Some further special election stuff

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

We begin with this from the inbox.

The Harris County Clerk’s Office posted the unofficial May 4 Uniform and Special Elections results on the Harris Votes website early Sunday morning, with 56,612 ballots cast in total. About 2% of Harris County’s eligible registered voters cast a ballot in the May 4 Uniform and Special Elections. Official results will be available after the canvass is completed.

About 3% of the eligible voters residing in Texas Senate District (SD) 15 voted in the May 4 Special Election to fill the vacancy left by Houston Mayor John Whitmire. This is the first time someone other than Whitmire will represent SD 15 in over 40 years. The newly elected Senator will represent SD 15 until the end of the current term, December 31, 2024.

The May 4 election was the first opportunity voters had to cast their ballot for three unpaid positions on the Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD) Board of Directors. The HCAD Board of Directors will now consist of three at-large elected members, the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector, and five appointed positions representing local taxing entities. Because only one candidate received an absolute majority of votes in the three HCAD contests, a runoff election will take place on Saturday, June 15, 2024 to determine the winners for HCAD, Director Place 2 and Place 3.

“My job is to ensure accessible and fair elections in Harris County. There are still two more elections before we conduct the November general election,” said Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, the county’s chief election official. “While the upcoming elections will admittedly have a lower turnout than we are bound to see in November, I encourage voters to exercise their privilege to vote in every election.”

The Harris County Clerk’s Office hired approximately 2,100 election workers for the May 4 Uniform and Special Elections. Election workers staffed 25 vote centers during the nine-day early voting period and 151 vote centers on Election Day.

“As always, we are incredibly thankful for the election judges, election workers, and Harris County Clerk’s Office staff who make conducting elections in the largest county in Texas possible,” added Clerk Hudspeth. “It is due to their hard work and dedication that we are able to serve Harris County voters.”

As noted before, the results are here, for now. So SD15 turnout was higher than overall turnout as I guessed, though not by that much. Indeed, by historical standards, that three percent turnout in SD15 is low, though as noted this was an election with not much at stake. Be that as it may, Campos had a few words.

Congratulations to my State Senator-Elect Molly Cook for her outstanding victory garnering 57.23% of the vote or 9,330 votes to 6,973 votes over State Rep. Jarvis Johnson. These are the unofficial results. Molly now heads to the May 28 Democratic Party Primary runoff riding on a huge wave of momentum.

For those not convinced, maybe thinking that unlike Saturday’s Special Election, the May 28 runoff will be off limits to GOPers who may have voted on Saturday and in the Republican Party Primary on March 5. Here is a tidbit. In the December 11, 2018, State Senate District 6 Special Election that elected State Sen. Carol Alvarado, 15,339 voters turned out including 152 undervotes or just a hair under 1%. The State Senate 6 Special Election was the only race on the ballot back in December 2018. This past Saturday in Senate District 15, 18,376 turned out including 2,035 undervotes or 11%. Commentary is thinking that a good chunk of the 2,035 were GOP voters who wanted to vote in the Houston Central Appraisal District (HCAD) Board of Directors elections but didn’t want to vote for either Democrat on their SD 15 ballot.

Jarvis ran strong in African American precincts, Molly won handily everywhere else. In my precinct in the Heights, she won 80% of the vote.

In my precinct, she won 75% of the vote. I’ll do more analysis on this later when there’s an official canvass. Bear in mind, the March election had three times as many votes as the May election did. Jarvis Johnson got almost as many votes in March as were cast in total in this election. I say that just for some perspective, because in a super low-turnout race, one should be very careful about any inferences one might be tempted to draw. The primary runoff should be higher turnout than this was, but only because it’s a known quantity and people are used to it. There’s nothing to push turnout on May 28 – no statewide race, and the only countywide races are low profile affairs. Remember also, there’s a runoff in HD139, Johnson’s current district. That ought to help him, though it’s not exactly a barnburner itself.

Anyway. The undervote numbers from this race, as noted by Campos, intrigued me.


Race    Votes   Voters  Under     Pct
=====================================
SD15   16,303   18,376  2,073  11.28%

HCAD1  54,433   56,612  2,179   3.85%
HCAD2  54,252   56,612  2,360   4.17%
HCAD3  53,286   56,612  3,326   5.88%

You know how people complain about the long ballots in Harris County races and how voters get “fatigued” working their way through all those damn judicial elections? I can tell you that the undervote rate in the 2022 judicial elections in Harris County ranged from 3.37 to 5.22%, which is lower on both ends of the May 2024 ballot in which most voters had all of three races to participate in. I will no longer accept any “voter fatigue” explanations, thank you very much. Anyway, I think Campos is right that the high undervote rate in SD15 – normally, contested district races of all kinds have lower undervote rates than countywide races – is due to Republicans showing up for the HCAD stuff and having no interest in the D-versus-D race there. I don’t think that has any effect on the May 28 runoff, as those will be Dem-only voters by definition, but it could have an effect on the HCAD runoffs in June, and not in a positive way for the Dem candidates. We won’t have SD15 as a natural boost, so we’ll need to do some more work to win these two. Very doable, since there are more Dems than Rs in Harris County, but this is a weird election at a weird time, and the voters need to know about it.

Elsewhere in County Appraisal District land, Dems swept Travis County, and the candidates backed by the terrible Tarrant County Judge swept theirs. Bexar County will have two runoffs just like we will. I have no idea what the partisan makeup of those candidates are. No runoffs in Dallas, as only one of their elections was contested.

The runoff for the remaining two HCAD races will be on Saturday, June 15. I don’t know yet when early voting will begin or how long it will be. The last legislative special election in Harris County was in 2020, and it had one work week of early voting, as we have for city runoffs and primary runoffs. I have also heard from some reliable folks that there will be nine days of early voting for this runoff, as there was for the May election. Don’t quote me on any of this, I want to see an official proclamation. I’ll let you know when I know more.

In other election news, Frank Strong finds some good in the various school board races.

Of the 41 candidates I gave red or orange highlights, only 8 won their races. Overall, the good guys won the day in 13 of the 23 districts I followed—and only 3 of 23 districts went the wrong way (7 had mixed or neutral results).

It wasn’t just the wins and losses, though; the margins also told a clear story. Red and orange highlighted candidates lost by huge percentages in many districts. Melody Fowler defeated Kendall Orr by 61 percentage points in Arlington ISD, for example, and Bridgette Marshall defeated Andy Rokovich by 65 in Victoria ISD. In contrast, the races in which red-highlighted candidates won were generally very close. The message across the state was unmistakable: banning books from districts is no longer a political winner in Texas, and attacking teachers and librarians will cost you a steep electoral price. That is a big change from the political mood in May of 2022.

It gets more nuanced than that, so go read the rest. Katy and Spring Branch ISDs were listed as Good results, while Fort Bend was Bad. The Press had more on the Katy ISD races.

That’s what I have for now. I’ll aim to do a precinct analysis when I get the data. Anything else to discuss here?

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What could it have cost for the firefighters?

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

City Controller Chris Hollins throws out some numbers and kicks up a fuss.

Chris Hollins

Houston Controller Chris Hollins faced fierce criticism from firefighters union president Marty Lancton, after estimating that equalizing past pay for Houston firefighters with their peers in other major Texas cities would cost about half of the $650 million backpay currently under consideration.

The city only has a few weeks remaining to finalize a landmark $1.5 billion settlement with the firefighters union, aimed at resolving a years-long dispute and determining the backpay owed to Houston firefighters for the past seven years that they have not had a contract. For the first few years without a contract, the firefighters received no raises, but former Mayor Sylvester Turner worked around the lack of contract and gave firefighters a three-year, 18% pay raise in 2021.

Since Mayor John Whitmire first announced the proposed settlement in March, many council members have complained about the lack of information on how the administration and the union arrived at the $650 million figure. As the city plans to issue a judgment bond to spread its cost, the backpay’s total financial impact could reach around $1 billion and affect the city budget for decades.

On Monday, Hollins outlined several scenarios of hypothetical pay raises that the city might have offered firefighters from fiscal years 2018 to 2024, the period covered by the back salary under the proposed settlement. In each case, the costs to the city would have been hundreds of millions lower than $650 million, according to the controller’s analysis.

For example, if the city had aligned Houston firefighters’ hourly pay with the average rates of firefighters in Austin, San Antonio, Fort Worth and Dallas starting from fiscal year 2018, the cost, including interest, would have totaled approximately $380 million, he said.

Alternatively, if the city had raised Houston firefighters’ pay steadily over the past seven years to match the state average, the cost would have been around $300 million, Hollins said.

If the city had given Houston firefighters the same pay raises as Houston police officers or municipal workers during this period, the total costs would have amounted to $260 million or $110 million, respectively, he said.

“In every scenario we ran – and this should not surprise you at all – it says the firefighters are owed something,” Hollins said during a Monday public briefing. “It’s up to you all, members of City Council, to decide what’s fair and what you’ll agree to.”

Hollins also presented his analysis of the forward-looking component of the deal, which includes up to 34% pay raises for firefighters over the next five years. Assuming other major Texas fire departments continue to receive around 3% annual raises, he said, Houston’s pay will catch up to the state average by fiscal year 2026 and exceed the average by around 9% by fiscal year 2029.

[…]

He noted the list of hypotheticals he presented on Monday is not exhaustive, and his office has launched an interactive tool for the public to explore other scenarios.

Several council members attended Hollins’ briefing on Monday. Council Members Tiffany Thomas and Edward Pollard, who have been closely scrutinizing the deal, praised the controller’s efforts to disseminate key information.

“For me, it’s always about how do we get to the numbers… Did you just pull them out of thin air?” Pollard said. “Now we have much more insight and clarification on what those numbers look like here.”

Thomas said she might consider advocating for modifications to the proposed agreement or the city’s financing methods. She suggested there might be opportunities to pay down some of the financial liabilities immediately rather than financing all of it through a bond, which would incur interest and payments for decades.

“I’m not willing to put my name on anything blindly,” Thomas said. “If we are rolling out fees and taxes, there’s going to come a time where people are going to choose to live outside the city, and I think that some of those decisions will start (happening) based on what’s going to happen in our budget season coming up soon.”

See here, here, and here for some background, and here for a story over the weekend of Controller Hollins trying to arrange a meeting to discuss the settlement. We’ve had this agreement for almost two months now without knowing any of the details – Hollins is on record saying that his office has not been privy to the details, and Council is in the same boat. Politics abhors a vacuum, so of course one is going to speculate when the facts are not available. I don’t think any of what Hollins is proposing here is out of whack, but that didn’t temper the reaction.

Houston’s firefighters had sued the city for failing to reach a contract. Before the settlement, the city was facing a March 25 trial in which the law would have required a judge to compare Houston firefighter pay to that of their private-sector peers. Lancton said private-sector firefighters make 50 percent more.

“The law is very clear,” Lancton said. “What isn’t clear are the motivations of the controller to continue to politicize this issue. His facts are wrong. His scenarios are legally inapplicable.”

The controller’s analysis also failed to factor in the cost of the pension benefits and additional overtime pay that would have kicked in with higher pay, Lancton said.

“He is politicizing an issue in order to undermine Mayor Whitmire, and that is not helpful for the citizens, and it is certainly not helpful for the brave men and women who have been out all weekend rescuing citizens in floodwaters,” Lancton said.

Whitmire also took a dig at Hollins in a statement. He had analyses similar to Hollins’ available to him when he reached the deal with the firefighters, Whitmire said.

“Monday-morning quarterbacks may choose to ignore the fact that Texas law mandates firefighter pay to be based on private-sector compensation comparisons, not public sector, but as mayor and lead negotiator, I cannot ignore that fact,” Whitmire said. “It very well could have been a less costly deal to settle with the Houston Professional Firefighters Association, but that is a conversation to have with the previous administration eight years ago.”

If the law required the city to match the much higher private sector salaries, then I can see where the complaint is coming from. But we don’t know that that’s where the case would have ended up had there been no settlement. That’s been one of the complaints from Council, that we don’t know what the city’s strategy was and what options they were facing. It’s not crazy to suggest that super staunch firefighter ally Mayor John Whitmire might not have driven the hardest of bargains here.

