Snow Day 2025

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

That sure was something.

Meanwhile, in Galveston (Photo credit: Brett Coomer/Staff photographer)

Houston woke up to a winter wonderland Tuesday as a fresh blanket of snow fell across the region. The winter storm that also brought sleet should taper off through Tuesday afternoon.

How does this snow — which sent some outdoors to enjoy the rare sight while many others chose to stay indoors and get cozy — compare to previous snow days in Houston?

The heaviest precipitation is over in most of Greater Houston. While exact totals are hard to come by until snow completely stops, most reports through 10 a.m. Tuesday indicated 1 to 4 inches of snow and sleet have fallen in Greater Houston and Harris County.

Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston’s official climate observation site, recorded 2 inches of snow shortly after 9 a.m. On the city’s southeast side, a 3-inch snow total was observed near Hobby Airport around the same time Tuesday morning.

Other spots across Southeast Texas have reported similar snowfall totals, with places like Liberty and Beaumont recording as much as 3 to 5 inches of snow.

[…]

Tuesday’s snowfall of at least 2 inches makes it the highest single-day totals since 1973 at Bush Intercontinental. The most recent 1-inch snowfall in Houston occurred during the February 2021 freeze, but the city has had 10 other instances where at least a half an inch to 2 inches of snow have occurred.

The snowiest day in Houston’s history occurred on Valentine’s Day in 1895 when a whopping 20 inches was recorded. The second- and third-snowiest days occurred in 1940 and 1960 when the city recorded 3 inches of snow. While official snow totals may fall shy of 3 inches at Bush Intercontinental, a total of more than 2.3 inches would put Tuesday’s snow among the top five snowiest days on record.

Indeed, there was a blizzard warning issued for parts of Louisiana yesterday, which is the kind of sentence I didn’t expect to type anytime soon. The Space City Weather guys have more details for you, with the warning that while a lot of snow melted during the day – which I have to say turned out to be pretty tolerable, once the sun came out and the winds died down – that likely means icy roads today, at least for the morning. Stay home until things warm up a bit and the roads become less hazardous, which ought to be this afternoon.

The good news is that the power mostly stayed on, which is something a lot of people had been very worried about. The bad news is that at least two people are dead as a result of the storm and freeze so far, one of whom was involved in a car wreck. Hopefully that won’t go up any further. The airports remain closed for now, but that may change by the time you read this. My parents are supposed to fly home today, we’ll see if they have to extend their stay a bit. Maybe we can snow ice cream to help pass the time.

You probably saw lots of snow-related photos on social media, but if you need more, Houston Landing and The Barbed Wire have you covered. And I’ll just leave this here:

One more day off for the school kids to enjoy what they can of the snow. Make the best of it, y’all.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Dan Patrick says something about abortion

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Usually, when Dan Patrick says something should happen in the Legislature, he gets his way. With this, I’m not so sure he actually has anything in mind, and as such I’m not expecting anything.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Sunday said the Legislature should amend the language of the state’s near-total abortion ban to address confusion over when doctors may terminate pregnancies.

“I do think we need to clarify any language so that doctors are not in fear of being penalized if they think the life of the mother is at risk,” Patrick said on the WFAA program “Inside Texas Politics.”

Patrick is the first major state elected official to offer support for changing the state’s abortion law in this legislative session. The Texas abortion ban went into effect in 2022 and prohibits abortions in all circumstances except when the life of the pregnant person is at risk.

Some doctors have said the law is unclear, however, as to how ill a pregnant person has to be to qualify for an abortion. Punishments for violating the abortion statute include up to life in prison and a fine of at least $100,000.

A group of 111 Texas obstetrician-gynecologists in November sent a letter to state leaders urging them to reform the law, which they said as written “threatens physicians with life imprisonment and loss of licensure for doing what is often medically necessary for the patient’s health and future fertility.”

The letter cited two recent investigations by ProPublica of pregnant women in Texas who died after doctors delayed treating their miscarriages, which can conflict with the abortion law, which prohibits doctors from ending the heartbeat of a fetus. More than a dozen medical experts consulted by the news organization concluded that the deaths of Josseli Barnica, 28, and Nevaeh Crain, 18, were preventable.

The reporting earned a rebuke from Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, who said in an op-ed published in the Houston Chronicle that the Texas Health and Safety Code clearly defines when a pregnant patient is ill enough to qualify for an abortion. Hughes said doctors had performed 119 abortions in life-saving situations since the law took effect.

You can listen to that podcast episode here if for some reason you’re starved for Dan Patrick content. I think this basically amounts to nothing for three reasons. One is that Patrick spoke in broad generalities rather than offer anything specific. It is possible to get a specific and narrow law passed to provide some kind of exception to the fanatical forced birth law we have now. He could have cited a specific situation, or waved his hands in the general direction of the Texas Medical Board’s guidance, or just mouthed some platitudes about consulting with doctors. He did none of that, which suggests to me this was some half-baked hypothetical, and we should not take it seriously.

Two, the party line all along, in public messaging and in legal defense of the existing law, is that it’s already clear-cut and any problems that result are the fault of doctors doing the wrong thing. Republicans, and Dan Patrick in particular, are not known for backing down from entrenched positions, as noted by Sen. Hughes’ whining above. The new rhetorical move on the right is to valorize the women who suffer and risk their lives instead of terminating any pregnancy, while the consensus among anti-abortion doctors like Ingrid Skop is that abortion is never necessary to save the life of the mother. Is Dan freaking Patrick going to push back against that, even for some rare situation? I don’t think so.

And finally, the forced birth movement feels emboldened and vindicated by the 2024 election results, even as several states passed referenda to protect or restore abortion rights. Those ghouls have an agenda that very much does not include adding exceptions, while their pals in other states seek to charge people who get abortions with murder. Again I ask, does anyone believe Dan Patrick will swim against that tide? The question answers itself. I don’t know what Danno was thinking when he said that. But I feel confident I know what will happen as a result of what he said. As is so often the case these days, I’ll be delighted to be proven wrong. Go ahead and do that, Danno! I’m rooting for you! The Current has more.

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Ichiro, CC, and Billy Wagner elected to the Hall of Fame

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Congratulations to them all.

A leadoff hitter, an ace starter and a lockdown closer walk into a Hall …

It’s no joke. The National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025 is complete after Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner were voted in by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in ballot results revealed Tuesday night on MLB Network. They join Classic Baseball Era Committee electees Dave Parker and the late Dick Allen in an induction ceremony to be held on July 27 at the Clark Sports Center in Cooperstown, N.Y.

This was a ballot with international significance, as Ichiro, on his first BBWAA ballot, became the first Asian-born player selected for the Hall. He nearly became the first position player elected unanimously, falling – as one-time teammate Derek Jeter had in 2020 – just one vote shy of that historic standing. Closer Mariano Rivera, a 2019 inductee, remains the only player elected unanimously in the long history of the BBWAA process.

“There was a time I didn’t even know if I’d get the chance to play in MLB,” Suzuki said through an interpreter. “So what an honor it is for me to be here and to be a Hall of Famer. It’s a special day.”

Sabathia was also a first-ballot selection, garnering 86.8%.

“It means everything to me. Just even to go in the Hall of Fame, in general, is a big honor,” he said. “But to go in first ballot, I know what that means as a baseball player. It’s super exciting.”

Wagner gained entry on his 10th and final writers’ ballot with 82.5% support.

“I don’t even know how to express it,” Wagner said. “When I think about what I represent, from Division III to southwestern Virginia, it’s such a blessing.”

Just missing the 75% cut was power-speed dynamo Carlos Beltrán, who had his name checked on 70.3% of submitted ballots in his third try. Andruw Jones, one of the great defensive center fielders of all time, was checked by 66.2% of voters on his eighth ballot. None of the other players on the 24-man ballot achieved higher than 39.8% (second baseman Chase Utley’s total).

See here for more on the Parker and Allen elections. I have no criticisms of this year’s process. The three most qualified players got in, and the ones who deserve a closer look will get the chance to be evaluated further. Well done all around. Jay Jaffe has more.

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Precinct analysis: County races 2024 part 2

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY:

President
Senate
Railroad Commissioner
District Attorney and County Attorney

Last time we looked at the low-performing countywide races for Democrats. This time it’s the three races where Dems did the best. The starting place is exactly where you’d expect it to be, with the Sheriff and two-term incumbent Ed Gonzalez.


Dist      Knox Gonzalez     Dist    Knox%Gonzalez%
==================================================
HD126   46,015   31,770    HD126   59.16%   40.84%
HD127   51,925   38,110    HD127   57.67%   42.33%
HD128   44,334   21,211    HD128   67.64%   32.36%
HD129   50,388   34,534    HD129   59.33%   40.67%
HD130   61,347   29,808    HD130   67.30%   32.70%
HD131   10,063   33,556    HD131   23.07%   76.93%
HD132   51,744   38,987    HD132   57.03%   42.97%
HD133   42,951   31,919    HD133   57.37%   42.63%
HD134   40,251   57,908    HD134   41.01%   58.99%
HD135   26,933   35,320    HD135   43.26%   56.74%
HD137   11,369   17,093    HD137   39.94%   60.06%
HD138   40,502   31,998    HD138   55.86%   44.14%
HD139   17,386   40,970    HD139   29.79%   70.21%
HD140    9,700   18,890    HD140   33.93%   66.07%
HD141    8,333   29,060    HD141   22.28%   77.72%
HD142   14,478   36,671    HD142   28.31%   71.69%
HD143   13,253   23,113    HD143   36.44%   63.56%
HD144   18,111   21,077    HD144   46.22%   53.78%
HD145   19,097   39,634    HD145   32.52%   67.48%
HD146   12,565   41,932    HD146   23.06%   76.94%
HD147   14,961   48,257    HD147   23.67%   76.33%
HD148   22,451   28,585    HD148   43.99%   56.01%
HD149   19,191   26,774    HD149   41.75%   58.25%
HD150   46,176   32,651    HD150   58.58%   41.42%
            		
CC1    101,922  262,386    CC1     27.98%   72.02%
CC2    138,812  149,606    CC2     48.13%   51.87%
CC3    291,731  201,907    CC3     59.10%   40.90%
CC4    161,059  175,929    CC4     47.79%   52.21%

Gonzalez was the second-highest performer in 2020, trailing only Joe Biden. He was third-best this time, behind Colin Allred and Kamala Harris. He had a stronger opponent this time around, and this past term saw numerous problems with the jail, in particular with the death of inmates, but none of that dented his appeal. While there have been issues with the jail, overall Sheriff Gonzalez has had a fairly controversy-free tenure, with no big scandals or sustained attacks against him. You never know how long that can last, but as noted before the election of Sean Teare as DA has the potential to make his life a little easier in terms of the jail population, so as long as he can hold up his end of the bargain he should remain in strong position. A bigger question is how much pressure he may come under from the feds if and when Trump ramps up his deport-o-matic; he won’t get any help from the state, that much is for sure. 


Dist      Dick	  Cantu    Dist	   Dick%    Cantu%
==================================================
HD126   46,120   30,190    HD126   60.44%   39.56%
HD127   52,020   36,622    HD127   58.69%   41.31%
HD128   44,574   20,057    HD128   68.97%   31.03%
HD129   50,350   33,445    HD129   60.09%   39.91%
HD130   61,123   28,498    HD130   68.20%   31.80%
HD131   10,087   32,976    HD131   23.42%   76.58%
HD132   51,781   37,680    HD132   57.88%   42.12%
HD133   42,287   31,389    HD133   57.40%   42.60%
HD134   39,509   56,724    HD134   41.06%   58.94%
HD135   27,363   33,969    HD135   44.61%   55.39%
HD137   11,304   16,707    HD137   40.36%   59.64%
HD138   40,131   31,023    HD138   56.40%   43.60%
HD139   17,337   40,064    HD139   30.20%   69.80%
HD140    9,980   17,976    HD140   35.70%   64.30%
HD141    8,118   28,704    HD141   22.05%   77.95%
HD142   14,682   35,588    HD142   29.21%   70.79%
HD143   13,634   21,950    HD143   38.31%   61.69%
HD144   18,371   20,223    HD144   47.60%   52.40%
HD145   18,963   38,508    HD145   33.00%   67.00%
HD146   12,314   41,408    HD146   22.92%   77.08%
HD147   14,596   47,768    HD147   23.40%   76.60%
HD148   22,492   27,585    HD148   44.91%   55.09%
HD149   19,302   26,109    HD149   42.51%   57.49%
HD150   46,176   31,110    HD150   59.75%   40.25%
            		
CC1    100,492  257,758    CC1     28.05%   71.95%
CC2    139,948  143,715    CC2     49.34%   50.66%
CC3    291,357  193,698    CC3     60.07%   39.93%
CC4    160,817  171,102    CC4     48.45%   51.55%

HCDE Trustee Richard Cantu won re-election with 52.5% of the vote and a 74K vote margin, both strong performances for 2024. For reasons I don’t quite understand, Dems have generally overperformed in the At Large HCDE Trustee races – Erica Davis was a top performer in 2020, outdoing her colleague David Brown along the way. Maybe it’s residual trust in the Democratic brand for education, maybe it’s a repudiation to the “Dems don’t vote all the way down the ballot because they get tired” trope, maybe it’s some mysterious force we cannot comprehend or quantify. Whatever it is, Richard Cantu had it as well.


