SCOTUS has its hearing on the stupid social media censorship law

Some modest hope, perhaps, that we’ll get a not-terrible ruling.

The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on state laws that could affect how Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube, and other social media platforms regulate content posted by their users. The cases are among several this term in which the justices could set standards for free speech in the digital age.

In nearly four hours of arguments, several justices questioned aspects of laws adopted by Republican-dominated legislatures and signed by Republican governors in Florida and Texas in 2021. But they seemed wary of a broad ruling, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett warning of “land mines” she and her colleagues need to avoid in resolving the two cases.

While the details vary, both laws aimed to address conservative complaints that the social media companies were liberal-leaning and censored users based on their viewpoints, especially on the political right.

Differences on the court Wednesday emerged over how to think about the platforms — as akin to newspapers that have broad free-speech protections, or telephone companies, known as common carriers that are susceptible to broader regulation.

Chief Justice John Roberts suggested he was in the former camp, saying early in the session, “And I wonder, since we’re talking about the First Amendment, whether our first concern should be with the state regulating what we have called the modern public square?”

[…]

The precise contours of rulings in the two cases were not clear after arguments, although it seemed likely the court would not let the laws take effect. The justices posed questions about how the laws might affect businesses that are not the primary targets of the laws, including e-commerce sites like Uber and Etsy and email and messaging services.

The cases are among several the justices have grappled with over the past year involving social media platforms. Next month, the court will hear an appeal from Louisiana, Missouri and other parties accusing administration officials of pressuring social media companies to silence conservative points of view. Two more cases awaiting decision concern whether public officials can block critics from commenting on their social media accounts, an issue that previously came up in a case involving then-President Donald Trump. The court dismissed the Trump case when his presidential term ended in January 2021.

The Florida and Texas laws were passed in the months following decisions by Facebook and Twitter, now X, to cut Trump off over his posts related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.

Trade associations representing the companies sued in federal court, claiming that the laws violated the platforms’ speech rights. One federal appeal struck down Florida’s statute, while another upheld the Texas law. But both are on hold pending the outcome at the Supreme Court.

See here for my previous update on this, and here for a good explainer about the issue. That “other federal appeals court” was of course the Fifth Circuit, which provides concierge service to Ken Paxton and his cronies.

More from TPM:

These cases grew out of endless conservative complaints about “shadow banning” and “censorship,” platforms’ policies that conservatives claim are single-mindedly aimed at tamping down right-wing influence. It’s a natural outgrowth of the Republican Party’s grievance politics, and ramped up after the COVID-19 pandemic, when anti-vaxxer content on social media became a huge point of contention.

Monday’s arguments centered on laws out of Florida and Texas that would guide and restrict the platforms’ content moderation decisions, and demand platforms provide individualized explanations for those decisions to the affected users. The oral arguments over challenges to the pair of laws are just the first on the Court’s docket this term to deal with these issues; another challenging the Biden administration’s practice of flagging misinformation to tech companies will be argued next month.

The Florida law in particular is quite sprawling, including provisions that the platforms cannot “censor” any “journalistic enterprise” or “willfully deplatform a candidate” for office. It also potentially extends beyond the traditional social media sites, prompting many justices to ask how the law may be applied to messaging carriers like Gmail or marketplaces like Etsy.

Questions about the breadth of the legislation consumed much of the hearings, with some justices clearly mulling remanding at least the Florida case to address the further flung applications.

But perhaps the most interesting moments in the proceedings arose when the right-wing justices’ long-held reflexive positioning came into conflict with a newer strain of their ideology: old-school, free market, pro-business conservatism vs. the new age, Trumpian culture wars. The Court’s Republican appointees are a microcosm of the same dynamic playing out in the party at large, as the old guard fights to retain relevance amid the influx of MAGA politicians and their new, often vindictive, priorities.

[…]

For all but the most dedicated culture warriors, the Florida and Texas laws may ultimately prove too sprawling for them to get behind. The justices spent much of the arguments debating the knock-on effects of the laws and of questioning how, if one of these tech platforms chose to opt out of serving Florida or Texas rather than complying with the law, it could even manage to do it.

But the issue isn’t going away. As long as a sizeable chunk of the right-wing legal world cares greatly about punishing companies it views as enemies — and as long as the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals happily rubber stamps these suits on the way up — the pro-business justices and the culture warriors on the Supreme Court will continue to be locked into their internecine battles.

There’s another case before SCOTUS involving the federal government’s ability to contact social media companies to ask them to take action on specific things they identify as misinformation. That case will be heard on March 18. Never a dull moment. Law Dork and Slate have more.

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Paxton’s revenge against the CCA

I have three things to say about this.

A crook any way you look

The three incumbents running for their seats on Texas’ highest criminal courtwere not well known political figures outside of the legal community. That was until they earned the ire of Attorney General Ken Paxton in response to a 2021 opinion over a voter fraud case.

Now, the three female Republican justices on the Court of Criminal Appeals, Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, Judge Barbara Hervey and Judge Michelle Slaughter, find themselves in the position of having their conservative credentials questioned in “low-information elections” in which they’re up against Paxton’s political machine.

“The Court of Criminal Appeals, who I am concerned was put there by George Soros ‘cause no one knows who they are, they’re all Republicans but even Republicans don’t know who they are,” Paxton told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last month, referring to the Democratic mega donor.

The three incumbents, who have nearly a century of combined experience practicing criminal law, as prosecutors and jurists, have been accused by Paxton’s allies of abandoning their judicial duties and stripping the attorney general’s power to enforce voter fraud — a consequential issue for the modern-day GOP under former President Donald Trump.

Three years ago, a case stemming from Paxton’s effort to override a Jefferson County district attorney who declined to prosecute a sheriff over 2016 campaign-finance allegations was before the criminal appeals court. In a 8-1 decision, the court said the Office of the Attorney General violated the separation of powers in the Texas Constitution by trying to prosecute election cases without the permission of a local prosecutor.

The timing of the opinion was such that this primary is the first opportunity for Paxton to seek political retribution against some of the eight Republican judges who he believes ruled against him.

“It’s sad because he wouldn’t know me from madam. I’m sure he doesn’t know anything about me,” said Hervey, wondering whether Paxton had actually read the opinion he railed against publically. “That’s really pathetic.”

[…]

The three incumbents have received financial support from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a committee that Paxton has labeled a political enemy. The challengers all have the backing of a new PAC, Texans for Responsible Judges, but the three have not received contributions from the group, according to the most recent campaign finance reports.

Wendy Watson, a faculty member of the University of North Texas’ Department of Political Science, views these races as a referendum on Trump and his false claims of voter fraud.

“This is a loyalty test,” Watson said. “You didn’t let Ken Paxton prosecute voter fraud, that must be because you are okay with voter fraud. Right?”

These races are “low-information elections,” races in which voters don’t know either of the candidates well, Watson said. So any tidbit of information that a voter may get from someone, no matter how wrong or skewed, may end up being the deciding factor behind a cast ballot.

[…]

Judge Hervey has been on the bench since 2001, prior to which she worked as a Bexar County assistant criminal district attorney for 16 years.

Her experience with and knowledge of criminal law are crucial to the operation of the court, she said. On top of her duties as a judge, Hervey co-chairs the Judicial Commission on Mental Health and runs an education program that provides legal courses and assistance to judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and court personnel.

“I think experience and dedication to these things are important to move the needle forward,” Hervey said.

On the controversial opinion, Hervey put it in simple terms: “Eight of us decided it was a good idea to follow the Constitution.”

See here for more on what this fight is about and here for an earlier story on the same subject. Now on to my three things.

1. The story also refers to Paxton’s “revenge tour” against Republican legislators who voted to impeach him. I’m not dumb enough to try to guess what Republican primary voters will do, but I will take a moment to imagine a world in which Paxton’s fevered efforts land with a giant thud as he largely or even completely fails to oust those traitors who dared oppose him. I may as well wish for a pony while I’m at it, but it is a nice thought.

2. Justice Hervey has been around Republican politics for a lot longer than I’ve been in any form of politics. I respect her experience, and I think her summary of the case in question is impeccable and pithy. That said, her quotes in this article are quaint to the point of preciousness, and I have to ask if she’s actually met any modern day Republicans, because they don’t care about any of that crap. I fear she is in for a rude awakening.

3. I need one more excerpt for this one:

Meanwhile, Slaughter received $15,000 in campaign contributions from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the group that has earned the ire of Paxton, in addition to smaller individual donations. The committee donated the same amount to Keller and Hervey.

Fifteen K? Seriously? I’m old enough to remember when TLR was pumping millions into legislative races so as to tip the balance of power in their favor. Fifteen K isn’t enough to affect a small-county Justice of the Peace race. It wouldn’t cover the postage for a targeted mailer in Harris County, let alone the mailer itself. Whatever happened to TLR?

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Are we talking hockey in Houston again?

It appears we are.

Billionaire restaurateur and casino magnate Tilman Fertitta sees a professional hockey team as the next building block for the downtown Houston economy.

The owner of the National Basketball Association’s Houston Rockets and the Golden Nugget casino empire said everything from hotels to restaurants to retail in the core of the fourth-largest city would benefit from hockey’s presence. A National Hockey League franchise is the last remaining major professional sport that doesn’t have a presence in Houston.

“We are talking to the NHL, but it’s got to be good for both of us,” Fertitta said during an interview with Bloomberg News in Houston on Tuesday. “We just know that when there’s a concert downtown, how it activates downtown, we know what the Astros do for downtown, we know what even soccer does for downtown.”

Although Fertitta has been courting the NHL about bringing a team to Houston since he bought the Rockets for $2.2 billion seven years ago, he said discussions have recently turned more serious. Fertitta noted that he’s open to helping bring in either an expansion franchise or acquiring a team from another market.

[…]

Outlying suburbs of Houston have reached out to Fertitta about helping them attract an NHL team but he said boosting the downtown district — where he owns restaurants that include Morton’s The Steakhouse, McCormick and Schmick’s and The Palm — has been a goal of his for decades.

See here, here, and here for some background. As you can see at that first link, as recently as one year ago the door appeared to be closed. I suppose a lot can change in a year. The Chron adds on.

Houston is the nation’s largest city without a pro hockey team, with no club having skated at Toyota Center since the American Hockey League’s Aeros moved to Des Moines, Iowa, after the 2012-13 season. The prospect of an NHL franchise in Houston has been bandied about for more than 30 years — the Minnesota North Stars looked at Houston in 1993 before relocating to Dallas, team chairman Jim Lites told the Chronicle in 2018 — with rumblings picking up in recent years.

[…]

Last October, Rockets president of business operations Gretchen Sheirr told the Chronicle the ongoing renovations at Toyota Center included “making sure it’s hockey ready” with an “ice machine” needed for it to become an NHL venue.