Let’s take Whitmire and Lacton at their word and assume that 1) Mayor Turner screwed up royally by not agreeing to a contract with the firefighters earlier, 2) the city was totally going to get hammered if the lawsuit had gone to a verdict, and 3) the settlement they agreed on was in fact the very best deal the city could have hoped for under any circumstance. It’s still a big hit to the city’s finances, especially at a time when the Mayor is also promising to hire a bunch more cops. It’s a political problem for Whitmire even if you assume he’s done hero’s work. Voters might have been less enthusiastic about the promise to settle with the firefighters if they had known last year that this would be the price, even if the downside was substantial.

Whatever you think of all this, it’s on the Mayor to sell the agreement to Council and to the voters. We could have been talking about this a lot earlier than now, but we didn’t have the terms of the deal, and we still don’t have them. I’m sure I’m not the first person to notice that if Chris Hollins has his eyes on the next Mayor’s race, we now have a big difference in vision and governance to debate going forward. I don’t know if anyone still believes in “honeymoon periods” for newly elected officials, but this one appears to be over. Houston Public Media and KHOU have more.

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Amtrak is going hard for the high speed rail line

Posted on May 7, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I love it.

If Texas ends up getting a long-envisioned high-speed railway between Houston and Dallas, the Amtrak executive now leading the initiative says it would feature the fastest trains in the world.

The plan for the 240-mile route between the state’s two largest cities, first hatched about a decade ago and recently buoyed by support from Amtrak and political leaders in both the United States and Japan, calls for using Japanese Shinkansen technology in which trains move as fast as 205 mph. Passengers would be able to travel between Houston and Dallas in a matter of about 90 minutes.

“People are just going to be blown away when they experience that. I have been lucky enough to go to Japan and ride it,” Amtrak senior vice president Andy Byford, who leads its high-speed rail development program, said in a Monday video posted on Amtrak’s X account. “The average speed (between Houston and Dallas) will be about 187 mph, which currently would be the fastest average speed in the world.”

The 4-minute video featuring Byford and Amtrak president Roger Harris appears to signal that the national passenger railroad company for the U.S. is committed to seeing the project through, even though Byford cautioned at a Dallas-area rail conference in mid-April that the Texas bullet train was not a “done deal.” He said then that Amtrak continues to use $500,000 in federal grant funding to explore a partnership with Texas Central, the private company that came up with the idea and moved it forward before appearing to stall out in 2022, and will do so for about another 18 months before making a final decision.

But in Monday’s video, Byford said the Houston-to-Dallas route “stands out” as the most feasible and viable corridor in the country for high-speed rail. The video ends with Harris saying, “Let’s go make it happen.”

See here, here, and here for some background. The video can be found here; it’s also embedded in the story. You know that I am fully aware of the history of this project and the many obstacles it faces in ever getting completed. I’ve been suckered before. And yet, as long as the hope remains, I very much want to see this happen. I want to ride that train to Dallas. I am rooting for this to happen. Please let me have my dream.

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Yeah, it looks like we do have to worry about Metro going backwards

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I have three things to say about this.

Transportation advocacy group LINK Houston, in its annual “Equity in Transit” report released this week, asked the region’s public transit provider to accelerate a $7.5 billion plan that was backed by Harris County voters in 2019. The idea behind the recommendation was to provide more frequent service, especially in low-income communities of color such as Gulfton, and to ultimately boost ridership.

But the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) appears to be backtracking from, if not scrapping altogether, one of its key selling points when it asked voters to approve $3.5 billion in bond funding for its aforementioned METRONext Moving Forward Plan. That plan at the time included bus rapid transit, an environmentally friendly service entailing dedicated lanes for electric buses, platform boarding and buses arriving every 15 minutes or less.

The webpages for three planned bus rapid transit (BRT) lines in Gulfton, the Inner Katy corridor along Interstate 10 and the University corridor – with the latter being a 25.3-mile route from northeast to southwest Houston that a previous METRO board chair described last year as a “transformational project for the region” – all were removed this week from the METRO website.

“We are alarmed by METRO’s removal of all three BRT webpages without any sort of announcement or explanation to its customers or to Harris County taxpayers and voters who voted overwhelmingly to support the METRONext Moving Forward Plan in 2019,” LINK Houston executive director Gabe Cazares said Friday.

[…]

“METRO’s new leadership team is committed to reviewing all projects in order to best serve our customers and the community,” METRO’s interim president and CEO, Tom Jasien, said in a statement to Houston Public Media. “We are prioritizing ridership and meeting customer needs for today by ensuring each service we offer is safe, clean, reliable, and fiscally responsible.”

Cazares said LINK Houston, which noted in its Equity in Transit report that overall METRO ridership is at 86% of pre-pandemic levels, supports the idea of improving safety on its buses and light rail lines and better serving the needs of its current customers. But he also said, “pitting that against the transit system we want for the future is a false dichotomy.”

One of the stated goals of the METRONext Moving Forward Plan is to help alleviate congestion on Houston roads by giving residents a range of attractive and feasible transportation options. In that regard, Cazares said scaling back or scrapping bold plans based on current ridership, or even expected ridership, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“The Silver Line doesn’t connect to anything now,” Cazares said. “To increase ridership on the Silver Line, you need the Gulfton BRT and you need the Inner Katy BRT so all those lines connect and folks have access from southwest Houston to downtown Houston using all three of those lines.”

1. How is any of this consistent with wanting to increase ridership? The Universities Line, first as light rail and now as BRT, was always envisioned as a backbone of the entire system, a key east-west connector that would make it possible for a lot more of Houston to get to places like the Galleria area more easily. Look at the map in that story – it literally intersects with every existing light rail and BRT line. The original projections for the Universities Line showed it having very high ridership. What are we doing here?

2. And by the way, voters have now twice approved referenda to fund the construction of this line. How many times to we have to vote to build this damn thing before it finally gets built?

3. As with many other projects, also mentioned in the story, all of this has come completely out of left field. None of this was discussed during the Mayoral campaign. Whatever you thought you were voting for if you voted for John Whitmire last year, this wasn’t it. Again I ask, what are we doing here?

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HISD budget cuts coming

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

This is going to get ugly.

Houston ISD’s state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles said Friday afternoon that the school district is facing an estimated $450 million gap in funding that will largely be made up by staff reductions as federal pandemic relief money expires and student enrollment continues to decline.

Miles has said previously that the majority of the cuts will come from HISD’s central office, and that his aim is to keep them “as far away from the classroom as possible.” His remarks Friday, though, appear to give the first indication of how widespread those cuts may be.

“We can’t cut $450 million in people, we wouldn’t be able to operate central office, but that’s the money we have to find in additional revenue, a small use of the fund balance and then cuts,” Miles said. “So most of that is cuts.”

HISD officials said last week that several central office departments have been reducing staff since January. On Thursday, those cuts appeared to accelerate as HISD notified scores of student support specialists that their positions were being eliminated, according to the Houston Landing.

[…]

Miles said the $450 million gap between the district’s revenue and expenditures won’t entirely be made up of cuts, noting the district will use about $80 million from its fund balance and make back a small amount through the sale of “dilapidated buildings” and other strategies. The remainder, however, will likely be made up by eliminating thousands of positions, primarily in the central office.

Individual campuses, however, will not be immune from the crunch. Miles said in March that schools that are not in his New Education System may see cuts of up to 12%, as the district returns to a pre-pandemic funding formula that awards dollars based on attendance and enrollment, and which had been paused for years as students shifted to and from remote learning.

The planned cuts and layoffs are occurring as the number of HISD employees who are making more than $200,000 has tripled since last year. The district is also planning to spend at least $120 million more toward increasing teacher salaries and expanding the controversial NES program to 45 more campuses next year.

The 130 NES schools, where Miles is concentrating his biggest reforms, may see slight budget increases due to their staffing model, which sees teachers earn substantially more money and support from “teacher apprentices” and “learning coaches.”

Remember, Mike Miles has talked big about his fiscal plans, and that has largely been bullshit. He has made promises about teacher pay that turned out to be bullshit. He made promises about wraparound services staff that turned out to be bullshit. Why should we believe anything he says?

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Let’s wait till 2031 for that Women’s World Cup

Posted on May 6, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Maybe 2027 was too soon.

Put a pin in that…

U.S. Soccer and the Mexican Football Federation (FMF) have withdrawn from the 2027 World Cup bidding process on Monday, only weeks before the public vote scheduled on May 17 at the FIFA Congress in Thailand. Instead, the two North American federations will bid on the 2031 edition of the tournament.

A statement released by U.S. Soccer said that by withdrawing the 2027 bid and focusing on 2031, it will allow the federations to fully take advantage of what they learn from the 2026 men’s edition and provide greater support for host cities — many of which could host both men’s and women’s matches.

U.S. Soccer also said that by pushing back the bid, it could more fully focus on ensuring that a Women’s World Cup hosted by the two federations would have equal investment to the men’s. With the proposed timeline of a jointly hosted 2026 men’s tournament amongst the U.S., Mexico and Canada, followed by the proposed women’s edition, then the 2028 Olympics, as well as the U.S.’s other hosting obligations for other smaller tournaments, 2027 appears to have proved too much for the timeline.

On the 2031 front, the U.S. and Mexico could face some strong competition in that bidding process as well. While bids won’t be due for a while, Football Association chairwoman Debbie Hewitt previously said that England is considering launching a bid for 2031.

This leaves only two remaining bids for the voters to choose from: one from Brazil, and a joint bid from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. While the European joint bid may be a strong bid, Brazil is the heavy favorite to host at this point. The country hosted a men’s World Cup relatively recently in 2014, and considering the growing investment in South America, it may prove to be a smart long-term play for FIFA to use the boost of a major tournament to firmly cement the women’s game in the region.

See here for the background, and here for that US Soccer statement. Would have been awesome to have two World Cups in a row here, especially if at least some of the matches were literally here in Houston, but I can understand the desire to take a little more time. I’ll be ready for it either way.

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Weekend link dump for May 5

Posted on May 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Whatever happened to Charlotte Braun, the least popular Peanuts character?

“This article attempts to answer the question of why the polls show good numbers for Republicans that don’t always bear out in final results and why current polling might be off.”

“MLB fans getting younger as more kids taking to the diamond”.

“Conservative Legal Philosophy Was All a Lie, Too”.

I’m old enough to remember when being an avowed puppy-killer was considered to be a political negative.

Where have I heard that song before?

“The Shōgun story has been told. There is no “second novel” involving any of these characters to adapt.” So stop asking for a Season 2, as good as the miniseries that just concluded was. There may be another James Clavell novel worth adapting, but no Shōgun season two.

RIP, Mike Pinder, co-founder of and keyboardist for The Moody Blues.

“Turns out that remembering some guys is good for you.”

“More than just being adjacent, the latest [Harvey] Weinstein and Trump stories are connected—or at least, they might be.”

“Indeed, after a week of blockbuster opening testimony from David Pecker, it’s unclear when things will heat up again with the trial’s most explosive witnesses, Cohen and Daniels. Which is why now is a good time to reflect on how Pecker laid the groundwork for a key part of the story prosecutors seem to be building: that the Trump Organization functioned as a crime family business, with Donald J. Trump as the boss.”

“And yet, in the face of such outrageous suppression of protest through state agents, the powerful phalanx of elite opinionists who have told us for about a decade now that the “free speech crisis” on college campuses is a clear and present danger to freedom and democracy has had nary a critical word to offer. On the contrary, the crackdown at Columbia, specifically, has garnered an enthusiastic response from such prominent members of the “free speech crisis” industrial complex as Caitlin Flanagan and John McWhorter who have sided unequivocally with the authorities. The same circles who have been presenting themselves as uncompromising fighters for free speech, imploring us to understand that speech must not be curtailed just because you (on the Left!) may disagree with it, are now fully on board with speech they don’t like being suppressed by the state. Weird, huh?”

“Grizzly bears will be reintroduced to Washington state’s North Cascades mountain range, the federal government said this week — a decision that followed years of bitterly divided debate.”

“Hunter Biden is threatening to sue Fox News for defamation, exploitation of his image and publication of hacked photographs”. And hey, it worked.

I can get behind more episodes and fewer binge drops for (good) TV shows.

“The mysterious ‘Great Attractor’ pulling the Milky Way galaxy off course”.

“Arcade, sports bar and restaurant Dave & Buster’s will allow guests to place wagers on its games, like Skee-Ball through its app.”

“United Methodist delegates repealed their church’s longstanding ban on LGBTQ clergy with no debate on Wednesday, removing a rule forbidding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as ministers.”

Congratulations to Carli Lloyd and her husband Brian Hollins.