Dist    Radack  Ramirez    Dist	 Radack%  Ramirez%
==================================================
HD126   47,653   29,704    HD126   61.60%   38.40%
HD127   53,224   36,273    HD127   59.47%   40.53%
HD128   45,332   19,846    HD128   69.55%   30.45%
HD129   51,425   33,133    HD129   60.82%   39.18%
HD130   63,218   27,514    HD130   69.68%   30.32%
HD131   10,486   32,916    HD131   24.16%   75.84%
HD132   53,768   36,641    HD132   59.47%   40.53%
HD133   44,770   30,149    HD133   59.76%   40.24%
HD134   43,124   54,732    HD134   44.07%   55.93%
HD135   28,417   33,546    HD135   45.86%   54.14%
HD137   11,942   16,448    HD137   42.06%   57.94%
HD138   42,360   29,944    HD138   58.59%   41.41%
HD139   18,155   39,805    HD139   31.32%   68.68%
HD140   10,189   18,013    HD140   36.13%   63.87%
HD141    8,337   28,750    HD141   22.48%   77.52%
HD142   15,012   35,668    HD142   29.62%   70.38%
HD143   13,893   22,023    HD143   38.68%   61.32%
HD144   18,683   20,257    HD144   47.98%   52.02%
HD145   20,376   37,763    HD145   35.05%   64.95%
HD146   13,212   41,074    HD146   24.34%   75.66%
HD147   15,494   47,349    HD147   24.66%   75.34%
HD148   23,282   27,385    HD148   45.95%   54.05%
HD149   19,937   25,850    HD149   43.54%   56.46%
HD150   47,266   31,003    HD150   60.39%   39.61%
            		
CC1    106,876  255,103    CC1     29.53%   70.47%
CC2    142,971  143,204    CC2     49.96%   50.04%
CC3    301,396  189,751    CC3     61.37%   38.63%
CC4    168,312  167,728    CC4     50.09%   49.91%

You may have noticed that the three top countywide performers for Dems in 2024 were the three Latino candidates. As noted above, Ed Gonzalez has his own strong brand, and Dems have tended to do well in HCDE elections, but in a year where Dems struggled more than usual with Latino voters, this stands out. Annette Ramirez faced the best-funded and likely best-known opponent in her race – I would argue that Steve Radack’s name recognition and years as County Commissioner were the reasons he carried Precinct 4 and did as well as he did overall – but she still turned in a credible performance. As with Sean Teare, I think she has an opportunity to make a name for herself and improve the baseline conditions for Dems in Harris County, simply by being more visible and publicizing how her office can help people with their property taxes and other functions. There’s a sweet spot between Paul Bettencourt’s right-wing advocacy and Ann Harris Bennett’s disappearing act that she can aim for, and it’s actually pretty big. I have had the chance to get to know Annette Ramirez over the past year, and I think she has tremendous potential. For this office, which has never had a strong Democratic advocate but has had a string of recent Republicans ranging from bumbling to Bettencourt, that would be a big deal.

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Yeah, we’re still not getting sports betting

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

But Axios is gonna write about it as if there’s a chance, because it’s that time of the biennium again.

Photo by Joel Kramer via Flickr creative commons

Texas remains a holdout in the nationwide push to expand gambling, but industry representatives are headed to Austin for the upcoming legislative session hoping for a breakthrough.

Why it matters: State lawmakers will soon consider multiple bills that could lead to legalized mobile sports betting and resort-style casinos.

Flashback: Efforts to legalize sports betting in 2021 and 2023 came up short, despite a massive lobbying operation by casinos, betting sites like DraftKings and pro sports teams.

  • At the outset of the last legislative session, Las Vegas Sands was paying as much as $6.55 million to well-connected lobbyists to persuade lawmakers to ease state gambling restrictions.
  • Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry was hired as a spokesperson for the Sports Betting Alliance, which includes major sportsbook operators and all of Texas’ major professional teams.

State of play: The state constitution restricts gambling, so even if bills loosening gambling pass, they would require a statewide referendum.

  • Texas law allows for a lottery, charitable bingo, parimutuel betting on horse and dog racing, and gambling at three tribe-owned casinos — in Eagle Pass, El Paso and Livingston.
  • Poker rooms are also open across the state, though the legality is murky.

What they’re saying: “For me, it’s not really a revenue issue, it’s a freedom and liberty issue,” state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Republican from Plano whose 2023 sports betting bill cleared the Texas House but never passed the Texas Senate, told the Austin American-Statesman recently.

[…]

The other side: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Texas Senate, has shown little appetite for more legalized gambling, despite the lobbying push.

  • “The votes aren’t there,” he told WFAA reporter Jason Whitely in November, throwing cold water on the issue before the Legislature even convenes.
  • “If a bill ever started to get close and moving, you’re going to hear from the other side, from the pastors, from the business community, from the citizens who oppose it,” he said.

[…]

What’s next: FanDuel CEO Amy Howe told Axios it could take until 2027 for Texas to legalize sports betting.

  • “Tough to pinpoint exactly when it’s going to happen,” she said. “We feel good about the momentum, so hard to say exactly which year, but we think we feel cautiously optimistic.”

This was from December, but it got lost in the holidays, so I’m running it now. Not that long ago, but well before the election, gambling bills were already being declared dead for the next session. I don’t know what anyone thinks may have changed since then, and I have never known why the people who write these stories (for any publication, I’m not picking on Axios here) don’t seem to grasp that Dan Patrick is the immovable object in the path of any gambling expansion effort. This story posits that maybe Trump could get Patrick to budge on the issue, and while I’ll admit that could be true, I can’t imagine it happening. It’s just not a thing that Trump cares about. Also, since that story came out, the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation released a study about the potential social costs of expanded gambling, so add that to the ledger.

Just a point of clarification, any expansion of gambling would require a constitutional amendment. The bill passed by Rep. Leach was the enabling legislation for a joint resolution, which is the vehicle for putting a referendum before the voters. That also passed, but the companion bill in the Senate never got a committee hearing, even though its author was a Patrick minion. Patrick crapped on Leach’s bill in 2023, and as I said, nothing has changed since then.

Finally, I have no idea why DraftKings CEO Amy Howe thinks 2027 would be any different than 2025. Again, the issue is Dan Patrick, so unless he retires, gets defeated, or changes his mind, we will continue to repeat this story. I would of course welcome her help in trying to vote him out in 2026, but I doubt that was what she meant to say.

Anyway, same story, different day. When something really does change, I assure you, you will know.

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

RIP, Cecile Richards

Posted on January 21, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

An icon passes.

Cecile Richards

Cecile Richards, a lifelong advocate for women’s rights who led Planned Parenthood for 12 years, has died at the age of 67 after a battle with brain cancer, her family said in a statement Monday morning. Richards, the eldest daughter of Gov. Ann Richards, forged her own path as a tireless advocate for women across Texas and the United States.

Richards founded the Texas Freedom Network, a grassroots social justice organization, helped reshape Planned Parenthood into a political force as well as a health care provider, and remained active in Democratic politics and the fight for reproductive rights until her death.

Even after being diagnosed with glioblastoma, an incurable brain cancer in mid-2023, Richards continued pushing, helping amplify the stories of women impacted by abortion bans and working on a abortion information chatbot. She first shared her diagnosis with The Cut in January 2024.

Richards died Monday at home, surrounded by family and her dog, Ollie, according to a statement from her husband and three children.

“We invite you to put on some New Orleans jazz, gather with friends and family over a good meal, and remember something she said a lot over the last year: ‘It’s not hard to imagine future generations one day asking, ‘When there was so much at stake for our country, what did you do? The only acceptable answer is: Everything we could,” the family wrote.

A little on the nose that this happened on Inauguration Day, but the universe does have a sense of humor, and I at least appreciated having something else to think about. I never had the chance to meet Cecile Richards myself, but I have a lot of friends who knew her. She worked tirelessly to make the world a better place. I salute her for that, and I send all my love and condolences to her family. Rest in peace, Cecile Richards. The 19th and Texas Public Radio have more.

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

Of course the Paxton investigation is dead

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I strongly disagree with the use of the word “could” in this story.

Still a crook any way you look

When President Donald Trump appeared in a New York courtroom last spring to face a slew of criminal charges, he was joined by a rotating cadre of lawyers, campaign aides, his family — and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Paxton had traveled to be with Trump for what he described on social media as a “sham of a trial” and a “travesty of justice.” Trump was facing 34 counts of falsifying records in the case, which focused on hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign to keep her from disclosing their sexual relationship.

“It’s just sad that we’re at this place in our country where the left uses the court system not to promote justice, not to enforce the rule of law, but to try to take out political opponents, and that’s exactly what they’re doing to him,” Paxton said on a conservative podcast at the time.

“They’ve done it to me.”

A year earlier, the Republican-led Texas House of Representatives voted to impeach Paxton over allegations, made by senior officials in his office, that he had misused his position to help a political donor. Trump was not physically by Paxton’s side but weighed in repeatedly on social media, calling the process unfair and warning lawmakers that they would have to contend with him if they persisted.

When the Texas Senate in September 2023 acquitted Paxton of the impeachment charges against him, Trump claimed credit. “Yes, it is true that my intervention through TRUTH SOCIAL saved Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from going down at the hands of Democrats and some Republicans …” Trump posted on the social media platform he founded.

The acquittal, however, did not wholly absolve Paxton of the allegations brought by his former employees. The FBI has been investigating the same accusations since at least November 2020. And come Monday, when Trump is inaugurated for his second term, that investigation will be in the hands of his Department of Justice.

[…]

Justice Department and FBI officials declined to comment on the story and the status of the investigation, but as recently as August, a former attorney general staffer testified before a grand jury about the case, Bloomberg Law reported. Paxton also referenced the FBI’s four-year investigation of him during a speech in late December without mentioning any resolution on the case. The fact that Paxton hasn’t been indicted could signal that investigators don’t have a smoking gun, one political science professor told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, but a former federal prosecutor said cases can take years and still result in charges being filed.

“As far as I’m aware, this is pretty unprecedented, this level of alliance and association between those two figures,” said Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

[…]

In his speech, Paxton made no mention of the agency’s investigations into Trump, nor did he connect the DOJ to his own case. But a Justice Department that Trump oversees with a heavy-handed approach could benefit the embattled attorney general, several attorneys told ProPublica and the Tribune.

Trump could choose to pardon Paxton before the case is officially concluded. He used pardons during his first presidency, including issuing one to his longtime strategist Steve Bannon and to Charles Kushner, his son-in-law’s father. He’s been vocal about his plans to pardon many of the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office.

More concerning, however, is if Trump takes the unusual approach of personally intervening in the federal investigation, something presidents have historically avoided because it is not a political branch of government, said Mike Golden, who directs the Advocacy Program at the University of Texas School of Law.

Any Trump involvement would be more problematic because it would happen behind closed doors, while a pardon is public, Golden said.

“If the president pressures the Department of Justice to drop an investigation, a meritorious investigation against a political ally, that weakens the overall strength of the system of justice in the way a one-off pardon really doesn’t,” Golden said.

Michael McCrum, a former federal prosecutor in Texas who did not work on the Paxton case, said “we’d be fools to think that Mr. Paxton’s relationship with the Trump folks and Mr. Trump personally wouldn’t play some factor in it.”

“I think that the case is going to die on the vine,” McCrum said.

There’s that word “could” again, in the first paragraph of the last quoted section. I’ll use it myself and say I sadly could not agree more with Michael McCrum. Donald Trump’s FBI and Justice Department will kill whatever was left of this investigation with fire. Ken Paxton will never see any accountability, at least not by these means. To think otherwise is to delude yourself.

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What happens now with Colony Ridge?

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Probably nothing good, but how much of that remains to be seen.

A newly elected state representative this week suggested Colony Ridge, a 33,000 acre majority-Latino residential development in Liberty County, will be a focus of immigration enforcement for President-Elect Donald Trump’s administration.

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, state Rep.-elect Janis Holt included a photo of herself and Tom Homan, pledging to address “the challenges posed by Colony Ridge.”

Homan, who ran the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for nearly two years under the first Trump administration, has been chosen by Trump as his “border czar.” He will be tasked with carrying out the incoming president’s mass deportation plans.

“I enjoyed my conversation with Border Czar Tom Homan. We will coordinate with his office and attack this issue head on (sic),” Holt wrote. It is unclear where and when the photo was taken.

[…]

In September 2023, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick responded to months of conservative media reports by flying a helicopter over the development with the Texas Department of Public Safety and affirmed right-wing critics’ complaints that Colony Ridge is a borderline “sanctuary city” for immigrants citing misleading and false crime statistics.

Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Legislature to address Colony Ridge during a special session in the fall of 2023, but lawmakers only increased the number of DPS officers patrolling the development.

Alain Cisneros, a campaign coordinator for FIEL, an immigrant rights nonprofit, said Holt’s post about Colony Ridge is an example of politicians trying to score points with their party on hot topics like immigration.

“What we see is that it’s causing another psychosis, a panic, (that) everything is related to mass deportations,” Cisneros said in Spanish.

Jasmina Yadyra, who immigrated from Honduras 25 years ago and moved to the Liberty County development in 2021, said on Friday there should be stricter regulations surrounding immigration to the United States.

“Just as good people come, bad people also come and then they go to their home countries as if nothing happened,” she said in Spanish. “There should be order.”

The majority of Colony Ridge residents want quiet lives, Yadrya said.

“This is a place where we want to live in peace,” she said. “It is a very beautiful place that must be taken care of. It’s our home since we immigrated and we want to contribute to a grand nation like the U.S.”

