enterprise principles and support for veterans, pushing back against hemp’s image as a partisan or liberal issue in a Republican-controlled state.

“I’ve worked on this issue for more than ten years and it’s been a constant struggle among the cannabros, the business types, and the scientists,” said Susan Hays, a lawyer and political strategist. “This year, the industry finally started getting some footing in the legislative process.”

When Patrick, who presides over the state Senate, made it a priority this spring to ban all hemp THC, the industry’s response was somewhat disjointed. Some pushed exceptions only for THC drinks, others wanted to allow only Texas-grown products.

But in May, when the Texas House passed an all-out ban instead of less stifling regulations, the pressure campaign on Abbott kicked into high gear.

[…]

A week after the veto, an entity tied to Charles’ company Mood, called Management and Governance Consulting, LLC, gave Abbott’s campaign a $100,000 contribution, and in August, another linked entity called Smoking Leaf Holdings shelled out $50,000 to Burrow’s campaign. Charles could not be reached for comment.

Death, taxes, Greg Abbott cashes in, same as it ever was. At this point all I want to say is that I hope these hemp activists, from the cash-dripping lobbyists to the everyday grassroots folks, remember that Dan Patrick wanted to kill them all, and that they should work to defeat him next year, including in the general election. If that high a percentage of Republican voters are truly opposed to banning THC and cannabis, then surely a decent number of them could be persuaded to vote Democratic in that race. Even not voting, or voting Libertarian, would be a step in the right direction. You can do this, hemp activists! You have the power.

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Sen. Sarah Eckhardt may run for CD10

Posted on September 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

Sen. Sarah Eckhardt

Democratic state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt of Austin said Wednesday she is seriously considering a run for Congress in the GOP-leaning district being vacated next year by 20-year Republican Michael McCaul, saying its time for candidates in her party to quit playing defense and go on offense even if the odds appear stacked against them.

“It’s a difficult district drawn for Republicans, but we’re not getting the services we expect from the federal government,” Eckhardt said in an interview. “I am pretty confident that Republicans and Democrats, including libertarians and independents and people in the middle, are are pretty tired of government that doesn’t respond to them, that isn’t accountable to them.”

McCaul, a former chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs and Homeland Security committees, announced Sunday that he planned to forego reelection in 2026 but will remain active in the public policy area. So far, no Republican has formally announced plans to run in the newly redrawn Congressional District 10.

[…]

Eckardt, 60, has represented much of Austin in the Texas Senate since winning a special election in 2020. Her district is safely Democratic and her term does not expire until after the 2028 election cycle, meaning she would not have to give up her seat to run for Congress. During her time in the Senate, Eckhardt has publicly clashed with Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the 31-member chamber, saying last month that he uses the chamber “as his church, as his pulpit.”

Asked how she would seek to appeal to conservative voters far from her liberal Austin base, Eckhardt offered a message that could have been delivered by a small-government Republican.

“Most people want their government to be effective, efficient and fair and stay out and be minimally intrusive,” said Eckhardt, who did not give a timetable for announcing her plans for 2026. “They want their government to run like a quiet dishwasher. Get the dishes clean and don’t interfere.”

I like Sen. Eckhardt, I think she’d make a fine member of Congress if she were to win. I don’t know how well her sales pitch will resonate in the heavily Republican areas in CD10, but I’ve definitely heard worse.

A couple of points to note. One is that there’s already a Democrat running in CD10, Tayhlor Coleman, who as of the July reporting period had about $36K on hand. While Sen. Eckhardt would surely begin this race with a significant lead in name recognition – she was also the Travis County Judge before she was elected to the Senate – she doesn’t have a huge lead in cash on hand, as she reported $162K in her treasury as of the same period. That’s not a particularly large number for a multi-term Senator, but I suspect she’d be able to increase that quickly. She may already have been out hitting the phones since the end of the special sessions, and if so that number for her may be obsolete.

CD10 was actually made a bit bluer by the redistricting – about one point bluer in 2024 numbers, and about three points bluer in 2018 numbers. Indeed, by 2018 numbers, CD10 is not that solidly red – Ted Cruz won it by a 55.5-43.3 margin, which is comfortable but hardly overwhelming. Indeed, that’s about as close as it gets in 2018 terms for the normal Republican-held districts under the new map. The combination of this being an open seat and the prospect of a blue wave – which to be sure 2018 also was – could make one dream a bit on this district.

At a higher level, the willingness of a Sen. Eckhardt to consider jumping in here, in what even under favorable assumptions would be a heavy lift, is a sign that Democrats overall do feel some optimism about this cycle. We’ve not had a shortage of candidates, even as I impatiently await some decent contenders for CDs 09 and 35. That could well be some irrational exuberance, but I’ll take it over the alternative. Whatever she does decide, the vibes right now are pretty good.

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Home Depot is watching you

Posted on September 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Beware the surveillance cameras.

Hundreds of AI-powered automated license plate reading cameras paid for by Lowe’s and Home Depot and stationed in the hardware stores’ parking lots are being fed into a massive surveillance system that law enforcement can access, according to records obtained using a public records request.

The records, obtained from the Johnson County, Texas Sheriff’s Office by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and shared with 404 Media, show the sheriff’s office is able to tap into Flock license plate reading cameras at 173 different Lowe’s locations around the U.S. and that it can tap into cameras and gunshot-detecting microphones at dozens of Home Depot stores within Texas. The records are the latest to shed light on how expansive Flock’s surveillance network has become, and highlights that it includes cameras that are operated by both police and private businesses.

“What we’re learning is that two of the country’s most popular home improvement stores are contributing to the massive surveillance dragnet coordinated by Flock Safety,” Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told 404 Media. “Do customers know that these stores are collecting their data and sharing indiscriminately? Probably not. Have these companies given thought about how this data might put their customers in danger, whether it’s cops stalking their exes or aggressive ICE agents targeting yard workers? Probably not. If these companies want customers to feel safe in their homes, then they should make sure they’re also safe where they buy their supplies.”

Flock’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are stationed along roads or at entrances to parking lots around the United States, and constantly scan the license plates of cars that drive by. Because there are Flock cameras around the country, Flock often has a snapshot of people’s movements which police can search, typically without a warrant.

Government agencies that have Flock cameras can choose to contribute their data to either a statewide or nationwide network, meaning cops around the state or country can access them. Flock told 404 Media that Flock cameras operated by private companies have more restrictive sharing options.

Flock said data sharing from private businesses to law enforcement is on a one-to-one basis, and that private businesses do not have national or statewide sharing options in the same way a law enforcement agency might. In other words, each business and agency would need to enter a data sharing relationship, according to Flock. Flock said that private businesses do not have access to law enforcement data.

Because the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office has access to Flock device data at hundreds of Lowe’s and Home Depot stores according to the public records, this means that both Home Depot and Lowe’s have some sort of arrangement, or multiple arrangements, with police to share access to their data at scale. Flock said that security teams at companies will sometimes work with law enforcement agencies on a regional basis but did not provide specifics on what those collaborations look like.

See here and here for some background on Flock, which as those posts note also works with a lot of local governments. This is a long story, with a lot of eye-opening details, and I encourage you to read it all. You will need to sign up for a free subscription to 404 Media to do that, and I encourage you to do that as well. They’re best in class on AI, surveillance, ICE, general Internet nonsense, and more. Check it out.

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The Trib profiles Talarico

Posted on September 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good stuff.

Rep. James Talarico

About 20 minutes into his appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Texas Rep. James Talarico started making his case that the Bible sanctions abortion.

In the Book of Luke, the Austin Democrat noted, Mary has a vision from God that she’s going to give birth to a baby who will bring down the powerful from their thrones. But, critically, before she becomes pregnant, Talarico said, an angel “asks Mary if this is something she wants to do, and she says, ‘if it is God’s will, let it be done.’”

“To me, that is an affirmation in one of our most central stories that creation has to be done with consent. You cannot force someone to create,” Talarico, an aspiring Presbyterian minister and U.S. senator, told Rogan, arguing “the idea that there is a set Christian orthodoxy on the issue of abortion is just not rooted in Scripture.”

He went on to accuse the religious right of prioritizing abortion bans and “control” of pregnant mothers, rather than reducing miscarriages and protecting children through expanded health care access.

“I think that’s what we see across this Christian nationalist movement,” Talarico said. “This is religion at its worst: trying to control people and what they do.”

It was archetypal Talarico fare, blending religion and a progressive, populist politics on a digital platform made to reach millions. The appearance on Rogan’s show was only the latest in a string of viral hits this year for the devoutly Christian Democrat, who has garnered an enormous following online from videos that show him sermonizing about how religion informs his liberal worldview and debating his Republican colleagues in the Texas House over their efforts to infuse religion into public life.

By the end of the podcast episode — in which Talarico also wielded Scripture to defend gay rights, argue against religion in public schools and explain his work in the Legislature to lower the cost of prescription drugs — Rogan, who endorsed Donald Trump for the White House in 2024, told Talarico he “needs to run for president,” catapulting the four-term state lawmaker across the internet and making national headlines.

Instead, Talarico is embarking on a long-shot attempt to parlay his budding stardom into a winning 2026 bid for U.S. Senate, betting that a message grounded in faith and taking back power for working Texans will be enough to break through in a state littered with failed Democratic hopefuls.

It’s a long story, you know the drill. This is one reason why I’m not moved by name recognition-influenced polls. Among other things, Talarico is going to get the “new kid on the block” treatment, of which this article is one example. He’s also got a lot of juice, as I saw at the Harris County Democratic Party CEC meeting on Sunday, where he brought down the house in his one minute “candidates and elected officials get to say hello” speech. People may not have known much about him at the time of that poll, but they’re interested in learning more, and they will have plenty of opportunity to do so. If that includes you, here’s a fine place to begin.

One other note, I’d not heard Talarico’s case for abortion as per the Bible before. I’m not ignorant of what’s in the Bible but I’m hardly an expert; among other things, Catholic education, at least at the elementary school level and in terms of just going to church on Sunday, doesn’t focus all that much on what the Bible writ large has to say. I doubt his words here would move a true believer, but I do think they would be of interest to the many people who have mixed feelings about abortion, the ones who don’t want it banned but are often uncomfortable with the idea of it. That’s a talent I can see being quite useful.

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More kids are not getting vaccinated

Posted on September 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is so bad.

For more than a half-century, vaccines have had remarkable success eradicating the most lethal and devastating childhood infectious diseases, saving millions of lives and ushering in a relative golden era of global public health.

But now, America is dangerously backsliding.

The vast majority of counties across the United States are experiencing declining rates of childhood vaccination and have been for years, according to an NBC News data investigation, the most comprehensive analysis of vaccinations and school exemptions to date.

This six-month investigation, done in collaboration with Stanford University, gathered massive amounts of data from state governments and archives of public records reaching back years or decades. The data focused on core childhood vaccines that, together, regard someone to be “up to date” on immunizations; these are the measles, mumps, rubella, polio, whooping cough and diphtheria shots.

With the help of infectious disease researchers at Stanford, NBC News filed scores of requests for documents, including materials obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, and wrestled different types of data into a standardized format to map and compare rates across thousands of counties.

One key finding of the analysis is stunning: A large swath of the U.S. currently does not have the basic, ground-level immunity medical experts say is necessary to stop the spread of measles, which had once nearly been eliminated. The data further reveals that:

  • Since 2019, 77% of counties and jurisdictions in the U.S. have reported notable declines in childhood vaccination rates. The declines span from less than 1 percentage point to more than 40 percentage points.
  • Vaccine exemptions for school children are rising nationwide: As many as 53% of counties and jurisdictions saw exemption rates more than double from their first year of collecting data to the most recent.
  • Among the states collecting data for the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, 68% of counties and jurisdictions now have immunization rates below 95% — the level of herd immunity doctors say is needed to protect against an outbreak.

“As childhood vaccination rates fall, we’ll see more diseases like measles,” Dr. Sean O’Leary, an infectious diseases expert with the American Academy of Pediatrics, said about the findings. “And we’ll see more children die — tragically — from diseases that are essentially entirely preventable.”

St. Louis offers a window into the striking findings.

The city known as the “Gateway to the West” — home to some of the country’s most influential vaccine research and development institutes, including the Washington University School of Medicine — may be quickly losing its ability to prevent infectious diseases.

The rate of children starting kindergarten in St. Louis with all the state-required vaccines has plummeted from 91.6% during the 2010-2011 school year to 75.9% in 2024-2025.

And the number of families seeking an exemption for their children rose from 0.3% in 2010 to 3.4% last school year, according to the NBC News investigation. In Missouri, exemptions can be granted either for medical or religious reasons.

In 2010, almost 90% of kindergartners attending school within the St. Louis city limits had received their recommended MMR shots, which prevent nearly all cases of measles — the most contagious virus known in the world. In the last school year, MMR coverage rates among kindergartners plummeted to 74%.

That’s below even Gaines County, Texas, the epicenter of the 2025 measles outbreak, where 77% of kids were vaccinated last school year. That puts St. Louis at a high risk for a surge of the virus, which tore through largely unvaccinated communities in West Texas. The outbreak killed three people, including two young girls.