RIP, Richard Tandy, founder and keyboardist for Electric Light Orchestra.

“I assume you’re familiar with Kristi Noem/Cricket the executed dog discourse. But I have to flag this new controversy from her memoir, No Going Back. Noem appears to have made up a meeting with North Korea paramount leader Kim Jong Un.”

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | 1 Comment

May 2024 Harris County special election results

Posted on May 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Election live results are here. As of the 11 PM update, in which 118 of 151 voting centers had reported, Molly Cook was easily winning the SD15 special election, with about 56% of the vote. In the HCAD elections:

Position 1: Kathy Blueford-Daniels had 55% after early voting, but Bill Frazer was catching up thanks to his Election Day performance. As of 11 PM, Blueford-Daniels was still winning outright with just under 51%, but if things continued as they had been she would likely end up in a runoff. It’s hard to say where exactly this race was because we don’t know which centers had returned results and which were still out. I’ll update in the morning.

Position 2: Kyle Scott (46%) and Melissa Noriega (25%) appear headed to the runoff. Scott was over 50% on Election Day but I don’t think there are enough votes out to push him to a majority.

Position 3: Ericka McCrutcheon (41%) is in the runoff, but it’s hard to say whether she’ll face Amy Lacy or Pelumi Adeleke. Lacy was slightly ahead of Adeleke after early voting, but Adeleke pulled ahead in the last update. Of interest is that Blueford-Daniels had a big lead in mail ballots, Noriega and Scott were basically tied in mail ballots, but Adeleke was well behind McCrutcheon and Lacy in mail ballots. She was ahead of Lacy in both early in person and Election Day votes, however, and that may be enough for her to make it to the runoff.

I saw somewhere that the Clerk announced that something like 21,500 votes were cast on Saturday. As of the 11 PM update, there were just under 18K votes counted. So that’s where we are. This would put final turnout at around 53K votes, just barely over two percent of registered voters.

I will update in the morning. Good night.

UPDATE: And as of the morning, the results are the same. Kathy Blueford-Daniels remained above fifty percent and was the outright winner in Position 1. Pelumi Adeleke held on to second place in Position 3 and will be in the runoff. Melissa Noriega will be in the runoff for Position 2.

Here’s the Chron story about SD15 and the story about HCAD. The runoff elections for HCAD will be on Saturday, June 15. Light a candle for all the election workers out there, who will be handling the primary runoffs on May 28 as well.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Texas man seeks to “investigate” ex’s out of state abortion

Posted on May 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Take a couple of deep breaths and we’ll have a brief discussion of this on the other side.

A Texas man has asked a court for permission to launch an investigation into his ex-partner’s alleged out-of-state abortion, which could lead to one of the first lawsuits against people who help Texans leave the state to obtain the procedure.

Prolific anti-abortion attorney Jonathan Mitchell filed the now-sealed petition in Texas state court last month that would allow him to investigate suspected illegal actions before filing litigation, according to a lawyer representing the people targeted.

The man Mitchell is representing, Collin Davis, threatened his ex-partner with legal action earlier this year upon learning she planned to go to Colorado to obtain an abortion, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the legal action.

Davis has said in legal filings that he plans to pursue wrongful-death claims against “anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child,” the Post reported. Mitchell could not immediately be reached for comment.

Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group is representing the woman, who is remaining anonymous for privacy and safety reasons and who declined an interview, as well as multiple others who are named in the legal action.

Duane declined to say how many or who is named but noted that Mitchell has previously stated publicly his desire to punish out-of-state doctors. Mitchell engineered Texas’ novel citizen-enforced abortion ban known as Senate Bill 8 and regularly represents anti-abortion plaintiffs.

Duane’s group is opposing Mitchell’s attempt to depose her clients. Among other things, Mitchell could ask them about others involved in the abortion, such as abortion funds or groups that might have provided financial support, and receive documentation related to the alleged abortion, the Post reported.

[…]

With these legal actions, Mitchell and his anti-abortion allies are seeking to test the reach of Texas restrictions since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

It is not currently a crime to obtain an abortion in a state where it is legal, and Duane said the petition amounts to “fearmongering.”

“It’s not enough for Texas to ban abortion,” she said. “They truly want to trap people in their state, pregnant, and the purpose of this is to frighten people to make them think there might be repercussions for doing things that are perfectly legal. … That is really troubling, but it is emblematic of what abortion extremists really have on the agenda.”

The woman Davis is targeting was “still in the process of recovering from a very unhealthy relationship” with him when he filed the legal action, Duane said, without providing details. Duane said it “speaks for itself” that in both this case and the Silva case, the women are being targeted by ex-partners who describe their former relationships as toxic or even abusive.

The new petition was filed using an unusual civil procedure called Rule 202, which allows lawyers to collect interviews and documents in anticipation of a lawsuit to help them determine their targets and confirm their suspicion that the issue at hand meets legal standards required to file officially.

While other states allow pre-suit discovery, Texas’ rules around when the procedure can be used are the “most expansive,” according to legal scholars.

The story notes that this is the second time professional creep Jonathan Mitchell has tried to use the legal system to get information from a former partner for some loser; see here and here for the first lawsuit, out of Galveston, which may be set for a trial in the fall. As for this action, I mean, what is there to say? This is what these people want. The goal has always been to punish the women who get abortions, and as long as they have the power they will relentlessly push to pass laws that allow them to do exactly that. That’s far from all that they want to do, of course, but it’s a high priority. They’re not shy or subtle about it, though the Republicans they have helped elect do a good job of being coy and evasive when the subject arises. Which is why I continue to be extremely frustrated that Ted Cruz hasn’t felt any pressure about this as yet in the campaign, even as abortion is a huge issue nationally. Everyone in the media who has any reason to be talking to Ted Cruz needs to ask him about this. Reform Austin has more.

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HFT leaders vote “no confidence” on Mike Miles

Posted on May 5, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Hardly a shock.

The leaders of Houston’s largest teachers union approved a resolution of no confidence in Houston ISD’s Superintendent Mike Miles on Tuesday, in a strong but ultimately symbolic rebuke of the state-appointed superintendent’s leadership.

The union’s resolution calls for Miles’ removal as superintendent and lays out numerous grievances that have surfaced repeatedly over the course of his 11-month tenure. It now heads to the Houston Federation of Teachers’ 6,000-plus members for ratification, with results of the vote expected next week.

“The takeover of Houston ISD, the largest school district in Texas and the eighth largest district in the country, is a politically motivated, irresponsible experiment that is worsening inequities and disenfranchising Houston voters,” the resolution begins. “Houston ISD teachers and support staff have come together now to call for a vote of no confidence in state-installed superintendent Mike Miles.”

Among other complaints, the union took issue with Miles’ dissolution of their exclusive consulting agreement with the district, which effectively ended their monthly meetings with HISD administration. They also cite a “track record of broken promises,” such as rescinding teacher retention bonuses, widespread teacher turnover and Miles’ expanded spending power as reasons for the vote of no confidence.

“The ongoing lack of respect Miles has demonstrated for educators, their profession, and the students they serve has resulted in a complete lack of confidence in his leadership efforts,” the resolution reads.

[…]

The resolution calls for Miles’ removal as superintendent and his replacement with a leader “who will not treat our community with disdain, will work to restore trust with employees and parents, and will end the harm being done to our students from Miles’ ‘reforms.'” Other demands include a request that all teachers be certified, librarians be restored and the district return to the state’s teacher evaluation system.

It would have been a huge upset if they had done anything else. This has no practical effect, as HFT has no power over the Superintendent. But in case there were any lingering doubts about how they felt, this ought to clear them up.

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One last pre-election look at those Appraisal Board elections

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

From the Trib, which did the initial reporting that informed me of these dumb new elections in the first place.

The new law requires only counties with more than 75,000 residents to hold the elections, a designation that applies to 50 of the state’s 254 counties. In 30 of those counties, appraisal board candidates either didn’t draw challengers or the elections were canceled because no one filed for the positions. In instances where no one filed for an elected spot, the remaining board members can appoint people to those seats.

[…]

Still, some critics worry that elected board members will insert havoc and political jockeying into the property appraisal process. Before the Texas Legislature created appraisal districts in the late 1970s, the task of assessing property owners’ values fell to individual taxing entities like cities, counties and school districts — which often came up with different values for the same property. Appraisal districts came about as a way to smooth out that process and create one set of values.

The state also created appraisal districts in order to “remove political pressure from the appraisal process,” South said.

“Having elected board members might interject political pressure right back into it,” said South, who chairs the Texas Association of Appraisal District’s legislative committee.

Voter turnout in Texas’ local elections tends to be anemic. Political experts expect the appraisal district races also to be low-turnout affairs: Candidates are running for an obscure board, and it’s the first time they’re doing so.

“It just all adds up to this very lackluster interest into what could make a difference, particularly in these large metropolitan counties that have seen their property values just skyrocket over the last decade,” said Renée Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston.

Though the seats are nonpartisan, candidates have campaigned with partisan identifiers, drawn endorsements from prominent officials and deployed campaign rhetoric that hues along traditional partisan lines.

Conservative-leaning candidates in particular have campaigned as “taxpayer advocates” seeking to rein in what they see as excesses among appraisal districts.

“Tarrant Appraisal District has been hostile to the very taxpayers they were commissioned to serve,” Eric Morris, a Haltom City Council member running for a seat on Tarrant Appraisal District’s board, wrote on his campaign website. “It’s time to end that and balance the scales between the government and the people footing the bill!”

Liberal-leaning and progressive candidates have positioned themselves as bulwarks against would-be tax-cut warriors who they fear would unduly interfere with the appraisal process and starve school districts and municipalities of much-needed tax revenue.

Kendall Scudder, a Texas Democratic Party finance chair seeking a seat on the Dallas Central Appraisal District’s board, notes on his campaign website that the assessment entity is “vitally important” to ensuring local governments function and that it’s his priority to “ensure fair, equitable, and uniform appraisals, to ensure that citizens protesting their appraisals feel that they are treated fairly.”

Two of the newly elected board members must sign off on the appointees to appraisal review boards, which could let elected members stack review boards with people who promise to cut property owners’ values, said Dick Lavine, a tax policy expert at the left-leaning think tank Every Texan. Lavine is running for the Travis Central Appraisal District board.

[Brent] South, the Hunt County chief appraiser, also worries elected members could exercise their veto power and bring the appointment process to a halt, he said.

A likely outcome of either scenario: the chief appraiser would be forced to accept lower values, at a potential cost to localities and school districts.

“Making it more direct like this is just an invitation for political meddling,” said Lavine, who previously chaired the Travis appraisal board.

Emphasis mine. Ain’t democracy grand? As I noted in January, as of the November 2023 election there were just those 50 counties affected by this new law, but the 51st was right on the edge of being covered, and others (including counties in the greater Houston area) were likely to meet that milestone in the next few years. It remains unclear to me what mechanism exists to force a county that has surpassed 75K in population to begin holding these elections.

Anyway. I’ll have the results for you tomorrow. Go vote if you haven’t, today is the day.

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Apple appeal delays Astroworld trial

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

This may take awhile.

The start of the first civil trial stemming from the 2021 Astroworld Festival, at which 10 people were killed in a crowd surge, has been delayed.

Jury selection had been set to begin Tuesday, May 7 in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed the family of Madison Dubiski, a 23-year-old Houston resident who was killed during the crowd crush at the Nov. 5, 2021, concert by rap superstar Travis Scott.

But Apple Inc., one of the more than 20 defendants going to trial next week, filed an appeal this week, automatically delaying the start of jury selection.

“Unless I hear differently, the trial is stayed,” state District Judge Kristen Hawkins said during a court hearing Thursday, May 2.

Apple, which livestreamed Scott’s concert, is appealing a ruling by Hawkins that denied the company’s motion to be dismissed from the case. Apple has argued that under Texas law, it can appeal Hawkins’ ruling because its defense claims are being made in part as a member of the electronic media.

Apple is arguing that in livestreaming Scott’s concert, it was acting as a member of the electronic media and its actions merit free speech protection.

“It remains our position that our conduct is protected by the First Amendment,” Kent Rutter, one of Apple’s attorneys, told Hawkins during a court hearing Thursday.

Just before the hearing ended, Hawkins said she had been notified that the appeals court earlier Thursday had denied a request by the lawyers for Dubiski’s family to lift the stay.