Former residents Keilah and SuEllen Sanchez commended Holt’s attention to Colony Ridge. The sisters said Holt marks a significant shift from her predecessor, former Rep. Ernest Bailes, who they believe was aligned directly with the development.

“However, there are critical factors that must be considered when addressing Colony Ridge and its impact on both its residents and the broader community,” they wrote in a text message to the Landing. “It is important to recognize that while illegal immigration is a significant issue in Colony Ridge, not all residents are undocumented immigrants.”

Cisneros said years of right-wing rhetoric surrounding Colony Ridge has unfairly blamed residents for violence and disorder while ignoring what she called a predatory lending scheme that has taken advantage of the development’s residents over the past decade.

John and William “Trey” Harris, who did not respond to a request for comment, own the development, which is being sued by the Department of Justice and Texas. The brothers are accused of targeting largely Latino land buyers in what state Attorney General Ken Paxton has called a “bait-and-switch” sales scheme.

John Harris previously told the Landing the lawsuits were baseless and inflammatory.

See here for all previous Colony Ridge blogging. There are the allegations of rampant crime and gang activity, which have not been corroborated by the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office. There are allegations that the population of Colony Ridge is disproportionately comprised of undocumented immigrants, which honestly makes no sense and is also disputed by Liberty County officials. And then there are the allegations that the developers, who are facing multiple lawsuits, have engaged in misleading and predatory lending practices and other disreputable business. All of this comes with a heaping layer of right wing hysteria, which has had its usual distortion effect on the facts. Into all this comes the even more right-wing Legislature, and the whole Trump 2.0 debacle, which may or may not have the determination and capability to carry off deportations at unprecedented levels. I don’t know what Colony Ridge will look like in a couple of years, but it could be very different in ways that I think are more likely to be bad than good. I’ll keep an eye on it.

Posted in La Migra | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 21 Comments

HISD cancels classes

Posted on January 20, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox.

Dear Houston ISD Families,

The safety of our students and staff is our top priority. Based on the most up-to-date weather information available to the District at this time and to provide families with adequate time to plan ahead, all Houston ISD campuses will be closed on Tuesday, January 21, and Wednesday, January 22, 2025. No campus activities, including before or after school events and Athletics, will occur. Campus Principals and Assistant Principals will work from home to support campus needs.

The City of Houston has provided the following resources to support families and staff through the upcoming winter storm:

  • Winter Weather Preparation: Preparation reminders can be found here.
  • Carbon Monoxide Safety: Please keep yourself safe from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning. Safety tips can be found here.
  • Warming Centers: The City of Houston will operate 10 warming centers for families beginning Sunday, January 19th at 6 p.m. Locations for Warming Centers can be found here.

The District will continue to monitor weather conditions in collaboration with local officials and will share an update to all Houston ISD families regarding District Operations for Thursday, January 23rd at 12 p.m. on Wednesday, January 22nd.

I hope all HISD families and staff stay safe and warm over the next few days. HISD will keep our communication updated on our Website and HISD NOW.

Most other local districts and charter schools will be closed Tuesday and Wednesday as well; a few have just announced a Tuesday closure. If you’re wondering what all the fuss is about:

It’s gonna be a mess, y’all. Stay inside and hope that ERCOT doesn’t fail us. Space City Weather has more.

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Weekend link dump for January 19

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“The Rio Treaty’s Security Pact and Unintended Consequences of Threatening Canada, Greenland, and Panama”.

“Bringing this all together, the technologies through which we see the public shape how we understand it, making it more likely that we end up in the one situation rather than the other. As you have surely guessed by now, I believe Twitter/X, Facebook, and other social media services are just such technologies for shaping publics. Many of the problems that we are going to face over the next many years will stem from publics that have been deranged and distorted by social media in ways that lower the odds that democracy will be a problem solving system, and increase the likelihood that it will be a problem creating one.”

“Now, on the precipice of another Donald Trump presidency and halfway through the country’s third year without Roe, new ‘mommy wars’ are about to drop. But they won’t be about whether mothers work outside the home, breastfeed or formula feed, or whether or not moms vaccinate their kids. Instead, we’re about to see women pitted against each other over abortion—specifically, those who end nonviable or medically fraught pregnancies, and those who choose to carry to term.”

“I can’t imagine running a nursing home without children in it.”

RIP, Richard “Rico” Garcia, former HPD officer who was a 10-year member of the HPD’s famous Chicano Squad and a founder of the Organization of Spanish Speaking Officers.

“Slightly more than 20% of dolphins swimming along the Texas Gulf Coast have been exposed to fentanyl, according to a study published last month by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.”

“Ultimately, ending the war in Ukraine in one day is only the latest campaign promise Trump is backtracking on.” And he still isn’t even sworn in yet.

“But the real and big story is simpler and more structural. The major technology platforms became mature businesses at vast scales; in so doing they butted up against the regulatory purview of the national government; and with the former leading to the latter they shifted toward a more conventionally anti-regulatory politics. A lot of it is really that simple.”

“Chuck D Denounces Use Of Public Enemy’s ‘Burn Hollywood Burn’ In Wildfire Videos”.

RIP, Joe Sayre, Texas Radio Hall of Famer who was known on the air as Colonel St. James.

I have not read the massive Vulture story about the many horrible allegations against Neil Gaiman, but several of my friends have and have posted about it, and boy howdy does it all sound terrible. Here’s a quote from one of them: “He’s — well, you know how his writing and speaking shows a deep understanding of humanity and empathy, and expresses kindliness and likability? It turns out that if you are a horrible, horrible, deeply terrible person, you can use all of that to a) manipulate and abuse victims and b) mask that you’re a horrible, horrible, deeply terrible person.” I really would have preferred to live in a world in which Neil Gaiman was not such a person, but it looks like I did not get that wish.

“Mark Zuckerberg needs the incoming administration to make his problems disappear. Among the many issues facing Meta is a 2020 antitrust lawsuit filed during the first Trump administration, which heads to trial this spring. Section 230 —- the law shielding platforms from liability for user-generated content —- is under attack from both MAGA loyalists and liberals, and Meta desperately wants it to remain intact. Additionally, Meta’s AI ambitions rely on access to copyrighted works, there’s a class-action lawsuit against Meta making its way to the Supreme Court, and the company heavily depends on H1-B visas, a program often criticized by immigration hardliners.”

More WordPress drama. Why must so many tech CEOs make heel turns?

“This was not the wildland–urban interface of the Sierra Nevada, but entire neighborhoods of densely packed houses on gridded streets in and around the country’s second-largest city. To survey the devastation so far—12,000 structures destroyed, 24 dead—is to feel torn between the past and future of the American city. The century of technology and expertise deployed to eliminate the great urban fires that once leveled Chicago and San Francisco has been outpaced by the speed of a changing climate.”

RIP, Heinz Kluetmeier, photographer best known for his “Miracle on Ice” pictures.

“Effectively that means the FBI didn’t ask a single question in Pete Hegseth’s background check that the incoming Trump administration didn’t want asked.”

“It takes work, but you can learn to do it if you really, really want to. Put in that work and, eventually, you can be an ungrateful jerk who resents deaf people just for existing and who almost believes the lies you’re telling yourself about how their presence in this world makes you more entitled and aggrieved.”

“As firefighters are battling multiple huge blazes tearing through Los Angeles, California’s prisons have deployed more than 1,000 incarcerated people to battle on the frontlines.”

RIP, David Lynch, iconic director who gave us Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Dune, and Twin Peaks, among others.

RIP, Bob Uecker, former MLB player and beloved longtime broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers, who also did some acting in Mr. Belvedere, Major League, and more.

RIP, Tommy Brown, former MLB player with the Brooklyn Dodgers, teammate of Jackie Robinson, still the youngest person to hit a home run in an MLB game and the youngest non-pitcher to appear in an MLB game.

RIP, Dame Joan Plowright, Tony-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, widow of Sir Laurence Olivier.

LEAVE BONE CRAWFORD ALONE!

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | 1 Comment

Next assault on mifepristone gets the rubber stamp

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Here it comes.

The Texas judge who previously halted approval of the nation’s most common method of abortion ruled Thursday that three states can move ahead with another attempt to roll back federal rules and make it harder for people across the U.S. to access the abortion drug mifepristone.

Idaho, Kansas and Missouri requested late last year to pursue the case in federal court in Amarillo, Texas, after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling finding that abortion opponents who first filed the case lacked the legal right to sue.

The only federal judge based in Amarillo is Matthew Kacsmaryk, a nominee of former President Donald Trump who in recent years ruled against the Biden administration on several issues, including immigration and LGBTQ protections.

The states want the federal Food and Drug Administration to prohibit telehealth prescriptions for mifepristone and require that it be used only in the first seven weeks of pregnancy instead of the current limit of 10 weeks. They also want to require three in-person doctor office visits instead of none to get the drug.

That’s because, the states argue, efforts to provide access to the pills “undermine state abortion laws and frustrate state law enforcement,” according to court documents.

Meanwhile, Kacsmaryk said they shouldn’t be automatically discounted from suing in Texas just because they’re outside the state.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that the case should have been settled when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to mifepristone last year, where the justices issued a narrow ruling finding that abortion opponents who first filed the case lacked the legal right to sue.

Kacsmaryk’s decision “has left the door open for extremist politicians to continue attacking medication abortion in his courtroom,” the ACLU said.

See here for the previous update. Of course the question of jurisdiction and standing don’t matter to Matthew Kacsmaryk. He wants to ban abortion by any means necessary and he’s just been given another chance. What did you expect? This will be on SCOTUS’ docket before you know it, after the Fifth Circuit gives its cursed blessing to whatever Kacsmaryk vomits up. Get ready.

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James Helton and Wavery Guidry

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

What an amazing story.

On Galveston Island lies a story that could have been forgotten if not for the efforts of local historians.

Two Black lifeguards, James Helton and Wavery Guidry, who made over 30 rescues combined between 1935 and 1957 during the Jim Crow era, will soon be recognized with a historical marker from the State of Texas.

Known as an “Undertold Marker,” it will recognize not only the 30-plus rescues the pair made during the Jim Crow era, but also the gaps in giving them credit for their service, today and in their own time.

“To document those who saved lives is the right thing to do. It’s to acknowledge they were undervalued and mistreated,” said Julie Baker, of the Galveston County Historical Commission.

Assigning lifeguards to keep Black swimmers alive, let alone getting a beach for Black swimmers at all during Jim Crow, was not an easy feat. It took community petitioning and individuals’ commitment to saving lives, even when credit for doing so was intentionally erased.

The Undertold Marker, which Texas awards to just 15 applicants across the state each year, will be mounted on a concrete base at Seawall Boulevard and 28th Street on the first day of February, which is Black History Month.

In the early 1920’s, Galveston beach was already segregated through social practice, according to research from Carol Bunch Davis, an independent scholar researching African American cultural production and Associate Professor Emerita of English at Texas A & M University at Galveston

But social segregation wasn’t enough for city leaders, Brantley Harris and A. G. Fish, who petitioned the city to completely eradicate Black swimmers from Galveston’s Seawall Beachfront, Davis wrote. The petition failed, she explained, but not because city leaders disagreed with racial segregation; they just believed White and Black swimmers were already segregated enough.

In spite of leaders’ back and forth on policing where Black beach patrons could be, Black beach patrons were able to create “places for themselves in the face of anti-Black racism, or anti-Blackness,” Davis wrote.

By the early 1950’s, two historically African beaches were in use: West Beach, known as “Black Beach,” or “Sunset Camps,” and Brown Beach, at 28th street.

There’s more, so go read the rest. I knew nothing about any of this. That bit about how the ban on Black swimmers failed because other city leaders thought the existing segregation was enough just boggles me. I found more about Helton and Guidry and the forthcoming recognition of their work here and here, and links to some of Professor Davis’ research on this topic here and here. I also wonder if the current legislative jihad against DEI means that it would be illegal to teach about this in Texas’ schools. Someone ask Sen. Brandon Creighton about that.

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Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

We all have a role to play in slowing its spread.

Communities in Texas are being urged to take action to slow the spread of bird flu in the avian population. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) offers suggestions on ways to be cautious and careful.

How the Community Can Help

  1. Remove bird feeders and bird baths: Temporarily stop using feeders and baths in order to limit congregation points where the virus can easily spread.
  2. Avoid handling sick or dead birds: If you encounter wildlife showing symptoms of illness or find dead birds, do not touch them. Report sightings to TPWD or your local wildlife biologist.
  3. Keep pets away: Prevent pets from consuming wild bird carcasses, which could expose them to the virus.
  4. Take extra care in practicing good hygiene: Wash hands thoroughly after any unavoidable contact with wild animals or outdoor environments frequented by birds.

This latest outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), confirmed in domestic ducks near Arboretum Boulevard and the 360 Capital of Texas Highway, has prompted warnings from health and wildlife officials.

The virus, which is highly contagious among wild and domestic birds, poses a serious threat to bird populations and could potentially impact human health.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) emphasizes the critical role of the community in slowing the spread of the virus.

One immediate action that residents can take is to remove bird feeders and bird baths. These items encourage birds to congregate, creating hot spots for virus transmission. Officials warn that unnecessary interaction with wild birds, including feeding waterfowl in parks, increases the risk of spreading HPAI.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) urges the public to take the bird flu outbreak seriously. While the risk of HPAI transmission to humans remains low, the virus has the potential to mutate. Close contact with infected birds or contaminated environments could pose risks to human health, underscoring the need for vigilance.