“That’s a heavy, heavy fact,” said Virginia Wilson, head nurse at the Premier Charter School in St. Louis, which has 1,058 students from pre-K through middle school. “We’re just in a waiting phase before measles comes and rocks the state of Missouri.”

The story of St. Louis is emblematic of the nation’s immunization declines. A combination of rising exemptions, difficulties accessing health care services, and anti-vaccine messages fueled by social media and, more recently, the federal government, has laid a path for preventable diseases to potentially explode in the U.S.

Having a lower vaccination rate than Gaines County, those are some scary words. I wish I could say that things might get better in the near future, but we know that that isn’t so, not with the current sociopath in charge of Health and Human Services. It’s going to be rough, and the next big outbreak could well be worse than the one we just went through.

Reform Austin looked at the data for Texas.

Under Texas law, the MMR vaccine is required for all students attending public and private schools. However, families can request exemptions for medical or “reasons of conscience,” including religious beliefs. The rise in such exemptions has contributed to the declining coverage.

Some counties stand out for their particularly low vaccination rates. Irion County, located west of San Angelo, recorded the lowest MMR coverage among kindergartners this school year, with only about two-thirds fully vaccinated.

Gaines County — where nearly 20% of kindergartners had nonmedical exemptions — a severe measles outbreak earlier this year led to over 760 reported cases, 99 hospitalizations, and two children deaths. Nearly half the total cases occurred in Gaines County alone.

Vaccination rates have dropped even in Texas’ largest population centers. In Harris County, the rate has declined from 96.6% to 91% over the past ten years. Similar declines have been observed in Dallas County (down to 90.2%) and Travis County, which now stands at just 86.7%.

Blanco County, within the Austin metropolitan area, has also experienced a steady decline. The coverage rate there dropped to 86.1% this year. On the other hand, Caldwell County has remained relatively stable, maintaining a rate above 95% for most of the past decade.

Counties like Bastrop, Hays, and Caldwell continue to report MMR coverage rates that meet or exceed CDC recommendations.

Irion is a very small county, so in absolute numbers its unvaxxed population is also very small. Even Gaines County has more than ten times its population. But still, it’s the concentration of unvaxxed people that breeds outbreaks. And Travis County, y’all need to do better. I don’t know what else to say.

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Dispatches from Dallas, September 20 edition

Posted on September 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth, we have budget news from across the region, the repercussions of the Charlie Kirk murder in the area, some immigration-related news, some stories from our churches and mosques, and a smattering of general news from more serious items like the latest on the Robert Roberson case to lighter fare like the “Oscars for influencers” held recently in Frisco. And more!

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of classical violinist Isabelle Faust whom I wish would come to the Dallas area. She plays a lot of baroque composers including some of the “minor” composers whose works are left out of the general repertoire.

Let’s take a dive into some budgets since it’s that time of year:

Next we move on to Charlie Kirk and how our local folks are dealing with his murder and the social media and legacy media storm that has followed. I’m sparing you the Star-Telegram’s detailed coverage of local memorials in favor of more interesting and substantive stories:

  • Fort Worth City Council got into it after Councilwoman Elizabeth Beck posted Kirk’s own words about the Second Amendment and its costs with a picture of Kirk and the word UNFORTUNATE photoshopped over it. Her post came before Kirk died and she deleted it after his death. Like most people who have been yelled at for lack of sympathy for quoting Kirk, Beck expressed that political violence has no place in America. Of course, that didn’t keep Tarrant County GOP Chair Bo French from calling for her removal from office on Xitter.
  • A bunch of students at UNT were caught on video having wrong feelings about his death. I haven’t watched the video, which is apparently a reaction video to the shooting video that’s gone around, but it’s had more than a quarter of a million views on TikTok. State Rep. Andy Hopper, who represents UNT, contacted the president of the school over the students and their wrongthink.
  • In the wake of threats by Texas Education Agency head Mike Morath to suspend the licenses of teachers who posted wrongthink about Kirk’s murder, the Star-Telegram tells us what these investigations could mean for educators with some help from an official from a teachers’ union and a constitutional law professor at SMU. The TEA was unsurprisingly silent. More about Morath’s threats from the Texas Tribune.
  • The Dallas Observer covers the same turf but includes the story of a Lake Worth ISD employee fired for supposedly celebrating Kirk’s death. Not only was she sacked, she’s considered a threat to campus and her child was also kicked out of school.
  • As you probably know, ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel after one of the media groups that own their affiliates removed his show from their schedule. The group in question is Irving-based Nexstar, which owns 32 ABC affiliates and may own a lot more by the end of next year. They’re trying to buy Tegna, the owner of our local ABC affiliate WFAA (whose website I quote on occasion). So the Kimmel cancellation is a function of corporate consolidation and a predicted and predictable outcome of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
  • Local Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has been in hot water with Republicans since she stepped on the national stage. Recently Charlie Kirk went after her and she hit back this week. This is all Great Replacement Theory garbage; if you’re not terminally online enough to know, it’s about how liberal pinko commies bring in Black and brown folk to replace white folks in the US, so grossly racist as well as factually wrong. I continue to wish Crockett good luck in dealing with the kind of people who believe this crap.
  • Dallas Cowboy owner Jerry Jones compared Kirk’s murder to the murders of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s. He might have been trying to make a point about violence but he also might have phrased it a little better.
  • And Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano) got hoisted on his own hypocritical petard by getting mad at his colleague and Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico for not posting about Kirk’s murder fast enough.
  • Last, but not least, the Star-Telegram editorial board thinks it’s a bad idea for the TEA chase down social media posts and fire teachers for wrongthink. I frequently disagree with the conservative slant of the Star-Telegram’s opinion page, but it’s nice to see free speech people advocating for people to actually have free speech.

And a few items of immigration-related news from North Texas:

  • I don’t usually talk about the “if it bleeds, it leads” crime news that happens here in Dallas, but recently we had one that hit the national news: a worker at a motel beheaded his boss and is now charged with capital murder (and click through with care because the details are upsetting). Turns out the suspect was an undocumented Cuban immigrant with a criminal history in Houston and Florida including auto theft, assault, and indecency with a child. Which is why the President went on a social media rampage over the weekend (again some upsetting details of the crime, so take care before clicking) as part of his ongoing fixation with bashing immigrants. The kicker is that the victim, the manager of the motel, was also an immigrant from India. The suspect, in addition to the pending charges, is also under an ICE immigration detainer.
  • Star-Telegram columnist William Bradford Davis opines that the Supreme Court’s decision in Noem v Perdomo is equivalent to the Dred Scott decision. Noem v Perdomo is the ICE racial profiling case we’ve all heard so much about.
  • Congresswoman Julie Johnson wants better treatment for inmates at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, including more access to lawyers as well as facilities improvements. She’s also looking into our local ICE office, which I’ve talked about recently because of its appearance in the news for keeping detainees too long and in illegal conditions.
  • One of the women arrested in the protest/shooting at the Prairieland ICE facility in Alvarado was interviewed by KERA. She was apparently in her car playing phone games when the shooting happened; she had taken friends to the protest. Also, she’s trans and facing medical discrimination and general transphobia from Johnson County jail officials.

Some religiously-related of various sorts from around our part of the state:

And a few random items from the news:

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Erica Lee Carter withdraws from County Judge race

Posted on September 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

A bit of a surprise, at least to me.

Erica Lee Carter

Former Congressman Erica Lee Carter announced Wednesday that she will not be running for Harris County Judge after previously signaling interest in the seat.

Back in July, Carter had stated over social media that she would consider becoming a candidate if current County Judge Lina Hidalgo were to not seek reelection. However, after Hidalgo said in a late Monday interview with ABC 13 that she would not run for another term, Carter announced her withdrawal from the race.

“At this moment, what matters most is that some of us are willing to put aside ambition, fame or the pursuit of power,” Carter said in a press release. “For the greater good of our communities, our values, our party and our democracy. That is what I choose to do.”

[…]

Citing her mother in the Wednesday announcement, Carter said her decision was driven by the need for unity among the Democratic party, especially as the country faces “a rising tide of fascism, racism, misinformation, voter suppression, and the erosion of democratic norms.”

Despite not running for a political seat in the 2026 Democratic primary, she said will continue to advocate for “progressive causes, fair wages, safe neighborhoods, affordable housing, healthy families, and better schools.”

See here and here for the background. We can speculate about what the “real” reason is for her departure, but I’m going to take her at her word. Running for office is hard and exhausting, and primaries are generally no fun. If she thinks that Annise Parker and Letitia Plummer are both satisfactory candidates, then her own candidacy is more optional than necessary. I think we can all respect that.

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Bobby Pulido officially in for CD15

Posted on September 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Our main target to flip next fall.

Bobby Pulido

Tejano musician Bobby Pulido is running for Texas’ 15th Congressional District, he announced Wednesday, giving Democrats their best — and potentially only — opportunity to flip a Republican-held seat in 2026.

Pulido, a singer and Edinburg native who has been making Tejano music for three decades, is running to take on Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, in a district that stretches from McAllen to Central Texas. It will be an uphill climb for any Democrat — the district voted for President Donald Trump by an 18% margin last year — but his musical popularity and South Texas bona fides have Democrats enthused about his prospects.

“I’ve spent decades using my voice to bring people together,” Pulido said in his launch video. “Now, I’ll use it to fight for the place we call home, because this is the only stage that really matters — and it’s worth fighting for.”

Known for hit songs from the 1990s like “Desvelado” and “Se Murió de Amor”, Pulido is a four-time Latino Grammy nominee and 22-time Tejano Music Award nominee, having won eight times early in his career.

The 15th Congressional District has been Republicans’ greatest success story with Texas Latino voters. After flipping the district in 2022, De La Cruz improved her margins last year, winning by 14 percentage points despite investment from Democrats in challenger Michelle Vallejo. The district has been on Democrats’ target list for the past two cycles, but De La Cruz has continued to win comfortably.

To meet De La Cruz in a general election, Pulido will first face a primary against Ada Cuellar, a Harlingen emergency physician unrelated to South Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

In his launch video, Pulido lamented rising costs, corporate greed and immigration policy that rips families apart and has endangered the South Texas economy. He also downplayed partisanship, saying he was neither “Team Red or Team Blue.”

In an interview, Pulido said issues vary by community, from water rights to the cost of health care. But he said he’s heard a lot about immigration — including from an economic perspective — and wants to make a push for comprehensive immigration reform, coupled with removing criminals in the country illegally, a focus of his campaign. He cited decreased tourism from Mexico and an increased culture of fear in immigrant communities as slowing the South Texas economy.

“Lots of farmers that I know, and people in the construction industry, because of the lack of immigration reform, are very frustrated right now because they don’t have people to work,” Pulido said. “They offer people more money, they do everything they can. They still can’t field a crew.”

See here for the background. CD15 didn’t change much in the redistricting, but its partisan valence has shifted dramatically since 2018. As with the districts that the GOP is targeting for 2026, how this plays out depends in part on how Latino voters who have shifted towards Republicans vote next year. Maybe Bobby Pulido will have some secret sauce to draw them in at higher numbers, and maybe not. We’ll see how he does on the campaign trail. I wish him all the best. The Downballot has more.

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Still more on Elon’s flood tunnels

Posted on September 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I once again call your attention to an episode of CityCast Houston, in which host Raheel Ramzanali chats with the host of the CityCast Las Vegas podcast about the experience they’ve had with Elon Musk and the Boring Company and the Tesla transit tunnels that have been dug under that city. A lot was promised, not a lot has yet been delivered, as with many “free” things there were a lot of unexpected costs, and there’s a lot more of this story to tell.

See here and here for the background. You can listen to this episode here – the link above will take you to the right place, for the “Why Elon Musk Wants $760 Million To Dig Tunnels Under Houston” episode from Monday, September 15, if the embedded code is on a different episode – or you can read this extensive report from the CityCast Las Vegas site, which is from January and which is covered to some degree here. If you had any reason to feel wary about Harris County doing business with Elon Musk, this will very much confirm your concerns. And we would be in business with them for a long time if we move ahead with this. My ask of Commissioners Court is that if you really think this is a good idea – and there may indeed be merit to it – go in with your eyes wide open, and be as transparent as you can be while insisting that Elon and the Boring Company do the same. And good luck, we’re all going to need it.

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Andrew White to run for Governor again

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

A second go-round.

Andrew White

Houston’s Andrew White, son of the late Gov. Mark White, on Tuesday filed initial papers to run for governor again, hoping to stop Gov. Greg Abbott from winning a fourth term in office.

“It’s time for a change,” White told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday. “Gov. Abbott’s culture war is failing our schools, hospitals and infrastructure.”

White officially filed a campaign treasurer forms in order to handle campaign funds, and said he’ll decide for certain if he’s going to jump in by next week. It could be White’s second time seeking the position. In 2018, he lost a Democratic primary runoff election to Lupe Valdez, the former Dallas County sheriff who later lost to Abbott in the November general election.

Born in Houston, White, 53, grew up in Austin while his father served as secretary of state, then attorney general and governor. White attended public schools in Austin and graduated from Lamar High School in Houston.

A religious-studies graduate from the University of Virginia who also holds a masters in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin, White has been part of several businesses in Houston over the years, including Sweat Equity Partners, a venture capital company, Spruce, a housekeeping service, and Glacier Oil and Gas Corp, which is involved in drilling in Alaska.