Jason Itkin, one of the attorneys for Dubiski’s family, said he planned to appeal that denial, likely up to the Texas Supreme Court.

See here and here for some background, and here for an earlier Chron story about Apple’s last-minute appeal. This is going to be complicated, with all that legal paper flying around, and it could be over in days or it could drag on for weeks and months. I’ll keep an eye on it. Houston Landing has more.

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Mutinous nuns file and then withdraw a restraining order motion

Posted on May 4, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

This happened last week.

Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), Doctor of the Church and co-founder of the Discalced Carmelites

Legal and ecclesiastical tensions escalated between the Discalced Carmelite Nuns in Arlington and the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth after a group of sisters filed for a temporary restraining order on Monday against Bishop Michael Olson and the Association of Christ the King.

Rev. Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach, Sister Francis Therese and Sister Joseph Marie are seeking the order to prevent Olson and the association from entering and having authority over the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in south Arlington.

The move comes days after the Vatican issued a decree placing the governance of the nuns under the authority of the Association of Christ the King, with its president serving the monastery as the monastery’s superior. The nuns issued a statement in opposition of the new leadership, equating the change of leadership as a “hostile takeover.”

“If Rome wishes to ‘save face’ and to sweep the issue of the abuse of the Bishop under the carpet and move on regardless, this is unacceptable,” the nuns wrote.

[…]

Matthew Wilson, professor at Southern Methodist University who specializes in politics and religion, described the latest disputes between the nuns and the bishop as a “remarkable event.”

Religious orders, such as nuns, are not part of a diocese per se, Wilson said, but are meant to have a “cooperative and respectful relationship” with the local bishop. Most religious orders are governed by a global superstructure.

“The Catholic Church, by its nature, by its structure, is hierarchical and deferential and, ultimately, authority in the church proceeds from Rome,” Wilson said. “If you submit an appeal to Rome, and Rome comes up with a solution, you can’t just defy that.”

See here, here, and here for some background. There was to have been a hearing on this on April 30, but before that happened the nuns backed down.

Following the sudden cancellation of an April 30 court hearing between the Arlington Carmelite nuns and Fort Worth Catholic Bishop Michael Olson, lawyers representing the diocese told the Fort Worth Report that the nuns withdrew their request for a temporary restraining order without explanation.

Michael Anderson, an attorney representing Olson and the diocese in civil matters, said the opposing side withdrew its claims before the hearing, which was scheduled for 4 p.m. Tuesday. Matthew Bobo, an attorney representing the nuns on civil matters, declined to comment.

[…]

Matthew Wilson is a professor at Southern Methodist University who specializes in politics and religion. He said civil courts have been reluctant to weigh in on the dispute because of previous rulings over the conflict being an ecclesiastical matter rather than a legal one.

Questions over who has ownership of access to the physical facilities could be disputed in civil court, Wilson said. However, the more difficult issue at hand, Wilson said, is how the dispute will impact the nuns’ relationship with the diocese and the Vatican.

Wilson said the nuns’ response to the decree places the sisters “in a much more different situation” both ecclesiastically and within the court of public opinion.

“In civil court, they can theoretically win the right to be a group of women who own a piece of property,” Wilson said. “What they cannot win in civil court is the right to continue to be Catholic, and that is where I think the real rub is in this situation.”

The Arlington nuns wrote in an April 20 statement that they are waiting on a response from the Vatican regarding their concerns over Olson’s actions.

Whether the disputes continue in the court of civil law, the canonical saga will continue, Wilson said.

“No matter what the civil court rules, it doesn’t help them ecclesiastically,” he said. “And I think that’s their biggest problem.”

I bet Professor Wilson has spoken to the media a lot more lately than he ever had before. I don’t have anything to add here, I’m just following this story because it’s absolutely fascinating.

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The SD15 effect on the HCAD elections

Posted on May 3, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

We have had two elections going on these past weeks. I’ve done my best to bring attention to the three HCAD elections, but they have gone on alongside the special election in SD15. While the stakes in that one are relatively low – both candidates would gladly trade winning tomorrow for winning on May 28 – it makes sense to me that the turnout for the HCAD elections is being driven in part by turnout for SD15. It’s an active campaign, and there are no others like it going on.

I wanted to check that, so I went and downloaded the voter rosters for the ongoing special election, to see how many votes were cast by people in SD15. For that to mean something, we have to compare it to something else, and the most sensible thing to use as a point of comparison is the 2022 election. I wanted to see what percentage of the total vote in each election was cast by voters in SD15. And once I got on that track, it was easy enough to do the same thing for all of the other Senate districts. I had the voter roster for the 2024 data and the precinct data for 2022, so off I went. And here’s what I found:


Dist    2022    2024
====================
SD04   8.52%   6.97%
SD07  23.82%  16.05%
SD11   8.53%   7.75%
SD17  10.23%  11.09%

SD06  11.66%   9.57%
SD13  11.29%  16.54%
SD15  22.45%  30.20%

SD18   3.20%   1.83%

GOP   51.10%  41.86%
Dem   45.40%  56.31%

The numbers here represent the share of the total vote cast in that district. For example, in 2022 there were 248,556 votes cast in SD15 out of 1,107,390 total votes in Harris County, which is 22.45% of that total. I then applied the same math for each Senate district in each election. I have them grouped as I do because the top four are Republican, the next three are Democratic, and for the tiny piece of SD18 that is in Harris County, in 2022 it was basically fifty-fifty. That yields the GOP and Dem percentages at the bottom, which are the sums of the top four and next three numbers in each column, respectively. Make sense?

The first thing to note is that my initial hypothesis, that turnout in SD15 was driving overall turnout in Harris County, was correct. SD15 is a much larger share of the overall vote in this election than it was in 2022. I’d be confused, and even more alarmed, if that were not the case, because it would suggest that Republicans are doing an unexpectedly strong job of turning out their voters for HCAD. At least based on that, I don’t think that’s the case.

However, we need to apply a few caveats here. One is that I’m comparing final vote totals in 2022 to early (including mail) vote totals in 2024. Democrats did better in early voting in 2022 than they did on Election Day, so if we assume that the larger share of the vote coming from Dem districts is good for the Dems, it may be somewhat ephemeral, depending on what Election Day turnout looks like. As I said before, I have no idea how that pattern will play out, and I’m not going to try to guess now. Point is, it is entirely possible that Republicans could make up ground on Saturday. We won’t know until we see the returns come in.

Let me digress for a minute to address the fact that more votes were cast in Republican districts in 2022 than in Dem districts. You may wonder, how can that be if the Dems still won nearly everything countywide? Very simply, because the Dem districts are a lot bluer than the GOP districts are red. Greg Abbott got 59% of the vote in (the Harris County part of) SD04, 58% in SD07, 61% in SD11, and 53% in SD17, but Beto got 67% in SD06, 80% in SD13, and 65% in SD15. The difference in degree led to the overall greater vote share for Dems in 2022.

Which again should be good news for the Dem HCAD candidates, especially with the significant lead Dem districts have this year, but that leads to caveat #2: Particularly in a low-turnout election, the partisan splits can vary greatly from what you might expect. I mean, SD15 is still going to be majority Dem, but maybe it and the other Dem district are five or ten points less blue, while the GOP districts are five or ten points more red. Think about all those special elections elsewhere in which Dem candidates have outperformed the 2022 and even 2020 benchmarks. We don’t know what the partisan splits actually are, so we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions. One could do an estimate of the partisan mix with the use of various campaign datasets, but I don’t have that. This is what I do have.

Finally, while more people are turning out in SD15, it may be that a disproportionate number of them are only voting in SD15, as they had little knowledge of or interest in the HCAD elections. I can tell you as an SD15 resident that I’ve been blockwalked by HCDP volunteers pushing the HCAD elections, so there’s an effort to make sure it gets some attention from the one known pool of slightly more likely voters, but we don’t know how effective that’s been. Again, we’ll know more when we start seeing the returns.

So this is where we are. I will say, seeing these numbers made me feel a little better, like Dem efforts to get out the vote have borne fruit. I don’t know how effective that has been, and given the caveats I will try to keep my expectations modest. I would still much rather be in this position than one in which Republican districts were outpacing their 2022 numbers. That would make me very nervous. What I see here gives me a sense of tempered optimism. We’ll know more soon enough.

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Solid Waste study approved

Posted on May 3, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Could this be the precursor to a garbage fee? Maybe.

As Houston’s Solid Waste Management Department faces ongoing challenges in providing basic services, such as consistent garbage collection and recycling pickup, City Council has promised to give the department a helping hand.

Council members voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a 12-month, $176,600 consulting contract with Houston-based Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company to study Solid Waste and make recommendations for how the department can improve services.

Ahead of the vote, Council Member Amy Peck said she hoped the firm made recommendations beyond just saying the city needs a garbage fee, which has been a much-debate topic in Houston.

Other council members agreed something more needed to be done to help the department.

“There’s no way we can keep operating Solid Waste like we’ve been operating it,” Council Member Sallie Alcorn said.

Mayor John Whitmire said the study would be comprehensive and include metrics on efficiencies, cost effectiveness and Solid Waste’s overall performance.

“(It’s) really to see how they’re doing so well with so little, quite frankly,” Whitmire said, adding that the study would also seek to amplify the department’s improvements as well.

See here for a recent discussion of the garbage fee issue. Yes, this study should so more than just lay the groundwork for a fee, and if there are lessons to be learned from how Solid Waste operates that can help the rest of the city, so much the better. But let’s be clear, the city needs more revenue, there are a very limited number of ways it can generate it, and we are an outlier in not having a trash fee, which would free up some amount of general revenue dollars for things like paying for that firefighter settlement. You do the math. Houston Landing has more.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Election Day for HCAD and SD15 is tomorrow

Posted on May 3, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox:

Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth reminds citizens that Election Day for the Uniform and Special Elections is this Saturday, May 4. Harris County uses the countywide polling place program, meaning voters can vote at any of the 151 vote centers open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on May 4.

“More than 19,000 votes were cast in person during early voting for the May 4 Uniform and Special Elections,” said Clerk Hudspeth, the county’s chief election official. “If you did not participate in early voting, your last opportunity to vote in this election is this Saturday, May 4.”

This is the first-ever opportunity for voters to elect three members to the Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD) Board of Directors. Thirteen candidates are running for three unpaid, elected positions on the nine-member board. The HCAD Board of Directors is responsible for many administrative processes, including hiring the chief appraiser and appointing members to the appraisal review board.

Additionally, voters residing in Texas Senate District (SD) 15 can vote to fill the position left vacant by Houston Mayor John Whitmire. The winner of this contest will immediately assume office and represent SD 15 until the end of the current term, December 31, 2024.

“No matter where you live in Harris County, there is something on the May 4 ballot that affects you,” explained Clerk Hudspeth. “I want to encourage every Harris County voter to view their sample ballot on our website and head to the polls prepared this Saturday on Election Day.”

Election Day Tips

  • Written materials, including sample ballots, are permitted inside the voting booth. Voters can view and print their sample ballot on our website.
  • No electronic devices, including phones or cameras, are permitted within 100 feet of the voting area at any time.
  • Voters can find their nearest vote center and view its estimated wait time on our website.

The following forms of photo ID are acceptable when voting in person:

  • Texas Driver’s License issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)
  • Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS
  • Texas Personal Identification Card issued by DPS
  • Texas Handgun License issued by DPS
  • United States Military Identification Card containing the person’s photograph
  • United States Citizenship Certificate containing the person’s photograph
  • United States Passport (book or card)

Voters who do not possess and cannot obtain one of the acceptable forms of photo ID may fill out a Reasonable Impediment Declaration (RID) at a vote center and present another supporting form of ID, such as a utility bill, bank statement, government check, or voter registration certificate.

Unofficial election results will be posted on www.HarrisVotes.com/Election-Results as they become available on election night, starting after 7 p.m. with early voting and ballot-by-mail results. Official results will be posted after the canvass is complete.

Additional election information is available at www.HarrisVotes.com. For news and updates on social media, follow @HarrisVotes.

You know my spiel about this election by now so I’ll spare you a rerun. The main thing I would say is that if you are voting tomorrow, please go to the Vote Center finder and make sure you know where the nearest one to you is. There are going to be fewer of these than usual open on Saturday because of the low turnout, so check before you go. You can still vote at any of them, just find where they are first. I doubt waiting will be an issue, but you can check that too. I’ll have the results on Sunday. Go vote!