The CDC recommends wearing gloves and masks when handling birds or cleaning potentially contaminated surfaces.

I don’t think any of that is particularly burdensome for most of us. Also, take care around ducks.

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza, or HPAI, has been confirmed in multiple ducks across Harris County, said Kelly Norrid, a spokesperson for the department. Much like influenza that impacts humans, Norrid said the avian influenza could be a returning or new strain.

Although the department hasn’t tested all citizen reports of sick, dead or dying ducks in Harris County, Norrid said the department has received enough positive HPAI test results in Houston, Harris County and across Texas since December to know the disease is spreading. There was one report recently of a sick Bald Eagle in the northwest side of Harris County as well, Norris said.

In early January, the department confirmed the influenza in multiple domestic ducks recovered from a pond in Northwest Austin. Officials said they’ve found widespread detections of influenza in wild birds in Wharton, El Paso, Potter and Harris County.

In Houston and Harris County, the avian influenza is mainly affecting muscovy ducks, which are an invasive species. One on hand, muscovy ducks dying could be good for native species, Norrid said. But, muscovy ducks can spread avian influenza to other bird species, as well as cats and dogs if they have prolonged exposure, Norrid said. If dogs or cats consume or carry around an infected duck, they can become infected with the HPAI, Norrid said. Because of this, officials encourage people who have seen congregations of sickly ducks in their neighborhood to keep cats indoors and dogs away from duck ponds.

Not all avian species are susceptible to HPAI, but the disease is highly contagious. Migratory flight routes throughout Houston and the Gulf Coast cause a constant influx of new avian populations, Norrid said. If those populations land in lakes or ponds with sick ducks, those birds can pick up the disease and spread it from place to place, thus keeping it persisting in the environment.

Basically, try to avoid contact by you or your pet with a sick bird. We can do this.

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HISD approves those previously unapproved expenses

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Cleanup on Aisle 3!

Houston ISD’s Board of Managers voted Thursday to retroactively approve up to $870 million in purchasing agreements after the state’s largest school district admitted to violating procurement policy for approximately 16 months.

State-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles said Monday that HISD discovered in December that a team of employees had been violating board policy by failing to submit certain purchases for board approval because they “mistakenly” believed that purchases affiliated with “cooperative agreements” did not require a board vote.

In a 7-1 vote, the board approved approximately 130 of the proposed cooperative agreements. Under these agreements, HISD had entered into contracts for certain projects with vendors that had already been pre-approved by other agencies, such as the Houston-Galveston Area Council, instead of engaging in an open bid process.

Board member Rolando Martinez voted against the motion, and board member Cassandra Auzenne Bandy abstained.

The board was also expected to give initial approval to a change to procurement policy that would only require HISD to obtain board approval for future “cooperative agreements” if the purchases cost at least $1 million. However, board President Audrey Momanaee pulled the item from the agenda at the beginning of the meeting.

The appointed school board had initially planned to ratify the proposed cooperative agreements during its regular December meeting. However, Alex Elizondo, HISD’s chief of public affairs and communications, said Monday that the board delayed the vote until this month because members wanted to do a “little more due diligence.”

Janette Garza Lindner, the board’s audit committee chair, said the board planned to publish an audit of the purchases publicly on the audit committee’s website. The audit by RSM, an external firm, reviewed purchases exceeding $1 million to ensure that the spending followed the appropriate processes, she said.

“Our internal audit team found that all of the all of the processes that were followed were appropriate,” Garza Lindner said. “Wanted to just make sure that that was noted for each other and for our community to understand that we did leverage our internal audit team to review those purchases.”

The district’s failure to follow board purchasing policy sparked outrage among about two dozen HISD community members who urged the board during public comment to demand an additional investigation and conduct more oversight of HISD’s spending to restore trust.

HISD parent Ellen Walter said “$870 million in unapproved spending is not an ‘in good faith’ mistake. This is the point that will make you realize that he is the mistake. Our district deserves better. You should be firing Mike Miles.”

See here for the background. Before we go any further, let me include this quote from the Houston Landing.

Eliana Gottleib, an eighth grader at Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts Middle School, pressed Miles and the board to look into the issue more.

“For a group of people who are so hung up on following procedures, like carrying a traffic cone to the bathroom, you would think you would follow your own procedures when spending almost $1 billion,” Eliana said. “Board members, please address this lack of oversight the same way you would at your businesses or jobs. Both you and the community know that a formal investigation is absolutely necessary for this kind of incident.”

I don’t want to overreact to this, but I don’t want to underreact, either. While it appears that nothing suspicious happened during the time that proper procedures weren’t followed and no one thought to ask about it, the fact that they weren’t followed is itself worthy of review and at least some recrimination. One of the stated reasons for the takeover, one of the things that has to be adequately addressed in order for HISD to be released from bondage, was poor governance on the part of the elected Board, even though to my mind most if not all of the Board members who were part of that problem are no longer there. It is therefore to be expected, at the very least, that the leadership that was foisted on us should be exemplary in this manner. This is a glaring example where they were not.

There’s a good discussion of this issue in the first ten minutes of Friday’s CityCast Houston episode, with the Landing reporter who broke the initial story. Mike Miles has already shown himself in many ways to be a bad leader, in his complete refusal to engage the community and get anything resembling buy-in for his actions. This is a much more basic matter, one of just knowing what the rules are and following them. And while, as reporter Asher Lehrer-Small says on the podcast, it’s not on the Board to supervise the administration in this manner, it’s hard to understand why no one even casually brought up the question of why they weren’t being asked to make these approvals more than a year after that started. Everyone was asleep at the switch, and the result is just embarrassing, in a “can’t anyone here play this game?” kind of way.

What the proper consequences should be, I’m not sure. Maybe some of Miles’ hand-picked and very well paid leadership staff should walk the plank for it. I’m not sure this is a firing offense for Miles himself, but the buck does stop with him. Could we at least get an exasperated reaction from Mike Morath, with a warning to get his shit together or get out? Surely that’s not asking for too much. Right now everyone in a position of power seems to be of a mind to just say “oopsies” and move on. If so, that’s a hell of an example of good governance to leave for the next empowered elected Board. The Press has more.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

DA’s office recused from Hidalgo aides’ case

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Done and done.

Sean Teare

A judge signed off on Harris County prosecutors handing their case against three former employees for County Judge Lina Hidalgo to the Texas attorney general, effectively ridding District Attorney Sean Teare’s office of the politically fraught charges brought on by his predecessor.

Lawyers for the three staffers gathered around the judge’s bench Thursday with prosecutors from both agencies as no one objected to the move.

Kim Ogg, the former district attorney ousted in the 2024 primary, invited the attorney general’s prosecutors to take over the 2022 case, saying Teare could not be trusted, but she stopped short of recusing her office outright. Her decision effectively preserved Teare’s ability to decide the next steps in the cases against the three county workers amid allegations that they steered a COVID-19 vaccine outreach contract to Elevate Strategies, a political consulting firm with Democratic ties.

[…]

Teare assumed office Jan. 1 and filed a motion to recuse his office the following day, citing “intense political and media scrutiny” over the contract investigation and ensuing indictments against Alex Triantaphyllis, Wallis Nader and Aaron Dunn.

“The orderly administration of justice requires that there be no perceived bias in the prosecution of these cases,” wrote Joshua Reiss, general counsel for Teare’s office, in their request for a recusal.

Judge Hazel Jones approved the motion and quizzed the lawyers on both sides Thursday morning whether an outcome was being discussed. It was, the lawyers said, without elaborating.

Dunn’s lawyer, Derek Hollingsworth, said the recusal should have happened sooner because it wasn’t until prosecutors with Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office stepped in that he felt his client’s case — which he deemed a wrongful prosecution — received a critical eye.

The lawyer believes Paxton prosecutors have made progress in reviewing the case because defense attorneys for the trio have received fresh evidence since they took on the prosecution in April.

“My understanding is that the attorney general’s office is now the first administration to actually look deeply at this case and to investigate it thoroughly,” Hollingsworth said. “I hope that we’re close to a resolution.”

See here for the previous update. I suspect we’ll see some kind of action on this soon – whether that’s a dismissal of some or all charges or a plea deal, we’ll see. This has gone on long enough, whatever happens next. We should know more in February, when the next court date is.

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Another flying taxi overview

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

As I’ve said before, every time I read a story about flying taxis, I learn something new.

Flying taxis have made enough regulatory inroads with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to result in the recent creation of a new aircraft category called “powered lift,” a step that the agency hadn’t taken since helicopters were introduced for civilian use in the 1940s.

But there are more regulatory hurdles to be cleared before air taxis will be allowed to carry passengers in the U.S., making Dubai the most likely place where eVTOLs will take commercial flight — perhaps by the end of this year.

“It’s a tricky business to develop a whole new class of vehicles,” said Alan Lim, director of Alton Aviation Consultancy, a firm tracking the industry’s evolution. “It is going to be like a crawl, walk, run situation. Right now, I think we are still crawling. We are not going to have the Jetsons-type reality where everyone will be flying around everywhere in the next two to three years.”

China is also vying to make flying cars a reality, a quest that has piqued President-elect Donald Trump’s interest in making the vehicles a priority for his incoming administration during the next four years.

If the ambitions of eVTOL pioneers are realized in the U.S., people will be able to hop in an air taxi to get to and from airports serving New York and Los Angeles within the next few years.

Because its electric taxis can fly unimpeded at high speeds, Joby envisions transporting up to four Delta Air Lines passengers at a time from New York area airports to Manhattan in about 10 minutes or less. To start, air taxi prices almost certainly will be significantly more that the cost of taking a cab or Uber ride from JFK airport to Manhattan, but the difference could narrow over time because eVTOLs should be able to transport a higher volume of passengers than ground vehicles stuck in traffic going each way.

“You will see highways in the sky,” Archer Aviation CEO Adam Goldstein predicted during an interview at the company’s San Jose, California, headquarters. “There will be hundreds, maybe thousands of these aircraft flying in these individual cities and it will truly change the way cities are being built.”

First, I once again get to enhance my vocabulary, thanks to the term “powered lift”. It’s a little crazy to think that there hasn’t been a new, formally recognized category of flying machines in almost 80 years, but here we are.

In our last update on flying taxis, it was suggested that FAA approval would not come before 2027, which as noted scotches the “flying taxis at the FIFA World Cup” possibility. I still feel like there will be some way to make it happen in time, but I’m just guessing as someone with zero expertise in the matter. Also, whether that would be a good idea is another thing.

The price of these trips remains a subject of some uncertainty. I won’t rehash what I’ve said before, just that there’s going to need to be some more infrastructure to make this all make sense, and the price of the ride will necessarily need to include the price of getting to the ride.

The comment about “highways in the skies” brings up again the question of noise, and also of safety. Commercial air travel is extremely safe in the US, way more so than driving land-based vehicles, but these things are brand new and we’ll be figuring it out as we go. Not to put too fine a point on it, but any mishaps in the air will have the potential to cause a whole lot more damage than a typical wreck on the highway.

And finally, the China factor and Things Donald Trump Fixates On. I’ve already noted that for good or for ill, Trump 2.0 will mean a smoother path to approval and adoption for autonomous vehicles, and I think the same will be true for flying taxis. Whatever happens in the short term, I expect there to be a lot of movement on this in the next four years.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Justice Department asked to investigate GLO’s screw job of Houston on Harvey funds

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Not sure that late is actually better than never in this case, but here we are.

A complaint stemming from the Texas General Land Office’s allocation of Harvey disaster recovery funds, which originally awarded no money to Houston or Harris County from a $1 billion distribution, has been escalated to the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development asked the Justice Department on Wednesday to take action against the GLO after finding that it had violated the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against Black and Hispanic residents when it designed a competition to allocate the relief money.

HUD’s review of the GLO’s funding process revealed that the state agency had engaged in a pattern of “discriminatory actions based on race and national origin,” wrote Ayelet Weiss, assistant general counsel for HUD’s Office of Fair Housing Enforcement, in a letter to the Justice Department.

In a separate letter sent to state officials, HUD told the GLO that it knowingly denied communities critical funding, and “compounded the harm” that residents suffered from Hurricane Harvey.

The new correspondence affirmed HUD’s previous finding of discrimination in 2022 against the GLO. At that time, the Justice Department said it would defer consideration of the matter until HUD wrapped up its fair housing investigation.

[…]

Former mayor and now U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner said Wednesday that while he was glad the findings were being sent to the Justice Department, he was frustrated by the amount of time it took to hold the GLO accountable.

Houston residents whose lives were devastated by Harvey should have received federal aid years ago, Turner said, and instead the GLO diverted those funds to communities in lesser need.

“What do you say to these communities in Houston who have gone without the resources that they need to mitigate flooding in their very own communities?” Turner said. “HUD is doing the right thing in referring this matter to the DOJ, but it just should’ve been done more than two years ago.”

See here for the previous update. I’m with Rep. Turner on this: It’s nice to be validated, but it would have been way nicer to have gotten our fair share of the cash and/or this finding and request for action much sooner than now. I assume the Trump “Justice” Department will trash this as soon as it crosses the Attorney General’s desk. I don’t know what else to say. The Trib has more.

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Paxton asks SCOTx to get him off the State Bar hook

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

As the sun rises in the east.

Still a crook any way you look

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office wants the Texas Supreme Court to throw out a State Bar ethics complaint against him — two weeks after the court dismissed a similar complaint against his assistant attorney general.