See here, here, and here for more about Andrew White, who ran as a “conservative” Democrat in 2018. I was skeptical of that positioning back then and would continue to be skeptical of it now, but 2018 may as well be 1918 given how much has happened since then. We’ll see in what ways he has evolved, is what I’m saying. However I felt about his candidacy then, it’s hard to imagine he could have done much worse that November than Lupe Valdez did, and I’m 100% certain he’d have raised more money. I remain at this time in the tank for Ron Nirenberg, but we don’t know what he’ll do as yet. All of this to say that I welcome Andrew White to the race, I’m very interested in hearing what he has to say, and I look forward to a robust and energize primary field for 2026.

UPDATE: Lone Star Left notes some recent DNS registrations for domains that suggest State Rep. Gina Hinojosa might run for Governor. We’ll see about that.

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More demands for Paxton divorce records

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Bring it.

Still a crook any way you look

A group of state and national media organizations, including The Texas Newsroom, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, are arguing in court that records in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s divorce case should be made available to the public.

The organizations filed their plea to intervene with the Collin County district court handling the Paxtons’ case on Tuesday. The filing requests that the court reverse a July decision to seal the case records, arguing that both the attorney general and his wife, state Senator Angela Paxton, are elected officials subject to public scrutiny. The documents should be available for “review and inspection” with limited exceptions, the media organizations said.

“The grounds alleged for divorce and the disposition of property are of substantial public interest because they bear on integrity in public office, potential use of public resources, and transparency in judicial proceedings,” the media organizations argued.

The organizations noted that family law cases across the country, including divorce proceedings, are presumed public and that the couple’s political positions in Texas and Paxton’s decision in April to run for U.S. Senate add to the public interest.

Paxton served more than a decade in the Texas House of Representatives and Texas Senate before his election as state attorney general in 2014. Angela Paxton was first elected to the state Senate in 2018.

“Where, as here, the parties are not private citizens but elected constitutional officers, the need for transparency is heightened, not diminished,” the filing read. “Allegations that might suggest abuse of marital assets, concealment of financial information, or personal conduct inconsistent with public responsibility are not merely private — they are of public consequence.”

The eight organizations that signed on to the filing are Dow Jones & Co. (publisher of The Wall Street Journal), The Washington Post, Hearst Newspapers (which owns the Austin American-Statesman, Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News), ProPublica, The Texas Lawbook, the Texas Observer, The Texas Tribune and The Texas Newsroom.

Angela Paxton filed for divorce in July, accusing her husband of adultery. Soon after, she requested all records in the case be placed under seal, arguing that doing so would “not have an adverse affect on the public health or safety.”

Judge Ray Wheless granted her request in mid-July. He then recused himself. It’s not clear why, but Wheless and his wife, also a district court judge in Collin County, have donated to the Paxtons’ campaigns in the past.

The current judge presiding over the case is Lindsey Wynne.

See here, here, and here for the background; see also the comments on that last post, which mentions and discusses this motion. The next section of the article goes through the various scandals and misdeeds and alleged crimes Ken Paxton has been involved in during his tenure, saying that they “raise questions about AG Paxton’s conduct in public office and his fidelity to the law”, which honestly made my heart sing a little when I read that. More like this, please.

One more thing:

The couple’s assets, which were scrutinized during the impeachment process, will be a subject of the divorce case.

The Paxtons have purchased multiple homes and parcels of land in several states but failed for years to disclose them on state ethics filings.

This summer, after The Texas Newsroom revealed the lack of disclosure, the couple listed more information about the property acquisitions on their annual financial statements. In a note on the documents, Paxton said he believes the disclosure rules are murky and contradictory and that he was only disclosing properties “that continue to have bank notes serviced by the filer and/or the filer’s spouse.”

Angela Paxton has asked for a “disproportionate share” of the couple’s assets in her initial divorce filing, which The Texas Newsroom obtained prior to the records being sealed. She wanted sole use of their McKinney home while the case is pending as well exclusive access to her business account.

She also wants Ken Paxton to admit fault in the breakup of the marriage.

Just a reminder that if claiming multiple homes as one’s primary residence is a crime – it isn’t, despite that Trump lackey’s insistence that it is, though there sure seem to be a lot of Trump toadies who do it – then Ken Paxton is a serial criminal. We the people deserve to know all about it.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The sports gambling loophole

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Interesting.

Photo by Joel Kramer via Flickr creative commons

With football season ramping up, various social media sites have seen a swarm of new advertisements urging users to download various apps that would allow them to win big on the outcomes of upcoming sporting events.

Some ads make an even more enticing claim to potential Texas bettors: that placing money on the games is newly legal. One ad from prediction market app Polymarket states that football trading is “now legal” in Texas. Other ads imply there are workarounds to the state’s strict gambling ban.

“I found a way to bet on the NFL even though we live in Texas,” reads a simulated text in one Instagram ad from prediction market app Kalshi.

Through prediction markets and daily fantasy sports, also known as DFS, Texans have more access than ever to win — or lose — money based on the outcome of sporting events. And it can be done without leaving the state, where betting on contests or games is both illegal and a sticking point among state officials.

Despite the ads’ claims, no new state or federal laws related to gambling regulation passed this year, except for a restriction on online lottery ticket couriers. Repeated efforts in the Texas Legislature to legalize sports betting, casinos and DFS have all faltered, leaving the games unregulated and unclear on these digital alternatives beyond a nearly decade-old nonbinding opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The lack of legal movement has not stopped online sites from giving Texas players alternatives to sports betting from exploding in availability. The two new ways of playing lean on federal regulations rather than state law to provide their services to players. Executives from DFS and prediction market businesses have pushed back on being linked to sports betting, claiming their peer-to-peer services are skill-based or federally regulated financial transactions, respectively.

While other states have taken aggressive legal action to counter the businesses’ spread, Texas has done little to deter their growth, despite targeting other online gaming services earlier in the year. Supporters said that illegal gambling has become widespread — and that these new alternatives are safer and more responsible options for a market lawmakers seemingly ignore.

“I think potentially something here that people are underrating is that in states like Texas or California, where sports betting is illegal under state law, most people will just go to an offshore book instead,” said Jack Such, head of media operations for Kalshi. “It’s not like sports betting is really inaccessible. There are tons of platforms.”

Both DFS and prediction market businesses make their money through transaction fees, and players bet against each other, rather than betting against operators like traditional sportsbooks or casinos. The separation provides an extra layer of insulation, but it has not stopped the services from being widely understood to supplant sports betting, despite the denial from operators.

Gregory Gemignani, a gaming law lawyer and professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the alternatives are “pretty much identical” to sports betting and blend elements of their respective origins — futures trading and old-school fantasy sports — with classic gambling structure.

“Taking things that we already have and just combining them, I don’t think, is all that novel,” Gemignani said. “It just wasn’t done before because most people saw it, especially in the industry, as another form of a sports bet, which has limitations on transmission across state lines — which would make the activity pretty unattractive.”

There’s more, so read the rest. I followed the rise of prediction markets last year, but I have no interest in gambling and haven’t read a whole lot about how they work, so I can’t explain to you with any authority why this is a loophole in the law. But as attorney Gemignani says later in the piece, as long as no one is enforcing any laws against it, it may as well be legal. People will certainly indulge in it under those conditions. As such, I figure one of two things will eventually happen: Either someone will request an AG opinion on Kalshi and its peers, in which case we’ll get some guidance on the matter, or some other actor will do something that will require the state courts to weigh in. The latter could be a lawsuit or some enterprising law enforcement group busting a “prediction markets” ring. Until then, do what you want to with this.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of September 15

Posted on September 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance has always condemned political violence as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Judge Hidalgo will not run for re-election

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

We have our answer.

Judge Lina Hidalgo

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo announced late Monday that she will not be seeking re-election in 2026.

The decision, announced exclusively during ABC 13’s evening broadcast, marks an end to the progressive Democrats tenure as Harris County’s chief executive. First elected in 2018 at the age of 27 in a stunning upset for 11-year incumbent Judge Ed Emmett, Hidalgo ushered in the “blue wave” in Harris County, eventually swinging Commissioners Court from a Republican to a Democratic majority.

“I am still in office until December 2026 and I’ve got the work cut out for me and that’s not even — knock on wood — counting any emergencies that might arise,” Hidalgo told ABC 13’s Melanie Lawson. “After that, I don’t know. I don’t know what I will do. I know that I’m not running for office this cycle. I can say that with confidence and I know that I will stay in public service.”

Hidalgo is the first woman to lead Harris County and quickly became a star among progressives nationally. She met with President Joe Biden on multiple occasions, and was pictured alongside former Vice President Kamala Harris during her visit to Houston in 2023. 

Hidalgo appeared poised for a political trajectory that would see her graduate from local government and to higher office.

But she faced obstacles during her tenure.

Her apparent frustration with her colleagues became a staple of the Commissioners Court’s bi-weekly meetings. Outbursts, thinly veiled insults and underhanded remarks directed toward her fellow Democrats became common.

The souring relationship between Hidalgo and county commissioners culminated in their approval of the first-ever censure of a Harris County judge. The formal admonishment, which did not carry a direct punishment, came after Hidalgo goaded dozens of children into pressuring her colleagues to approve a tax hike proposal intended to fund an early childcare program for low-income families.

It was her unwavering belief in progressive policy-making that ultimately drove a wedge between her and the three Democrats on Commissioners Court. Often emboldened by righteous indignation, Hidalgo eschewed politics — and with it, coalition-building — in favor of a dogged commitment to what she viewed as right.

But the position of county judge is not, nor has it ever been, capable of crushing dissent. Unlike the mayor of Houston, the power of the county judge is built on consent between independently elected officials and not the unilateral exercise of authority over subordinates.

Harris County hasn’t seen the last of Hidalgo, that much is sure. Although she said she didn’t have her sights set on any particular office, the progressive political tycoon likely won’t recede completely from Texas politics.

“In the future, I would like to, if the voters will have me, I’d like to be in elected office again. I think that with everything I’ve been through, I have learned so much about how to be an elected official and make it sustainable,” Hidalgo told ABC 13.

Her announcement paves the way for former U.S. Rep. Erica Lee Carter — who was elected to briefly represent Texas’ 18th Congressional District following the death of her mother, longtime U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee — to declare her candidacy. Lee Carter said in July she would run for Hidalgo’s seat if the judge decided not to run again.

Lee Carter would join an already crowded ballot packed to the brim with Democrats touting significant political cache and deep local ties. Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker in May announced her candidacy followed by City Council member Letitia Plummer, who kicked off her campaign in July.

While it was certainly stunning to wake up to this story yesterday morning, I can’t say it’s a surprise. I’ve been noting Judge Hidalgo’s lack of fundraising, especially compared to where she was at the same time in the 2022 cycle, for some time, which led me to conclude that she was acting like someone who did not intend to run again. She got a boost in funds from legal fees being reimbursed, but that’s not the same thing. At this point, I would have been more surprised if she had said she was running again.

Which is not to say that I’m happy about any of this. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for Judge Hidalgo. I voted for her because I wanted a change of direction in Harris County, and I got what I wanted. She did a terrific job and has helped make Harris County government more responsive, more ambitious, more progressive, more equitable, more modern. And I don’t know how you can talk about the obstacles she faced without talking about the fierce resistance she got from the state government, often laced with withering disrespect and contempt, as if they were insulted to have to be bothered with this young Democratic Latina. Yes, the more recent turmoil was of the intramural variety. But let’s not forget what she went through in her first term, please.

As to what she might do next, I can see another run for office in her future, when the right opportunity arises. I’d rather not speculate at this time, but I assume she will find a new position that’s still involved with politics or policy or both, and that will give her the time and the chance to figure out where she wants to go next. I do think she’s ready to do something else – as noted, it has looked for some time like she was not planning to run again – and I wish her all the best with whatever that is.

As to the 2026 primary, I suppose there could be other contenders beside the three who are now in, assuming Erica Lee Carter hasn’t changed her mind. I will once again be busy with the interviews for the primary season, I know that much. Let me just say Thank You to Judge Hidalgo for her service. I look forward to seeing what she still has to accomplish in this job, and to what she will do going forward. The Press, the Trib, and Reform Austin have more.

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Powered by People gets another win in court

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is all still temporary and preliminary, but it’s also still good.

Every time it looks like Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is getting the best of Beto O’Rourke in court, the former El Paso congressman pulls off another victory.

For weeks now, Paxton, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, has been using state tax dollars to sue O’Rourke and his Powered By People PAC, claiming they were “operating a misleading financial-influence scheme” that supported the Texas House Democrats who fled the state in August to delay a vote on congressional redistricting maps.

Paxton initially won a lower court ruling that placed a restraining order on O’Rourke and his group to keep them from raising or spending money as Paxton sought to revoke Powered By People’s ability to operate in the state. But the Fifteenth Court of Appeals late Friday sided with O’Rourke’s group that the restraining order had infringed on their free speech under the Texas Constitution and the U.S. Constitution.

“We agree,” the three-judge panel, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, stated in their order.