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Former Mayor Parker “considering” a run for County Judge in 2026

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

The next election is always closer than you think.

Annise Parker

Former Houston Mayor Annise Parker has been talking to friends and supporters in recent months about making another run for elected office.

Parker, a Democrat who led City Hall from 2010 to 2016, is considering a run for Harris County judge in 2026, according to two people who have spoken to her directly about her interest in the job. The Houston Chronicle granted the sources anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The former mayor said she has not finalized any plans about her future. She is leaving her job at the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund in December and said she will assess her options after departing the political action committee, which is dedicated to supporting LGBTQ candidates for elected office nationwide.

“I don’t know that I’m ready to retire, but I do know that I hate being on the road,” Parker told the Chronicle. “I have to find something that fits my skill set and allows me to be here in the greater Houston area. I’m going to keep my options open.”

She added that while she had not made a decision about running, the county judge position has an appeal.

“I would certainly be open to (county judge), but you know, that’s two years away. Two years is an eternity in politics.”

[…]

Primary elections for the seat will be held in March 2026, with a general election in November. It is not unusual for campaigns to kick off at the beginning of the preceding year, which would allow Parker to start fundraising and organizing a campaign as she exits the Victory Fund.

It is unclear whether Parker would challenge Hidalgo in a primary or if the former mayor is exploring a run in case Hidalgo decides not to seek a third term. There has been speculation that Hidalgo may run for statewide office or eye a federal appointment if President Joe Biden wins in November, instead of seeking reelection.

One of the two sources who spoke on condition of anonymity said Parker is likely to run even if Hidalgo does seek reelection, suggesting the former mayor is interested in taking on the incumbent Democrat.

[…]

Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, said a primary matchup between the two would set up a generational fight that could expose intraparty battles that have played out in private.

“That would be stunning to see,” he said.

Let me begin by saying that I consider both Mayor Parker and Judge Hidalgo to be friends. I like and admire both of them. I’ve heard this chatter for a couple of months now, including the speculation that Judge Hidalgo might get an appointment of some kind in a second Biden term. I have some thoughts on this but let me begin by noting what Campos has to say:

I agree that two years is an eternity in politics.

Mayor Parker has been on a City of H-Town ballot over a dozen times including runoffs over the past 30 years. The last time being in 2013, err, eleven years ago – a super eternity in politics. I don’t think she has ever been on a partisan ballot, err, Democratic Party Primary ballot.

I am sure the former mayor will look into polling data. The last polling data I saw on Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo a few months ago show Judge Hidalgo with very high favorable numbers with Democrats.

If the race were held today, Judge Hidalgo would likely score the most endorsements from groups and organizations who endorse in a Democratic Party Primary. I don’t even think that the Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus would endorse Annise.

I think Judge Hidalgo would also hold on to the support from most of the elected officials who are Democrats.

The local Fox 26 “What’s Your Point” crew holds zilch influence on a Harris County Democratic Party Primary election. A big zilch. Certainly don’t take political advice from this bunch.

Latino Democratic voters enjoy the fact that a majority of the Harris County Commissioners Court are Latino and Latina. I think they would come out and support Judge Hidalgo and the current majority.

In a Democratic Party Primary in these parts and in these days, the voter landscape tends to favor the more partisan Democratic candidate. I don’t think former Mayor Parker could out-partisan Judge Hidalgo.

You have to figure that one of the factors that contributed to incumbent Harris County DA Kim Ogg getting severely trounced a couple of months in the primary election was because of Ogg’s vendetta against Judge Hidalgo. Yes, I will go on record as labeling it a vendetta after the DA handed the Hidalgo related case off to the crook Texas GOP AG Ken Paxton last week. The vendetta got Ogg 25% of the vote and bolstered Judge Hidalgo’s cred among Democrats.

If DA Ogg and/or crook Paxton decide to indict Judge Hidalgo in the next few months, it will only embolden Judge Hidalgo with Democrats.

Oh, well. 22 months is an eternity in politics. Stay tuned.

I largely agree with this take. We know that Parker considered running for County Judge in 2018 but decided against it because she had enjoyed a close working relationship with then-Judge Ed Emmett (*), and didn’t want to run against him; she very likely decided he would be basically unbeatable anyway, as did a lot of other folks. I’m sure she must have thought about that once or twice since then with a certain amount of wistfulness. That she still might like to have this job can’t be a big surprise to anyone.

The thing is that there’s no way any serious challenge to Judge Hidalgo in 2026 would be anything but ugly, negative, and just soul-crushingly awful for everyone involved. Judge Hidalgo attracted an assortment of opponents in 2022, none of whom were serious challengers. The closest one to that was HCDE Trustee Erica Davis, whose “campaign” consisted of a handful of shiny biographical/introduction videos that never mentioned Hidalgo; it was as if she were running a campaign from years past as the sole challenger to a Republican incumbent. Whatever else a 2026 campaign against Hidalgo would be, it would not be like that.

Annise Parker is a seasoned political veteran who has run and won a bunch of campaigns, though as Campos notes never in a Dem primary. I have no doubt that she could articulate a credible case against Judge Hidalgo and for herself. I’m also sure that she is aware of the effect that would have on a Democratic electorate that likes Judge Hidalgo, and the knock-on effects it would have with her friends and allies in the party who will feel incredibly torn about this. Primary elections are family fights – they can and do leave a lasting mark. This is not an argument for or against any course of action. It’s just how it is.

I can’t say that I would look forward to this election, if it were to happen. I feel like I’m still recovering from Carol Alvarado versus Sylvia Garcia for SD06 back in 2013. As everyone here says, two years is a long time in politics. It’s also closer than you think.

(*) A Houston Mayor who has a close working relationship with a Harris County Judge? Imagine that.

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Here come the deepfakes

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Here already, and we’re not ready for them.

Rep. Dade Phelan

A recent “deepfaked” ad targeting House Speaker Dade Phelan could inspire further legislation to crack down on doctored imagery in political ads.

At the end of Monday’s hearing of the House Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies, political attorney Andrew Cates suggested the committee should recommend an update to Senate Bill 751 from 2019, which created a Class A misdemeanor offense for distributing a “deep fake video” created with the intent to deceive voters.

“Not to bring up sensitive stuff, but the speaker got hit a couple days ago with a fake image, or a deceptively altered image,” Cates said. “It’s not against the law here.”

That mailer, paid for by the Jeff Yass-bankrolled Club for Growth Action PAC, depicted Phelan in an intimate hug with former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, apparently a remake of Pelosi hugging new House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Less publicized was the flip side of the mailer, which falsely depicted Phelan at a lectern speaking at a Texas House Democratic Caucus news conference.

If the ad was a sore subject among the members of the Texas House, committee Chair Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, didn’t seem to mind.

“It was multiple images, one on each side, and what’s a video but multiple images played really quickly?” Capriglione said, adding that the Legislature may need to update the law.

“The reason, though, is because it’s unfair,” Capriglione continued. “It’s deliberately made to deceive individuals — especially because AI can make things look so realistic and, obviously, neither of those two images actually happened.”

In addition to the ad containing photos, not videos, SB 751 only outlawed deep fake videos within 30 days of an election, and the ad was sent just outside of that time frame.

Cates suggested that the Legislature also expand the law to include radio, sound, speech and text. He also suggested making it a third-degree felony, as that would get the attention of groups who are scared of felonies but unaware of misdemeanors.

Good luck with that, and I mean it sincerely. Among other things, you’re never going to be able to ban this sort of thing at all times so it will always be out there in the wild, some new technology or method will come along that will be outside the scope of the legislation, you’re going to need to figure out an enforcement mechanism that might actually work on PACs as well as on people, and you just know one of those asshole billionaires is going to sue you on “free speech” grounds. We’re so not ready for this.

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The problem with Texas’ anti-porn law

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s a good explanation of the issue from Slate.

After a federal district court judge found that the law likely violated the First Amendment rights of the plaintiffs—led by the adult film trade association the Free Speech Coalition—the 5th Circuit reversed its decision and allowed the law to take effect.

Pornhub’s statement goes on to say that collecting identification under the law would, in fact, put the privacy of all users at risk. And the site is right: This is both a free-speech problem and a privacy problem. The state’s paternalistic fantasies of cutting off children from dangerous pornography and keeping their souls pure have led it to curb for everyone—including legal adults—the anonymous nature of watching legal pornography.

In theory, it makes sense to card porn users, as happens when one buys a dirty magazine. But online, going further than simply asking users to confirm, on the honor system, that they are of age gets into dicey territory, quickly. Even the best models for collecting government ID, such as through a secure third-party service that automatically deletes data upon verification, may still create a treasure trove of highly sensitive data that can be easily exploited against the user. Collecting that data creates an instant risk, even with the best information security practices. And what might someone pay a blackmailer threatening to reveal a user’s history of visiting kink or fetish sites—or of viewing LGBTQ+ porn, when they themselves haven’t come out?

Data breaches affect all corners of the internet, and any dataset connecting individuals with their porn-watching habits would be sweet stuff for blackmail-happy hackers. Pornhub’s stance is that if age verification must happen, it should occur at the device level, not on the web, as Texas currently mandates. In theory, one’s Mac or iPhone, say, would be able to allow or deny access to 18-plus sites; you’d put in your ID upon setting up the device, rather than having that ID information bouncing around the web. Kind of like a blanket parental control, but mandated by the government.

Texas isn’t the only state to nuzzle up between its citizens and their porn supply—in fact, it’s the seventh. Pornhub’s parent company, the Canadian firm Aylo, has already restricted access to its network of popular sites in Arkansas, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia. There’s also one state that Pornhub hasn’t withdrawn from over its age-verification law: Louisiana, which developed a proprietary digital driver’s license that Pornhub thinks is better than the more “haphazard” mandates to verify ID from other states like Texas. “This system isn’t perfect,” as Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown writes, “but it is less invasive than the alternative—closer to a convenience store clerk glancing at someone’s ID than to creating a gigantic porn viewer database linked to real identities.”

Meanwhile, a number of other states have passed kinda-similar-but-kinda-different age-verification laws for social media users as part of a patchwork of efforts to protect minors from the clutches of Instagram and TikTok and the like. Some of these social media laws have been blocked or struck down on free-speech grounds.

Digital driver’s licenses and device-level verification could be steps in the right direction if they can verify identity without risking the privacy of adult users. But the end result of both kinds of age-verification laws is the same: The government wants to get into the business of policing the internet, carding adults, in their homes, for the simple privilege of doomscrolling or watching porn, and taking the complicated question of how to manage internet access out of the hands of parents. A lot of people squirm at that.

The bigger problem, according to Jason Kelley of the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, is that age-verification laws not only create risk for the user’s privacy but also gate off content that should be perfectly legal for people to see—and legal for them to see anonymously.

“Anonymity and the ability to both speak and receive information without identifying yourself has always been a strong and important part of our rights,” Kelley told me. “It’s not just that there’s a danger in sharing your information, but it’s also the case that anonymous speech is regularly seen over the course of our history as an important right.”

Porn has always been at the forefront of First Amendment fights, and this is just the latest example, Kelley said: “If you lose that protection for that otherwise entirely constitutional speech, you set up precedent where you could lose it elsewhere.”

See here for some background. I drafted this a little while ago, and since then SCOTUS has allowed the law to stay in place pending appeals. One way to read this story is that Texas could have passed a less onerous law that would pass muster. Not surprisingly – I mean, Angela Paxton was the bill author – Texas went for maximum effect and intrusion. But if this law is ultimately struck down, the Lege could learn from this and make another run at it that could succeed. In the meantime, we’re going to have to live with it.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of April 29

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance wonders how a university president could ever think that inviting cops to a peaceful protest is a good idea as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Final May 2024 special election early voting: The usual pattern holds

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

We come to the end of the early voting period for this weird and not really wanted May special election – okay, not wanted for HCAD, the SD15 special was fine and normal. All along we’ve tried to guess at what turnout might be like, and that has included whether the usual pattern for the early voting period would apply, with the last two days being the busiest culminating in the biggest day of them all. I’m pleased to say that is what happened here, as 6,429 people showed up to vote, more than double from Monday and by far the largest single day total. Add in 160 more mail ballots, and we ended the nine day EV period with 33,652 total votes cast.

The final early voting report is here. It is what it is, and unless we do something like this again I don’t know how to evaluate it. We could end up with 50K total votes, we could end up with 100K, which might barely get us to four percent total turnout. We may yet wind up being one of the higher-performing counties, because I daresay we’re far from alone in being clueless about these elections. At least from here on out they’ll be in November. Did you vote early?