During a news conference before the recent NHL All-Star Game in Toronto, commissioner Gary Bettman said the league, while not actively engaged in the process of expanding, had received expansion interest from cities including Houston, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Salt Lake City, which he described as the “most aggressive” suitor. Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith has made no secret of his desire to bring the NHL to his state and last month formally requested the NHL “initiate an expansion process.”

As for a potential franchise on the move, the future of the Arizona Coyotes, the subject of relocation rumors for two-plus decades, reportedly will be addressed in “the next few weeks,” per a recent report from Daily Faceoff. Last May, a referendum in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe for an entertainment district that would have included a new arena for the Coyotes was defeated resoundingly.

Since the 2022-23 season, the Coyotes have played at Arizona State’s Mullett Arena, which has an NHL-low capacity of 4,600 and is not seen as a long-term home. Marty Walsh, executive director of the NHL Players Association, recently blasted the Coyotes’ situation, saying that playing at a college arena was “not the way to run a business” and “the players want to play in an NHL arena.”

So who knows. It’s all theoretical until Commissioner Bettman says expansion and/or a franchise’s relocation is happening, and even if one of them does happen Houston is not necessarily first in line. But we are seeking to he at the table. Houston Public Media has more.

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2024 Primary Early Voting, Day Six: On to week 2

Five more days of early voting to go. Here’s where we are after the weekend:


Year    Mail    Early    Total
==============================
2012   6,055   11,580   17,635
2016   8,850   23,384   32,234
2020  15,101   36,719   51,820
2024   7,643   33,276   40,919

2012  12,915   24,000   36,915
2016  12,203   32,641   44,844
2020  16,528   32,638   48,166
2024   3,620   40,220   43,840

As a reminder, Dem totals are on top, Republican ones on the bottom. Here are the Day Six totals for this year, and here are the final totals from 2012, 2016, and 2020.

Dems had a few more votes than Republicans over the weekend, but not enough to take note. We are either now receiving or now counting mail ballots on Saturday; all of the years before this show zero mail ballots for the weekend period. Not sure what changed or why, but there it is. Dems will surpass their final EV total from 2012 today, and they could surpass the 2016 final total before Friday. 2020 is out of reach barring a big surge, but the final total should be a respectable percentage of what it was that year.

For whatever the reason, I’m feeling squeamish about making projections. Maybe the 2023 race has scared me off. I’ll run some numbers later in the week to see where we stand in a bigger-picture context. At this point, I’m comfortable with my initial evaluation that we’d exceed 2016 and fall short of 2020. Beyond that, it’s up in the air. Have you voted yet?

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El Paso rallies around Annunciation House

They will need all this support and more.

El Paso leaders on Friday denounced Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s threat to shut down Annunciation House, a network of migrant shelters that has been in operation for almost 50 years.

“An attack on one is an attack on all,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, said during a news conference at the shelter’s office, which was packed with supporters.

Annunciation House operates several shelters in El Paso, helping immigrants and refugees who are experiencing homelessness with various needs, including food and housing, and providing information on how to complete legal documents to claim asylum in the United States.

The nonprofit, which opened its first shelter at a local Catholic Church and receives support from the church, said it has helped hundreds of thousands of refugees who have come through El Paso by feeding and keeping them off city streets.

[…]

“Is there no shame to refer to houses of God, houses of hospitality as stash houses,” Ruben Garcia, the director of Annunciation House, said at the press conference.

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser said that Garcia’s organization and others who do similar work are invaluable to the city because those groups step in to help local and federal authorities handle large numbers of migrants entering the city. Leeser said that part of El Paso’s culture is to be a welcoming place, including for vulnerable people who are seeking a better life.

“This won’t slow us down because we can’t,” the mayor said. “We continue to have people coming into our country, we continue to have people that need a shelter, need a warm meal, need clothing, and the city will not turn its back on anybody.”

El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said local elected officials have Garcia’s back and will support him.

“I want to say right now, you mess with Ruben, you mess with Annunciation House, you mess with us,” he said.

See here for the background. I love the spirit here, but they’re going to need a lot more help in addition to a hoped-for injunction following the March 7 court date. El Paso Matters provides a longer look at what Annunciation House does and what the stakes really are.

Annunciation House is among numerous faith-based organizations in El Paso and Juárez who provide food, donated clothes and medicine, temporary shelter and connection to the city’s and county’s federally-funded migrant assistance centers.

Paxton has support among the religious right and in the past appealed for more Christian involvement in politics. Wesevich said on Friday that Paxton should “dust off his Bible and read through it sometimes.”

In a statement released ahead of the press conference, Annunciation House said its work in El Paso comes “out of the scriptural and Gospel mandate to welcome the stranger.”

“Annunciation House’s response to the stranger is no different from that of the schools who enroll children of refugees, the clinics and hospitals who care for the needs of refugees, and the churches, synagogues, and mosques who welcome families to join in worship,” the statement read.

Bishop Mark Seitz from the Catholic Diocese of El Paso said their work is about “shared human dignity” and the El Paso community will not surrender the identity of the borderlands to inhumane immigration policy.

“We will not be intimidated in our work to serve Jesus Christ in our sisters and brothers, fleeing danger and seeking to keep their families together,” Seitz said.

Investigators with the Attorney General’s Office went to Annunciation House’s office on Feb. 7 and served the organization with a request to examine records related to its operations, according to court records. They demanded the organization release within one day documentation about the nonprofit’s clients.

The state denied the nonprofit’s request for an extension, Wesevich said.

In response, Annunciation House sued the Attorney General’s Office, asking a state judge to determine which documents the nonprofit is legally required to release. Judge Francisco Dominguez of the 205th District Court in El Paso on Feb. 8 also granted Annunciation House a temporary restraining order that blocked the attorney general from enforcing the order for records.

[Attorney Jerome Wesevich of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid] wrote in a Feb. 8 email to the Attorney General’s Office that it was impossible to comply with the deadline and there were concerns about the legality of certain aspects.

He elaborated on Friday that Annunciation House has not refused to provide any documents to the attorney general, but that the court needs to decide when and what documents to provide under the law.

“It’s a very sensitive matter for us to provide somebody’s medical record to a government agency,” Wesevich said. “We don’t control what happens to those documents after they leave us.”

This process could have been handled in a few emails, but it instead appears that Paxton is using the request for documents as a pretext to close Annunciation House, Wesevich said.

[…]

Escobar, Garcia and Marisa Limón Garza, executive director Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center of El Paso-Juárez, connected the Attorney General Office’s actions to other actions by the state, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s controversial Operation Lone Star and the recent signing of SB 4, which makes it a state crime to illegally cross the border from Mexico. Immigration law enforcement is typically a federal issue.

Closing down Annunciation House will hamper faith-based groups’ ability to recruit volunteers because of the possible legal liability, a concern Garcia raised last year when El Paso and West Texas leaders called for immigration reform from visiting U.S. senators.

“This is not just migrants, refugees, people who got here yesterday,” Limón Garza said. “This is a documented person driving their sick mom, who’s undocumented, to La Fe (health clinic). I just want you to understand that.”

Everything Paxton is doing here – the bullying and intimidation and extreme rhetorical escalation – is dangerous and will indeed lead to far worse things if it’s not stopped now. People of genuine faith, not this bizarre travesty of whatever it is that Paxton and his allies call “faith”, should be appalled and alarmed and ready to fight back. In the same way that everything that pro-choice advocates have said would happen following the fall of Roe v Wade has come true and continues to come true, what Annunciation House’s defenders are saying will come true. Look at what Ken Paxton is doing and see the truth of it yourself.

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That other guy in CD18 drops out and endorses SJL

Obviously earth-shaking news.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Robert Slater, the longshot candidate challenging U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in the upcoming March primary, said he will suspend his campaign Sunday and endorse the incumbent congresswoman.

Slater, a Houston chef and businessman, faced long odds in the Democratic primary dominated by Jackson Lee, who has represented Texas’ 18th Congressional District since 1995, and former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards. Jackson Lee led Edwards by a 43% to 38% margin among likely voters in a recently published University of Houston poll, while Slater garnered just 3% support.

“I don’t have the benefit of having 28 years of an incumbency and name ID,” he told potential voters in a video posted to social media Saturday.

Slater had centered his campaign on equal access to education and health care and criminal justice reform. His campaign website says he hopes to advocate and be a leader for Black youth in Houston.

Here’s the video, which is not where he announced his departure from the race; it appears to be at some group event, I see a couple of Dem candidates for other offices in the background. Slater had no finance report as of January, which is interesting since the first image on his campaign Instagram account is a request for donations. He’s hardly the first low-profile candidate to do that sort of thing.

As to what effect this may have on the race, my guess is little to none, since he’s still on the ballot anyway and was barely a blip in the polls. I have no idea what a Robert Slater voter looks like, but it’s probably not someone who is well attuned to politics and/or not a fan of SJL’s to begin with. I looked at his social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok; no Twitter as far as I can tell) and I didn’t see him mention this anywhere as of Sunday evening. Are we even sure his supporters will find out about this? If by some chance you are a Slater supporter and have received some communication about this, please do leave a comment and let us know.

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The Houston Avenue hullabaloo

It seems like every new Mayor makes at least one dumb self-inflicted error early on in their tenure, because being Mayor is hard and there are lots of things that need to be done with priority. I’d say this goes into that column for Mayor Whitmire.

Mayor John Whitmire

Houston Public Works announced Thursday that the cost of restoring Houston Avenue after Mayor John Whitmire ordered the street returned to its previous condition will be around $230,000 – more than double the expense of installing the new medians in December.

More than two weeks following the start of work removing the medians and curbs, officials finalized the cost of reconstruction. In addition, public works said an overhaul of the asphalt surface along the street is planned – for an additional $500,000.

Comparing that with the initial $100,000 cost to install the medians, critics of Whitmire’s decision – who argued it was a rush to judgment – said the updated cost is unfortunately borne by city residents and visitors.

“Reactionary politics has a hefty price and a lack of planning results in wasting taxpayer dollars,” said Gabe Cazares, executive director of the advocacy group LINKHouston, which argues for more walkable and bikeable streets.

[…]

Though just a three-block stretch of road northeast of the central business district, the happenings on Houston have led to questions about other upcoming projects, funded locally and with federal dollars. While signaling that he wants to hear more feedback from residents, Whitmire has not said whether any reviews he has requested will affect other projects.

As those reviews and Houston Avenue redo proceeds, Cazares said the hope is the kerfuffle over Houston Avenue can act as a “learning opportunity,” for officials “to hear all of the perspectives of the community, and not just those with whom they agree.”