“Tools, whether legal or political, for eliminating quorum breaks may exist. But our Texan founding fathers — like our American founding fathers — took prior restraints on political speech out of the tool kit when they enshrined the right to free speech in our Constitution,” the judges wrote in their 23-page ruling.

O’Rourke has acknowledged that his group sent more than $1 million to Democratic groups in the Texas House. But he’s said the money had no strings attached and didn’t demand any actions as Paxton has claimed. He said they simply were supporting Democrats like any other political action committee is allowed to do in the name of supporting free speech.

[…]

Paxton may still be winning a larger battle against O’Rourke by forcing him and Powered By People into court, where they’ve now had to spend nearly $400,000 in legal fees on the case, according O’Rourke. And until Friday’s ruling, the group’s accounts were frozen, making it unable to do any of its usual activities.

Powered by People has become a major voter registration organization, helping train people to register voters and sign up voters in advance of the next election cycle.

“It is because Powered by People and I are fighting so fiercely that Paxton is trying to silence me, destroy our organization and put me behind bars,” O’Rourke said on his Substack social media account last month. “He fears our successful voter registration and turnout programs as well as our strong support of the Texas Democratic legislators.”

See here for the previous update, in which Ken Paxton threw a hissy fit, and here for the court’s opinion. The key bit is right up front:

The unusual facts here raise unusual questions. The First Amendment guarantees a right to make and receive political contributions supporting an officeholder, candidate, or political party, subject to statutory limits of various types. One of those limits prohibits officeholders from using political contributions to pay personal expenses. It is a novel question whether expenses for food, transportation, and lodging outside Texas by officeholders who should be on duty in Texas when the Legislature is in session are legitimate political expenses or illegitimate personal ones. But the question today is not whether such activities can be punished after the fact by the remedies in the Texas Election or Penal Codes, but whether they can be prohibited before they occur based on a suspicion that they might.

At this stage, where little evidence has been offered, the latter would constitute an unconstitutional prior restraint of political activity that may or may not prove to be lawful. Tools, whether legal or political, for eliminating quorum breaks may exist. But our Texan founding fathers—like our American founding fathers—took prior restraints on political speech out of the tool kit when they enshrined the right to free speech in our Constitution.

For the following reasons, we GRANT Relators’ motion in part. We stay the August 15, 2025 Temporary Restraining Order. We deny emergency relief as to the August 25, 2025 Temporary Restraining Order.

In other words, the original temporary restraining order by Tarrant County Judge Megan Fahey, which forbade Powered by People from raising money while the case was being litigated, remains on pause by the 15th. The motion to dismiss the case, which would have removed it from Tarrant County and sent it instead to the court in El Paso, where Powered by People had filed their own lawsuit against Paxton, was denied. That means that – barring intervention by SCOTx – the Tarrant County case will continue to be litigated. The other case in El Paso is presumably also still to be litigated. At some point, the 15th Court – and presumably the Supreme Court – will settle the question once and for all about who did and did not have jurisdiction.

(The 15th ruled that the Tarrant court did have jurisdiction to issue injunctive relief under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act if it were warranted, but they said the question of whether that claim by the AG has merit has not yet been determined, so it’s too soon for them to rule on it. Isn’t appellate law fun?)

As for Powered by People’s ability to keep doing what they’re doing, this mess has been a hindrance to them, but at least they can keep up the fundraising, and they sure have a compelling story to tell to donors. I think they may be able to get at least some of their court costs back if they ultimately prevail, but that’s a question that a real lawyer should answer. I hope I’m right about that, but don’t place a bet on it.

UPDATE: The Trib, which says that Paxton’s case against Beto “seems on the brink of collapse”, has more.

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One request to halt the Tarrant County mid-decade redistricting is denied

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

There is a second chance still in play.

A federal judge based in Tarrant County denied a request to keep the old commissioners precinct map in place until the redistricting lawsuit is finished. Judge Reed O’Conner, who presides over the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth, filed the decision on Friday, allowing the redrawn map to stay in place.

The federal lawsuit was filed against the county, the Commissioners Court and County Judge Tim O’Hare by a group of Black and Latino voters the day after the map was voted in on June 3. They claim the map disenfranchises voters and intentionally dilutes voters of color. The group filed for an injunction on June 27 reasoning that the case would go their way in the end.

The plea for a preliminary injunction was denied because the court does not agree that the plaintiffs will win the case based on the claims that the new precinct map violates the Voting Rights Act and the First, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.

O’Conner agreed with the defendants that the violation of the First Amendment claim was unfounded and dismissed that part of the lawsuit. The plaintiffs’ claimed that the map violates the First Amendment by disenfranchising some voters and treating them unequally due to their race and viewpoint.

See here, here, and here for background on the first lawsuit. I noted before that the First Amendment claims made by the plaintiffs here mirrored those made by plaintiffs in a since-withdrawn lawsuit over Harris County Commissioners Court redistricting in 2021. Perhaps another judge might see it differently, but I was skeptical of that claim then and I can’t say I’m surprised to see it rejected here. As far as the rest of the suit goes, well, I wouldn’t have expected much from Reed O’Conner. I’ll just leave it at that.

As this story notes, there is a second lawsuit, which I noted here. That one is in state court and includes allegations that Tarrant County violated the Texas Open Meetings Act in its haste to adopt the new map. There will be a hearing over this request for an injunction on September 25. If that one fails, there’s almost certainly no hope to stop this. The Texan has more.

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Nirenberg’s choice

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I know what I’m rooting for.

Ron Nirenberg

Former Mayor Ron Nirenberg is mulling his political future, even as he’s adjusting to his new day job — lecturing Trinity University students on communications.

The two main paths he is considering are Bexar County judge or Texas governor, according to several sources familiar with discussions that Nirenberg has had recently about his political future.

A newly formed political committee, Texans for Ron Nirenberg, is raising money for whichever office, if any, he decides to seek in the March 2026 Democratic primary.

Nirenberg, 48, has not spoken publicly about his potential next act in politics.

“I have made clear that there’s a great urgency to the issues we face, that I plan to be involved and that I’m not done with public service,” he said in a statement, which he ended with a caveat: “I have no announcement to make at this time.”

But there’s some urgency for him to make a decision.

Candidate filing for next year’s primary opens Nov. 8 and runs through early December, and Texas Democrats are trying to finalize a slate of candidates for top statewide offices who will energize voters to turn out in the 2026 midterm election.

Nirenberg appeared at former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s town hall in San Antonio in late June alongside San Antonio Rep. Joaquin Castro and state Rep. James Talarico of Round Rock.

“2026 is a very important election,” Nirenberg said at that event. “This is more than just about Democrats and Republicans — this is about right and wrong.”

[…]

Luke Warford, the founder of Agave Democratic Infrastructure Fund, a political action committee that seeks to bolster Texas Democrats’ long-term party infrastructure, believes the former mayor would be best suited for an office that isn’t legislative in nature — in other words, for races other than a U.S. House or Senate seat.

“He has executive experience and so I do think that an executive-type role, whether it’s at the county level or the statewide level, is really well-aligned with what he’s already done,” Warford said.

[…]

Warford said Nirenberg would also be a strong statewide candidate, even if he’s not particularly well known in Houston or Dallas, because he led one of the state’s largest cities.

“Other than folks who have run statewide before, there’s not many people who are going to have that much better name ID than somebody who is mayor of one of the biggest cities since it is a very public role in one of the most populous areas,” Warford said.

See here for some background. I’m rooting for him to run for Governor, where we really need a more experienced candidate to enter the fray. James Talarico didn’t fulfill my wishes there, but maybe Nirenberg will. To be sure, Bexar County Judge would be an easier path to follow, even if he’s be running against a Democratic incumbent. But the moment we’re in really calls for people to step up, and he’s in a good position to do that. Also, he’s gonna need to start raising a buttload of money, and if it’s not him then whoever else does run, including Bobby Cole and Benjamin Flores, will need to do the same. Please make up your mind quickly, Ron.

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The redistricting litigation strategy

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It’s what we’ve got.

Outgunned in the national redistricting war, Democrats are launching a multipronged legal battle to try and prevent GOP gains ahead of next year’s midterms.

It stands to be a grueling, lengthy and costly process for Democrats to counter President Donald Trump’s effort to draw new congressional maps that boost Republicans as they look to grow their slim majority next year. But with limited options to redraw maps in blue states outside Gov. Gavin Newsom’s effort in California, the courtroom presents the party’s best hope of countering Trump’s aggressive strategy.

The specifics differ from state to state, but taken together they will demonstrate some of Democrats’ long-held strategies in redistricting cases, namely arguing Republicans are suppressing voters of color and engaging in partisan gerrymandering with their proposed maps.

The courtroom challenges are largely organized by the National Redistricting Foundation, the legal arm of the National Democratic Redisctricting Committee — led by former Attorney General Eric Holder. The group declined to share how much it is prepared to spend on these cases, citing ongoing litigation, but is making an early and concentrated push with the tacit backing of Barack Obama, who headlined a fundraiser for the groups in August.

Legal challenges are “the final backstop,” said John Bisognano, president of the NDRC. “The courts are an underappreciated tool for fighting back to preserve our democracy.”

[…]

While the courts offer a glimmer of hope for Democrats seeking to thwart the Republican efforts, rulings in their favor are no sure thing.

“The path through the courts has always been an uphill battle,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount who specializes in election law. “Litigation is slow and cumbersome and not anybody’s first best option ever.”

Past redistricting cases have been split for Democrats, especially after a 2019 Supreme Court ruling that limited the role federal courts play in partisan gerrymandering cases. That has left Voting Rights Act claims as their best chance in federal court, even as the Supreme Court is set to hear a case this fall that could gut key provisions of the landmark civil rights era legislation.

Perhaps nowhere are Democrats more familiar with the twists and turns of a prolonged legal battle than Ohio, where the prior map-making process was volleyed back and forth between the state legislature and courts for years. Ohio Democrats are gearing up for the likelihood of another fight as the state legislature begins the process of writing new maps, and they’re watching to see if the GOP reaches for three new seats – a configuration Democrats believe stands to violate requirements around how tightly the boundaries of districts can be drawn.

“Our legal team here will be monitoring the redistricting process very, very carefully, as we did the last cycle,” said Jocelyn Rosnick, policy director at the ACLU of Ohio. The organization will likely join any suit against Ohio’s effort as it did in 2021.

But this time around, Democrats are facing a more conservative composition of the state Supreme Court that could impede their success: Republicans have consolidated power on the court since the 2021 map challenge, and now hold six out of the seven seats.

An even steeper uphill battle in the courts has Democrats and fair voting groups considering another option in Ohio: mounting a referendum campaign to repeal whatever map Republicans in the state legislature settle on. That too would be an expensive and difficult undertaking, but the national attention on redistricting — and the Democratic party’s desperation to counter the GOP — would provide a boost.

See here for the latest on the Texas redistricting litigation. I can’t comment on what might happen in other states, but at least there are some ways to throw sand in the gears that doesn’t depend on what the Fifth Circuit and the corrupt group of SCOTUS muckety-mucks do. The best outcome here that I think has a plausible chance is for the district court to put an injunction on the use of the new map until they can go through the full litigation process and come to a decision. Which, as we have observed, has taken over four years and still counting for the 2021 maps. Just being denied the use of the new map for this election would be a big deal. That assumes that the higher courts would leave such a restriction in place. Recent history strongly suggests that they would not. But maybe, just maybe, this situation, in which the state is making the exact opposite arguments about the districts it’s defending as it had just made in the original case, is sufficiently weird that they’d rather not screw with it. I make that at best a one in five shot, but at least it’s not zero. Unless I’m really deluding myself, which could be the case. But that’s how I see it, for now. Ask me again after the hearing in October.

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More on Elon’s flood tunnels

Posted on September 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Insecure man makes defensive response to fair questions about his wild idea. Film at 11.

Japanese flood tunnel

Billionaire Elon Musk is taking issue with a recent investigation by the Houston Chronicle and The Texas Newsroom that raised questions about a flood tunnel project he’s pitching to address Houston’s chronic flooding woes. But experts said his response, which he did not explain to the newsrooms, isn’t supported by facts or data.

Last month, the newsrooms reported that Musk’s tunneling company, The Boring Co., has been lobbying elected officials for months to allow it to build tunnels under Houston for flood mitigation. Boring has proposed digging two 12-foot-wide tunnels beneath Buffalo Bayou — the main waterway running through central Houston — to carry stormwater out of neighborhoods and toward the Gulf of Mexico during major storms. Experts say, however, that larger tunnels, closer to 30 to 40 feet in diameter, could carry far more water and be more effective.

Musk and representatives with Boring did not respond to interview requests or answer questions the newsrooms sent in advance of last month’s story about whether Boring’s smaller tunnels would be able to handle the scale of floodwater Houston is likely to encounter in the future.

Instead, Musk waited until hours after the story published to post a response on X, the social media company he’s owned since 2022.