Seven out of the nine justices ruled Dec. 31 that First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster could not be disciplined for allegedly making false claims about the 2020 presidential election results in a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Solicitor General Aaron L. Nielson wrote in a letter to the high court Monday that because the commission’s complaint against Paxton was closely related to the complaint against Webster, Paxton’s suit should also be dismissed.

“The Commission’s petition against the Attorney General in this case is based on the same legal theories and underlying facts as—and therefore materially identical to—the one filed against the First Assistant in Webster,” Nielson wrote.

[…]

The Bar’s disciplinary arm, the Commission for Lawyer Discipline, alleged Paxton misrepresented facts of the election with claims unsupported by evidence. The commission accused Paxton of professional misconduct, which violates the bar’s rules. The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas upheld the State Bar’s suit.

In Webster’s case, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the Commission for Lawyer Discipline took it upon itself to attempt to discipline Webster when the U.S. Supreme Court — the court that heard the election lawsuit — did not and didn’t ask the commission to do so. It also intrudes upon the attorney general’s constitutional authority to both file petitions in court and assess the propriety of the claims he makes, the justices ruled.

At the time, Paxton called the State Bar’s complaints against himself and Webster “baseless” and “political retaliation.”

“The Texas State Bar attempted to punish us for fighting to secure our national elections but we did not and will not ever back down from doing what is right,” Paxton said in a statement.

In his letter, Nielson wrote the Fifth Court of Appeals “committed all of the same errors” in reviewing the case as the Eighth Court of Appeals in El Paso did in Webster’s case — hence why Paxton’s suit should be dismissed.

The dissenting justices — Justice Jeff Boyd and Justice Debra Lehrmann — said in their opinion in Webster’s case that the majority’s opinion showed “disdain or distrust” for the commission’s ability to discipline lawyers.

See here for the Brent Webster update. The best I can come up with for why SCOTx would allow the lawsuit against Paxton to continue after giving Webster a free pass is that Paxton was the guy in charge, where the buck stops, and it’s different for that guy to lie and do fraud before a court than for some foot soldier. I don’t actually believe that, I’m quite certain that they’ll give him a lollipop and a pat on the head and send him on his way, but I made myself think up a possibly plausible rationale for them to do the right thing, and that’s what I’ve got. Accountability is for suckers. Start the clock on this one.

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Dispatches from Dallas, January 17 edition

Posted on January 17, 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: news from the Lege and about the upcoming May elections in North Texas. Also: the Dallas City Manager hiring process is limping to a close; Mayor Johnson changes his mind about the HERO propositions; Fort Worth PD seizes photos from an art museum as possible kiddie porn; Tarrant County jail news, including folks arrested at a County Commissioners’ meeting over protesting deaths; schools news, particularly the discussion about Keller ISD splitting up; water infrastructure news including the latest on the Marvin Nichols reservoir; and more.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of PJ Harvey. One of my goals for 2025 is to listen to more music by women artists, so expect to hear about a lot of women this year.

The big news this week is that the Texas legislature is again in session. As noted by our host, Democrats managed to keep the worst Republican, David Cook, (R-Mansfield), out of the speakership in favor of a slightly less bad Republican, Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock). Cook had pledged to keep all Democrats out of leadership; Burrows didn’t. That’s the slightly less bad.

We’re still in the “what are we going to do this year?” part of the session, so here’s what some of our North Texas legislators have to say:

In other news:

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SCOTUS hears the Texas anti-porn case

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

There’s a lot on the line here.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared conflicted over whether a Texas law regulating adult entertainment websites infringes upon First Amendment free speech rights of adults seeking to access online pornography.

At issue is a 2023 Texas law requiring companies that operate websites where more than one-third of the material is harmful to minors to use “reasonable” age verification measures to ensure users are at least 18 years old. More than a dozen other states have passed similar laws, but Texas’ is the first to be looked at by the nation’s highest court. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision could determine the fate of other states’ laws and set new precedent on how the government can impose age-related content regulations.

More than two hours of arguments on Wednesday concluded with a lawyer for adult entertainment websites contending that the internet is “free” and that it is incumbent upon parents, not websites, to screen out content inappropriate to their kids. Derek Shaffer, the attorney, also pointed out the particular features of Texas’ law compared to that of other states.

“This is the worst of the laws,” Shaffer said. “Texas is telling these targeted speakers that pornography is, among other things, contributing to prostitution. You have a hostile regulator who is saying to adults, ‘You should not be here.’”

[…]

State lawmakers passed House Bill 1101 in 2023 as part of a broader push to prevent children from being exposed to sexual materials. The law quickly drew scrutiny from free speech advocates and adult entertainment websites like Pornhub, who said the law would place undue burden on adults by forcing them to jump through hoops and endanger their privacy to access legal content. Critics also said the law was overly broad and could apply to websites providing information on reproductive rights resources, sexual education and LGBTQ+ literature. The law was initially blocked from going into effect after a federal U.S. District Court Judge found it unconstitutional.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in November 2023, allowing the law to go into effect. The law carries fines of up to $10,000 per day that a website operates without age-verification requirements and up to an additional $250,000 if a minor accesses sexual material harmful to them. Pornhub has disabled access to Texans since last March, when the 5th Circuit formally vacated the lower court’s ruling.

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday were asked to consider whether the appeals court applied proper legal reasoning in upholding age-verification. The Free Speech Coalition, a trade group representing adult entertainment websites, argued that the proper standard of review is strict scrutiny, the most stringent standard that is used in cases pertaining to fundamental rights such as freedom of speech. The 5th Circuit relied on rational basis review, a less strict review which considers only whether there’s a legitimate state interest for the law.

Texas’ solicitor general Aaron Nielson argued on behalf of the state and told justices that the law would satisfy any level of scrutiny.

“Age verification today is simple, safe and common,” Nielson said. “Even if heightened scrutiny applies, Texas easily satisfies it.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision on the case this summer. They appeared open to the idea of an age-verification requirement, but some justices seemed concerned about the possible First Amendment implications of a broad ruling. In two separate cases, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that laws aimed to prevent the distribution of obscene materials to minors were unconstitutional restrictions of free speech.

See here for the previous update. There’s not a clear consensus of what the court made of the arguments. Here are two headlines I came across on Thursday afternoon:

Justices skeptical of Fifth Circuit ruling that upheld Texas age-verification internet law

Supreme Court appears sympathetic to law requiring porn sites to verify users’ age

Go guess. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern takes his own shot at it:

In past cases like Ashcroft, the Supreme Court rejected this censorship-first approach, warning against the perils of censoring protected expression in the name of protecting kids. How times have changed. As soon as Derek Shaffer began arguing for the adult film industry on Wednesday, the conservative justices accused him of underestimating the danger and ubiquity of internet porn today. “It’s been 20 years since Ashcroft,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Shaffer. “The iPhone was introduced in 2007 and Ashcroft was decided in 2004. I mean, kids can get online porn through gaming systems, tablets, phones, computers.” There has been an “explosion of addiction to online porn.” Clearly, she posited, relying on parents to “filter” explicit content “isn’t working.” Justice Samuel Alito agreed. “Come on, be real,” he lectured Shaffer. “There’s a huge volume of evidence that filtering doesn’t work. We’ve had many years of experience with it.”

So the Ashcroft court’s sanguine assumption that parents could rely on technology to filter out porn has vanished. Gone, too, is that court’s laissez-faire attitude toward sexually explicit speech, replaced by Barrett’s concern about youth “addiction” to porn. “Do you dispute,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Shaffer, “the societal problems that are created both short term and long term from the rampant access to pornography for children?” (“That is a complicated question,” Shaffer offered.) “Technological access to pornography, obviously, has exploded,” Chief Justice John Roberts opined, adding that “the nature of the pornography, I think, has also changed.” Justice Clarence Thomas added that “we’re in an entirely different world” from Ashcroft, which “was a world of dial-up internet.”

All of these justices appear to harbor some regrets about Ashcroft’s unyielding insistence upon the application of strict scrutiny to online porn laws. But what should replace it? Alito sounded eager to embrace the 5th Circuit’s use of rational basis review, while other justices waffled. Barrett floated the idea of “intermediate scrutiny,” which gives the government more leeway to regulate speech without writing a blank check. Roberts and Kavanaugh seemed interested in applying a kind of pseudo-strict scrutiny that would, in practice, dilute protections for internet porn. Justice Elena Kagan fretted about “the spillover danger” of “relax[ing] strict scrutiny in one place,” noting that “all of a sudden strict scrutiny gets relaxed in other places.” Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson shared that concern, and it’s a weighty one: If the court slackens First Amendment standards for internet pornography, it will inevitably reduce protections for speech that it holds in higher esteem.

The liberal justices are right to fret about the dire consequences of reducing or eliminating constitutional protections for sexual expression online. If the court takes this step, there’s no reason why states’ battle against explicit material must stop at PornHub. States could target online bookstores that sell sexually explicit e-books, for instance, as well as streaming services that carry explicit TV show and movies. As the dissenting judge on the 5th Circuit explained, there is an endless array of graphic media that adults have a constitutional right to access even though it is plainly inappropriate for children. Could a state punish HBO for airing Game of Thrones without first verifying viewers’ age? Under the 5th Circuit’s view, apparently shared by at least one justice, almost certainly.

The best outcome that is on the table is for SCOTUS to send it back to the Fifth Circuit with instructions to apply strict scrutiny. After that, we’ll see. A press release from the ACLU of Texas is here, and TPM, the Chron, and NBC News have more.

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Nate Paul takes a plea

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Another anticlimactic end to an ongoing saga.

Nate Paul, a prominent Austin real estate developer and head of World Class Holdings, has pleaded guilty to a single count of making false statements to a lending institution. The plea, entered Wednesday, concludes an 18-month federal investigation into allegations of bank and wire fraud related to Paul’s business dealings.

Federal prosecutors have recommended a sentence that includes no more than six months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $1 million. However, the final sentence will be determined following a pre-sentencing evaluation by the U.S. Probation Office. The plea agreement also stipulates the dismissal of 11 additional charges against Paul.

Paul initially faced a jury trial scheduled for February 18 and was confronting charges that carried severe penalties. He had been indicted in June 2023 on eight counts of bank fraud for allegedly providing false information to secure over $172 million in loans. A superseding indictment in November added four wire fraud charges.

Each of the eight bank fraud counts carried a potential sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine, while the wire fraud counts each carried a maximum of 20 years and a $250,000 fine. The plea agreement, which remains under seal, caps Paul’s prison time at six months if accepted by the court.

[…]

Paul’s legal troubles also intersected with political controversy, notably involving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paul was accused of receiving improper assistance from Paxton, who allegedly used his office to intervene in legal matters to Paul’s benefit. These allegations contributed to Paxton’s impeachment in 2023, although he was later acquitted in a State Senate trial.

The plea deal emerged shortly after Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra denied a joint motion from prosecutors and Paul’s defense team to delay the trial until April. Judge Ezra expressed frustration at the protracted timeline, declaring the case had “gone on way too long.”

The agreement spares Paul from a lengthy trial that was expected to involve 10-14 days of testimony from the prosecution alone, not including the defense’s arguments and rebuttals.

Beyond the federal charges, Paul faced legal repercussions in a separate civil case. In November, he was sentenced to 10 days in jail for contempt of court, perjury, and violating an injunction in a lawsuit involving a charity. This case also highlighted Paul’s ties to Paxton, with allegations that the attorney general improperly intervened to assist Paul in avoiding foreclosures.

As with pretty much everything related to the Ken Paxton Scandalmatic Universe, there’s a bunch of lore here, with a bit of Remember Some Guys thrown in for extra effect. We were first introduced to our buddy Nate shortly before the 2020 election. Remember that we heard about Nate Paul because a bunch of now-former top lieutenants of Paxton accused him of using the AG’s office to butt into a civil dispute between Paul and the Mitte Foundation on Paul’s behalf. That included interfering with a federal subpoena, which those senior staff members correctly saw as an abuse of the office and its powers. It also led to the allegations that Paxton’s actions on Paul’s behalf constituted a bribe, which in turn led to an FBI investigation of Paxton and the ill-fated impeachment by the Legislature.

And then that’s pretty much it. Paxton skated on the impeachment, and whatever the FBI may have found about his relationship with Nate Paul – there were rumors about forthcoming federal charges against Paxton, ones that never quite made it across the finish line, as recently as a few months ago – it is a sure thing that they’ll never see the light of day now. Paul served a few days for contempt relating to that still-ongoing civil case, and he’ll do a bit more time as a result of this plea deal, and that will be that. I have dozens if not hundreds of posts with the Nate Paul tag, and I won’t even get a lousy T-shirt out of it. Maybe something will happen with the whistleblower litigation, but I think we’ve all learned by now to keep our expectations at ground level.

So that’s it, more or less. Time to turn yet another damn page. Ken Paxton is the most undeservedly lucky bastard in the state. KVUE, the Statesman, and KXAN have more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment, Legal matters, Scandalized! | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

More on the Women’s Pro Baseball League

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good overview of the things this new league will need to do to have a good chance of success.

For the first time since the Eisenhower Administration, women dreaming of playing baseball professionally in the United States will have the opportunity to see that dream realized with a league of their own.