There’s a lot of backstory to this that I didn’t have the time or space on the blog to cover as it was happening, but there are a couple of stories about it all linked in this post about the new Metro Chair. This story here notes that Mayor Whitmire cited an incident involving a Metro bus running into the median as a reason for ordering the removal, but Metro’s own investigation later concluded that the cause of the accident was driver error and it could have been avoided. This too speaks to the Mayor’s rush to action rather than seek input and make a more studied decision. The issue here isn’t really whether this median on Houston Avenue made sense, it was about the dumb and needless way in which the decision was made to rip it out just a few months after it was installed.

We know Mayor Whitmire has been in politics forever, and even his critics would agree that he knows how things work and has learned from his experiences over the years. I say that to say that I hope he learns quickly from this experience, because he’s already stirred up a constituency that likes to speak up and make themselves known. There’s also, I’d venture to say, a non-trivial amount of overlap with those folks and the people who voted for Whitmire last year. And there are also more reasons to be concerned.

Houston’s former chief transportation planner David Fields was forced out of his job, city documents obtained by Axios show.

The big picture: Fields’ sudden departure came a month after Mayor John Whitmire took over City Hall with a different vision for Houston’s transportation future from that of his predecessor, Sylvester Turner, who hired Fields in February 2020 to help usher the city away from car dependency.

Driving the news: Axios obtained an interoffice memo from Planning and Development Department interim director Jennifer Ostlind that shows Fields resigned Feb. 5 “in lieu of termination of employment.”

When Fields resigned from his role in the department, Whitmire’s director of communications Mary Benton told the Houston Chronicle that “he was not asked to resign.”

“The mayor was not part of the discussion with David Fields,” Benton told Axios late Friday. “I was told that he was not asked to resign. I was not part of the conversation with the planning director or [interim] planning director.”

Ostlind did not respond to requests for comment.

The intrigue: During one of Fields’ last public appearances at a Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting Jan. 24, he indicated he had been told to continue business as usual.

He was out of a job less than two weeks later.

Again, it’s not about the decision itself. Mayors bring in new people, that’s totally normal. But saying this person who had been working to change the city’s operating assumptions about transportation hadn’t been asked to resign when he totally had been is again a dumb unforced error and more reason for people who liked the new direction and also voted for Whitmire to be concerned. Is anyone likely to change their vote in 2027 over the forced exit of David Fields? No, but these are the bricks from which narratives are built. Now would be a good time to stop adding to that foundation. Houston Landing has more.

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

Weekend link dump for February 25

Snoopy Presents: Welcome Home, Franklin is a most unfortunate 39-minute program centered on the first Black character introduced by cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. The Peanuts franchise has programmed the show for Black History Month, that much is clear. But are we honoring Franklin for breaking down racial barriers and integrating the most popular comic strip of all time? For blazing a path followed by Beetle Bailey’s Lt. Jack Flap? Or will it suffice to consider the special problems in representation presented by Charlie Brown’s Black friend?”

“Just picked up my Cybertruck today. The advisor specifically mentioned the cybertrucks develop orange rust marks in the rain and that required the vehicle to be buffed out.”

“Who knew untreated stainless steel might not be such a good idea for the exterior of a motor vehicle, especially considering that cars typically get left sitting outside in all weather for 95 percent of their lives? The whole automotive industry, that’s who.”

“The 2023 Hugo Fraud and Where We Go From Here”.

“Mexico is suing US gun-makers for arming its gangs − and a US court could award billions in damages”.

Why Does the Devil Look like a Goat? How the Symbolism Miscasts Goats as Evil”. Seriously, goats are awesome and this slander against them cannot stand.

“It might be fitting that the sleaziest case will go first. But this prosecution ought not to be diminished. It also involves alleged criminal actions taken to influence an election—or prevent an election from being influenced by Daniels’ claim that Trump had a tryst with her at a 2006 charity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe while his wife, Melania, was home with 4-month-old Barron. And here’s an important fact: The Justice Department and a federal court have already declared that a crime occurred in the commission of this $130,000 payoff.”

“In life we constantly need to make choices on the basis of available options. Often they are imperfect or even bad options. The real options are the ones that have some shot at success. That’s life. Klein’s argument really amounts to a highly pessimistic but not unreasonable analysis of the present situation which he resolves with what amounts to a deus ex-machina plot twist. That’s not an argument. It’s a recipe for paralysis.”

““What determines a good human life?” is a good question and a vitally important question. You don’t want your government supplying the answer to that question. Because any government providing an answer to that question will end up imposing an answer to that question.”

“Both of these offers seem like they should be illegal. Because they should be illegal. But they’re just the flip side of what’s already happening—wealthy patrons buying figureheads who will do exactly what they want in office.”

Don’t watch CNBC. Jim Cramer isn’t even the worst of it.

RIP, Robert Reid, former NBA player for the Rockets who was a key member of the 1981 and 1986 Finals teams.

“It made no sense. He was never hateful, until he was. He was always caring, until he wasn’t. He was proud of me—the first to graduate with a BA, much less an MA in Education, until he decided the Education Department was a part of a conspiracy. He was always the man who I could count on when I called, but he died a man I didn’t recognize.”

It would seem that Wheel of Fortune is running out of comprehensible puzzle solutions.

“In Alabama, women can now be forced to have babies they don’t want and can’t have babies that they do.”

“The Alabama ruling is a reminder that, whatever Alito might have said in Dobbs, the attack on abortion rights was always going to put women’s ability to make other reproductive decisions in jeopardy, and IVF is just the beginning.”

Lock him up. Again and again as needed.

“Dominion Voting Systems is entitled to review personal communications and text messages of Newsmax Media journalists in its defamation suit against the conservative media company, a Delaware judge ruled last week.”

Bridgit Mendler is a more interesting person than you might have thought.

“Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones did it two years ago. Rudolph Giuliani did it just before Christmas. Now there’s a very good chance that before March 12, Donald Trump will join them in filing personal bankruptcy. Trump would do so for the same reason as Jones and Giuliani — to delay paying court-ordered awards for defamation.”

“Somehow almost a decade after this whole thing started we’re shocked to see, wow, Weiss’s office was being led around by another cat’s paw of the Russian intelligence services. We’re shocked. But why are we shocked? Every last person among the serious people of the nation’s capital and the sprawling thing called elite received opinion has egg on their face. And it’s not even clear they fully realize it yet.”

“A federal judge has ruled that pillow magnate and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell must pay out a $5 million prize he offered to anyone who could disprove his dispute of the 2020 election results.”

RIP, Flaco, the famous Central Park Zoo owl who went missing after a vandal tampered with the bird’s exhibit more than a year ago.

RIP, Golden Richards, former NFL wide receiver mostly for the Dallas Cowboys.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | Comments Off on Weekend link dump for February 25

We have our HCAD candidates

Here they are, from the County Judge’s office:

Place 1

Ramsey Isa Ankar
Katherine Ballard Blueford-Daniels
Era N. Ford
William Reinhardt Frazier

Place 2

Jevon German
Janice W. Hines
Melissa Louise Noriega
Austin Ryan Pooley
Kyle Anthony Scott

Place 3

Oluwapelumi Adebola Adeleke
James J. Bill
Melody Genneane Ellis
Mark V. Goloby
Amy Ngo Lacy
Ericka McCrutcheon

I told you about some of these folks in the last update. I can also tell you, thanks to research done by my friends Ashleigh and Rosie and commenter Souperman, that Ramsey Ankar, James Bill (who left a comment on that post), and Janice Hines are Dems of varying flavor, while Amy Ngo Lacy is a Republican. Now let’s talk about the new names on the list.

A couple of them are familiar. Kathy Blueford-Daniels is a former HISD trustee who just finished serving a term as an appointed HCAD Board member. She is eligible to run because she is no longer an elected official. Melissa Noriega of course is a former At Large #3 City Council member and State Representative in HD145.

The rest I had to search for. Here’s what I can tell you:

If you search for “Era Ford”, you’re going to get a lot of automotive results. I can confirm there’s someone by this name registered to vote in Harris County and living in HD147. After that, we’ll have to wait.

Jevon German was a candidate for HISD Board of Trustees in District II in 2019, getting 9.5% of the vote in a race ultimately won by Kathy Blueford-Daniels. Judging from his Facebook page, he’s likely a Democrat.

I didn’t find anything at first when I searched for “Oluwapelumi Adebola Adeleke”, but when I took the middle name out I got here, which told me this person was a graduate of the Harvard Business School. Looking at the other search results I saw a LinkedIn profile for a Houston person and Harvard Business School grad named Pelumi Adeleke. That can’t be a coincidence, right? And sure enough, Pelumi Adeleke on Facebook has a cover photo announcing her candidacy for the HCAD Board of Directors. Scrolling down a bit I see she attended an HCDP meet-the-candidates event in 2022, so I’d say she’s a Dem.

Mark Goloby apparently ran for Governor in 2022 as a write-in, gathering all of 394 votes. (This is one of those times when the exclamation “Geez, I could have done that!” seems appropriate.) He still has a website that clearly IDs him as a Republican.

Melody Genneane Ellis is strangely hard to pin down on Google, but fortunately I had a better resource at my fingertips: a group of pals I’ve been chatting with about this race. The consensus there is that she is the sister of Commissioner Rodney Ellis. I can confirm there’s only one registered voter named “Melody Ellis” in Harris County, and Commissioner Ellis mentions having a sister named Melody in a few Facebook posts.

So there you have it. We have ourselves a field. I’m told the Houston GLBT Political Caucus will screen for endorsements after the primary. I remain hopeful we will eventually get some news coverage of this race. I will of course keep an eye on it, and my plan is to eventually do some interviews. Let me know if you have any questions.

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Let them fight

Let them fight.

A crook any way you look

A $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that passed the Senate overnight has sparked a battle between two of Texas’ most prominent Republicans, with Attorney General Ken Paxton calling U.S. Sen. John Cornyn an “America Last RINO” and Cornyn raising Paxton’s ongoing legal troubles.

Paxton went after Cornyn on social media early Tuesday for supporting the foreign aid bill, writing it is “unbelievable that (Cornyn) would stay up all night to defend other countries borders, but not America.”

Cornyn, a former attorney general, responded: “Ken, your criminal defense lawyers are calling to suggest you spend less time pushing Russian propaganda and more time defending longstanding felony charges against you in Houston, as well as ongoing federal grand jury proceedings in San Antonio that will probably result in further criminal charges.”

[…]

Paxton followed that with another post calling Cornyn an “America Last RINO” who “has once again joined hands with the Biden administration to fund and prioritize foreign wars over the national security crisis at the southern border.”

Just a reminder that Cornyn has already endorsed The Former Guy for President, so it’s not like he’s some pinnacle of integrity. He’s just ever so slightly on a different level of terrible.

Let them fight.