“Boring Company tunnels will work and cost <10% of alternatives,” his Aug. 28 post read. “If more flow is needed, additional tunnels can be built and furthermore they can be route water from many parts of the city, not just one.” The post was written in response to a post on X from U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Houston Republican who helped arrange private meetings with government officials in Harris County and across the state to sell them on Boring’s flood tunnel plan. Hunt also did not respond to questions from the newsrooms ahead of publication of the original story, but he weighed in on X after the story was published. “A lifelong Houstonian and Texas Congressman spoke to the smartest man on planet earth about solving a generational flooding issue in our city that no one else will fix,” Hunt wrote.

Musk’s post offered no data or engineering explanation to back up his assertions. So the newsrooms examined his statements, comparing them against flood studies, and interviewed engineering experts, some of whom pointed out key technical and logistical challenges with the Boring plan.

One of Musk’s claims is likely false, and the others are not yet possible to verify with certainty, according to the newsrooms’ examination.

Again, when the newsrooms pressed Musk and Boring representatives to explain the tech billionaire’s claims, they did not respond. Nor did Hunt.

See here for the background. It’s a gift article, so read on for the details. The TL;dr of it all is basically “there are some ideas worth looking at here, but we will need to do our due diligence to see how well they might work for us and at what cost, and just shouting “nuh uh” when someone questions anything doesn’t help”. The story uses a lot more words than that, and you should read them.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A pair of CD18 polls

Posted on September 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I am just passing these along out of curiosity. Special election polling is very tricky since you just don’t know what the electorate will look like. These are internal campaign polls, which are always inherently suspect. Nobody is particularly visible in the campaign yet, at least not in the spaces I inhabit. Take the following with however much salt you deem appropriate.

From Rep. Jolanda Jones:

Rep. Jolanda Jones

State Representative Jolanda Jones, the leading candidate in the November 4 special election to replace Congressman Sylvester Turner in Texas’ historic 18th Congressional District, released a new poll today that shows Jones in first place.

The poll, conducted by BluePrint polling on Monday and Tuesday of this week, shows Jones with a solid lead, followed by Republican Maria Montiel:

25.3% Democrat Jolanda Jones

18.9% Republican Maria Montiel

13.9% Democrat Christian Menefee

9.7% Democrat Amanda Edwards

3.5% Democrat Isaiah Martin

2.0% Independent George Foreman IV

1.9% Someone else

24.9% Undecided

Jones said: “No one will fight harder than I to stop Republicans from taking away our social security, our public schools, our health care, our constitutional rights, and more. I’ve proven I can stand up to Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, the FBI and the Texas Rangers. I am grateful that voters are seeing what it looks like when Democrats fight back.”

A copy of the polling memo is here. The email with this poll hit my inbox on Thursday. As noted, no comments from me on either of these.

From Christian Menefee:

Christian Menefee

A new poll conducted by Lake Research Polling shows Christian Menefee maintaining his position at the top of the field in the upcoming special election for Texas’s 18th Congressional District, tied for first place with Jolanda Jones at 22% each. This reinforces what multiple polls have consistently shown – Menefee remains a frontrunner in a competitive race that will be decided by which campaign can most effectively reach voters in the compressed special election timeline.

“Our polling has consistently shown us ahead throughout this race, and it confirms that voters want a proven fighter with the experience to deliver results from day one,” said Menefee. “We know we have a winning message and incredible grassroots support across this district, along with endorsements from 17 different labor unions, along with groups like the Oak Forest Democrats, Greater Heights Democrats, Tejano Democrats, and the Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus. What’s clear is that this special election will come down to which campaign can reach every voter in the next few weeks, and I’m committed to working as hard as possible to earn every vote.”

The poll shows Menefee with a +29 point net favorability rating, leading all candidates and significantly outpacing Jones’s +22 point rating. When voters heard positive information about the leading candidates, Menefee took first place solidly outside the margin of error, demonstrating the power of his record standing up to Donald Trump, defending communities, and delivering results. Amanda Edwards polled at 15%, trailing both frontrunners outside the margin of error.

“This poll confirms what we’ve known all along – when voters hear about our record, they know I’m the fighter they want in Congress,” Menefee added. “But I’m not taking any vote for granted. I’ll keep working every single day to reach as many voters as possible because that’s how we win this race and deliver for the people of this district.”

A copy of that poll’s memo is here. It reached me on Friday. I’m sure it won’t be the last poll I hear about.

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Some uses of police overtime are more sensible than others

Posted on September 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I have three things to say about this.

As thousands of protesters gathered at Houston City Hall earlier this year during the No Kings protest against President Donald Trump’s multimillion-dollar military parade, Houston police leaders spent more than $102,000 on police overtime to ensure there were enough officers on hand to maintain peace.

So if police spent more than $100,000 for an planned, nationally coordinated protest featuring up to 15,000 protesters and around 204 officers, what do they do when an estimated 500,000 people come to Houston for the world’s premier soccer tournament? Police leaders’ spending and planning for a comparatively moderate-sized event like the protest in June, shown through an open records request, provides insight into the size and scope of planning for major events, like the FIFA World Cup and the Republican National Convention and another No Kings protest due to descend on the city in the coming months and years.

Houston police’s overtime costs reached a new high of $74 million this fiscal year, which ran from May 2024 to April 2025. That’s up 26% from the previous fiscal year and eclipses the city’s police overtime budget of about $45 million.

Other agency initiatives, such as traffic enforcement, have been major drivers for the steady uptick in overtime spending, an issue experts say will only get worse in coming years.

[…]

Whereas the No Kings protest drew thousands of people in front of city hall, events like the World Cup and the RNC can attract tens to hundreds of thousands more. The 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee, for instance, brought 50,000 people to the city and the police department spent more than $1.6 million in overtime staffing the event. More than 74,000 people attended the last NCAA Final Four in Houston.

Officials with the Houston Police Department declined to answer follow-up questions about the agency’s overtime spending on major events, instead urging the Chronicle to file open records requests for any additional information. Mayor John Whitmire’s office did not respond to requests for comment about how the city is planning to budget for future overtime.

But at least one retired supervisor at the agency said the bill from the No Kings event was not atypical. Gregory Fremin, a retired captain from the Houston Police Department, said major events cost the agency lots of overtime funding, with presidential visits being among the most expensive.

1. We could, perhaps, spend less on police presence for the various anti-Trump rallies that will continue to occur, as they by now have a pretty long history of being peaceful. Unless, of course, the point is to keep the protesters safe from violent counter-protesters. I do support that.

2. I don’t know what the mechanisms are for cities to get some form of reimbursement for the law enforcement and related expenses they incur when hosting a major event like the World Cup. I suppose all that is wrapped up in the bid the cities make for hosting them, and if they don’t cover that in some way it’s on them. That said, I have to think that the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority and any other committee involved in the planning and execution of this event should have some plan to at least defray these costs. A lot of rich folks are going to be paying a lot of money to watch these games. Make good use of that.

3. Whatever the case with the first two points, we really need to get our police overtime costs under control. We spend plenty on HPD to begin with, and we don’t have that kind of slack in the city budget.

UPDATE: From Jeremy Wallace:

Up: FIFA World Cup.

With Dallas and Houston hosting a combined 16 matches in next year’s world soccer showcase, police in both communities are going to be pressed to their limits to provide security. But they won’t be completely on their own. Under a big spending bill passed by Congress this summer, there is a provision that will include $625 million for FIFA World Cup security costs around the nation. The White House has made clear the money is aimed at helping all 11 host cities in the U.S. cover police overtime and other security equipment for the World Cup. Reporter Matt DeGrood looked at how Houston has already been struggling with big police overtime costs for other events.

Good to know. Just as long as it’s not subject to “recission”.

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A brief gondola check-in

Posted on September 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

California dreamin’.

Courtesy city of Anaheim, via the LA Times

Internal emails, contracts, and PowerPoint presentations obtained by The Anaheim Investigator through the public records act reveal city planners are exploring the option of constructing an aerial gondola system to connect the Platinum Triangle with the Anaheim Resort in preparation for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

The proposed gondola system, which a recent estimate suggests will cost up to $125.7 million, would be built by Swyft Cities, a crowdfunded high-tech startup based in northern California, and begin at a station near the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, a transit hub located close to the Honda Center and Angel Stadium.

While the final route has yet to be decided, there seems to be interest in an alignment running east-west along Katella Avenue featuring six stops. At Harbor Boulevard, the line would split into two branches, each ending near the eastern entrances of Disneyland, California Adventure theme parks and the Anaheim Convention Center.

[…]

Last December, Swyft Cities shared a PowerPoint presentation indicating that their gondola system—comprising of a fleet of around 35 “pods”—could be implemented at an estimated cost of roughly $33 to $37 million. This equated to just under $11 million per mile, subject to variation based on final design and alignment considerations.

“This proposal is substantially cheaper than ATN’s BRT proposal,” noted one city planner, making reference to $70 million the Anaheim Transportation Network is planning to invest in a bus rapid transit system and associated mobility hubs to accommodate the expected influx of tourists during the 2028 Summer Olympics.

But by July, their estimate had changed drastically. In another PowerPoint presentation Swyft Cities submitted that same month–of which the City of Anaheim paid them a $20,000 consulting fee to produce–they reported the gondola system would now cost $125.7 million, or $33 million per mile. It is not known why these numbers tripled.

As of today, no source of funds has been identified to pay for this system. However, one slide included in the July PowerPoint presentation says that financing could come from public-private partnerships, grants, and the California Infrastructure & Economic Development Bank, a public entity owned and operated by the state.

It should be mentioned that Anaheim isn’t the only local city looking at aerial gondolas. The San Francisco Chronicle reported the City of Irvine is working closely with Swyft Cities on developing one that will ferry visitors around the Great Park, a recreational area being built on land previously occupied by a Marine Corps Air Station.

Emails reveal city planners here reached out to their Irvine counterparts to learn more about it. “I wanted to check in to see if you have cost estimates or any other useful information to share in your due diligence on Swyft Cities,” wrote Rudy Emami, public works director, in a March 11th message to Sean Crumby, who held a similar job in that town.

While “key stakeholders” like OCVibe have quietly expressed enthusiasm for the gondola system, its implementation is not a foregone conclusion. Because Swyft Cities has never delivered a fully operational system, there are concerns about its ability to fulfill its promises–putting taxpayer money at risk of significant cost overruns and system failure.

See here, here, and here for previous gondola blogging. As of last October, when we heard about Swyft Cities’ conversation with Sugar Land, the time frame for getting something built was “one to two years”. I’m waiting to see if there are any updates on that. This would aim to be ready for the 2028 Olympics, so that’s less than three years to have something in place, so probably at most two and a half years to finish it. Either we’ll start seeing these things pop up in various locations – a Google news search for “Whoosh gondola” found some similar stories for other cities in recent months – or it will end up another clever flash in the pan. I’d rooting for the former – I will absolutely visit Sugar Land to take a ride on one of these things – but we’ll see. The LA Times and Urbanize LA have more.

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Weekend link dump for September 14

Posted on September 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“We’re not just talking about soap and water here. The best way to be clean online is to turn your daily wash into an endless assembly line of products that you can show off as part of a collection.”

“This is the first thing we are told about worship and prayer and and praise and sacrifice. That seems important. But it also seems confusing.”

Sorry, Staten Island. Trump doesn’t care about you, either.

“GOP Cries Censorship Over Spam Filters That Work”.

“LinkedIn is trying to help put a stop to recruitment scams by requiring anyone with a recruitment-related job title to verify their place of employment.”

“Underscoring how common the practice is, ProPublica found that at least three of Trump’s Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages.”

“[DOGE] could have worked to modernize Social Security’s legacy software, the current and former staffers say. They could have tried to streamline the stupefying volume of documentation that many Social Security beneficiaries have to provide. They could have built search tools to help staff navigate the agency’s 60,000 pages of policies. (New hires often need at least three years to master the nuances of even one type of case.) They could have done something about wait times for disability claims and appeals, which often take over a year. They did none of these things.”

“On marketplaces like Etsy, where women-owned small businesses have been able to flourish, sellers are now managing tariffs as high as 50 percent on goods from countries like India, a major source market for jewelry and apparel manufacturers. Stress and anxiety are running high.”

RIP, AMY Martin, former Harris County criminal court judge.

“Kennedy is a threat to the well-being of the American citizenry. That’s why House Democrats should move to impeach him.”

Three cheers for Kent Broussard, living his marching band dream.

“Not to be too naive about the freakin’ NFL being profit-motivated, but commercials on RedZone are a betrayal. They’re a betrayal not just of general customer–business dynamics in media but of RedZone’s specific value proposition to its customers.”

“A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $83.3 million jury award against President Donald Trump for defaming magazine writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019.”

“A lot of you owe Sabrina Carpenter an apology for how you reacted to the ‘Man’s Best Friend’ cover”.

“A House committee Monday released a trove of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that included a lewd note President Donald Trump is alleged to have sent as part of a collection of messages for the late convicted sex offender’s 50th birthday more than two decades ago.”

“Scientists have discovered a previously unknown quasi-moon that’s been shadowing Earth’s orbit for decades, undetected, and will likely remain there for a few decades more. The quasi-moon, named 2025 PN7, is one of around seven quasi-satellites that share Earth’s orbit around the Sun.” I did not know there was such a thing as a “quasi-moon”, which is not the same as a “mini-moon”, another thing that I did not know was a thing before reading this story. We have lots of songs about the moon, now I need someone to write me a song about a quasi-moon.