UPDATE: The Houston Landing covers the end of early voting and notes that the last Harris County election in May was in 2022, a Constitutional amendment election that I completely forgot about and overlooked in the harrisvotes.com archives. It had 4.76% turnout, which still put it squarely in the previously discussed range.

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SCOTUS leaves anti-porn law in place for now

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

No emergency intervention, but the appeal on the merits is still ongoing.

The Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to block a Texas law that seeks to limit minors’ access to pornography on the internet by requiring age verification measures like the submission of government-issued IDs.

As is the court’s custom in rulings on emergency applications, its brief order gave no reasons. There were no noted dissents. A petition seeking review of an appeals court’s ruling upholding the law remains pending.

A trade group, companies that produce sexual materials and a performer challenged the law, saying that it violates the First Amendment right of adults.

The law does not allow companies to retain information their users submit. But the challengers said adults would be wary of supplying personal information for fear of identity theft, tracking and extortion.

[…]

The challengers, represented by, among others, the American Civil Liberties Union, told the justices that the Fifth Circuit was not entitled to second-guess the Supreme Court.

“This case presents the rare and noteworthy instance in which a court of appeals has brazenly departed from this court’s precedents because it claims to have a better understanding of the law,” they wrote.

In urging the Supreme Court to leave the law in place while it considers whether to hear an appeal, Ken Paxton, Texas’ attorney general, said pornography available on the internet is “orders of magnitude more graphic, violent and degrading than any so-called ‘girlie’ magazine of yesteryear.”

He added: “This statute does not prohibit the performance, production or even sale of pornography but, more modestly, simply requires the pornography industry that make billions of dollars from peddling smut to take commercially reasonable steps to ensure that those who access the material are adults. There is nothing unconstitutional about it.”

The plaintiffs had also challenged a second part of the law requiring sites to post “public health warnings” about the harmful effects of pornography, saying that the First Amendment bars such compelled speech. Judge Ezra and all three members of the Fifth Circuit panel agreed, and the challenge to that provision is not part of the Supreme Court case.

See here, here, and here for some background. You know where I stand on this, I don’t have anything to add to that. We’ll see if SCOTUS takes up the appeal or just lets the Fifth Circuit overrule it. The Current has more.

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On increasing ridership at Metro

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I’m open to hearing more.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County is under new leadership, but the goal of increasing ridership remains the same.

While the number of riders steadily has increased across the system since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it still does not match pre-pandemic levels.

Enter Elizabeth Gonzalez Brock, Metro’s new board chairperson, who was appointed by Houston Mayor John Whitmire in February.

The aim is to get more Houstonians excited about public transit, but Brock’s vision is focused on different ways to get there: smaller vehicles, carpooling and rideshare programs, and increased police presence on buses, trains and park-and-ride lots.

“I’d like for Metro to be a service that people choose to use versus something that they’re dependent on,” Brock said in an interview. “Looking at ways that we can improve customer service so that we’re easy to use, and that we’re a service that people are excited about using.”

For Brock, the path to boosting ridership involves improved public safety for transit riders. That includes adding to the ranks of the Metro Police Department and increasing their patrol presence.

Let’s pause here for a moment and remember that Mayor Whitmire proposed back in January adding Metro cops to HPD. This article doesn’t mention that, as neither does Chair Brock, and I can’t say I’ve heard anything further on it since then. How might that proposal affect Chair Brock’s plan to add more Metro cops, if it is still in play? We don’t know.

Onward:

Brock repeatedly used the phrase “meeting customers where they are,” in describing her desire to attract more riders who have the option to use a personal vehicle or to use Metro’s services.

“I view expansion as ‘How do you provide services that are more available for people to use?’” Brock said. For those hoping for an expansion of light rail, the wait may be a little longer.

“In order to get there, we’re really going to have to take a look at technology,” Brock said.

The focus on technology would be both internal and external. For example, Brock said she hopes to grow Metro’s line of customer-facing phone apps to ensure better transit planning. At the same time, she set a goal of improving the agency’s back-end technologies as a fundamental part of expanding on-demand services and introducing new “microtransit programs”.

Improved technology also will be aimed at how the agency analyzes data with an eye toward better ridership projections to ensure Metro’s bus system has an adequate number of routes. It also will include exploration of other transit options, such as rideshare or carpool programs. Brock singled out Uber, the nationwide ride-share service which recently just posted its first year of profitability, as an existing transportation model to both aspire to and compete with.

One potential partner is Evolve Houston, a nonprofit that offers a free ride-share service called RYDE. The service uses electric vehicles to provide connections to grocery stores and healthcare facilities in underserved communities. The city of Houston approved $281,000 in increased funding in late November to expand the program. RYDE originally started in Third Ward last June.

Casey Brown, president and executive director of Evolve Houston, spoke during the public comment section of Thursday’s Metro board of directors meeting where he asked the board to consider funding further expansion.

Other options include expanding services Metro already offers, such as the agency’s “curb2curb” service, a daily on-demand shuttle available for anyone to use in certain neighborhoods without direct access to a Metro bus route. It currently is available only in Acres Home, Hiram Clarke, and Missouri City during the day and in Kashmere/Trinity Gardens at night.

Brock sees opportunity to provide smaller, all-electric shuttles that can address gaps in service to make transit more accessible.

See here for more on Evolve Houston and RYDE. All of this sounds reasonable and interesting and if done with an eye towards expanding the existing Metro network could really do a lot. We’ll need to see what the actual plans are, of course, but I like it conceptually.

And then there’s this:

Alternative programs could have included Metro’s proposed bike share program, for which the board had approved contract negotiations last September. At the time, the plan was for the bike share program to be ready to launch this upcoming summer.

Those plans since have changed.

According to [interim Metro CEO Tom] Jasien, Metro still is reviewing options with a focus on finding other potential partners for a bike share program. There are no firm dates for a launch of the program.

Other initiatives, such as Metro’s autonomous shuttle, bus rapid transit lines, including a proposed route in Gulfton, and an extension of light rail to Hobby Airport are being evaluated against what Brock sees as current rider needs.

Okay, so the Board voted to negotiate a contract with Canadian firm PBSC to develop and operate a new bike-share program, after the proposed merger with BCycle fell apart. What happened with that? Voting to negotiate a contract is not the same as signing one, but it does imply some amount of commitment. Have we scrapped the whole thing and are starting from square one? Decided to just back out? Looking for a better deal? What does this mean?

And that question goes double for that last paragraph. There are many ways one can interpret that one sentence, but in a world where several existing multi-million dollar programs that had been in the works for years are being shoved aside on mayoral whim, one really has to wonder if we can count on anything that we thought was going to happen to actually happen. Voters have already voted for these projects. Is this just some routine tweaking of timelines and details, or are we going to ignore that election? I would like to get some answers, please.

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May 2024 special election early voting, Day Eight: A little bit of an uptick

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I’ll cut right to the chase: Here’s your Day Eight early voting report for the May 4 HCAD and SD15 special elections. As the penultimate day of early voting, as well as the first day of a truncated Week Two, I had wondered if this would follow the usual pattern of slightly higher turnout. And indeed it did, with a new high water mark of 2,790 in person voters to go along with 546 more mail ballots, for a total of 27,062 voters with one day to day. I’m feeling a lot better about that over/under line of 30K for early voting, Maybe if the last day matches the kind of boost that other last days of EV get, even 35K could be in play. Keep hope alive and all that.

And yes, that means today is the last day of early voting. You can vote on Saturday the 4th – I’ll link to a list of Election Day sites later this week – or you can pick one of the EV locations, either at harrisvotes.com or by looking at those daily links, and get it done now. I’ve managed to turn a couple of people out myself, but that sort of thing only goes so far. If you’ve ever wondered what a zero-attention election in Harris County – or the state of Texas, for that matter – looks like, now you know. I’ll have the final report tomorrow. Have you voted yet?

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Paxton sues over new federal LGBTQ+ protections in schools

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Oh, look, his favorite judge is available.

A crook any way you look

Texas Republican leaders are pushing back on the Biden administration’s new rules that bar schools from discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott said he would direct the state’s education agency to disregard the new rules, calling them a “ham-handed effort to impose a leftist belief.”

Attorney General Ken Paxton sued to block the policy, arguing that the U.S. Department of Education exceeded its authority and wrote an “arbitrary and capricious” rule that expands Title IX, a 1972 anti-discrimination law originally passed to protect women’s rights.

The department’s rules, announced earlier this month and finalized Monday, say school programs and activities must not discriminate against LGBTQ or pregnant students. Colleges and K-12 schools that don’t comply risk losing their federal funding when the rule takes effect in August.

The Biden administration issued similar guidance two years ago, but Texas and 19 other Republican-led states sued and convinced a federal judge to block the policy. The department’s newly finalized rules were delayed by a comment period that drew 240,000 responses, a record for the Education Department.

The rules clash with policies imposed by some Texas school districts, including in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, that separate school bathrooms and locker rooms by sex assigned at birth.

Texas has in the last few years also passed laws blocking transgender student-athletes from competing on teams that align with their gender identity, both at the K-12 and collegiate levels. The Biden administration rule does not directly address athletics.

[…]

The state’s suit was filed in federal court in Amarillo in conjunction with America First Legal, a law firm led by former Trump administration officials.

Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment on why the suit was filed in the Panhandle. His office has been accused of “judge shopping,” or strategically filing suits in districts where they are likely to be assigned to a judge viewed as ideologically aligned or more friendly.

Paxton has frequently filed suits against the Biden administration in Amarillo, where cases are all but guaranteed to go to U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a former attorney for a conservative religious liberties legal group who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump.

See here for more on the new rules, which I can’t imagine will survive contact with the legal nullification machine. For all of the correct and valid talk about Supreme Court reform, we really need to address this crisis of judge shopping, activist district court judges, and lawless appeals courts. We don’t have a working federal court system anymore, and it’s more extreme and farcical every day. As for Greg Abbott’s nullification, I keep asking myself what is the enforcement mechanism in cases where governors refuse to follow the law, and let’s just say that thought process doesn’t take you anywhere good. So, you know, cool cool cool. And you know what the answr is – we have to win more elections. There’s no other good way forward.

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Shepherd-Durham project halted

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

It’s like deja vu all over again.

Houston city officials have put the brakes on the middle piece of a planned redesign of Shepherd and Durham drives along the edge of the Heights, a decision that community officials and others say puts millions of dollars destined for the city at risk.

Rumored for weeks, and predicted by critics of Mayor John Whitmire’s transportation policies, the city’s decision to not support any plan that removes lanes along the parallel, four-lane-wide corridors is likely to leave a gap in bicycle lanes along the streets between Interstate 10 and 15th Street.

For the segment from near White Oak Bayou to north of 14th Street, it may also mean that no repairs other than routine maintenance happen in the coming months or years.

“The potential exists for the project to be canceled entirely and for its associated federal funding to be reallocated somewhere else in the region,” Anne Lents, chairwoman of the Memorial Heights Redevelopment Authority, told board members, according to a printed copy of a monthly report she delivered Thursday. “At this point, this is out of our direct control as a redevelopment authority. Ultimately, we are an entity of the city and are reliant on the (mayoral) administration and city permitting and approvals to advance projects.”

Marlene Gafrick, a senior adviser to Whitmire and former city planning department director, confirmed that she told the redevelopment authority, which is building the project with local and federal funds, that it would receive city support — and permits — only if it redesigned the project.

The two criteria Gafrick gave the redevelopment authority, which also operates a tax increment reinvestment zone, is that the project “maintain the original lane widths and number of lanes” and maintain only 6-foot sidewalks.

That conflicts and makes the fully designed project impossible unless the redevelopment adds the cost and complexity of acquiring land, and even then turns planned 10-foot paths into smaller sidewalks that meet minimum requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

[…]

The phase north of 15th won $25 million in federal funds, which officials in 2020 credited to U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, who until redistricting represented the area north of 14th as part of his oddly shaped district in northeast parts of Harris County. In 2020, a wide swath of officials — including U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, then-Mayor Sylvester Turner, Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis and then-state Sen. Whitmire — submitted letters in support of the project.

“The reconstruction of Shepherd and Durham are critical components of the transportation infrastructure of the City of Houston,” Whitmire’s letter said.