House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, is using a new ad to tackle head-on a major issue in his primary: Ken Paxton’s impeachment.

In the direct-to-camera spot, Phelan outlines the alleged misdeeds that led to Paxton’s impeachment last year — including an extramarital affair — and says “Vengeful Paxton is the reason” why Donald Trump recently endorsed Phelan’s primary challenger.

“If Paxton will break an oath to his wife and God, why would he tell Trump — or you — the truth?” Phelan says in conclusion.

That was from a week or so ago. Speaker Phelan is almost certainly in a world of trouble electorally, but at least he’s going down the right way.

All I can say to the Republicans out there that are tired of Ken Paxton and his bullshit is simply this: Assuming he’s on the ballot again in 2026, whether from a jail cell or not, the one thing you can do is not vote for him ever again. That ought to be easy enough for you in a primary, but it also means that when he wins that primary anyway you must not vote for him in November. Vote third party or skip the race if you can’t bear the idea of voting for the Democrat, but that’s what you must do. It’s as simple as that.

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At long last, the KLOL documentary

IYKYK.

As announced exclusively in the Houston Chronicle, the long-awaited 101 KLOL Houston rock documentary, “Runaway Radio,” directed/produced by first-time filmmaker and Texas media blogger Mike McGuff, will be released this month with a special Houston screening in early March.

The documentary, distributed by Dark Star Pictures, covers the wild 34 years (1970 to 2004) of one of the country’s greatest Album Oriented Rock (AOR) stations.

The film will be available to rent or buy on all major video-on-demand (VOD) platforms, including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, YouTube, and cable/satellite, starting February 27th.

On March 2nd, there will be a 6:30pm screening in the Houston area at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema LaCenterra in Katy.

The film world premiered in November 2023 at the music documentary festival Sound Unseen Minneapolis.

“When I started this documentary, we were in a recession, followed by a global pandemic when we finished it,” McGuff said. “Based on those who have seen the movie at film festivals, it will be worth the wait!”

“The KLOL documentary shows the rest of the world why this station is still talked about to this day,” said KLOL’s first program director Pat Fant who signed the station on in August 1970. “It will be the last word on a Houston media legend. We didn’t just play the music, we were a part of it. Our promotions became spectacles. Our on-air personalities were the host presenters of the non-stop performance that was KLOL.”

The film explores the many on-air personalities and behind-the-scenes players that made the station famous and the winner of the top rock station in America by Billboard Magazine. From the wild station promotions, the music, and the radio wars, the family-owned station faced against ABC Radio-owned 97 Rock KSRR.

See here for the background. I contributed to that Indiegogo campaign way back when, though I’ve long since forgotten at what level and what I was promised. I’ll try to go to that screening, but if not I’m sure I’ll watch it one way or another. KLOL was a part of my life for more than a decade in a way that I just can’t imagine any local radio station being for anyone nowadays. Whatever you think about that form of media and its place in history, I’m glad it’s being documented and remembered. It was something else. CultureMap has more.

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“Facial authentication”

I’m still thinking about how I feel about this.

The Astros will be one of four Major League Baseball teams using facial authentication technology at this year’s opening day in an effort to speed up fans’ entry through the gates at Minute Maid Park.

MLB is calling the system Go-Ahead Entry, which first was tested by the Philadelphia Phillies last season and eventually will be incorporated by every team throughout 2024.

[…]

Here’s how it works:

To register, fans who are 18 and older and have a digital ticket to the game in their MLB Ballpark app take what amounts to a selfie through the app. According to MLB officials, the images of fans aren’t stored or shared, but instead converted into a digital token that is used to authenticate fans’ likenesses as they walk through the gates. Fans take the selfie just once as they register and it will be used throughout the season upon entry.

At each Minute Maid Park gate, there will be a special lane for Go-Ahead Entry in which fans can skip the lines and walk through without having to show a ticket once they make it through security. It also works with groups as long as the person signed up for the service has all of their group’s tickets in their MLB Ballpark app.

“It’s almost like if you have Clear at the airport,” Sehgal said.

The registration in question is via the MLB Ballpark app, which is most commonly used for ticketing. The advantages are obvious, as the line to get in will move a lot quicker. The potential downsides include possible breaches (yeah, I know, they say they’re not keeping the data, but there’s always wiggle room in there), law enforcement wanting to get involved, the system failing to recognize you, or recognizing someone else as you, and who knows what else. It’ll probably be fine for most people most of the time, and I don’t want to catastrophize something that will likely be the norm in a few years. I’m just saying, you never know. How do you feel about this? Thanks to Campos for the heads up.

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2024 Primary Early Voting, Day Four: Heading into the weekend

One sort-of full week of early voting down, seven more days to go. Let’s check the board:


Year    Mail    Early    Total
==============================
2012   6,055    8,242   14,297
2016   8,850   14,554   23,404
2020  15,101   25,260   40,361
2024   6,663   24,646   31,309

2012  12,915   17,643   30,558
2016  12,203   21,348   33,551
2020  16,528   24,785   41,313
2024   3,356   30,890   34,246

As a reminder, Dem totals are on top, Republican ones on the bottom. Here are the Day Four totals for this year, and here are the final totals from 2012, 2016, and 2020.

Dems actually gained about 300 votes on the Republican total Friday, thanks to a big haul in mail ballots, 2,216 for Dems and 237 for Republicans. Dems still have a lot of mail ballots out, which will help them catch up a bit more going forward. The weekend is all about in person voting, though, so we’ll see if Republicans keep up their pace.

Week Two is always much bigger than Week One, with the last two days easily being the biggest. I don’t feel like I have enough data points to make a guesstimate about final early turnout, but I’m comfortable saying Dems will top 100K in early voting, which will far exceed 2012 – hell, it will outpace the final total for 2012 – and will easily exceed 2016. Barring something strange, 2020 is out of reach. Republicans may exceed their 2016 total, which was higher than the Dems, and will also likely fall short of 2020. My thought that Dems would outpace Republicans is looking shaky now, but we’ll see where we are in a few days.

Here’s the Derek Ryan report through Thursday. He notes that the electorate for both parties is pretty old right now, and that there’s a modest amount of crossover voting, again for each party. That’s a pretty normal thing – I’m old enough to remember how common it was here for Democratic lawyers to vote in the Republican primary so they could have a say on who the judges are; I’ll bet there’s some of that on the other side now – so keep any complaints you may hear about it in perspective.

I’ll post the next update on Monday. Have you voted yet?

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So what happened with the original Woodfill investigation?

Good question.

Five years ago, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg appeared poised to prosecute Jared Woodfill, a prominent local attorney and Republican activist, for serious financial crimes. Ogg’s office received a judge’s permission to conduct a raid of his office, accusing him of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from former clients.

But then the case died with no explanation.

Prosecutors never even asked a grand jury to consider charges against Woodfill — a decision now under fresh scrutiny as Ogg, a Democrat, faces a tough primary election, and as Woodfill challenges an incumbent state lawmaker in the Texas House of Representatives.

Ogg said in a recent interview with the Chronicle’s Editorial Board that she “put the brakes on the whole thing” because she thought the allegations against Woodfill wouldn’t hold up in court. But her account is contradicted on several points by a Chronicle review of hundreds of pages of court documents, internal emails, and more than a dozen interviews.

Ogg said her own investigators didn’t have legal justification to seize some of the evidence from Woodfill’s office in the first place. But a state district judge ruled they did, and an appeals court upheld the decision.

She also said she’d lost confidence in the prosecutors dealing with the case, but the attorneys in question were assigned high-profile cases and got promoted before eventually leaving the office.

An internal office memo written by one of the prosecutors in 2021, John Brewer, says Ogg knew about every step of the investigation and appeared supportive of it, telling her staff to “follow the evidence wherever it led.”

In an interview, Brewer said he disagrees with Ogg’s recent statements about the Woodfill case and pointed to court documents authored by her own office that contradict her explanation. He added that he is legally forbidden from discussing more details.

Meanwhile, Woodfill’s accusers say they’re still waiting for justice. Earlier this month, two of them asked the FBI to look into the case and accused Ogg of dropping it “for reasons contrary to the interests of justice.”

“They have completely defiled the court system,” said Amy Holsworth, who complained about Woodfill to the Houston Police Department back in 2017 and sparked the DA’s initial investigation. “They’ve made a mockery of it.”

See here for some background. There’s a lot in the story so go read the rest. It’s not the kind of news coverage Kim Ogg would want at this point in time, but there it is anyway. Two points of interest for me:

1. According to the story, the case was eventually dropped because the statute of limitations had expired. I’d like a better understanding of that, as in would the DA’s office be barred from reopening this case at a later date? I presume that the matter is different in federal court, where this could end up if the FBI chooses to take action. How likely that is, I have no idea.

2. I’ve said some version of this before and I’ll say it again: If Jared Woodfill manages to knock off Rep. Lacey Hull in the primary, Dems really need to go all out to win that seat. Woodfill would be vulnerable in a way that the more or less run-of-the-mill Rep. Hull would not be, and this is not a deep red seat. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but someone needs to drop half a million or so on this race if it’s against Jared Woodfill.

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Endorsement watch: Constables

The Chron runs its endorsements in the Democratic primaries for Constable, in what I believe is now the last of their recommendations. They didn’t get off to a good start, however:

Harris County Commissioners Court draws the constable precinct lines with each decade’s U.S. Census, often to achieve political aims. The process has produced wide disparities in precincts’ geographical areas and budgets — the latter also in the hands of commissioners. Precinct 5 in west Harris County, for example, encompasses 370 square miles with 1 million-plus residents. Precinct 6, in Houston’s East End, covers 32 square miles and serves about 170,000 residents.

Uh, yeah, no. Not unless you consider “every fifty years and counting” to be “with each decade”. Totally unforced error here, y’all.

With that said, here’s who they endorsed. Note that the only contested primaries for Constable were on the Dem side, so all of the endorsements are in those races.

Alan Rosen for Precinct 1, Dem

Since becoming constable of Precinct 1 since 2012, Alan Rosen has tried to help the young, the old, the mentally ill, the homeless, the drug-addicted. He also serves those everyday folks just trying to live their lives in safe neighborhoods. We think Rosen, 55, should continue that work.

Nevertheless, this endorsement is giving us heartburn.

Jerry Garcia for Precinct 2, Dem

Precinct 2 Constable Jerry Garcia needs few words to explain why he deserves a second term: “Proven results. I did what I said I would do.”

His record supports that.

Constable Sherman Eagleton for Precinct 3, Democrat

Eagleton is eloquent about fighting crime, getting drugs off the street and stopping illegal dumping. He embraces body cameras and citizen videos. And he is adamant that statistics are part of modern policing.