And speaking of things that I did not know were a thing…Congratulations, I guess?

“And this is what we’ve all got to think about and understand, because right now we have a government intent on doing many, many things no legitimate government can or should ever have permission to do. Our job — our responsibility — is to deny them that permission in every way we can.”

“Not only is it false to say Tylenol causes autism, it’s really dangerous. If people are hesitant to take Tylenol in pregnancy, it’s really concerning.”

RIP, Polly Holliday, actor best known for the TV show Alice.

“The 68-page lawsuit is an eye-popping indictment of the [FBI] by people who occupied some of its most senior and sensitive positions for years. The complaint claims Trump loyalists executed brazen political vendettas, lacked basic understanding of FBI management, were beholden to the whims of White House aides such as Stephen Miller and intentionally stoked fear among the workforce.”

“The verdict of the last 24 hours is pretty bad. You have Patel personally screwing up news about a potential suspect in custody, the kind of thing that might be a career-killer for any other agent in normal times. We’re so rightly shocked by the murder itself and so accustomed to the daily cavalcade of Trump administration nonsense that we’re inured to just how crazy a goof this was. When the Bureau first posted pictures of the new person of interest, I’m told, the email to contact with information was broken. No single goof tells us the state of the Bureau, but everything that has happened over the last 24 hours suggests the FBI is wrecked about as badly as you’d have imagined. The lawsuit fleshes out the backstory — the last 24 hours illustrates the results. We’re likely to see many more examples.”

“The Many Ways in Which the September 2 Caribbean Strike was Unlawful … and the Grave Line the Military Has Crossed”.

“As temperatures get higher, people tend to increase their added sugar consumption.”

RIP, Rick Davies, founder, keyboardist, and singer for the band Supertramp.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | 1 Comment

A brief note about another poll

Posted on September 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

From Texas Public Opinion Research:

Hey y’all, welcome back! In today’s TPOR installment, we’re diving into the findings from our latest poll on the 2026 Senate race—tracking voter preferences in a hypothetical Democratic primary, and examining the state of play in the Republican primary between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton. We’re also breaking down some fascinating data on general election preferences amongst voters in Texas.

Key Findings

  • Democratic Senate Primary: Former US Rep. Beto O’Rourke (27%) and US Rep. Jasmine Crockett (26%) lead a hypothetical Democratic primary, followed by former US Rep. Colin Allred (13%), State Representative James Talarico (7%), and US Rep. Joaquin Castro (4%). Eighteen percent of Democrats are undecided.
  • Republican Senate Primary: In a head-to-head matchup, US Sen. John Cornyn receives 32% support among Republicans, compared to 26% for State Attorney General Ken Paxton. Twenty-nine percent of Republicans are undecided, while 9% of GOP voters say that they would not vote in that race.
  • General Election Preferences: In a generic US Senate ballot, Republicans lead Democrats 48% to 43%; Republicans also hold similar, slight leads on generic ballots for Governor (49%–43%) and Attorney General (47%–44%).

The rest of the post expands on these three points, so I’ll leave it to you to read more as you see fit. I’m not a big fan of including undeclared candidates in a poll except in limited situations, like “potential challenger versus incumbent”. Most of the time these kind of polls largely recapitulate name ID. This poll does the interesting thing of comparing each Dem’s name ID number to their support in the hypothetical multi-way candidacy, which is a dimension I haven’t seen used before. Jasmine Crockett has made good use of her more-visible profile so far, at least among Dems. For that insight alone, I appreciate this poll. I also think James Talarico will become a lot better known, at least among Dem primary voters, pretty quickly.

There have been enough polls showing Cornyn improving his position against Paxton to make me think there’s been some movement in that race. Cornyn has been on the air – well, a national Republican PAC on behalf of Cornyn – mostly on football games where it’s hard for people like me to escape the ads, and I’m sure that has helped. Paxton, who probably doesn’t have the same amount of resources on his side yet, has not been able to counter yet. On the assumption that he will be advertising in the near-ish future, we’ll see what effect that may have.

Generic R-versus-D polls are also of questionable value, since actual races have actual candidates who bring pluses and minuses to those races, but they do tell us something. What this one says, not too surprisingly, is that the environment at this time is better for Dems than 2024 was. It would be nice to have a direct comparison to 2018, but we’re not going to get that. Next best will be other polls doing the same thing, so we can at least compare across them. By the time we get to the point of knowing who the candidates are, this won’t much matter anymore.

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Some reactions to the THC executive order

Posted on September 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron is not impressed.

By issuing an executive order banning THC products for minors, Gov. Greg Abbott ensured nobody would be fully satisfied.

When crafting legislation, that’s often a good thing. Compromise, by definition, means both sides don’t get everything they want. When Abbott vetoed a proposed ban on recreational marijuana, we joined scores of Texans in hoping it would lead to a grand bargain between the hemp lobby and prohibitionists that regulated weed much like we do alcohol.

But when a second special session ended without a bill regulating THC, Abbott decided to do it himself. The result is an imperfect regulatory framework that leaves plenty of open-ended questions, including whether this order is even legal. The last thing Texas needs is a descent into D.C.-style rule by executive order.

The good news is Abbott listened to some of our suggestions for treating weed like we do alcohol.

[…]

Things get murky in terms of where these retail shops can operate and the type of THC products they’re permitted to sell.

Abbott’s order also instructed the DSHS, TABC, and other agencies to prohibit stores within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, playgrounds, homeless shelters and treatment facilities. How broadly will state agencies define these boundaries? Will, for instance, any public space where children congregate count as a playground? Well-written legislation could have defined that term.

The order further instructs the agencies to create a system where cities and counties can hold “local option elections” that can ban certain retailers and possibly specific THC products. The TABC currently allows local governments to petition for elections to “decide the types of alcoholic beverages that can be sold in their communities.” It’s easy to imagine plenty of counties in Texas opting to go completely “dry” on selling hemp.

And if you’re looking for smokable flower hemp, you might be out of luck. Abbott’s order requires DSHS to test products for delta-9 THC as well as THCA. Delta-9 is what’s often sold by retailers, the psychoactive compound in cannabis that gets you high. THCA is the natural chemical precursor to delta-9, but becomes psychoactive when “heated.” That could, in effect, ban smokable flower products. Abbott told reporters in July he wanted to ensure hemp-based products “do not exceed three milligrams of THC content,” but his order stops short of determining a legal dosage for these compounds, leaving that in the hands of DSHS and TABC.

There’s also a question of paying for all of this. Abbott directs DSHS and TABC to identify “sources of funding” for enforcing these new regulations, either from existing revenue or potentially new fees. Whether state agencies can unilaterally create new taxes will, presumably, come up if this order is challenged in court. Again, these are the sorts of determinations that the Texas Constitution places in the hands of elected lawmakers in the Texas Capitol, not anonymous Austin bureaucrats.

See here for the background. I largely agree with their take, though I’m not as worried about the executive overreach since Abbott mostly just gave direction to the agencies that would already have a say in this. I agree that legislation would be the much better route to go here, but given the makeup of the Legislature right now, that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

And the reason for that is mostly one person, who is not named in the Chron editorial.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is furious that Gov. Greg Abbott won’t go full prohibition on THC, unloading a 2,000-word tirade Friday that makes D.A.R.E. pamphlets look subtle. But don’t worry — Patrick insists this is not “a personal fight with the governor,” just a “disagreement on extremely important policy.”

Yep, just a completely normal, not-at-all-personal rant accusing Abbott of greenlighting what he essentially described as dangerous, brain-melting “irreversible damage” to children’s brains… via gummies.

For background, Abbott this week issued an executive order banning THC sales to minors, directing state agencies to tighten enforcement, and setting the stage for a regulatory framework. Basically: Card kids at the counter, slap some labels on gummies, and let agencies figure out the rest.

“The governor mentions in his executive order that he wants people 21 and over to ‘enjoy’ THC,” Patrick wrote, in his tirade. “For most people who buy these products, ‘enjoy’ means getting high. If they are not getting high, why are they buying any THC product?”

Patrick has called THC products a “poison in our public” and wants nothing less than a scorched-earth ban. In his release, he accused the governor of giving the THC industry the “state seal of approval” and warned that kids will still be gobbling mislabeled Delta-8 sold at shops conveniently near schools — despite the fact that many retailers in the state already prohibited sales to minors and check identification for that express purpose. Patrick, however, also cited undercover cops in Dallas who claimed smoke shop clerks warn customers the products could literally kill them.

Patrick rattled off all the ways Abbott’s order supposedly fails: no ban on Delta-8 or Delta-10 THC products, no ban on smokables, no limit on potencies, no restriction on location.

“We have age limits on alcohol and cigarettes, but we know that does not stop kids from getting them either,” said Patrick, with no evidence. “The difference here is that one highly potent THC product can cause irreversible damage to a young person’s mind forever.”

I mean, one way forward on this is for someone else to be Lite Guv in 2027. That’s not enough, because the Senate is full of Patrick minions, who will surely carry his torch going forward, but it’s a good start. Maybe some of those Republicans who claim to be pro-weed can start finding primary opponents for the likes of Charles Perry and so forth. We Dems will be happy to take out Patrick next year (you’ll need to help us with that), but some of those Senate districts are gonna have to be on you.

One group is happy and they know it.

Hemp industry stakeholders let out a sigh of relief, hopeful that there’s no third special session, and the impassioned efforts of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick will take a hiatus until the next Legislative Regular Session at the earliest.

“It feels good,” Hayden Meek, owner of Delta 8 Denton, said. “We got beat down a lot along the way. But we also had our victories along the way. And overall, it feels like a win.”

Meek had worried about potentially having to shutter in the event of a blanket THC ban, a reality for thousands of Texans working in the industry that Patrick would have gutted had he been given the chance.

The executive order bans the sale of THC products to minors, mandates ID checking for sales, introduces stricter labeling requirements, and imposes stiffer fees for businesses.

“These are the kinds of accountability checks that are so necessary in this industry, which has exploded in the last few years,” said Heather Fazio, director of the Texas Cannabis Policy Center. “I love to see Texans being able to enjoy cannabis products without fear of being arrested and licensed, regulated businesses operating and selling high-quality products. I think that’s what we see for the most part.”

The best way for y’all to keep feeling that euphoria you’re now experiencing is to make sure Dan Patrick is not presiding over the Senate in 2027. Hemp retailers and cannabis lobbyists have a lot riding on that. What are you going to do about it? If you sit on your hands and we’re facing down another ban in a year and a half, don’t come crying to me.

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Say “no” to AI music

Posted on September 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Ugh.

When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot.

McCann’s songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There’s just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians.

“I have no musical talent at all,” he said. “I can’t sing, I can’t play instruments, and I have no musical background at all.”

McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with AI to see if it could boost his creativity and “bring some of my lyrics to life.” Last month, he signed with independent record label Hallwood Media after one of his tracks racked up 3 million streams, in what’s billed as the first time a music label has inked a contract with an AI music creator.

McCann is an example of how ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI.

It fueled debate about AI’s role in music while raising fears about “AI slop” — automatically generated low quality mass produced content. It also cast a spotlight on AI song generators that are democratizing song making but threaten to disrupt the music industry.

Experts say generative AI is set to transform the music world. However, there are scant details, so far, on how it’s impacting the $29.6 billion global recorded music market, which includes about $20 billion from streaming.

The most reliable figures come from music streaming service Deezer, which estimates that 18% of songs uploaded to its platform every day are purely AI generated, though they only account for a tiny amount of total streams, hinting that few people are actually listening. Other, bigger streaming platforms like Spotify haven’t released any figures on AI music.

[…]

Some users say the debate is just a rehash of old arguments about once-new technology that eventually became widely used, such as AutoTune, drum machines and synthesizers.

People complain “that you’re using a computer to do all the work for you. I don’t see it that way. I see it as any other tool that we have,” said Scott Smith, whose AI band, Pulse Empire, was inspired by 1980s British synthesizer-driven groups like New Order and Depeche Mode.

Smith, 56 and a semi-retired former U.S. Navy public affairs officer in Portland, Oregon, said “music producers have lots of tools in their arsenal” to enhance recordings that listeners aren’t aware of.

Like McCann, Smith never mastered a musical instrument. Both say they put lots of time and effort into crafting their music.

Once Smith gets inspiration, it takes him just 10 minutes to write the lyrics. But then he’ll spend as much as eight to nine hours generating different versions until the song “matches my vision.”

McCann said he’ll often create up to 100 different versions of a song by prompting and re-prompting the AI system before he’s satisfied.

AI song generators can churn out lyrics as well as music, but many experienced users prefer to write their own words.

“AI lyrics tend to come out quite cliche and quite boring,” McCann said.

It’s hard to overstate how terrible a lot of AI music is. You should listen to this episode of What Next TBD to get the full flavor of that. I’m sure there’s some worthwhile stuff out there, but the crap factor is very high.