Still, construction has frustrated some businesses and drivers, as the work has kept Shepherd and Durham limited to two lanes at times, cut off some local streets and led to abrupt loss of electricity and water as lines are repaired or replaced.

What is uncertain, Lents told board members, is the way ahead for the center segment. Officials planned to ink a deal with a construction company by the end of September.

If the work does not proceed, she said, the redevelopment authority and the city would have to go back to the Houston-Galveston Area Council to revise its funding plan. That means the region’s Transportation Policy Council would need to reapprove the project, at a time when Houston is sparring with the regional board about its representation on the council.

“In other words, triggering additional H-GAC action creates risk for the project’s existing federal funding,” Lents said.

That regional process, she said, could end with Shepherd-Durham unable to spend its money on time, H-GAC sending the money to another project in the Houston area and Shepherd-Durham at an indefinite standstill.

Effects, however, might move far from the Shepherd-Durham corridor, as Whitmire officials pause other projects that could face the same challenges. A major rebuild of sidewalks in Kashmere Gardens and Gulfton also relies on potentially narrowing some streets, as does a planned redesign of Telephone Road and many of Metropolitan Transit Authority’s bus and light rail projects.

Those projects either have or hope to receive competitive federal funds, which because of the Biden administration’s focus on climate and infrastructure are available. Drawing a hard line and not eliminating any vehicle lanes, however, might make Houston less competitive, said Kevin DeGood, director of infrastructure policy at the Center for American Progress.

“Federal grant programs are very competitive,” DeGood said. “And the Biden administration is naturally going to prioritize projects that align with their vision and goals.”

I would have written about this sooner but I had a very full weekend of family business, so here we are. You can start with what I said about the Montrose project being delayed and then turn that up to eleven to get the basic picture. I mean, I really don’t think that a campaign slogan of “I promise to turn down federal dollars for a road renovation project I used to support and in doing so jeopardize future federal infrastructure funds for other projects” is a winner, but what do I know.

The story covers a lot of ground, so let me just add a couple of things. It’s not clear who is actually opposing this phase of the larger project. The story mentions some grousing by businesses but doesn’t provide any names or quotes to go along with that grousing, which is a feature of literally every road construction situation that has ever existed in Houston. Is there an organized opposition or just a collection of malcontents? Or does that even matter and this is all being driven by Mayor Whitmire’s personal preferences, the will of the affected residents be damned? It would be nice to explore that in more detail, for this project and any others that are now subject to mayoral whim.

As for the traffic, I gotta tell you, I spent an entire school year carting home one of my daughter’s classmates, who was in our carpool and who lives in the Garden Oaks area, and I did all of this driving not only while Durham/Shepherd was under construction, but also West 11th at the beginning of it. And honestly, as annoying as any trek through construction is, it just wasn’t that bad from a travel time perspective. Both Shepherd and Durham were down to two lanes for the construction, and that usually meant it took a couple of cycles to get through the traffic lights, but that was about the extent of it. Compared to any of our favorite freeway segments, it was a stroll in the park. I get that it was a pain for the businesses, and for people who lived on some of the side streets when their intersections were closed off, but that’s road construction for you. You live with the mess and get a better driving experience afterwards.

And hey, if you’re at all familiar with the stretch of Durham/Shepherd from, like, Allen Parkway all the way to 610, you know what a moonscape it was before the renovations. It’s so much better now, and your suspension thanks you for it. If you can tell the difference between the three-lane experience and four lanes, I congratulate you on your superior sense of perception. I sure can’t tell.

You know who I bet can tell the difference? The people who live in those surrounding neighborhoods, especially the ones right on Durham and Shepherd. There’s new apartments on Shepherd, and new townhomes and houses on the nearby streets. There were always residents in the area, though I’d guess there are more now, and there are now a lot more places for them to go, places to eat and drink and shop. These streets are now safer for them and their kids to cross, and it’s a lot easier to imagine walking to these places instead of getting in your car to drive a quarter mile and hunt for parking. Funny thing, people who live in neighborhoods like doing things like that. They don’t like cars zooming by at highway speed. If I were living south of 15th Street and saw what my neighbors a few blocks north were getting that I was now not going to get – even just the nice, smooth main streets – I’d be pretty pissed about it. Direct your feedback to the Mayor, y’all.

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May 2024 special election early voting, Day Seven: Two more days to go

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

The Sunday of early voting is always the slowest day, as it has the shortest hours and no mail delivery. This Sunday was no exception, as a total of 780 ballots were cast, all in person. That brings the in person total to 10,282. As it happens, the mail ballot total ticked up a bit even though no new ballots were received, but 547 of the previously received ones that had not yet been counted were cured – that is, missing information on the ballot was supplied by the sender – bringing that total up to 13,446. That takes us to 23,728 total votes cast with two days of early voting to go.

I’ve said before and will say again that I’m not going to guess what turnout may wind up being. I will say that I had been mentally drawing an over/under line of 30K early ballots as of Friday, and as of today that line hasn’t moved. Maybe today’s returns will make me rethink. I hope it does, because at this pace I don’t see us getting anywhere close to the 4-5 percent turnout of past May elections. We’ll be lucky to top two percent at this rate. We have these days and next Saturday to change that trajectory. Go vote if you still haven’t. It’s like you’re voting for a couple dozen other people as well.

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Tarrant County DA still wants to prosecute Crystal Mason

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

What an asshole.

Tarrant County District Attorney Phil Sorrells wants Crystal Mason’s illegal voting conviction reinstated, his office announced Thursday.

Mason, a Tarrant County resident, was acquitted of an illegal voting charge last month. Sorrells’ office is now asking the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to overturn the ruling that cleared her.

Mason was convicted of illegal voting in March 2018 and sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election while on supervised release for federal tax evasion.

“This office will protect the ballot box from fraudsters who think our laws don’t apply to them,” Sorrells’ office said in a statement.

The office argues the Second Court of Appeals did not give proper deference to the trial court’s guilty verdict and reweighed the evidence in favor of Mason when it overturned her conviction.

Sorrells’ office adds Mason was fairly convicted based on testimony from election staff that she understood she was not eligible to vote.

Mason has maintained she did not know she was ineligible to vote.

“It is disappointing that the state has chosen to request further review of Ms. Mason’s case, but we are confident that justice will ultimately prevail,” Tommy Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas, said in a statement. “The court of appeals’ decision was well reasoned and correct. It is time to give Ms. Mason peace with her family.”

Though it had initially upheld her conviction, the Tarrant County-based Second Court of Appeals overturned it last month after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals instructed the lower court to “evaluate the sufficiency” of the evidence against Mason.

Initially, the court found that Mason’s alleged knowledge that she was on supervised release, and therefore ineligible to vote, was sufficient for an illegal voting conviction. But in instructing it to reevaluate the case, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal ruled the lower court “erred by failing to require proof that [Mason] had actual knowledge that it was a crime for her to vote while on supervised release.”

See here for the previous update. I don’t know why the CCA would get involved here – they could have let her conviction stand in the first place. Given the way the CCA usually goes, it’s quite remarkable they ruled as they did, though by then the Lege had passed a law clarifying the situation Ms. Mason was involved in as described above. This is all political and thoroughly vile, and I hope the CCA swiftly rejects Sorrells’ motion. And then I hope Tarrant County voters take out this piece of trash in 2026.

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Bringing back black bears

Posted on April 29, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Cool.

Photo by Pam McIlhenny

It’s difficult to visualize these days, what with the light pollution, overdevelopment and sprawl that have come to define the greater Houston area, but the ground we now stand on was once the domain of 5’ 6” black bears.

Specifically, the Louisiana black bear subspecies (Ursus americanus luteolus). Sam Houston hunted them from his cabin in Montgomery in the 1850s. In Nacogdoches, a feast of bear meat was held during the Texas Revolution. In Conroe, builders had to shoot at black bears disrupting the 1891 construction of the courthouse.

But, if you haven’t noticed, there aren’t many of our native black bears around these days.

The black bears native to east Texas have experienced a habitat reduction of 80 percent due to property fragmentation, deforestation and unregulated sport hunting. As a result, their numbers in east Texas have dwindled to zero.

That matters because as apex predators, the bears once played an essential role in the balance of the east Texas ecosystem. Were they around, they might be keeping the exploding populations of deer and rampaging feral hogs in check.

That’s where the Texas Black Bear Alliance (TBBA) comes in. The nonprofit organization is working with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department (TPWD) to explore eventually bringing black bears back to east Texas.

They estimate that through their efforts, the bears could be reintroduced here within the next 20 years.

“Bears are in Big Bend. They came over when Mexico was having a drought. They came in search of food, and now they have shade, which is fabulous,” said TBBA president Ellen Buchanan. “We’re hoping that that happens here … If bears don’t come themselves to east Texas, [TBBA and TPWD will] facilitate bringing bears back.”

There’s a lot of factors in play here, from public education initiatives to available federal funding, which might be applied to other species considered a higher priority in Texas, to the ironic fact that these bears are no longer on the endangered species list because of successful conservation efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi. The reintroduction of Mexican black bears in Big Bend National Park provides some hope, though this would be a multi-decade effort even if all goes well. And if it does all go well, the future habitat could include some bits of Harris County. Read the rest, it’s a fascinating story.

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Weekend link dump for April 28

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

“Americans Throw Away Up to $68 Million in Coins a Year. Here Is Where It All Ends Up.”

“Performing in the U.S. for international artists just got a lot more complicated. On April 1, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services instituted a 250% visa fee increase for global musicians hoping to tour in the U.S. Artists, advocacy groups and immigration lawyers are concerned it could have devastating effects on emerging talent worldwide and local music economies in the U.S.”

“In fact, the striking thing when you examine the relationship between local news and conservative audiences is that, in spite of all the differences between the Bucks County Courier Times and the New York Times, their alienation from conservatives sounds dishearteningly similar.”

“But this, in short, is Gingrich’s legacy: He pioneered the practice of speaking to the cameras instead of to his colleagues, and he recognized that by doing so you could cut the line and assemble your own power base.”

“Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is partnering, through his Seth MacFarlane Foundation, with Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation to fund the first-ever, curated restoration of historically significant animated shorts from the 1920s to 1940s.”

Ads and nags in Windows 11 driving you nuts? Here’s how to turn them off.

I wouldn’t have thought anyone would be objectively pro-polio these days, but I would be wrong.

“So what’s actually happening? Are more planes having incidents than ever before? Or are we just hearing about more incidents?” (Spoiler alert: We’re just hearing more about them.)

RIP, Terry Anderson, former Associated Press reporter who became one of America’s longest-held hostages after he was kidnapped in Lebanon in 1985 and held for nearly seven years.

“New York state lawyers and an attorney for former President Donald Trump settled their differences Monday over a $175 million bond that Trump posted to block a large civil fraud judgment while he pursues appeals.”

“The vote was 3-2 in favor of banning noncompete agreements for new workers and voiding them for all existing workers (except C-suite executives). This will eliminate the ridiculous practice of fast food chains hiring sandwich makers and then prohibiting them from quitting and going to work for a different fast food chain—and giving their valuable, proprietary sandwich making expertise to the competition.”

“Why Foundations That Back Progressives Are Funding a Leading Conservative Think Tank”.

“Never before has the party in control of the House of Representatives knowingly and willingly castrated its own power so thoroughly as today’s Republicans.” I dunno, maybe giving a handful of nihilist fanatics veto power over everything you do is a bad idea?

“What If Your AI Girlfriend Hated You?”

“When anyone in politics says, “Forget about the political labels,” realize that they are trying to squirm out of the losing side of an argument.”

“Medical records for out-of-state abortions will now be protected by HIPAA“. Well, until the ADF can roust up a plaintiff to bring a lawsuit before Matthew Kacsymarek, anyway.

Lock him up.

Lock them up.

Ted Cruz was actually right about one thing, it’s just something he doesn’t want to talk abut now.

RIP, John Trimble, Star Trek superfan who along with his wife Bjo led the drive to save the original Trek from cancellation at NBC, paving the way for its long-lived future. See here for more.

“In general, establishment evangelicals and the legacy institutions of the religious right supported aid for Ukraine while cable TV and online evangelicals opposed it. Johnson and Greene serve as representatives of those respective factions.”

Good for Reggie Bush, and about time, too.

“The Bronx Children’s Museum, in conjunction with The Players Alliance, the Yankees and Bronx Terminal Market, unveiled a new outdoor mural titled “Exhibiting Possibilities: Legendary Yankees,” featuring the six living Black baseball legends, all of whom left their respective marks on the Yankees franchise.”