Last October, the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) issued its first press release to announce the founding of the country’s only professional women’s baseball league, which is set to launch in the summer of 2026. The league is co-founded by Justine Siegal — who is best known for founding Baseball For All, “[A] girls baseball nonprofit that builds gender equity by creating opportunities for girls to play, coach, and lead in the sport” — and Keith Stein, a businessman, lawyer, and member of the ownership group for a semiprofessional men’s baseball team in Toronto. The league has also brought in former Toronto Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston and Team Japan’s two-time Women’s Baseball World Cup MVP Ayami Sato as special advisors.

Women’s baseball has a long, but unfortunately sparse, history dating back to the late 1800s, when colleges in the Northeast, such as Vassar, fielded teams. Since then, women have largely accrued playing time by representing their country’s national team at the Olympics, playing on barnstorming teams – from the Dolly Vardens in the 1870s to the Colorado Silver Bullets in the 1990s – or by earning roles in leagues primarily created for men, from the amateur ranks to the pros (see Mo’ne Davis, Toni Stone, Lizzie Arlington, and more recently, Kelsie Whitmore, among many others). Aside from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, formed during WWII to fill a void left by the male ballplayers fighting overseas, women in the United States have not had a dedicated professional league.

So after all these years without a league, why now? “The past was the right time,” Stein says in a recent interview with FanGraphs. “Thirty years ago was the right time. Four years ago was the right time. Definitely, definitely, now is the right time.” As evidence, he notes, “There’s now a professional women’s hockey league that’s thriving, a professional women’s soccer league, a professional women’s basketball league. They’re all thriving because of the appetite, the incredible appetite, for women’s sport.”

But while the culture does seem primed to welcome more women’s leagues, an enthusiastic fan base only covers half of the demand equation. Unlike the other sports that Stein cites, women’s baseball doesn’t benefit from the existence of college programs to act as a developmental pipeline. Stein says the creation of a league will be a “catalyst for the development of a whole infrastructure around women’s baseball and hopefully spawn the development of a baseball culture in America for women.” And in the meantime, he believes there’s more than enough talent to fill the WPBL rosters. Nearly 700 players registered in the first week or so after the league’s announcement, according to Stein. “We have great professional players from around the world, top players from Japan, the U.S. — everywhere — who are very excited to play with us,” Stein says. “There are over 2,000 women playing on boys high school teams. There are thousands and thousands of players who are ready to play in this league.”

Players and fans can only get an upstart women’s league so far, though; it needs a financial support system to help it get off the ground. One way to do that would be for the women’s league to form a partnership with its male counterpart, as the WNBA did with the NBA. However, for the WPBL, partnering with MLB would mean giving men’s baseball a say in how the women’s league operates. Perhaps wary of this, the WPBL instead is choosing to remain independent and create a female-led league. To that end, the league has composed an advisory board of seven women with decades of experience in baseball and women’s sports. Maybelle Blair, a former pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, will serve as the board’s Honorary Chair and throw out the first pitch at the WPBL’s season opener in 2026.

The WPBL plans to hold a scouting camp this coming spring, followed by a player draft late in 2025, leading up to its first season during the summer of 2026. The league’s six inaugural teams will be located in the northeastern region of the U.S. to start, with plans to expand nationwide as the league grows. Given its ambitious aims, the challenges of starting a brand new league, and the friction created by a sports culture that is still learning to properly value athletes who aren’t men, the WPBL faces a formidable path forward. Fortunately, trailblazers across women’s sports have mapped a course. The recent explosion of eyeballs on women’s basketball sets up the WNBA as an obvious model for a women’s baseball league, but the WNBA stands on the shoulders of earlier attempts at women’s professional basketball.

Many remember the American Basketball League that started one year prior to the WNBA, and lasted just three seasons, but almost two decades prior, the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL) gave American basketball fans their first taste of women’s pro ball. Though the league drew thousands of fans when it tipped off, it folded after three years. The WBL demonstrated that a women’s professional league could work, but it still depended on proper execution off the court. Though women’s sports are generating “incredible interest and support,” as Stein notes in the press release, there’s a lot the WPBL can learn from the missteps of the WBL in three critical areas – team ownership, the on-field product, and media coverage.

See here for the background. The article goes into detail about those three critical areas, and it’s worth your time to read. First on the list is getting the right owners, who will be in for the long haul and who can handle a few years of being in the red as they invest in the league. I’m excited for them and hope very much they get this right.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of January 13

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance sends its love to the people of Los Angeles as it brings you this week’s roundup. A portal of verified fundraisers for people affected by the fires is here for anyone who might like to make a donation.

Continue reading →

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Burrows elected Speaker

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Gotta admit, I’m a little surprised.

Rep. Dustin Burrows

Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, was voted speaker of the Texas House on Tuesday, elevating him to one of the most powerful positions in state government.

Burrows’ win marks a disappointing defeat for the insurgent wing of the party who have been working since the last legislative session to push establishment Republicans out of power. Those insurgent Republicans, who wish to push the chamber further to the right, picked up more than a dozen seats in the most recent election cycle and saw this speaker race as their best chance in years to oust the current House leadership.

But while Burrows’ predecessor, Rep. Dade Phelan of Beaumont, was forced to give up the gavel, the elevation of his close ally signals a similar power structure will likely remain in place.

Burrows won the speaker’s race by a vote of 85-55, edging out Rep. David Cook of Mansfield, with nine members who were present but did not vote.

Burrows’ support from Democrats will likely become major ammunition for his Republican critics aligned with the party’s right wing who warned that the new speaker should be chosen by a majority of GOP votes.

It’s unlikely that Republicans will completely unite behind Burrows despite his win. Many of his critics have promised to go after Republicans who supported Burrows in the primary, and the Republican Party of Texas has vowed to censure those members who broke from Cook.

You can see who voted for whom here – the “A” votes are for Burrows, the “N”s are for Cook, and the rest did not vote. While I’ve previously said that the one constant in the Texas Legislature has been quick resolutions to Speaker elections, I thought this one might drag out, just because there was so much bad blood on the Republican side. But it wasn’t to be, so congrats to Speaker Burrows. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that.

I’ve already said my piece about this, and it still holds. Anything that makes Dan Patrick sad is fine by me, and if this gums up the works in passing some bills, that’s likely to be for the best. Take your victories where you can and go from there. The Chron, Reform Austin, Bayou City Sludge, Lone Star Left, and The Barbed Wire have more, with the latter bringing some nicer news about the first day’s events as well.

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

El Paso doctor responds to Paxton’s gender affirming care lawsuit

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

Dr. Hector Granados felt puzzled when he first heard of the allegations. The El Paso pediatrician had just finished his hospital rounds early in the morning last fall when he received a call from a friend. The friend saw in the news that Texas was suing Granados.

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition Oct. 29 claiming Granados had prescribed puberty blockers and hormones to minors for gender transition – health care the state made illegal beginning Sept. 1, 2023. The court filing accuses Granados of providing gender-affirming care under the false pretense of treating precocious puberty.

Paxton filed the lawsuit in Kaufman County near Dallas, about 650 miles east of El Paso, where one of the 21 patients in the court filing is said to reside. Granados is one of three doctors Paxton sued last year for allegedly providing gender-affirming care to minors.

Granados denied the allegations.

“I was always respectful of the law and I will continue to be because we follow what it specifically mandates,” Granados said. “You’re not able to provide transgender care to minors. We stopped.”

The AG’s office didn’t respond to El Paso Matters’ requests for comment, but called Granados a “radical gender activist” in the lawsuit.

Granados told El Paso Matters he stopped providing gender-affirming care after Texas Senate Bill 14 passed in May 2023 because he didn’t want to risk getting his medical license revoked. He began informing parents and discharging his transgender patients prior to the law going into effect. Since then, he’s continued to see youths for other concerns.

[…]

In a response filed Nov. 25, Bracken filed a motion to move the case from Kaufman to El Paso, and a motion to dismiss the case.

All of the prescriptions cited in the lawsuit were filled in El Paso, according to the state’s court filing. Granados resides and works in El Paso, splitting his time between his three clinics, as well as El Paso Children’s Hospital and the Hospitals of Providence.

Scheduling out-of-town court appearances would be difficult when Granados is on call three weeks every month for neonatal, emergency and pediatric intensive care, Bracken said. Granados would have to make multiple two-day trips to Kaufman to appear in court, taking time away from the patients who depend on him, he said.

See here for the background. The story says Paxton has filed three such lawsuits. I’m aware of two – here’s the post I did on the first one. A little googling around, and here’s the third one:

Paxton accuses Dr. M. Brett Cooper, an associate professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center who also practiced at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, of prescribing various levels of testosterone cypionate to 15 patients between the ages of 14 and 17. Most patients listed in the lawsuit were between 16 and 17 years old.

In the 34-page lawsuit filed in Collin County, Paxton calls Cooper a “scofflaw” and “radical gender activist” — a reprisal of similar labels he used in his first two lawsuits against Dr. May Lau of UT Southwestern and Dr. Hector Granados of El Paso.

Paxton has said the state “is cracking down” on doctors who provide treatment to children experiencing gender dysphoria despite the state’s ban, which took effect Sept. 1, 2023. The law calls for the Texas Medical License to revoke the medical licenses of physicians who violate it.

Paxton said Cooper has prescribed hormone treatment to patients as recently as Sept. 25, and that patients filled prescriptions as recently as Oct. 8.

“Despite the enactment of the law, Cooper continues to prescribe and distribute cross-sex hormones to his minor patients for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex or affirming their belief that their gender identity or sex is consistent with their biological sex,” he wrote in the suit.

Paxton also accuses Cooper of misrepresenting diagnoses and billing codes through diagnoses such as “precocious puberty” or “endocrine disorder” to treat patients for gender dysphoria.

That last bit should be very concerning to everyone, because precocious puberty is a real thing. In the same way that the abortion ban has put a lot of women’s health in jeopardy because they are unable to get timely care during a miscarriage, children with precocious puberty are going to suffer from Paxton’s heavyhandedness. What does he care? Just a little collateral damage in service of the larger goal. I don’t have much faith in what the courts will do with this, but this is where we are.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Just a little reminder

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This story asks a question that it doesn’t quite answer but is worth pondering.

There are rolling hills west of Los Angeles and stretching to the Pacific Coast covered with homes — many now charred by recent wildfires.

North and northwest of San Antonio are similar hills that make up the Texas Hill Country. They too are covered with homes as the region’s population grows, especially with retirees and other homebuyers. Some seek the quiet life, and others just want a home with “a Hill Country view.”

But do they face the same vulnerabilities as homes in California?

The Texas A&M Forest Service reports that many of these Texas homes in the hills are served by volunteer fire departments, which means longer response times to an emergency. Forest Service Spokeswoman Dayziah Petruska said it could take up to an hour for some of these departments to arrive on the scene of a wildfire in a remote area. She said the long response time could be the same for her agency in some spots of Texas.

She said forest service experts constantly access fire weather conditions where wildfires could break out at any time and stage equipment and personnel accordingly. “Based off fire weather, we staff in different areas of the state, with that being our own employees,” she explained. “And then we also bring in — whether it be out-of-state or Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System. So, those are structure firefighters who have been trained to do wildland firefighting.”

Petruska said Fredericksburg is a hub where heavier equipment is kept at the ready for Hill Country fires.

So prevention is important. She explained that residents in those hilly communities can take important preemptive steps to protect their homes from a wildfire.

[…]

Petruska added that fire also travels faster up hills, and cedar trees are a particular concern — they’re full of resin and are very combustible.

She said it’s important to control the number of embers that could be created by a wildfire. Those little smoldering chunks of vegetation or debris can become airborne and spark another fire where they land, sometimes far away.

There’s some useful information for homeowners who need to be aware of wildfire risks, but it doesn’t get into the question of how likely is such a thing to happen somewhere in Texas. I don’t have an answer to that either, but I am reminded that the biggest and most destructive wildfire in state history was the Bastrop fire of 2011, which is to say in recent memory. Here’s a reminder of what that experience was like, from someone who was affected.

[Alice] Traugott, who was 63 at the time of the fire, was at H-E-B buying deli meats when her husband called to tell her they were being evacuated from their home, and to meet him at the Roadhouse restaurant on Texas 21.

She left her groceries on the conveyor belt of the checkout counter and drove straight to her husband, to find him with their four dogs in his truck, a few of his musical instruments, her kindle and jewelry.

“And that’s all,” Traugott said, a mother of four sons.

They spent the next two nights at a Holiday Inn, which did not take long to reach capacity.

“I was aggravated because I thought, ‘Oh this is stupid,’ because I thought the firemen would put the fire out,” Traugott said. “I had no concept of what a wildfire was … I thought the firemen would put the fire out because that’s what firemen do, they put out the fire. I didn’t understand what a wildfire was.”

A couple days later, residents who were asked to evacuate were told to go to a local middle school. A large map of the county was hung on the wall of the school’s gymnasium, and a firefighter was telling people whether their home was burned or not.

Donning clothes she had been wearing for the two days, Traugott approached the firefighter and gave him her address.

“He looked at the map and he said, ‘I’m sorry, your house is gone,’” Traugott said. “And I said ‘get out.’ I couldn’t believe it.

“People say it’s just stuff, you know. It’s just your house, it’s just your furniture. But it doesn’t feel that way at first. It feels like you almost don’t know who you are, or what you’re supposed to do, where you’re supposed to go.”

She returned to her 3-acre estate a few days after the fire passed it, equipped with a mop, rags and pail full of soap, thinking she would just have to clean her house.