That said, I do have some sympathy for the “everyone complains about the use of new technology” argument. Synths and drum machines are indeed perfectly respectable and respected instruments these days – let’s be honest, though, AutoTune is still trash. I don’t know enough about their use as song generators to compare them to AI tools, which mostly have more user-friendly interfaces. I’ve taken enough AI classes at this point to know that using it for generating ideas or first drafts is greatly overrated, but I’ve never tried to write a song. I do my best to be open minded and receptive to new music – having kids who love music and make you listen to what they like really helps with that – so I should at least try to be somewhat receptive to AI as a tool for inspiration.

But at some level, I will never respect it as much as anything created by a human. As a mediocre sax player since the sixth grade, I know what it takes for people to make music. Give me a band and/or a singer every damn time.

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A brief note about a poll

Posted on September 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This poll.

Only one-third of Texas voters approve of the GOP-led effort to redraw the state’s congressional map, according to a recent statewide poll, which found that independent and Democratic voters overwhelmingly opposed the mid-decade redistricting and would rather give control of Texas’ political maps to an appointed commission.

Just 13% of independent voters approve of state lawmakers redrawing the congressional map, while 41% are against it, according to the survey released Tuesday by the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. Overall, 34% of voters said they approved and 41% said they disapproved of the effort, with nearly two-thirds of Republicans voicing support.

The new map, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on Aug. 29, aims to net five GOP seats in the 2026 midterms. The poll surveyed 1,200 voters across Texas between Aug. 22 and Sept. 1, going into the field just before lawmakers sent the map to Abbott’s desk.

The Texas Politics Project poll also measured where Texas voters stand on a range of other issues, including the GOP’s tax and spending megabill approved earlier this summer. The majority of Democrats and independents have decidedly negative opinions about the legislation, fueling its underwater rating — 32% approval vs. 45% disapproval — among statewide voters.

Republicans polled had more favorable views. Sixty-five percent of GOP voters approve of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, with 28% expressing strong approval.

Few voters expect the megabill to actually lower their taxes and health care costs. Democrats and independents think the bill will increase how much they pay, according to the poll. Almost half of Republicans expect the bill to lower taxes, but just 21% said they anticipated lower health care costs.

Texans are also concerned about the rising prices of food and consumer goods, especially as the impacts of Trump’s tariffs loom, the poll found. Only about a quarter of voters said their economic circumstances are better off now than they were a year ago.

We’ve seen plenty of polls in recent years in which an issue question gets a favorable result for Democrats. Pick an issue – guns, abortion, school finance – you can find plenty of such polls. The formula is strong but roughly equivalent and opposite levels of support from Dems and Republicans, and at least a plurality of indies siding with the Dems. That’s enough to tilt the issue towards the Dem position, sometimes with a small majority, sometimes with a plurality.

What caught my eye about this poll, at least on the redistricting question, is that Dems were more against it than Republicans were in favor of it, by a 78-65 margin. Compare that 65% Republican approval of redistricting – and the OBBBA, as noted – to the 85% GOP approval of Trump, or the 76% GOP approval of Greg Abbott. Where did that dropoff come from, and does it mean something?

Now to be sure, the Dems’ 78% disapproval of redistricting falls short of their 93% disapproval of Trump and 89% disapproval of Abbott. Some of this for sure is just a portion of voters not paying as much attention to the news as the rest of us do. But no matter how you look at it, the Dems have more intensity. Which in an off year election, one where Trump isn’t on the ballot – though he’s doing everything he can to put a thumb on it – might make a difference.

As always, this is one poll for one month. I haven’t studied the archives of the UT Politics Project, and I haven’t seen other results about this. It’s also many months before we vote, and a lot of things will happen between now and then. I’m just saying, for what it’s worth, that I noticed this.

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Paxton drops one gender affirming care lawsuit

Posted on September 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good, and bad at the same time.

One of the nation’s first doctors accused of illegally providing care to transgender youth under GOP-led bans was found to have not violated the law, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office says, nearly a year after the state sued the physician.

Dr. Hector Granados, a pediatric endocrinologist in El Paso, was called a “scofflaw” last year by Paxton’s office in a lawsuit that accused him of falsifying medical records and violating a Texas ban that took effect in 2023. More than two dozen states have prohibitions on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, but Texas was the first to bring cases against doctors, filing lawsuits against Granados and two other providers.

The cases against the other doctors, both in Dallas, remain ongoing. But Paxton’s office quietly withdrew its lawsuit last week against Granados, saying in a statement that “no legal violations were found” following a “review of the evidence and Granados’ complete medical records.”

Granados, who says Paxton’s office never reached out before suing him last October, said he wished the state had first let him show he had stopped providing gender-affirming care for youth before the law took effect.

“It was just out and then we had to do everything afterwards,” Granados said in an interview.

[…]

Harper Seldin, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said that even when a lawsuit is dropped, it still takes “an enormous toll” on those who have to defend themselves.

“I think this continues to be best understood as part of the Texas AG’s campaign to intimidate medical providers,” he said.

Granados said he was meticulous in halting gender-affirming care for youth before Texas’ ban took effect. He said that before the ban, treating transgender youth was just an extension of his practice that treats youth with diabetes, growth problems and early puberty.

He said that after the ban, he did continue to prescribe puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, but that those treatments were not for gender transition. Granados said they were for youth with endocrine disorders, which occur when hormone levels are too high or too low.

Texas’ lawsuit against Granados called him a “scofflaw who is harming the health and safety of Texas children.” It referenced a 2015 news article about transgender care that quoted Granados and medical articles he had written on the topic. Also listed in the lawsuit were details on unnamed patients, including their ages and what they had been prescribed, including testosterone.

In a court document filed in Cooper’s case, an attorney in Paxton’s office said they had subpoenaed provider reports for the doctor’s testosterone prescriptions from the Texas Prescription Monitoring Program.

Granados’ attorney, Mark Bracken, said that after entering into an agreed protective order with the state, they were able to confidentially produce patient records to show Granados had complied with the law.

Peter Salib, an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston Law Center, said that it’s “unusual” for a state to drop a case due to lack of violations after filing a lawsuit.

“They have a lot of opportunity to find out what is going on before they decide to bring a lawsuit,” he said.

See here for the background. I have no doubt that the policy at the AG’s office is “sue first and ask questions later”, because they get something out of it no matter what the outcome. It’s not like they’ll ever face a penalty for filing frivolous claims or just general harassment. This doesn’t mean that they other lawsuits they’ve filed won’t have different outcomes, just that we now know that they don’t make a habit of acting with care and diligence. Everything about this is terrible, most prominently the fact that state law allows for this hateful bullshit. The fact that this one doctor got out from under the state’s thumb in less than a year and minus only lawyer’s fees and his mental health is the smallest of consolations.

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THC vape pens are now illegal

Posted on September 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

For those who need to know.

Vapes containing THC and other hemp-derived cannabinoids like Delta-8 [are now] illegal to sell in Texas […] under a law passed earlier this year. Senate Bill 2024, while narrower than efforts to outlaw all THC products in Texas, drew far less attention as it moved through the Legislature.

SB 2024 makes it a Class A misdemeanor to market or sell any vape containing cannabinoids, even if the active ingredients would otherwise be legal under state and federal law. The penalty carries up to one year in jail and a fine of as much as $4,000. The law does not explicitly ban possession.

Supporters say the law is meant to keep cannabis vapes, which are small and easy to use discretely, out of the hands of teenagers. Opponents counter that it will fuel a black market and deprive adults of a safer and more convenient way of using cannabis.

[…]

The cannabinoid vape ban was tacked on to legislation that initially only targeted e-cigarettes disguised to look like pens, pencils, smartphones or other products found in schools. The law also prohibits selling or marketing vapes that contain alcohol, kratom, kava or mushrooms. And it outlaws vape products made in China or in any country designated as a foreign adversary of the United States.

[…]

The bill passed the Senate with only one dissenting vote. Sen. Molly Cook, D-Houston, a registered nurse, said her concern was how SB 2024 would punish any person who sold a prohibited vape.

“That means that the kid behind the counter, who is not a business owner, could be held accountable for a Class A misdemeanor, which means jail time for a lot of folks,” Cook said.

Cook, whose law to ban e-cigarette advertising near schools passed the Legislature and was signed by Gov. Abbott, said she’s “pretty much never ever, ever going to be OK with criminalizing something like cannabinoids or THC.”

“The folks who are good players, who want to put therapeutic products out there for people, they do go above and beyond,” Cook said. “When folks are asking you for safe rules and asking you how to follow them, we should give it to them.”

I’m with Senator Cook here. It is already illegal in Texas for minors to buy, possess, or use vapes, so this was about restricting their use for this purpose for adults. At the end of this special session – which, despite some promises from leadership that it would end by Labor Day, is still going on – we may have that overall ban on THC products anyway, or possibly greater restrictions and regulation. Or Dan Patrick will continue to refuse to budge and the House will fail to pass his ban bill and we’ll be back where we started. Whatever the case, if you vaped your THC products, you should have stocked up before Monday. Sorry about that.

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Let’s find a Democrat for CD35

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

We’ve gotta compete in these redrawn districts.

While a number of Republicans are eyeing [the redrawn CD35] — in addition to the Texas GOP’s preferred candidate — Democrats have been slow to line up for the open seat.

But San Antonio political consultants say it would be a mistake for Democrats not to put up a fight to keep the seat, which has been Democrat-held since its creation after the 2010 Census. They point to narrower GOP margins of victory in other Texas races in recent years — apart from Trump’s commanding showing in last year’s presidential contest.

Then-Vice President Kamala Harris “did so poorly in 2024 that it’s not an accurate partisan benchmark,” said Democratic political strategist Bert Santibañez.

Harris lost Texas by nearly 14 percentage points — which Santibañez considers an “outlier” compared to Democratic presidential nominees’ performance in previous election cycles. Joe Biden lost the state by 5.6 points in 2020 and Hillary Clinton by 9 points in 2016.

Under the new lines, Trump would have won the 35th District by less than 2 points in 2020, according to a San Antonio Express-News analysis.

Even in Texas’ U.S. Senate race in November, Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz would have won by less than 4 points to former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred under the new boundaries.

“Absolutely it’s still winnable,” said Andrew Solano, a political consultant who served as Rep. Lloyd Doggett’s San Antonio district director from 2013 to 2015 when the Austin Democrat represented the 35th District, which ran from Austin down Interstate 35 to San Antonio.

[…]

So far, only John Lira and Whitney Masterson-Moyes have filed statements of candidacy. A retired Marine, Lira was the 2022 Democratic nominee for Texas’ 23rd Congressional District. Masterson-Moyes owns a clay shooting club in Guadalupe County.

Beto Altamirano, a first-time candidate who came in third in San Antonio’s mayoral election in May, has been asked to consider running, said Solano, who worked as his campaign manager.

Altamirano showed himself to be a prolific fundraiser who energized younger voters.

Because the congressional district will now be anchored on San Antonio’s South Side, “there’s going to be a lot of electeds or former electeds for that area on the Democratic side who are going to take a look — as they should,” Solano said. “Anybody who has a base, current or former, of constituents should be looking at that race.”

One of those people is state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, a former San Antonio City Councilman for the Southeast Side’s District 3 who previously served in the Texas House of Representatives. He said he views the redrawn district as a “swing seat” and has been approached by people in Washington, D.C., about launching a campaign.

“We certainly are exploring all of our options,” Gutierrez said. “I have enjoyed representing the Southeast Side of San Antonio and South Texas for the better part of 20 years, and it has been my highest honor and privilege to do that.”

Former District 3 City Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran, who’s currently president and CEO of the South Texas Business Partnership, is seen as a potential contender.

Viagran sought the 35th District seat in the 2022 Democratic primary, coming in third. Casar won the party nomination.

She did not respond to a request for comment.

One San Antonio Democrat who was rumored to be considering running in the 35th District, state Rep. Philip Cortez, a former Southwest Side city councilman, said through a campaign spokesperson that he is “100% focused on winning reelection in his House district.”

I’m glad there are some candidates already and others in the mix. Neither Lira nor Masterson-Moyes excite me, and if they’re the only primary entrants or the top tier among them, I will consider this to be a failure, but there’s time. Any of Sen. Gutierrez, former Council Member Viagran, or Rep. Cortez (*) would be fine; I don’t know enough about Beto Altamirano to say for sure, but he could be in that group as well. The start of filing season will be here in about two months, so let’s get going. And let’s do the same exercise for CD09 while we’re at it, too.

On a related note.

When Republicans unveiled a new congressional map shrinking the number of Democratic districts in Texas, Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett was quick to announce he would run in the sole Austin-based district.

Doggett, a formidable incumbent with three decades in Congress, was planting a flag with the hope that his Austin counterpart Rep. Greg Casar would stay in his current district despite its new boundaries favoring Republicans. But Doggett’s move unexpectedly set off a powerful coalition that worked publicly and privately to support the younger congressman.

Three weeks after Doggett dug in on the promise to run again, he changed his mind, opting to retire at the end of his term and support Casar’s candidacy — a move that spared Democrats an expensive primary.

Doggett, 78, still believes he would have beaten Casar in a head to head, and he stands by his position that his colleague should have run in the newly-drawn Congressional District 35, a majority-Hispanic district in San Antonio and outlying counties that bears the same number as Casar’s current district but has little overlap with his constituents. But he realized in August that a race between the two of them would have been damaging.