But there’s something old-fashioned, in a good way, about Eagleton, 58. He brags about wellness checks for senior citizens, and he loves a program called “Coffee with a cop.”

The controversies on Eagleton’s watch don’t faze us.

Chronicle stories from 2021 show that he hired Chris Diaz, a former Precinct 2 constable who was voted out of office after egregious errors in his campaign finance reports surfaced.

“I gave him a second chance, and he’s doing a great job,” Eagleton says. “He told me he had baggage, and I told him, if you don’t do what’s right, I’ll send you down the road.”

In 2017, Eagleton took a different approach with Milton Rivera, a Precinct 3 chief deputy accused of sexual harassment and inappropriate workplace behavior. After a Harris County Attorney’s Office investigation, Eagleton fired him.

Jerome Moore for Precinct 5, Dem

Two Democratic primary candidates for Precinct 5 constable, both experienced law enforcement officers, know how it feels to be mistreated by police.

Gerardo “Jerry” Rodriguez, 41,says he was 19 and leaving a hot dog restaurant when he and his friends were wrongly arrested and hauled off to jail.

Jerome Moore, now 50, says he was 24 and in a car with three other young Black men when police ordered them to halt. “We’re gonna teach you guys to stop,” he remembers one officer shouting. “Shut up!”

Moore and Rodriguez say those run-ins inspired them to become law enforcement officers.

[…]

It’s a close call, but we give the nod to Moore.

Currently a lieutenant, he spent two years working as chief deputy to the constable in Precinct 2. He has more administrative experience than Rodriguez, a sergeant. Moore can manage the precinct’s complicated budget.

“I can do the job on day one,” he says.

Silvia Treviño for Precinct 6, Dem

Precinct 6 Constable Silvia Treviño is part of a political dynasty in Houston’s East End. She no doubt benefited from name recognition when she won the office — two years after her husband stepped down from it because of a criminal conviction.

Her challenger in the Democratic primary, Art Aguilar, 49, is a former Precinct 6 deputy who has some good ideas and understands the office’s inner workings. But we believe running a multimillion-dollar agency requires more management experience than appears on his résumé.

Treviño, a former Houston police officer, didn’t respond to the editorial board’s invitations to discuss her re-election bid. In the past we’ve criticized her for gaps in her knowledge of the constable’s office and law enforcement issues.

We recommend her this year in hopes that eight years of on-the-job training have alleviated those shortcomings.

James “Smokie” Phillips for Precinct 7, Dem

Three veteran Houston lawmen are running in the Democratic primary to succeed longtime Precinct 7 Constable May Walker. Walker, who’s retiring, has not endorsed a successor.

Precinct 6 is home to half a million people in south Harris County, including Third Ward, South Park, Sunnyside and Reliant Park. No Republican is running in the historically Democratic district, so this primary will decide the election.

Seeking the office are Gary Hicks Sr., Michael Coleman, and James “Smokie” Phillips.

Hicks, 62, a former HPD officer, works now as a warrant officer and mental health specialist in Constable Precinct 1.

His knowledge of community-oriented policing reflects his decades as a street cop. But we believe he comes up short in administrative experience necessary to run an agency like Precinct 7.

That leaves a hard choice.

[…]

We believe Phillips’ experience in the Precinct 7 office gives him an edge.

See here for more on the Rosen-induced heartburn. I’ve done Constable interviews in the past, most recently in 2012, but there were just too many candidates and not enough time. Read these endorsements, look at the Erik Manning spreadsheet to see who else has been endorsed by whom, and go from there.

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2024 Primary Early Voting, Day Three: Settling in

Sorry I didn’t get to this yesterday. Too damn much news. Here we go.


Year    Mail    Early    Total
==============================
2012   5,875    6,317   12,192
2016   8,167   10,231   18,398
2020  13,793   17,735   31,528
2024   4,447   17,897   22,344

2012  12,450   13,464   25,914
2016  11,085   14,869   25,954
2020  13,944   16,856   30,800
2024   3,119   22,433   25,552

As a reminder, Dem totals are on top, Republican ones on the bottom. Here are the Day Three totals for this year, and here are the final totals from 2012, 2016, and 2020.

One point to note, the 2012 primary was that weird one that happened in May because of the litigation over the redistricting maps. Because it was in May, the first week of early voting did not start with a holiday, so the 2012 totals through that first Thursday are actually for four days, not three. Going forward, add one more day for 2012 and you’ll be in the right place. As you can see, at least from the Dem perspective it didn’t matter that much.

Dems are now ahead of the 2016 pace and behind in 2020, though the latter is almost entirely because of the difference in mail votes. Dems cast 22,785 mail votes as of the last day of EV in 2020, out of 38,667 mail ballots sent. A total of 23,849 mail ballots have been sent this year, so expect the gap between the two years to remain wide, though perhaps a little less so as we go on. On the Republican side, well, they don’t do much mail anymore.

Mail ballots and the relative lack of them on the GOP side are an item that Derek Ryan addresses in his first statewide early vote report, which covers the first two days. The lack of a real statewide (non-Presidential) primary on that side probably contributes to that, but the change in behavior pushed by you-know-who is I think the main factor.

I voted yesterday, at the SPJST Lodge, which was not a new location for me but one that made sense given the way my day was going. Have you voted yet? If not, when do you plan to?

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More Dem primary polls from UH/Hobby Center

I asked, and I received.

Just months after a bruising campaign for mayor of Houston, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is leading her top challenger in the 18th Congressional District by five points, suggesting the closest race for the position in decades.

A survey of likely Democratic primary election voters by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston found 43% plan to vote for Jackson Lee, while 38% support former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards. Another 16% said they are unsure who they will support.

“Congresswoman Jackson Lee has near universal name recognition, having represented the district since 1995, coupled with her run for mayor just a few months ago,” said Renée Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School and one of the researchers for the project. “That name ID, along with strong support from women, Black and older voters, has given her a boost, although the race is still very competitive.”

A third candidate, Robert Slater, drew 3% of the vote.

Jackson Lee is the choice of 52% of Black voters, compared to 36% for Edwards; women voters, 47% to 33%; and older voters, 52% to 33%. Edwards is strongest with Latino voters, at 43%, compared to 29% for Jackson Lee; Independent voters, 45% to 31%; voters aged 45-64, 44% to 35%; and men, 46% to 39%.

Survey respondents generally support the incumbent in other high-profile congressional and state legislative races, although a large number of voters say they remain unsure who they will support. Several races without an incumbent on the ballot appear wide open.

Mark P. Jones, political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and senior research fellow at the Hobby School, said even relatively well-funded candidates have struggled to gain traction in some open seats, including state Senate District 15, left vacant after longtime incumbent John Whitmire was elected Houston mayor in December.

“Among the front runners, Jarvis Johnson has served in the Texas House of Representatives since 2016 and previously on Houston City Council, and both of the other top contenders are Democratic Party activists who have previously run for public office,” Jones said. “But all three are relatively close – Johnson and Molly Cook each drew support from 18% of likely voters, while 14% said they will vote for Todd Litton. With 37% saying they are unsure who to support, the race will very likely end in a May runoff.”

None of the other three candidates in the race has support from more than 6% of voters.

See here for the previous poll results, all of which I remind you again to take as interesting bits of information and not carved-in-stone truth. Poll details are here and the landing page for the 2024 Dem primary in Harris County is here. I’ll quote from that (scroll down to Report 2) for the executive summary:

U.S. Congressional District 7: 78% of likely Democratic primary voters intend to vote for U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, while 11% support Pervez Agwan. 11% of likely Democratic primary voters are unsure.

U.S. Congressional District 18: U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee holds a 5 percentage point lead in vote intention over Amanda Edwards, 43% to 38%, with 3% intending to vote for Robert Slater. 16% of likely Democratic primary voters are unsure.

Texas Senate District 15: Frontrunners for Texas Senate District 15 include Jarvis Johnson (18%), Molly Cook (18%), and Todd Litton (14%), followed by Alberto Cardenas (6%), Karthik Soora (5%) and Michelle Anderson Bonton (2%). 37% of likely Democratic primary voters are unsure.

Texas House District 139: Rosalind Ceasar has 12% of the vote, followed by Angie Thibodeaux, 10%; Charlene Ward Johnson, 8%; and Mo Jenkins and Jerry Ford, each with 4%. 62% of likely Democratic primary voters remain unsure.

Texas House District 142: State Rep. Harold Dutton is leading with 38% of the vote, followed by Danyahel (Danny) Norris, 7%; and Joyce Marie Chatman and Clint Dan Horn, each with 6%. 43% of likely Democratic primary voters are unsure.

Texas House District 146: 40% of likely Democratic primary voters plan to vote for State Rep. Shawn Thierry for Texas House District 146, while 16% support Lauren Ashley Simmons and 4% support Ashton Woods. 40% of likely Democratic primary voters remain unsure.

Note: Sample sizes vary in the district races. Refer to the report for specific populations and margins of error.

I expected Rep. Fletcher to be in the lead, though not quite by that much. I expected Rep. Jackson Lee to be in the lead, though perhaps not by that little. I am not surprised by the closeness of SD15. I don’t read anything into any of the State House races, those are just too chaotic to get a handle on. And that’s all I got.

UPDATE: The Jackson Lee campaign has since sent out this memo from a poll conducted I presume on behalf of the campaign, which shows SJL leading Amanda Edwards by a 55-26 margin, with 3% for Slater and the rest undecided. It also contains this footnote:

ii The Hobby School of Public Affairs released data showing the race to be closer between Jackson Lee and Edwards. However, compared to LRP, who has been conducting both primary and general election polling in this district for over a decade, the Hobby poll has this electorate being more white, more male, and younger. These factors all benefit Edwards, though Jackson Lee still has a lead among these demographic groups in the LRP poll.

The poll memo is all we get, and one should always apply an extra level of scrutiny to internal polls, since the campaign that sponsors them has the option of not releasing any they don’t like, which is not how public polls work. My point is simply that each poll is a single data point, and one should hesitate to draw too much from any individual poll.

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The Mike Miles “efficiency report”

I’m going to reserve judgment on this for now, but it is fair to say that I start out with a nontrivial amount of skepticism.

Nearly a year into the state takeover, appointed Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles says he has uncovered long-standing inefficiencies, wasteful spending and redundancies that he plans to fix to free up money to support his school reforms without drawing down district savings.

The superintendent said the plan unveiled Tuesday will support the addition of over 100 schools to his New Education System next year, paying for higher salaries and other elements of his controversial reform program. Though Miles did not give an estimate of how much the cuts will save or how much the expansion will cost, he promised his planned corrections would keep the district’s rainy-day fund above $850 million.

Previous Superintendent Millard House II’s administration had predicted that fund would drop to about $550 million by the end of the next school year.