“There was nothing left,” Traugott said. “There was nothing to clean, there was nothing to scrub. There was nothing to sift. It was down to the tad, down to the cement slab. There was nothing left, and I kept thinking: where did the refrigerator go? Where did the washer and dryer go? Where’s the bathtub?

“It was just unrecognizable rubble and ash, that’s all that was left — and that’s when I realized what a wildfire is.”

As big and bad as that fire was, it’s nowhere close to what’s happening now. I don’t know what the risk is here – 2011 was also a year of record drought, which was certainly a contributing factor – but it will never be zero. I’d like to see a story that gets into that, if only as a reminder. In the meantime, I just thought it was worth remembering what had happened here, not that long ago. If you want to do something now, a portal of verified fundraisers for people affected by the fires is here for anyone who might like to make a donation.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SCOTx hears Paxton’s appeal of the Annunciation House case

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

A big one.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office told sometimes skeptical Texas Supreme Court justices Monday that El Paso’s Annunciation House migrant shelters are harboring undocumented immigrants and can’t use Catholic religious beliefs as a legal justification for its actions.

“Annunciation House is not immunized because of its religion,” Assistant Attorney General Ryan Baasch said in oral arguments over the agency’s appeal of an El Paso court ruling that blocked efforts to force the Catholic nonprofit to turn over records or face potential closure.

“Do you disagree that this is religious activity?” Justice Debra Lehrmann asked Baasch.

“It may be, and then there’s going to be a question of whether the activity at issue here substantially burdens the religious activity,” Baasch replied.

“If it’s a religious activity, how could it not substantially burden it? I think you want to shut it down?” Justice Jeff Boyd asked.

“The substantiality would be a big part of that inquiry, and I don’t think that there’s enough facts on the record here to determine if the burden has been substantial,” Baasch said.

The Texas Supreme Court is hearing the attorney general’s appeal of 205th District Judge Francisco Dominguez ruling in July, when he rejected what he called “outrageous and intolerable” actions by Paxton’s office in seeking to potentially strip Annunciation House of the right to operate in Texas.

The state’s highest civil court is considering several issues, including whether Annunciation House’s provision of offering hospitality to people who entered the country illegally violates a state law against harboring undocumented immigrants, and whether the attorney general’s efforts to compel Annunciation House to produce records violates the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits government officials from interfering with a person’s free exercise of religion.

“There has been no violation of the harboring statute because Annunciation House, an established Ministry of the Catholic Church, does not hide undocumented people from law enforcement. Hiding them is an element of the harboring statue,” Warr told the justices.

She also stressed that the vast majority of people hosted by Annunciation House are legally in the country because they were released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while courts consider their immigration cases.

“Most of the people who we house are brought to us by ICE after they have processed them and they need a place to stay,” Warr said.

[…]

Paxton has denied that his office is interfering with religious freedom, and argued in a brief to the Texas Supreme Court that Garcia acknowledged in testimony that Annunciation House “does not offer confessions, baptisms, or communion, and makes ‘no’ efforts to evangelize or convert its guests to any religion.”

The Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops filed a brief with the Texas Supreme Court in support of Annunciation House’s arguments. The bishops said that underlying Paxton’s argument “is the notion that his office, and not the Catholic Church, is the proper arbiter of who is ‘Catholic’ enough to be a Catholic ministry.”

First Liberty Institute, one of the nation’s leading Christian conservative organizations advocating for religious liberty, also sided with Annunciation House in a brief filed with the Texas Supreme Court.

The brief said the high court previously ruled that the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act “requires the government to tread carefully and lightly when its actions substantially burden religious exercise.”

“Shuttering a religious nonprofit like Annunciation House is hardly treading lightly,” First Liberty Institute said in the brief.

The First Liberty Institute support could be helpful to Annunciation House before the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court because of its conservative background and history of successfully arguing religious freedom cases.

The El Paso Chamber and El Paso County filed briefs to the Texas Supreme Court in support of Annunciation House. The America First Legal Foundation – a nonprofit advocacy group founded by Stephen Miller, an architect of President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration policies – filed a brief in support of Paxton.

See here for the previous update. A ruling is likely months away, and may wait until after a SCOTUS case that touches on some similar issues is decided. The newest member of the Supreme Court is sitting this out, for reasons that were not specified. I’m generally not a fan of statutes like the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is based on the national law and which to my mind are generally enacted to favor conservative religious interests, and the First Liberty Institute is usually a villain in these matters. That both of them stand in the way of Paxton’s crusade is more than a little ironic. If that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes. The Trib and the Chron have more.

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

Oh, who needs board approval anyway?

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Heck of a job, y’all.

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles’ administration greenlit about $870 million in spending over the past 16 months without receiving required school board approval, breaking district policy and frustrating some board members.

HISD administrators did not bring about 130 purchase agreements — all made through a process that allows HISD to skip soliciting bids from vendors — to the district’s state-appointed board for monthly approval, bypassing a step designed to provide oversight and transparency. Many purchase agreements dealt with day-to-day district operations, such as maintaining school grounds and renting equipment, while a handful were for consultants.

The total potential value of the purchase agreements amounted to about $55 million per month during the 16-month period, nearly double the monthly average of $30 million approved during the two years before that span, a Houston Landing analysis shows.

In a video posted Monday morning on YouTube, Miles said HISD administrators did not intentionally hide any agreements. Miles said district staff misunderstood district policy and have now corrected the issue.

“Prior to winter break, we discovered that we weren’t following all the policies related to procurement review process,” Miles said. “One important step is board approval, and that step was missed.”

[…]

Board members Adam Rivon and Rolando Martinez said none of the contracts immediately stood out to them as bad spending, but the breach in policy concerned them.

“While I appreciate efforts to address the issue retroactively, I’m not satisfied because these mistakes make it harder for parents and the community to trust that things are being handled the right way,” Rivon, a member of the district’s Audit Committee, said in a statement.

The district’s internal auditor reviewed each unapproved purchase agreement and found no violations of the law, Miles said. Similar audits will be conducted quarterly going forward, he said.

HISD administrators presented the full list of purchase agreements made from mid-August 2023 to mid-December 2024 to board members for retroactive approval during their December board meeting. At that meeting, board members raised the issue briefly without discussion, went into closed session out of public view for three hours and, ultimately, tabled the vote.

“It came to my attention, through communications with staff members, that the board had not seen all expenditures made under (HISD’s purchasing policy),” Board president Audrey Momanaee said in December, explaining why she had added the issue to the board agenda.

Board members are expected to reconsider approval of the vendor awards on Thursday. Actual spending has likely been lower than $870 million, because the purchase agreements set the maximum amount that district officials can spend on a specific expense.

[…]

In August 2023, about two months after Miles’ appointment, HISD passed a policy raising the amount Miles’ administration can spend without board approval from $100,000 to $1 million on contracts awarded through the bidding process. However, the change did not apply to vendor awards made through cooperative agreements, which were still supposed to receive board approval, regardless of their value.

However, starting in September 2023, HISD stopped bringing spending agreements made through purchasing cooperatives to the board. They did not bring any more to the board for approval until December 2024, aside from a $1 million contract for education consultant Kitamba MGT in February 2024.

Martinez acknowledged he “could have done a better job of looking at that policy” and recognized earlier that purchase agreements were no longer coming before the board. But Martinez said he wasn’t aware of the issue, and nobody in Miles’ administration informed him they had stopped presenting the contracts.

“I don’t feel like it’s a board issue. The superintendent has taken responsibility and they’ve owned up to the mistake. It really falls on them,” Martinez said. “This is an operational challenge. My expectation is that they come back to us and say, ‘This is how we’re going to correct it.’”

There doesn’t appear to be anything weird or questionable about the spending itself. The whole issue is that for reasons unclear, these purchase agreements stopped being presented to the Board of Managers for approval until someone finally noticed what was happening. It’s not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is embarrassing, and despite what Board member Martinez says, it’s as much on the Board of Managers as it is on Mike Miles, because none of them ever managed to wonder why they weren’t being asked for these approvals any more. If the elected Board had done this, it would absolutely be held up as a failure on their part.

Which is why I strongly disagree with this:

Eileen Hairel, a member of the District Advisory Committee that provides feedback to HISD’s administration, said she is “deeply concerned” by the error. She sees it as an example of poor governance and a possible setback in HISD’s efforts to pull itself out of TEA intervention.

“HISD will only get out of the state takeover if the board and district meet the exit criteria set out by the TEA, one of which is improved board governance,” Hairel said in a statement. “The foundation of good governance is sound policy and district compliance with that policy.”

No. That failure of governance is on the appointed Board and the appointed Superintendent. If anything, this should be a catalyst for getting the Board out of there in a more expedited manner. The rest of us don’t bear any responsibility for it.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

I-10 elevation project is now underway

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I had managed to forget that this was out there. And then I had to get on I-10 west on Monday morning and was rudely reminded.

A major construction project off Interstate 10 has kicked off with the intent to elevate the highway, reduce flooding in the area, and remove a pesky bridge that has been the source of dozens of 18-wheeler crashes.

But the construction, which kicked off Monday, will cause a traffic nightmare.

The five-lane westbound highway will now shrink to a three-lane roadway from Taylor Street to the Heights Boulevard exit. The two closed lanes will open back up after that exit. Commuters might have to live with that change for the foreseeable future, as the entire project won’t be completed until late 2028.

One of the end results of the construction project will be the removal of the Houston Avenue bridge, under I-10. That bridge, which is the scene of dozens of incidents each year, is frequently hit by 18-wheelers trying to squeeze under the overpass. The work is expected to last from mid-2025 through late 2027.

[…]

According to previous Chron reporting, TxDOT made some changes to the original elevation plan, lowering I-10 main lanes east of Studemont, ten feet lower than existing lanes with a max height of about 120 feet above Houston Avenue due to community resistance.

Main lanes would be kept at or below existing HOV lanes, with a max height of 70 feet, according to the agency.

See here, here, and here for some background. I’m just going to say what I said before, because it remains the truth: This is going to suck, bigtime. And we’ll be hip deep in I-45 construction well before this is over. 2025 is already on my short list of “worst years ever” and we’re not even in February. ABC13 has more.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Precinct analysis: County races 2024 part 1

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY:

President
Senate
Railroad Commissioner

I’m going to break up the countywide race analyses into two posts, to make my life a little easier. I’m also going to reduce the overall amount of information I’m putting in them, to make it a little easier to read and so I can focus on the main highlights. This post will look at the races for District Attorney and County Attorney. Next up will be Sheriff, Tax Assessor, and HCDE Trustee.


Dist     Simon    Teare    Dist    Simon%   Teare%
==================================================
HD126   47,761   29,439    HD126   61.87%   38.13%
HD127   53,722   35,813    HD127   60.00%   40.00%
HD128   45,910   19,150    HD128   70.57%   29.43%
HD129   51,699   32,738    HD129   61.23%   38.77%
HD130   62,990   27,451    HD130   69.65%   30.35%
HD131   10,822   32,382    HD131   25.05%   74.95%
HD132   53,549   36,510    HD132   59.46%   40.54%
HD133   43,025   31,611    HD133   57.65%   42.35%
HD134   41,009   56,972    HD134   41.85%   58.15%
HD135   28,531   33,004    HD135   46.37%   53.63%
HD137   11,672   16,651    HD137   41.21%   58.79%
HD138   41,482   30,436    HD138   57.68%   42.32%
HD139   18,310   39,500    HD139   31.67%   68.33%
HD140   11,157   16,722    HD140   40.02%   59.98%
HD141    8,682   28,273    HD141   23.49%   76.51%
HD142   15,647   34,870    HD142   30.97%   69.03%
HD143   15,114   20,396    HD143   42.56%   57.44%
HD144   19,724   18,880    HD144   51.09%   48.91%
HD145   20,705   37,183    HD145   35.77%   64.23%
HD146   12,967   41,335    HD146   23.88%   76.12%
HD147   15,670   47,291    HD147   24.89%   75.11%
HD148   23,700   26,757    HD148   46.97%   53.03%
HD149   20,094   25,468    HD149   44.10%   55.90%
HD150   47,621   30,571    HD150   60.90%   39.10%
        	
CC1    106,312  255,522    CC1     29.38%   70.62%
CC2    148,063  136,468    CC2     52.04%   47.96%
CC3    300,785  189,308    CC3     61.37%   38.63%
CC4    166,403  168,105    CC4     49.75%   50.25%


Dist     Smith  Menefee    Dist   Smith%  Menefee%
==================================================
HD126   47,538   29,093    HD126   62.03%   37.97%
HD127   53,566   35,276    HD127   60.29%   39.71%
HD128   45,804   18,871    HD128   70.82%   29.18%
HD129   51,724   32,171    HD129   61.65%   38.35%
HD130   62,928   26,856    HD130   70.09%   29.91%
HD131   10,816   32,205    HD131   25.14%   74.86%
HD132   53,455   35,987    HD132   59.76%   40.24%
HD133   43,575   30,403    HD133   58.90%   41.10%
HD134   41,168   55,755    HD134   42.47%   57.53%
HD135   28,602   32,671    HD135   46.68%   53.32%
HD137   11,765   16,335    HD137   41.87%   58.13%
HD138   41,662   29,732    HD138   58.36%   41.64%
HD139   18,406   39,143    HD139   31.98%   68.02%
HD140   11,211   16,540    HD140   40.40%   59.60%
HD141    8,819   28,006    HD141   23.95%   76.05%
HD142   15,741   34,574    HD142   31.28%   68.72%
HD143   15,023   20,280    HD143   42.55%   57.45%
HD144   19,806   18,605    HD144   51.56%   48.44%
HD145   20,683   36,672    HD145   36.06%   63.94%
HD146   12,860   41,082    HD146   23.84%   76.16%
HD147   15,642   46,963    HD147   24.99%   75.01%
HD148   23,783   26,347    HD148   47.44%   52.56%
HD149   19,985   25,345    HD149   44.09%   55.91%
HD150   47,469   30,136    HD150   61.17%   38.83%
        	
CC1    106,578  252,985    CC1     29.64%   70.36%
CC2    148,161  134,624    CC2     52.39%   47.61%
CC3    300,642  185,786    CC3     61.81%   38.19%
CC4    166,650  165,653    CC4     50.15%   49.85%

These were the two closest races of the five, with Menefee winning by 1.16 percentage points and 17K votes; Teare won by 1.9 points and 28K votes. The closeness of the races is reflected in the district results, and yes that’s Menefee losing in Commissioners Court Precinct 4. The obvious takeaway here is that Democrats didn’t give themselves a lot of slack when they redrew the Commissioners Court map in 2021. They need to win countywide by a big enough margin to feel comfortable. Which I’m sure everyone was at the time, but here we are now. I believe we can get back to where we were, or at least close to it, but that’s what we need to be working on now.