“It would be a very demanding race for everybody involved,” Doggett said in an interview with The Texas Tribune about his decision, adding that even if he did win “it would still leave a community scarred and split. And that is a community I really care about. And so, I’m satisfied.”

We’ve discussed this before, and you can read on for who did what to bring this about. I agree that Rep. Casar would have been the best candidate for CD35, but I can hardly blame him for wanting a more favorable district, and I would have supported Casar over Doggett if it had come down to it as well. Not because of anything against Rep. Doggett, but sometimes you’ve got to change the guard. It absolutely sucks that this was forced on us, but barring a longshot intervention from the courts it’s where we are.

(*) Rep. Cortez has some baggage and would be easily my third choice, probably the fourth choice if Altamirano is a real possibility. But he has run and won multiple elections, and you have to take that seriously.

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Zoox to begin its robotaxi service

Posted on September 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Today Las Vegas, sometime later Austin and other cities.

Five years after its splashy $1.3 billion acquisition of Zoox, Amazon has officially entered the U.S. robotaxi race, which to date has been dominated by Alphabet’s Waymo.

Zoox’s first public launch kicks off Wednesday on the Las Vegas strip. The company is offering free rides from a few select locations, with plans to expand more broadly across the city in the coming months. Riders will eventually have to pay, but Zoox said it’s waiting on regulatory approval to take that step.

Amazon is jumping into a market that’s all about the future, but one where Waymo has a major head start, having offered commercial driverless rides since 2020. Earlier this year, Waymo said it surpassed 10 million paid rides, and the company now operates in five cities, with Dallas, Denver, Miami, Seattle and Washington, D.C., coming next year.

Tesla, meanwhile, began testing a limited robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, in June, though with human supervisors on board.

But unlike Waymo and Tesla, Zoox’s electric robotaxi doesn’t resemble a car. There’s no steering wheel or pedals, and the rectangular shape has led many in the industry to describe it as a toaster on wheels. Zoox co-founder and technology chief Jesse Levinson says, “We use robotaxi or vehicle or Zoox.”

“You can shoehorn a robotaxi into something that used to be a car. It’s just not an ideal solution,” Levinson told CNBC in an interview in Las Vegas. “We wanted to do that hard work and take the time and invest in that, and then bring something to market that’s just much better than a car.”

[…]

Zoox’s Las Vegas depot spans 190,000 square feet, which is about the size of three football fields. At the facility, the company houses the dozens of vehicles set to start operating around the city. Smartphone users will be able to order them from Top Golf, Area15, Resorts World Las Vegas, New York-New York Hotel & Casino and Luxor Hotel & Casino.

The robotaxi features two rows of seats that face each other and can transport up to four people at a time. The front and rear are identical, with bidirectional wheels that allow it to move forward or backward without turning around. The vehicle can run for 16 hours on a single charge.

Floor-to-ceiling windows provide a sightseeing experience for passengers who want a clear view of the endless rows of casinos. But the interior design is meant to enable easy conversation with fellow riders.

“It’s not a retrofitted car,” said Zoox CEO Aicha Evans. “It’s built from the ground up around the rider.”

I’ve compared the Zoox-mobiles to the microtransit shuttles that Metro is using around Houston, though I think those actually have room for six. I suppose there’s no reason why these things have to look like regular cars, assuming the public doesn’t seem them as too strange to take seriously. I’m sure it’s cheaper to manufacture them like this, and that may be a competitive edge for them. The current route map in Vegas is about the size of our microtransit service areas, too. Maybe these things won’t be safe to drive on highways, or even higher-speed thoroughfares. If so, that’s certainly a limiting factor. I don’t know enough about their model yet to draw any conclusions.

More details from TechCrunch:

The company spent six years developing its technology before unveiling its purpose-built, electric, autonomous robotaxis. Zoox then began testing its cube-like vehicles on public streets in Las Vegas in 2023. Initially, the test area was a one-mile loop around the neighborhood where its Las Vegas facilities are located in the southwest region of the city. The testing area inevitably grew to encompass the public streets around its depot, the length of the Strip, and some of the roads adjacent to it.

Earlier this year, the Foster City, California, company launched a Zoox Explorer program — a limited pilot aimed at early public riders, in Las Vegas. Wednesday’s launch opens the service up to any adult who downloads the Zoox app on iOS and Android devices.

While the new robotaxi service covers the Las Vegas Strip, riders cannot be picked up or dropped off just anywhere. For now, the service can only be accessed at five designated pickup and drop-off destinations, including Las Vegas landmarks like Resorts World Las Vegas, AREA15, Topgolf, New York New York, and Luxor. A Zoox spokesperson said the company will continue adding new destinations in the coming months.

It’s unclear how long these rides will be free as the company said it needed “regulatory approval” before it could charge for them. While Zoox doesn’t explicitly list which regulations it needs to meet, the requirement is likely connected to a recent agreement with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency that oversees vehicle safety standards.

Last month, the NHTSA gave Zoox an exemption to demonstrate its custom-built robotaxis on public roads. That decision cleared up a long-standing debate over whether Zoox’s custom-built autonomous vehicles complied with federal motor vehicle safety standards, which typically require vehicles to have features like a steering wheel and pedals. But for now, the exemption only allows Zoox to demonstrate the robotaxis, not operate them commercially.

They’ve been testing in Austin since last July, and Miami for as long. They’re building a fleet operations depot in Austin as well. I have to think it won’t be too long till they take the training wheels off, assuming they don’t have any regulatory hurdles to clear. Avride, ADMT, and Motional are also out there, presumably wanting to not fall further behind. Reuters, the Associated Press, and the Las Vegas Sun have more.

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Abbott bans THC for those under 21

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Why didn’t we just do this first?

THC products will remain largely legal in Texas, but will be banned for minors and current regulations further enforced under a new executive order by Gov. Greg Abbott.

Abbott on Wednesday directed the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Alcoholic Beverage Commission to ban the sales of THC products to minors.

Abbott’s order requires these agencies to immediately start their rule-making processes to create the age limit, but does not prescribe when the restriction must take effect. Abbott’s order also doesn’t specify the age threshold, though he has previously called on lawmakers to prohibit such products for those under 21. The Texas Tribune has reached out to his office to clarify.

In addition, DSHS has to start reviewing current rules within 10 business days to possibly add stricter labeling and testing requirements, improve recordkeeping to facilitate oversight, as well as increase licensing fees to support enforcement. The order also calls for DSHS and TABC to work with the Department of Public Safety to increase enforcement on existing rules.

The governor also requires DSHS, TABC, the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and other relevant agencies to jointly look at how to create a comprehensive regulatory framework. He pointed to House Bill 309 from the second special session as a model. Authored by Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, the proposal would have created a Texas Hemp Council to study and develop rules for THC products and establish hemp testing and licensing requirements, among other restrictions.

“Texas will not wait when it comes to protecting children and families,” Abbott said in a news release. “While these products would still benefit from the kind of comprehensive regulation set by the Texas Legislature for substances like alcohol and tobacco, my executive order makes sure that kids are kept safe and parents have peace of mind now, and that consumers know the products they purchase are tested and labeled responsibly.”

The executive order was teased by the Trib on Tuesday. I’m basically fine with this – it’s perfectly reasonable to me to treat THC more or less the same as alcohol – I’m just wondering why we had to go through all this drama to get here. Dan Patrick made it clear that he was never going to budge on passing a full ban on THC, and he had plenty of support for that in the Senate. I’m not sure if Abbott thought he would win the legislative staredown with Patrick or if he just never thought it through, but either way here we are.

Of course it is preferable to legislate these things, so I can’t be too mad about Abbott trying to go that route. Maybe, since Patrick and the Republicans in the Senate are so out of touch with popular sentiment, it’s time to put some effort into making that chamber more THC-friendly. I’m sure Abbott could think of ways to do that, if he put his mind to it. The Chron has more.

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Less funding for homelessness means more homeless

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It’s just math.

An annual survey of the homeless population in the Houston area suggested that the region — which has attracted international attention for its ability to reduce homelessness — is at an inflection point.

As the emergency funding that it had used to quickly move individuals off the streets into housing has run out, progress in reducing the size of the homeless population stalled, and the share of people who have been homeless for a year or more increased.

Leaders in the efforts to reduce homelessness are calling for more funding, as well as more sustainable money sources, to prevent the number from growing even further. Kelly Young, head of the Coalition for the Homeless in Houston and Harris County, pointed to the region’s successful use of emergency funding as proof that more funds could once again make a dent.

“We use money effectively and efficiently,” she said. While homelessness in the Houston region has flatlined in recent years, it’s still down one-sixth from the start of the pandemic. In contrast, homelessness nationwide surged by a third.

When the pandemic broke loose, unleashing with it an influx of federal emergency funding, homeless organizations used that funding to quickly move individuals off the streets, leading to a 21% drop in homelessness between 2020 and 2022.

In the years since, homelessness has increased by 6%, according to the count. Volunteers counted about 3,330 people this January living in shelters, on the streets or in other places not meant for habitation, up from roughly 3,120 in 2022.

The survey differentiates people who live in shelters from people who live in other places not meant for habitation, such a on sidewalks or in tents, cars or abandoned buildings. Volunteers counted about 1,280 unsheltered individuals — a 16% percent increase from the roughly 1,110 people the January before.

[…]

But as resources have dwindled, so has the number of people homeless organizations are moving off the streets into housing. In 2024, the Houston region relocated more than 2,330 people into housing, a decrease of one-third from the nearly 3,630 people housed in 2023.

The slight increase in overall homelessness comes after Mayor John Whitmire in November announced a $70 million-a-year plan to end street homelessness in Houston.

The city did not respond to questions regarding the current status of funding. As of June, housing department officials reported the city had given $23 million, METRO up to $10 million a year and Houston First up to $2.6 million a year to pull off the effort. Officials are still seeking $60 million in donations for a plan that they estimate will cost $210 million through 2027.

Houston has also requested that HUD allocate $40 million of the $314 million intended to recover from Hurricane Beryl and the 2024 derecho toward the homelessness plan. That plan has not yet been approved by HUD, which will have 45 days to review the proposal after it is submitted by Sept. 19.

Harris County housing officials said Monday they had pledged $16 million toward addressing homelessness.

The $70 million-a-year plan would be in addition to the annual funds that HUD has long channeled to homeless prevention. The Trump administration has proposed significant changes to funding and how it could be used, and it remains to be seen what Congress will enact for the 2026 fiscal year budget.

I don’t expect things to get better in the short term, despite the Mayor’s pledge. We’re not going to get any real help from the federal government, which at this time would rather these folks all get locked up. Longer term mitigations include building a lot more and more-affordable housing, more direct financial help for lower income folks, more services for mental health and drug addition (which among other things will require expanding Medicaid in Texas and fully funding the rest of the program nationally), and more. Again, it will get worse before it gets better. It’s good we made the progress that we did here, but it will be harder to keep up for now.

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The Summer Willis Act

Posted on September 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Too much of what we got from the Legislature this year was garbage. Wingnut Republican priorities are the only things that really matter to them, and we got a lot of it. But some decent things made it through, and we should take note of it when that does happen. Here’s one example.

[Last] week, the Summer Willis Act took effect.

Before Sept. 1, the state’s sexual assault laws only defined what was not consent via a list of 14 scenarios, such as cases where a perpetrator uses or threatens “physical force, violence, or coercion,” or intentionally incapacitates someone “by administering any substance without the other person’s knowledge.” The law also defined assault in terms of power dynamics, recognizing instances in which healthcare professionals, coaches, tutors, and clergymen wield coercion tactics.

But even as advocates, lawmakers, and prosecutors fought to expand the state’s definition of assault over time, the enumerations weren’t comprehensive. And if a victim’s sexual assault didn’t fall neatly within the statute’s lines, their case would be that much more difficult to prosecute.

Like Summer Willis’s.

In 2014, as a sophomore at University of Texas at Austin, Willis was raped at a college. The assault, like countless others, fell within a loophole: Because she was drugged by one attacker and raped by another, none of the 14 specific “non-consent” clauses applied to her.

“What happened to me, the rape that changed me, that haunted me, and nearly broke me, wasn’t even considered rape in Texas,” Willis said in her March 25 testimony to the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence. “The law didn’t recognize my assault.”

Now, prosecutors are ready to test it in court.

“We know it when we see it,” prosecutor Janna Oswald, division chief of the Adult Sex Crimes Division in Harris County, told The Barbed Wire. “When you hear a fact pattern of sexual assault, you say, ‘Yeah, she didn’t consent. That was rape.’ And then (needing to take) whatever that fact pattern is and being like, ‘Okay, was she intoxicated? Did he use force? Physical force? Was he unaware that she was unaware?’”

Such legal hoop-jumping, Oswald said, makes prosecuting assault “very difficult, sometimes.”

“It would just be nice to say ‘she didn’t consent,’ and then be able to present the fact pattern to a jury, and they say: ‘She didn’t consent, therefore it is sexual assault.’”

It’s a long story and it’s very much worth your time to read it, so go do that. What happened to Summer Willis was a crime no matter what the law at the time said, but now it’s a crime for real. As awful as that was for her, that this bill finally passed is a good thing. Kudos to her and to the legislators who got it done.

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