“In order to increase the salaries at NES schools, we have to find efficiencies in the rest of the system,” Miles said. “The increase will be offset by efficiencies.”

The eight-part plan released Tuesday points to corrections in wasteful purchases, unnecessary contracts and ineffective staffing practices as steps HISD can immediately take to save tens of millions of dollars moving forward.

Overhauls to district transportation and maintenance services will further cut down on “inefficiencies” in the long run, Miles said. The superintendent said that decades worth of mismanagement had led HISD to a precarious position, and that “systems” were to blame rather than individuals.

[…]

Robert Sanborn, president and CEO of the education advocacy group Children at Risk, said the report successfully illustrates the magnitude of the issues facing HISD, and that he believes in Miles’ ability to correct the district’s budget. But whether Miles is capable of winning over a largely distrustful public may be another story.

“I don’t think that this guy lies. He really cares about the data … and it doesn’t take much to convince people there’s inefficiencies at HISD,” Sanborn said. “The cons to this are that I feel like inherent in this report is a little bit of mistrust of their own staff, and I think that will be hard internally. There’s already a morale issue, and I’m not sure if some of these things really help, and morale is not addressed in this as well. And I don’t think it’s Miles’ strength to address morale.”

You can find a copy of the report here. I have skimmed it but not given it a thorough reading yet. The Houston Landing provides a summary and some context.

Miles declined to name a dollar amount that he believes HISD can save through addressing the inefficiencies named in the report, but he said they would be enough to plug budget holes, which suggests the total may be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“We will save enough money to pay for the reforms that we need to put in place,” Miles said.

Miles, who was appointed by Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath in June, has repeatedly claimed previous HISD administrations poorly managed the district’s roughly $2 billion budget. He said the issues identified in the Tuesday report represent “normal dysfunction” for large, urban school districts, but at a concerning scale. The structural issues behind the inefficiencies have persisted for years, or even decades, he said.

“I think the level (of inefficient practices) here was higher than I expected,” Miles said. “There was some level of, ‘Wow, this is worse than a typical urban district.’”

Miles cited examples including:

  • About 1,000 people remained on HISD payroll after they no longer worked there, some for several years. Only a handful continued to receive paychecks.
  • Spending about $20 million on 175 school buses he said HISD didn’t need.
  • Running buses under capacity, resulting in per-student transportation costs about five times higher than the national average — roughly equivalent to the cost of each student taking an Uber or Lyft to and from school.
  • Spending $26 million on overtime pay, with 650 employees last year accruing overtime hours exceeding 30 percent of their earnings.
  • Overspending on contracted services. HISD planned to spend about $300 million on contracted services last year, according to budget documents. Miles said he will cut $50 million for the 2024-25 budget.

Miles did not provide a detailed breakdown of changes he plans to make or evidence backing up some of the claims. For example, Miles did not name specific contractors that he believes are unnecessary.

HISD officials also did not explain why their data shows a dramatic, previously unreported decline in bus ridership, which contributed to their calculations showing transportation inefficiencies. Miles’ report suggests HISD’s bus ridership has dropped 65 percent since 2018-19, when the Legislative Budget Board said about 25,000 students took the bus each day. Data published by the state shows buses traveled about 35 percent fewer miles between 2018-19 and 2022-23.

[…]

In 2018, HISD’s school board requested a third-party review of the district’s operations from the Texas Legislative Budget Board, seeking to identify ways to streamline its expenditures. A year later, the legislative committee released its findings: HISD could save up to $237 million over five years — less than $50 million per year — if it undertook a number of efforts to restructure operations, including closing as many as 40 underutilized schools.

Miles acknowledged the 2019 report raised many of the same problems and possible solutions that his team identified in the efficiency report, but said his plan will spur savings at a larger scale.

In 2021, two years after the release of the budget board’s report, HISD leaders said they had saved roughly $6.7 million over two years, a fraction of the projected savings, by implementing some of its recommendations.

Miles has previously overstated the extent of his cost-saving measures when, in July 2023, he said his team had cut over 2,300 jobs from central office, including eliminating roughly 670 occupied positions. A Houston Landing investigation, however, found Miles had only let go of about a third as many employees as he said he had, while increasing the pay for the upper echelons of district administrators.

When a reporter asked Miles about the overstated central office cuts during a Tuesday press conference, Miles downplayed the exaggeration.

“What does it matter whether there’s 2,000 or 2,100 (cuts)? I will get the mission accomplished by cutting the people that we need to cut,” Miles said.

Again, I have only skimmed the report, so I’m not going to try to address anything specific. I have a few high level thoughts for now.

– I will stipulate up front that there are likely some big savings that can be had by making HISD leaner, more modern, more efficient, however you want to put it. Any large organization is going to be doing things that are outdated, redundant, unnecessary, not providing good value for the expenditure, and so on. Some of them will be relatively easy and uncontroversial to implement. Many will encounter some level of resistance – your “special interest” is my vital program, and so forth. One can accept that there are savings to be had while remaining aware that the topline promises – the “up to $X in savings” claims – are almost certainly overstated.

– All of this would be true even if Mike Miles had a sterling record of accuracy, transparency, and delivering on promises. He does not, with this story providing numerous receipts, and as such it would be wise to adjust one’s expectations downward. Not to zero by any means – again, there absolutely are savings to be had. Just, understand the source here and adjust accordingly.

– The devil is very much in the details here. What specific changes will be proposed, and what is the estimated savings from them? It’s all pie in the sky until we have the full story, and again that would be the case no matter how one perceives Mike Miles.

– It’s important to remember that whatever does get proposed, these changes will have an effect on the people of HISD – students, teachers, and staff in particular. It may well be that the best thing we can do in this situation is to cut that program or reduce those services or whatever else, even if it is detrimental to some number of people in HISD. We should be honest about that, that’s all I’m saying.

– All that said, there should be achievable savings, there certainly are bad processes now in place, and this sort of work, which was already in the early stages before Miles got here, is necessary and urgent. I remain skeptical – we all should – about how much there actually is to save, both as a theoretical matter and as a practical one. But the exercise is worth doing, if it is done well. And again, we’ll see how that part of it goes. The Chron editorial board is optimistic, and the Press and Houston Public Media have more.

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Dispatches from Dallas, February 23 edition

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

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth: the Dallas City Manager resigns; the Mayor gets divorced; the City of Dallas passes a bond package; election news across the Metroplex; the upcoming charter election in Dallas; education and police news; Black history; and another zoo baby in Fort Worth.

Also it’s early voting time, so don’t forget to get out and vote this week or over the weekend.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Philip Glass.

The biggest news in Dallas this week is the surprise resignation of T.C. Broadnax, our city manager, who’s been at odds with Mayor Johnson for a while now. Broadnax survived an attempt to fire him in June 2022, but apparently he was figuring out how to go on his own terms. WFAA scooped everybody on Broadnax’s effort to have the council sack him, triggering a clause that would let him set his own last day (June 3) and avoid any employment restrictions by the city. He also kept Johnson from suggesting that he’d masterminded Broadnax’s departure. The Texas Tribune has the story in statewide context (though their story is missing the context of the WFAA scoop); the Dallas Observer has local reactions.

Also, unsurprisingly, the mayor and council are already at odds over how to pick Broadnax’s successor.

Speaking of Mayor Johnson, he’s also been all over the news in the last few weeks, mostly over the many and consequential votes he’s missed at City Council meetings he’s skipped including two on the city bond election (more on that below). Johnson doesn’t attend DFW airport board meetings either, sending substitutes from the City Council instead.

But the big reason Johnson has been in the news this month is his divorce, which might have proceeded quietly if he hadn’t subpoenaed a D Magazine reporter. D Magazine sent one of his colleagues to cover the divorce. Now everybody knows Johnson’s wife caught him at the house with his girlfriend, then a city staffer, in 2021 and that the girlfriend travelled with him last summer. The DMN reports that the mayor also paid more than $110,000 to the woman’s consulting firm last year according to campaign records. Johnson has issued a statement about the divorce. While I generally don’t think much of social media reaction articles, this one from the Dallas Observer sums up the vibes around this mess. Also there’s no direct evidence that any of this has anything to do with Johnson’s love of travel and his aversion to showing up at City Council meetings, but if there are more shoes to drop, someone is going to drop them.

Also, as mentioned in a number of these articles, there’s an online petition to get him to resign, which is not going to happen. I’ve seen some advertisements for it on social media, but they’re going to need more than 100,000 signatures to get a recall on the ballot and that’s what it’ll take to haul Johnson’s butt out of the Mayor’s chair before the end of his term in 2027.

Popping back to the city bonds, the council approved a May election date for a $1.25 billion bond package. D Magazine has an explainer about what’s in the bond and what’s not (repairs to City Hall, as this DMN editorial complains). As expected, nobody is particularly happy with what’s in the bond, particularly housing advocates and advocates for the Tenth Street historic community. I expect we’ll be hearing a lot more about that between now and the May election date.

In other news:

  • The Star-Telegram issued an endorsement in CD 26: Scott Armey, Dick Armey’s son. Their entire slate can be found here and as with the CD 26 recommendation, it’s mostly whatever you want to call the not-MAGA crowd, with re-election recommendations for a lot of the Paxton impeachers.
  • The Texas Tribune has a report on the Democratic primary in CD 32. Based on what I know (I’m in CD 24), the reporting here seems sound.
  • KERA has a piece on candidate residency with a great headline: When it comes to Texas politics, residency for candidates is ‘a state of mind’. Ain’t that the truth.
  • The DMN has news about Trump endorsements for the primary opponents of four of the “rural 16” in the state House who voted against vouchers. These four also voted to impeach Ken Paxton.
  • I always thought that letting people go to the polls for free on mass transit was a good thing, but Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare disagrees. The County chose not to fund a program with Trinity Metro on a party line vote. Quote: “I don’t believe it’s the county government’s responsibility to try to get more people out to the polls.”
  • While we’re talking about O’Hare and his pet projects, his big voter integrity task force found is considering three cases of alleged fraud for prosecution. These three cases are the result of all complaints about voter fraud in Tarrant County in 2023, by which we can see it was a huge problem.
  • Once the Dallas bond election is over, we’ll be knee-deep in proposed amendments to Dallas city charter, which are coming up in November. Here’s another explainer. The Dallas Observer has a list of possible changes coming to a ballot near me. I notice that one of the items on the possible list changing who runs the city when the mayor’s away. Here’s a piece about a proposal that failed to make it to the ballot: an attempt to move city elections to November in odd-numbered years.
  • Also in the mix for big changes here in Dallas: land-use changes. DMN reporter Sharon Grigsby has a commentary piece on the proposed Forward Dallas city planning document, which has alarmed local homeowners who think it’ll get rid of the single-family home zoning designation. Forward Dallas is a planning document, but won’t change zoning rules. It’s complicated stuff, and if you’re trying to make sense of it, here’s explainer about its placetype designations. I’m still wrapping my head around Forward Dallas myself and I live here, so don’t be surprised if it’s confusing to anyone who isn’t deep into urban planning.
  • One of Texas’ social media outrages this week has been Libs of Tik Tok going after a male teacher at Hebron High School who wore a pink dress to Spirit Day. Apparently his students encouraged him to wear the dress. Social media went to war, with Greg Abbott being disgusted and Texas Democrats being disgusted at him. No word yet on whether the teacher is out of a job permanently.
  • The Star-Telegram has a fact check on US Rep. Roger Williams’ claim that 90% of small businesses have been hit by ‘illegal immigrant’ crime. (No.) Related: One of the Star-Telegram’s op-ed writers has gone down to the border near Eagle Pass and written about her experience. I don’t agree with all of her conclusions, but I do like the first-hand view of the border.
  • Let’s talk about local environmental news. Activist Janie Cisneros is suing the city of Dallas for refusing to accept filings for amortization, or scheduled closure, of the GAF shingle plant in West Dallas. This the next step in West Dallas’ longtime struggle to get the plant out of town. Meanwhile, in Joppa, local activists trying to get rid of the TAMKO shingle plant have discovered there’s no record of a permit the site has needed since 1987. Oops. Meanwhile in Fort Worth, Mayor Parker has opposed the development of a new concrete plant. TCEQ plans to hold a public meeting sometime in the coming months and has extended its comment period until the end of that yet unscheduled meeting.
  • Axios has a piece about how the fact that the Adelsons own the Sands doesn’t mean the league will become more involved with legal gambling, no sir. Put a pin in that because I expect we’ll be revisiting it, certainly here in Texas.
  • As you know if you’ve been reading these updates for a while, the Tarrant County jails have problems. The county is cutting ties with a private jail near Lubbock that violated the state’s minimum jail standards. Meanwhile, as this article about a town hall back in January notes, there have been 60 deaths in the jail’s custody since 2018, though it’s not clear whether that number includes inmates in private jails or just the jails in the county. Sherriff Waybourn claims they all died of drugs or natural causes. Just to give you an idea of who he stands with, check out this fundraising report from last month, which includes a donation from our friends at Defend Texas Liberty. And last month, Tarrant County approved a $200,000 settlement with an inmate who was beaten at the jail, incurring broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and a broken cheekbone. The settlement did not include an admission of wrongdoing.
  • The Dallas County jail system passed a surprise jail inspection this year after previous failures but does have some shortcomings to fix.
  • This week I learned that there’s a secret legal opinion that requires the Dallas police oversight board to investigate only those cases that have already been investigated by Internal Affairs. This comes in the wake of the news that the investigation into the case of Dynell Lane, the veteran who was mocked by Dallas police after he was refused the use of a restroom with a medical card, has been delayed.
  • The DMN interviewed two former Southlake PD officers who were fired for writing a swastika on a whiteboard. They claim one of them was calling another officer a “ticket Nazi” for writing too many tickets.
  • Dallas and Collin counties, along with everybody else, were supposed to have a Sexual Assault Response Team in place and submit a report to their commissioners’ court by the end of 2023. Both counties blew that deadline. Other major counties, including Tarrant, Travis, and Harris, and even Denton County, have managed produce their report in a timely fashion, but the Dallas County Commissioner’s Court barely even knew what the Observer was looking for. I’m disappointed in my elected officials.
  • This week a Fort Worth neighborhood was flyered by Nazis. The URL on the flyers linked to an East Texas neo-Nazi group. No word on whether they’re connected to other Nazi/neo-Nazi trouble in Fort Worth in recent months.
  • The city of Fort Worth and Tarrant County have also had their share of major league resignations recently. First, the city auditor has resigned after about 18 months in office; he’ll be replaced in the interim by the auditor whose retirement triggered the search that found him. Meanwhile, the Star-Telegram reported on the ‘toxic leadership style’ of the Tarrant County Public Health Director. He resigned the next day, after a closed-door meeting with his name on the agenda.
  • Sandi Walker, one of Keller ISD’s trustees resigned after she let a documentary crew film students without permission from the board or parents. The Fort Worth Report has some more details and discussion of next steps. The DMN has an editorial about Walker, an anti-woke Patriot Mobile type (the documentary she had to quit over is being made by a Dutch evangelical group), and the dangers of school board capture. As they note, this is the second Keller ISD trustee to quit in less than three months, which is what happens when narrow-minded political activists take over your local school district.
  • In good education news: D Magazine has a writeup of 10 Dallas ISD Programs or Schools You Should Know About That Aren’t Magnet Schools. I’d only heard of about half of these, but I don’t have kids and I live in an area zoned to Richardson ISD.
  • Fort Worth’s Gladney Center is merging with another adoption agency on the east coast. Edna Gladney, the organization’s namesake, is one of those tough Texas ladies from the early part of the 1900s who got things done: in her case, helping unwed mothers and getting their kids adopted, and getting the stigma of bastardy off birth certificates in Texas. Even though I came of age in the years when reproductive rights were protected, I knew that if you got pregnant and couldn’t get an abortion, you went to the Edna Gladney people.
  • A docuseries coming our way will cover the work of Colossal Biosciences, which uses genetic engineering to save creatures on the edge of extinction. They’re also trying to bring back the dodo, which, fine, but I’ve seen Jurassic Park.
  • Here’s a fascinating piece of Black history about the first Black special officer in Fort Worth, who was hired to patrol Black areas and police the Black community under Jim Crow. He held the job from 1896 to 1905, and was apparently run out of town a few years later.
  • Another piece of Black history I learned about this week is is the story of Silvia Hector Webber, the ‘Harriet Tubman’ of the Underground Railroad to Mexico. There’s a forthcoming book on Webber based on recent research into her papers; that’ll go right on my TBR list.
  • Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway has donated $2 million toward the National Juneteenth Museum under development in Fort Worth. The donation gets the museum to the halfway point in its campaign.
  • Bailey’s Bar-B-Que in Fort Worth was the oldest barbecue in Texas owned by the original family. It’s now been sold to the folks at Panther City BBQ, a Texas Monthly top 10 barbecue, who will keep the old school alive.
  • And last, but not least, another zoo baby for you: Baloo, a baby colobus, was born January 24 and is already out where zoo visitors can see him.
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The Shawn Thierry situation

The Trib covers one of the more important primaries in Harris County this cycle.

Rep. Shawn Thierry

That Senate Bill 14 would pass was not in doubt.

The legislation, which would bar gender-transitioning care for children and teens, had universal Republican support and merely awaited final sign-off by the GOP-led House.

The only surprise that May evening in the Capitol was when Rep. Shawn Thierry, a Democrat from Houston, strode to the front of the chamber and announced she was breaking with her party to support the bill.

Children must be protected from transgender care because of its risk of harm, she said, citing precedent in Texas for allowing only adults to get tattoos, use tanning salons and purchase tobacco products. She said teenagers’ brains are not developed enough to make potentially irreversible medical decisions.

“This debate… was never about erasing trans children,” Thierry said in a tearful 12-minute speech. “For me, this discussion is about how to best protect and care for these children as they navigate through the challenging journey of finding the best version of themselves.”

Thierry’s remarks ignored that treatment decisions for minors can only be made by parents or legal guardians, as well as the consensus of major medical groups that gender-transitioning care should be available to children and teens in the care of doctors.

Republicans were quick to praise Thierry as a brave politician willing to buck her radical party. To Democrats, who watched the speech in stunned silence, she had betrayed their party’s commitment to protect LGBTQ+ rights and vulnerable Texans.

“It feels defeating, when you’re a Democrat in the Texas Legislature,” said Dallas Rep. Jessica González, one of several gay members of the caucus. “The last two legislative sessions had the most conservative bills. That’s why it’s even more important for us to stick together.”

The political fallout is spilling into the Democratic primary, where in her bid for reelection Thierry faces two challengers. One of them, labor organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons, is well funded and has secured the support of several Democratic officials — including sitting House members — and progressive groups like the influential Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus. A Democratic club in Houston censured her, accusing Thierry of turning her back on the gay and transgender community.

Thierry, whose small-dollar donations have largely dried up, now relies heavily on wealthy Republican donors to fund her campaign.

More than a third of Thierry’s donations over the past year came from individuals or groups who typically support Republican candidates, a curiosity in a predominantly Democratic district. They include $10,000 from Doug Deason, a conservative activist, and $15,000 from his pro-school voucher Family Empowerment Coalition PAC.

While she’s not the only Democrat in the House to have voted with Republicans on those bills, Thierry’s race has become a referendum on whether elected officials who do not fully support LGBTQ+ causes can remain in good standing with the Democratic Party. Thierry is insistent she can, and said her votes last year reflected the will of her constituents.

Thierry, who declined to sit for an interview but spoke briefly to The Texas Tribune by phone, said most of the criticism of her on LGBTQ+ issues comes from white progressives outside her district, who do not represent her base of more socially conservative, religious Black voters.

“I didn’t just jump out against … my constituents,” Thierry said. “Clearly, I have a good pulse of how the majority of the people in my district feel. I really do. I’ve lived here forever.”

But it’s a knife in the back for gay and transgender residents in District 146, who previously viewed her as an ally. The LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Texas endorsed Thierry as recently as 2022.

Ashton Woods, a gay man and founder of Houston’s Black Lives Matter chapter, accused Thierry of lying about her constituents’ support for her LGBTQ+ positions. He said the representative previously presented herself as an ally of the gay and transgender community, but in reality is solely interested in the views of a small group of mostly elderly supporters that agree with her.

“I don’t know who she’s talking to in my age group,” said Woods, 39. “She’s seeking a safe space where people share the same ideology as her.”

[…]

Anger with Thierry over her votes last year has created an opening for labor organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons, with a faction of Democrats coalescing around her.

Simmons, who has never before sought elected office, said residents encouraged her to run after a video of her criticizing the state takeover of Houston ISD exploded in popularity online. With two children in the district, Simmons was worried about Republican attacks on public education and felt Thierry was unresponsive to constituents about the issue.

She was shocked to see Thierry’s remarks on SB 14, which she felt were “ripped from the Republican national agenda.” Why not make a 12-minute speech on the most pressing issues in District 146, she wondered, like gun violence and the lack of grocery stores?

Simmons, 36, likened the plight of the parents of trans children to her own daughter’s treatment for sickle-cell anemia, which includes an experimental chemotherapy drug and opioids.

“Those are decisions that are hard for me and her dad to make with her medical team,” Simmons said. “I get really nervous when we start passing legislation about what decisions parents can make about their children’s health care.”