And while I would really like to have that aggregate cushion, I think the incumbent Commissioners will have a bit of an advantage. Or at least, they’ve got more of their fate in their own hands than most. I have a lot of faith in them. I just don’t want to have to rely on it.

The other positive we ought to have going into 2026 that we didn’t have in 2024 or 2022 is a District Attorney who isn’t going to spend all his time and energy crapping on Democratic judges and Commissioners. I would say one of the best things that could be done for local Dems in 2026 is to have Sean Teare loudly and continuously tout his accomplishments, especially as they pertain to cleaning up the various messes he’s inherited. The more this helps ease up crowding in the jail, the better. Pairing that with funding for an ad campaign to provide a counterpoint to those obnoxious “stop Houston murders” ads, and we’ve got something. That part isn’t on Sean Teare, I’m just saying. But really, just not having that headwind should be beneficial.

Next up will be the next three countywide races. Let me know what you think.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Harris County passes backup power rule for nursing homes

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good.

Assisted living facilities and nursing homes in the unincorporated areas of Harris County now are required to install backup power generators to keep heating and cooling systems operational during electrical outages, making the county among the first in Texas to implement such a mandate.

The mandate, included in the county’s revamped fire code, comes after the derecho in May, followed by Hurricane Beryl in July, that left more than 2 million households and businesses without power during sweltering temperatures. During the hurricane, at least 14 nursing homes and 30 assisted living facilities in Harris County lost power for multiple days.

“This is for all of our families, whether it’s our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, all of us. We’re all aging, and this could be us,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said at a Wednesday news conference to announce the new requirement.

At least 120 facilities throughout unincorporated Harris County will be required to have secondary power systems that switch on within three hours after an initial power loss. The updated code also requires facilities to implement emergency communication systems for rapid response, provide power for essential medical equipment and secure evacuation measures through powered doors and elevators.

Briones proposed the mandate be added to the county fire code at Commissioners Court’s Nov. 12 meeting. It passed unanimously.

Wednesday’s announcement sent at least one statewide association of assisted living facilities scrambling for answers.

Carmen Tilton, Vice President of Public Policy at the Texas Assisted Living Association, said that she did not learn about fire code change until it was enacted Jan. 1.

She said the association has been trying to find out details about the changes — the most she has heard from Harris County officials was at Briones’ news conference touting the mandate — and the organization already is fielding questions from assisted living facilities that are impacted.

“I wish we had been brought in on these conversations because I think we could have helped,” she said. “Right now, I have a whole lot more questions and answers.”

County officials said facilities will have until Jan. 1, 2026, to comply with the new requirements, which they said they hoped will be enough time to prepare and implement changes.

Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen said she recognized there likely will need to be some flexibility with that date because some facilities could face delays securing permits or generators.

[…]

Christensen said her team, along with other local officials and the Texas Department of Health and Human Services will collaborate to notify and educate facilities about the new backup power requirement. She added she is cognizant the new regulation likely will come with a steep price tag.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission in 2021 estimated the cost of installing a new generator capable of supporting certain air temperatures could range from $20,000 for a new and smaller facility to $720,000 or more for an older and larger facility, according to the Texas Tribune.

The fire marshal’s office already conducts annual inspections on nursing homes and assisted living facilities to ensure they are in compliance with state regulations for their licenses, making the new mandate “another box we need to check,” Christensen said.

A failure to comply with the new requirement could result in citations, but Christensen said the fire marshal’s office likely will try to steer facilities toward compliance.

“When you look at our fire code, a lot of people think of it as enforcement,” Christensen said. “It’s not about enforcement — it’s about education. Our goal is to prevent a fatality before it happens, whether it be by fire, heat or cold.”

There’s more, and there are some nuances to all of this, including what defines different types of facilities, so read the rest. I think this is a good approach, with the right goal of getting the facilities in question to comply by making sure they know what they need to do. I’ll be very interested to see where we are at this time next year. Note that this mandate is for unincorporated Harris County, not for within Houston city limits. Mayor Whitmire had a lot to say about the senior-living apartments in the city after several of them had issues during the derecho, but as yet there has been no action on the city’s part to do anything about it. Hopefully that’s on his agenda for this year. The Chron has more.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Comet alums unite in support of Fertitta’s WNBA bid

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

They’re getting the band back together.

Cynthia Cooper did not get closure when the Houston Comets folded.

One minute, she was a star player on Houston’s four-time championship-winning WNBA team. The next minute, her phone was blowing up with texts and the dynasty was dead. And unlike some of her Comets teammates, Cooper didn’t go on to play for other teams in the league.

So that’s why Cooper said she is “thrilled” that Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta is submitting a bid for a WNBA expansion franchise — and including the Comets in his plan.

At a Rockets home game in late December, Fertitta met with Cooper, Comets coach Van Chancellor and Comets star Tina Thompson in his suite at Toyota Center. He wanted to gauge their interest in his expansion proposal. They responded with unbridled enthusiasm.

“And trust me, to get us all together, I think, demonstrated to him how supportive we would be and how thrilled we are,” Cooper said.

Cooper said the WNBA’s return would fill the “void” the Comets left in the Houston sports landscape.

“I don’t think you can talk about having a W franchise in Houston and not marry it with the legacy that the Comets left,” Cooper said. “It would be a very emotional thing to have the W back, an opportunity to pay tribute to friends like Tina Thompson and Sheryl Swoopes and get the public back rallied around the W as well as, more specifically, a Houston franchise.”

Chancellor coached the Comets for the first 10 of their 12 seasons. He, too, is advocating for the WNBA’s return to Houston, whether the new team is called the Comets or not. But if he has any say, it would be.

“Ever since I moved back here from LSU, all I’ve heard is, ‘Do you think we’re gonna get a team? ’ and, ‘Why don’t we get a team? ’ And I would love to see a team come back here,” Chancellor said. “I think we’re still in the hearts and minds of a lot of fans here in town.”

In a statement provided to the Chronicle this week, Fertitta said, “The Houston Comets helped put the WNBA on the map and the City of Houston deserves the chance to once again show how great of a place it is for women’s basketball. We still proudly display the Comets championship banners and retired jerseys at Toyota Center. It’s been far too long; it’s time to bring the WNBA back to Houston.”

See here for the most recent update. They need to get Sheryl Swoopes on board to really complete the team, assuming they can get her to knock it off with Caitlin Clark already. Be that as it may, as an oldtime Comets fan, this warms my heart.

It’s a long story, so go read the rest. Remember that one of our competitors for a WNBA team is Austin, and they seem to have their act together as well. You can learn more about that on this recent episode of CityCast Austin, featuring an interview with Fran Harris about her efforts.

Posted in Other sports | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Weekend link dump for January 12

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“It may be a foolish optimism, but if Trump can be nudged in the right direction and convinced, he came up with the idea, as he did with the successor to NAFTA, he might not be quite the disaster so many of us rightly fear. It’s a long shot, but what is life without hope?”

“But then he’ll come out with something like the Truth Social post above, and I’ll be reminded that wealthy and powerful people like Trump or Andreesen or, of course, Elon Musk are often far more ignorant than policy wonks can easily imagine.”

“Counties across the southern half of the U.S., especially those with large and socially vulnerable populations, will be much more exposed to wildfire, drought and extreme heat than other parts of the country as the region’s climate warms in the coming decades, according to new research from the U.S. Forest Service and Resources for the Future.”

How to filter out AI crap from your search results.

RIP, Mike Rinder, former Scientologist turned whistleblower who won an Emmy along with Leah Remini for a documentary about that religion.

“Trump team takes aim at crown jewel of US climate research”.

“Yeah, America can still build stuff“, as shown in a bunch of charts.

“The FBI is warning sports leagues about crime organizations targeting professional athletes following a string of burglaries at the homes of prominent NFL and NBA players.”

“A better way to look at all of this is that we remain in an intense, sometimes violent and close to deadlocked struggle over the future of the country. It is no more done today or tomorrow than it was four years ago.”

There are a lot of reasons why second seasons of popular streaming shows tend to have fewer episodes than Season One did.

RIP, Perry, miniature donkey who inspired Eddie Murray’s Shrek character.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule on Tuesday that will bar medical debt from being included in credit scores.”

“But many smaller bollards are evaluated to withstand impacts of 5,000-pound vehicles, a number that easily covers most cars and trucks but falls well below the weight of even a Tesla Model X, to say nothing of a big, new EV like a Silverado.”

“Is your car company violating your privacy rights?”

“The highly decorated soldier who exploded a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas used generative AI including ChatGPT to help plan the attack, Las Vegas police said Tuesday.”

RIP, Peter Yarrow, singer-songwriter and co-founder of Peter, Paul and Mary. I had forgotten about this sordid aspect of his life before reading the obituary. Worth remembering, however you ultimately feel about it.

“In essence, the voice phishers are using an automated Apple phone support line to send notifications from Apple and to trick people into thinking they’re really talking with Apple.”

“This is what Musk has become: a machine for reposting red meat for the MAGA base that he almost certainly knows to be bogus.”

I’m sure there are plenty of potential buyers of TikTok. Doesn’t mean the Chinese will want to sell it.

Anita Bryant has died. Whether or not you know who that is, I heartily encourage you to listen to this episode of Slate’s One Year: 1977 podcast, which tells the story of her fight against gay rights in vivid detail.

“Merchan’s action Friday means that Trump’s criminal case is concluded and he enters office —ten days from his sentencing—a convicted felon.”

RIP, Sam Moore, legendary soul singer, one half of Sam & Dave, best known for hits like “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Coming”.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | Comments Off on Weekend link dump for January 12

Where the Lege might go next on abortion

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

There’s always further to go.

Last legislative session was the quietest in decades for abortion. After successfully banning nearly all abortions, Republicans were wary about continuing to push an issue that is widely unpopular with voters.

This session, coming off a Republican rout in November, Seago is hopeful that lawmakers will feel more empowered to continue restricting abortions, and especially abortion pills.

“Texas is uniquely positioned to lead on these cutting-edge pro-life issues,” Seago said. “Some of our friends in red states are still playing defense. They’re fighting off constitutional amendments. They’re still fighting off exceptions to their laws. We’re in a solid place to start fighting back.”

Texas has no mechanism to put a constitutional amendment to increase abortion access on the ballot without the approval of lawmakers, and while Democrats have filed bills to add more exceptions to the abortion laws, they are once again expected to not get any traction.

But whether conservative efforts to further restrict abortion pills will take hold also remains to be seen. Rep. Nate Schatzline, a conservative Republican from Fort Worth, has filed House Bill 1651, which would make it a deceptive trade practice to send abortion pills through the mail without verifying that they were prescribed by an in-state doctor after an in-person exam.

Another bill, HB 991, filed by Republican Rep. Steve Toth of The Woodlands, would allow lawsuits against websites that provide information about obtaining abortion pills. Elisa Wells, co-founder of Plan C, an information repository about telehealth abortion access, said they expect any challenge to their work to run afoul of free speech protections.

“Texas is a state that values free speech, but despite that, they’re taking action to try and limit free speech with respect to abortion,” she said. “It’s a bit hypocritical.”

Wells said they take seriously any legislation that might further restrict access to abortion in states like Texas. But she said even if all the domestic access routes were shut off by lawsuits and legislation, there are international providers prepared to keep providing pills to people who need them.

“It’s ironic that a lot of these legal actions and court decisions and attempts to restrict access are what is shining a spotlight on … the fact that abortion pills are available by mail,” she said. “Every time there’s a decision like that, we just see the traffic to our site just exponentially increase. These anti-choice actions are the best advertisement.”

I’ll be shocked if there isn’t a bill to follow in Louisiana’s footsteps by reclassifying mifepristone as a controlled substance. If one hasn’t been filed yet, I’m sure it will be. At this point, just about anything they could do will likely require a massive amount of surveillance and intrusiveness to work, run afoul of the First Amendment, materially harm other forms of health care as collateral damage, or some combination of the three. Look to see what’s on Greg Abbott’s priority list. Anything there is almost a sure bet to pass, even if it requires a special session.

The first part of the story is about the Paxton lawsuit against that New York doctor, which is more complex and unpredictable than I first thought. For sure, it won’t be the only shots fired in that direction. Read it and see what’s coming.

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