“On Thursday, during oral arguments in Trump v. United States, the Republican-appointed justices shattered those illusions. This was the case we had been waiting for, and all was made clear—brutally so. These justices donned the attitude of cynical partisans, repeatedly lending legitimacy to the former president’s outrageous claims of immunity from criminal prosecution.”

“Everything comes into conceptual alignment if we understand the Court’s corruption: corrupt in its construction, corrupt in its jurisprudence, venally corrupt as well, though that is the least of its problems.”

“The Onion’s owner said on Thursday that the satirical news site has been sold to a new Chicago-based firm created by four digital media veterans who are fans of the publication.”

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Mayor Whitmire, Judge Hidalgo. Judge Hidalgo, Mayor Whitmire.

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

What are we doing here?

Mayor John Whitmire

April made four months into Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s administration and he had yet to meet face-to-face with Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.

“It has me worried, but it’s outside my control,” said Hidalgo. “I can’t force someone to meet with me.”

Whitmire held countless meetings since becoming mayor of Houston, but one person who was never on his schedule was Hidalgo, who is head of the state’s largest county.

“We’ve had ongoing requests to meet, offered different times, I’ll go there, whatever, but he’s too busy,” said Hidalgo.

In March, when President Joe Biden visited Houston, Hidalgo thought she’d get her chance.

“Normally we all wait in one room with the pastries and coffee and I didn’t see him,” said Hidalgo. “Turns out he was in a different room. We always are in the same room.”

Hidalgo said building a relationship with Whitmire is “critical,” especially with hurricane season approaching.

“The problem is that there’s real policy at stake,” said Hidalgo. “It’s about to be hurricane season. I still haven’t walked him through the emergency operations center. We haven’t been able to get us at this level to build a relationship and work together.”

There is a complicated history between Hidalgo and Whitmire. Hidalgo endorsed Whitmire’s opponent in the mayoral race – Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

“As I said during the campaign, if he wins, I’ll work with him, that’s how it works,” said Hidalgo. “I’ve had to work with a lot of people who didn’t support me. You have to do the job.”

A key part of that job is partnership during crises. It’s something KHOU 11 political analyst Brandon Rottinghaus said voters saw up close between past administrations.

“If there is some disagreement, that has to be put aside,” said Rottinghaus. “The good of the region is in the hands of these two critical leaders.”

Campos and Stace have had their say on this. I’m going to keep this simple. I can understand where the Mayor is coming from. There’s a reason why most elected officials pick their spots carefully when endorsing in local races, and why the answer I almost always get when I ask Council candidates who they’re supporting for Mayor is some variation on “I’ll work with whoever is elected”. Judge Hidalgo picked a side, her side lost, and now here we are. Politics ain’t beanbag and all that.

But come on, the election is long over, and last I checked nearly everyone who is represented by Mayor Whitmire is also represented by Judge Hidalgo. There’s tons of shared interests, which go well beyond just disaster and emergency preparedness and response. Mayor Whitmire, to put it gently, is not new at this. He himself has told us at length of his ability to work with people who are not on his team. Why that is not the case here remains a mystery – he did not respond to KHOU’s request for a comment. For a guy who brags about how good his relationship is with state government, it’s quite remarkable how he seems to have no such relationship with county government.

All of which, I say again, would seem to be counter to the Mayor’s own interests, as he tries to reduce costs and tame the city’s finances. To wit, from the Council meeting on Wednesday the 24th:

CM Kamin remarked on climate change and the increasing likelihood of extreme weather related events in Houston, like hurricanes, droughts, extreme temperatures, air quality, etc. She said the City is not prepared and the region needs both large infrastructure projects (Ike Dike, North Canal Project) and small ones, like the drainage projects that often accompany street improvement plans. She said, “We desperately need the planned projects that we have in place for flood mitigation … We need those projects now. We needed them yesterday.” I can’t be sure because she didn’t name names, but I’m pretty sure she’s talking about the Montrose Blvd drainage and street improvement plan that has been in the news recently because some trees need to be removed (and replaced).

Mayor Whitmire defended the City’s preparedness and advocated for partnerships with the County and the State Emergency Center.

(Source) You know what might help facilitate those partnerships with the County? Picking up the goddamn phone when the County Judge calls to get together for a meeting. I’m just saying.

UPDATE: Okay then.

Facing mounting pressure from Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s office, Houston Mayor John Whitmire finally responded to inquiries as to why the top two city officials have not yet formally met: He doesn’t have time for games.

[…]

On Thursday, Whitmire released a statement at long last explaining why he and Hidalgo have not even been photographed together since the two met with President Joe Biden on Air Force One. (Hidalgo has met President Biden twice.)

“Mayor Whitmire says he doesn’t have time for games or meet and greets,” the statement began. “He is busy running the city of Houston, which includes preparing for Hurricane Season with the assistance of the City’s Office of Emergency Management.”

Whitmire went on to say that he has hired employees to coordinate with the county on hurricane planning, and the two teams have met at least ten times to discuss emergency management.

“Mayor Whitmire has met with Harris County Commissioners Garcia, Briones, and Ramsey, and he is confident he and Judge Hidalgo will meet when it’s time.”

Again, I am mystified how someone who has been in politics since approximately the Roosevelt administration can be this cavalier about the need to work with others, especially those that ought to be generally in alignment with him. I’m just gonna leave this here:

via GIPHY

It would be a lot funnier if it didn’t directly affect me, I’ll say that much.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

More on Amtrak and Texas Central

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Some good followup in the Chron on the question of Amtrak pushing the high speed rail line in Texas.

With Amtrak taking the reins, for now, of a Texas bullet train project, here’s some of the issues that will determine whether what’s been discussed in the past becomes the future way for thousands to travel between Houston and Dallas, at a probable cost of more than $30 billion.

Amtrak is studying the project, and if it is financially feasible, Amtrak officials might propose the high-speed rail as part of their long-term strategy.

At this point, it is identical to the project proposed by Texas Central Partners more than a decade ago that relies on Japanese-designed Shinkansen bullet trains running along new tracks mostly following an electrical utility corridor between a site on the southern edge of downtown Dallas and the current site of Northwest Mall at Loop 610 and U.S. 290 in Houston. A stop is planned in the Roans Prairie area near Bryan-College Station.

Trains would take about 90 minutes to make the roughly 240-mile trip, which would make it the fastest way to get between the metros if you factor the additional time needed to arrive for airline flights.

Over the next few weeks, potentially months, Amtrak will continue studying the economic and environmental realties of high-speed rail between Houston and Dallas, using everything compiled by Texas Central Partners.

“We are taking our time to look through the cost estimates,” [Andy Byford, senior vice president of high speed rail programs for Amtrak] said.

That viability needs to be considered post-pandemic, he said, when early analysis indicates less business use for the train but more leisure use by visitors who might want to travel easily between Texas cities.

“The business case is stronger than ever,” Byford told rail conference attendees, saying later “I really do think it is viable.”

See here and here for some background. The rest of the story addresses issues like whether Texas Central is still a thing (on paper, at least, but not much more beyond that), whether Dallas and Houston are still all in on it (Dallas is, Byford hasn’t talked to Mayor Whitmire yet), acquiring the land (some is already bought, the rest will be bought or eminent-domained as needed, as before), whether public funds would be involved (almost certainly yes, which is not the original vision Texas Central pushed, not that I care at this point), and whether the opposition is still opposed (oh yeah, for sure). Read the rest for the details.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Driverless snowplows

Posted on April 28, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I realize this is unlikely to be of much interest in our part of the world, but as a devoted purveyor of autonomous vehicle news I felt compelled to share this with you.

Probably not in Houston

Jordan Smith was in Las Vegas looking for snowplow driving simulators. Seeking such devices in the Nevada desert seems odd, until you realize that Smith, the owner of a major North American supplier of snow removal machinery called Storm Equipment, was in Sin City attending CON-EXPO, a giant construction equipment trade show.

“There are a lot of contractors there who do snow,” he says. But, after testing out four different ersatz driver training models, he came away disappointed. “They just didn’t feel like real plows.”

Then, Smith happened on a booth for a new startup called Teleo. Founded in 2020 by a pair of engineers formerly employed in Lyft’s Level 5 autonomous vehicle project, the company was not hawking an instructive simulator. Instead, it was peddling a remote-control module.

This device is capable of being connected, via a proprietary black box and a zillion lines of code, to any large machine that operates in a zoned-off area—like a front loader or bulldozer at a construction or mining site, or a snowplow in the parking lot of a 1,000,000 square-foot Amazon distribution center. Then, using a Teleo remote controller, an operator can, from the comfort of, well, anywhere, move a machine around remotely, or even set it up to conduct repetitive tasks, autonomously.

Smith hopped into Teleo’s hot seat. Not only did its controls provide more feedback and, according to him, “feel like a real machine,” he was able to toggle back and forth between operating a machine in California and one in Nevada. After 90 minutes, he had an epiphany. “We shifted our thinking on the entire project, and instead of engaging with a simulator company to train our operators, we invested in this technology.”

The resulting partnership between Teleo and Storm Services was put to the test this past winter in Minnesota. Smith equipped a few of the heavy machines his subsidiary, Storm Snow Services, uses to clear giant corporate parking lots, and waited for the white stuff to fall. Unfortunately, he was foiled by the weather, somewhat.

“We had record low snowfall this winter, but we did put it into service on one of our sites,” Smith says. Response from his operators was unanimous and universal. According to Smith, “It was more comfortable than sitting in a cold cabin. The visibility was better because they have the full surround cameras. You don’t have as much noise and vibration. You’re not bouncing around. And you can work on multiple different job sites in one seat.”

[…]

Teleo aims to assist in two ways. First, according to [Teleo CEO Vinay] Shet, “It makes the job easier, and more accessible.” This may allow contractors to attract a wider pool of operators, and retain quality operators. Second, because the machines are partially autonomous and can run on their own some of the time, a single person can supervise multiple machines simultaneously. “That will further boost productivity of the operators,” Shet says. Yay! More work! Just what everyone wants.

Teleo also lowers the bar a bit on who can be an operator. “There is no commercial driving license per se in this world,” Shet says. Instead, operators are trained on Teleo’s intuitive system. “We’ve even seen that people who don’t have experience operating machines are able to sit behind our controls,” Shet says.

Also, anyone with a stable commercial internet connection can control the machines from anywhere on earth; a demonstration was recently completed where someone in Texas controlled a machine in Finland. So, like many other jobs in race-to-the-bottom post-industrial American capitalism, the positions could be farmed out to low-wage, low-oversight workers overseas. Although not right away. Currently the technology in use needs a network in close proximity, so still better for nearby parking lots than remote city streets.

Seems like a pretty obvious use case, I suppose. Things may get trickier for using them on the roads, where possibly hidden hazards like parked cars and potholes may cause problems, but that will be an issue for municipal governments and the insurance companies. If autonomous 18-wheelers are coming to an interstate highway near you, then I can’t imagine why a remote-controlled snowplow wouldn’t be at work as well. Welcome to the future, like it or not.

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May 2024 special election early voting, Day Five: More than halfway there

Posted on April 27, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

We have completed five days of early voting for the May special HCAD and SD15 elections, with four more days to go. The Day Five daily EV report is here. There have been 7,980 in person votes and 12,901 mail votes for a total of 20,881. Another way to look at this is there have been about 1,600 in person votes per day, and about 2K mail ballots have arrived since day one. The daily in person total has ticked up each day, which is positive, but who knows what that means going forward.

I’m very much not in the business of trying to guess what happens from here. I don’t know if we’ll get the last day spike in early in person voting. I don’t know how that went in the earlier May elections, and I’m not sure how relevant it would be anyway. I have no idea if we’re likely to have the bulk of the vote cast early or if there will be a significant May 4 turnout. Given that the norm for non-Presidential year elections in the past was for half or more of the vote to be made on Election Day, one might guess this will be similar. If nothing else, the fact that word is probably still just beginning to reach some voters about the election, that is a plausible scenario. Against that, I’ve been burned in each of the last two elections projecting Election Day totals from past performances, which tells me that we have in general become an electorate that just prefers early voting, and that suggests that the Election Day cohort will be smaller than I think. This election is a unicorn and I don’t know what if any trends may apply. We’ll be taking it as it comes. Feel free to make your own guesses, but count me out of that. Have you voted yet?

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