I also pointed out Rep. Thierry’s new funding sources when I rounded up the January finance reports for state office seekers. As noted in my post about the Chron’s endorsement of Lauren Ashley Simmons, my interview with Simmons is here and my interview with Ashton Woods is here. While we could try to get past the wrongness of Rep. Thierry’s votes (for some value of “we”, of course; it’s a lot easier for a straight guy with straight kids like me to say that) and mumble something about how some other Dems made the same votes, it’s the “fuck you” attitude coming from her, exemplified in her “the gay ones” comment in her endorsement meeting with the Chron, that just takes this well over the top. Rep. Thierry may prevail in this election – there’s clearly a generation gap on these issues, which you can see from the two supportive comments for her in the piece, and as older voters tend to dominate in primaries that works in her favor – but she’ll never be a factor again. When her last day comes in the Lege, whenever that is, it will be good riddance to someone who could have done good things but chose to throw that chance away. The Chron, which has a followup article on the reaction to “the gay ones”, has more.

UPDATE: And now this.

Days after facing backlash for making insensitive comments, Democratic officials are blasting Texas state Rep. Shawn Thierry for misleading voters in a campaign mailer after using their image in likeness without their permission.

The campaign mailer features four photos: two of Thierry smiling with supporters at a rally, another with her alongside Houston City Controller Hollins smiling in front of the Barbara Jordan Memorial Parkway sign, and another with her and Democratic U.S. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, where both hold a certificate that’s hard to read. Between all four images reads “Shawn Nicole Thierry, the qualified Democrat for House District 146.”

Hollins and Clyburn released a statement Monday morning denouncing the representative for using their likeness as an endorsement in the political mailer. They said they have reached out to her campaign to stop distribution.

“I was truly shocked. It was a brazen act because Representative Thierry is highly aware of the fact that I’m supporting her opponent in this race,” said newly elected Houston City Controller Chris Hollins in an interview with Chron Monday. He said he was shocked last week when he received a message from a constituent about the controversial campaign mailer with the Houstonian asking Hollins if his endorsement had changed. “Imagine what’s going through my mind when I see a picture of myself in a Shawn Thierry campaign ad. I thought it was incredibly dishonest.”

Hollins added that Clyburn, a veteran politician in the U.S. House of Representatives, didn’t know who Thierry was before he was told of the mailer.

“Texas State Representative Shawn Thierry is misrepresenting a photo she took with Congressman Clyburn as an endorsement in her reelection campaign,” Clyburn said in the press release. “Congressman Clyburn does not support Shawn Thierry, nor has he endorsed her. We have contacted her campaign and advised them to cease using his likeness in her campaign materials immediately.”

Hollins said Thierry’s comments showed a “lack of judgment and temperament” that showed she’s not the best person to represent her district.

“The lack of judgment and the lack of the kind of temperament that you would want to see in a leader was evident,” he said. “To make an off-hand comment like that was so disrespectful to the LGBTQ-plus community, and it’s not in line with Democratic values, period. And this seat was drawn by Republicans to be a safe Democratic [district], and so we deserve someone who’s going to be representing Democratic values, and Shawn Thierry is not that person.”

Wow. I don’t know if this was a screwup or a sign of desperation – candidates who are confident in their position are much less likely to misrepresent who their prominent supporters are, precisely because it leads to this kind of negative attention – but either way it’s pretty brutal. I’m not shedding any tears.

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

Paxton attacks Catholic non-profit that ministers to immigrants

Wow.

A crook any way you look

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is seeking to shut down Annunciation House, an El Paso Catholic nonprofit organization that has provided shelter and other services to migrants and immigrants for decades.

“The chaos at the southern border has created an environment where (nongovernmental organizations), funded with taxpayer money from the Biden administration, facilitate astonishing horrors including human smuggling,” Paxton said in a statement Tuesday. “While the federal government perpetuates the lawlessness destroying this country, my office works day in and day out to hold these organizations responsible for worsening illegal immigration.”

Ruben Garcia, the founder and director of Annunciation House, denounced the attorney general’s action in a statement Tuesday night.

“The attorney general’s illegal, immoral and anti-faith position to shut down Annunciation House is unfounded,” Garcia said.

He had raised concerns last year that Texas’ crackdown on immigration could imperil the work of church-based groups on immigration.

“The church is at risk because the volunteers are asking themselves, ‘If I feed someone who’s unprocessed, if I give someone a blanket who’s unprocessed, if I help them get off the street, am I liable to be prosecuted for that?’” Garcia told a bipartisan delegation of U.S. senators visiting El Paso in January 2023. “Shame on us, that on this day, this is even being brought up in the United States.”

On Tuesday, Garcia said his organization provides a vital service, and warned that other organizations could be at risk of actions by Paxton.

“Annunciation House has kept hundreds of thousands of refugees coming through our city off the streets and given them food. The work helps serve our local businesses, our city, and immigration officials to keep people off the streets and give them a shelter while they come through our community,” he said. “If the work that Annunciation House conducts is illegal, so too is the work of our local hospitals, schools, and food banks.”

[…]

According to court records, investigators with the Attorney General’s Office went to Annunciation House’s South El Paso office on Feb. 7 and served the agency with a request to examine records related to its operations.

Annunciation House’s received a temporary restraining order the next day from 205th District Court Judge Francisco Dominguez of El Paso that blocked the attorney general from enforcing the order for records.

“Annunciation House wishes to provide you the documents to which you are entitled under law. This will require study and work on our part, and unfortunately litigation as well because it is impossible to comply with your deadline, and we remain concerned about the legality of certain aspects of your request,” Jerome Wesevich, an attorney for Annunciation House, said in a Feb. 8 email to the Attorney General’s Office.

Paxton’s office on Tuesday filed a counter-claim against Annunciation House, seeking to overturn the temporary restraining order and to strip the nonprofit of its right to do business in Texas. The attorney general alleges Annunciation House is violating state law by refusing to turn over the requested records, and should be shut down.

The records sought by Paxton’s office include “documents sufficient to show all services that you provide to aliens, whether in the United States legally or illegally,” and “all documents provided to individual aliens as part of your intake process.”

Dominguez has scheduled a hearing for 1 p.m. Thursday on Annunciation House’s request for a temporary injunction, which is a stronger step than the temporary restraining order he issued earlier this month.

I’ve run out of adjectives strong enough to describe Ken Paxton, so I’ll just ask someone to explain to me, in small words, how this is not an infringement on Annunciation House’s religious freedom. This matter is in state court for now, but I think we can all see the bills that will be filed next session to explicitly outlaw, if not criminalize, what Annunciation House is doing. From there, it’s just a matter of time before it lands on SCOTUS’ doorstep.

One more thing:

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, issued a statement “sounding the alarm” to other NGOs and organizations helping migrants that Paxton’s suit is “clearly going to be a strategy for the MAGA extremists.” Escobar said she met with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week and asked that the Department of Justice investigate “what I believe are horrific civil rights violations.”

“If Mr. Paxton believes that Annunciation House merits investigation, he should apply that same standard to Gov. Greg Abbott, who has literally transported a similar population across state lines,” Escobar said, referencing Abbott’s strategy of busing migrants to Democratic-led cities.

Paxton’s lawsuit comes as some Republicans in Congress have sought to eliminate federal funding for NGOs helping migrants along the border. U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, a San Antonio Republican, said he believed the request for more funding was a “big part” of what sank the bipartisan border bill that Senate Republicans blocked earlier this month.

“It’s very evident that the gravy train of money to NGOs is over. That well is dry,” Gonzales said at the time. “There is no appetite in both the House and the Senate to entertain any additional funding for these NGOs.”

You misspelled “Because we’re all Donald Trump’s bitches”, Rep. Gonzales. And he’s supposed to be one of the “moderate” ones.

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

Endorsement watch: The Civil courts

You’ve heard me complain about the Chron editorial board’s lack of endorsements for the Civil District Courts – they did not endorse in those races in 2022, and it sure looked like they were going to skip them again this year. Turns out they were just taking their time, because on Tuesday morning we got a full batch of endorsements. Let’s see what we have.

District Judge, 125th Judicial District — Kyle Carter

Kyle Carter, 47, was among the first wave of Democratic judges elected in 2008. His Houston Bar Association judicial evaluation numbers are middling with 33 percent giving him an overall “excellent” rating and 26 percent “needs improvement.” Lawyers gave us a similar lukewarm assessment, describing him as too political. We appreciated his even-keeled temperament in the screening and he told us he goes out of his way to treat everyone fairly. This year he’s drawn two challengers.

[…]

District Judge, 127th Judicial District — Denise Brown

Elected in the 2008 Democratic wave as well, [R.K.] Sandill received our endorsement in 2018 for Texas Supreme Court when he ran against John Devine, an ethically compromised and ideologically driven justice. Sandill, 47, has a reputation for being smart and blunt. In our screening he said he comes prepared and doesn’t want to waste anyone’s time, noting that all his court proceedings are online: “come watch the livestream of the 127th and see what happens.” His numbers from the Houston Bar Association judicial poll are middling, though 30 percent of the respondents said he “needs improvement” for “impartiality.” That concerns us, as have anecdotal accounts from lawyers who told us they it necessary to donate to get a fair shake. Sandill is known for his prolific fundraising, which, again, can be a warning sign. He had more cash on hand than other district court judges in Harris County. He told us he’s spent money on implicit bias training for the Houston Bar Association and new lactation pods in the courts, but also said without hesitation that “we’re spending half a million dollars on the race.” Yes, he does have “a primary to win,” as he said, but that level of fundraising and spending undermines the appearance of a fair judiciary, especially if lawyers feel compelled to contribute.

[…]

District Judge, 133rd Judicial District — Nicole Perdue

The incumbent isn’t running for reelection and voters have a choice between two impressive candidates. Nicole Perdue, 53, graduated from South Texas College of Law and has practiced law for more than two decades. She interned with the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court and the chief of the First Court of Appeals. A specialist in employment litigation, she also serves as an appointed legal representative for minors.

[…]

District Judge, 151st Judicial District — Mike Engelhart

Michael Engelhart, 53, was part of the 2008 wave of Democratic judges and receives some of the highest marks of any civil court judge in the Houston Bar Association survey. His court’s non-jury verdicts, 45, and jury verdicts, also 45, since 2019 are about average, and the number of cases on his docket, 2,734, is on the lower end. He has a stellar reputation for preparedness and decorum, and his challenger, Erica Hughes, did not identify any deficiencies other than to say she would have more jury trials.

[…]

District Judge, 152nd Judicial District — Robert K. Schaffer

Judge Schaffer, 71, is the gold standard. Few judges in Harris County, or the state, have received as much recognition. He was elected administrative judge by his peers in 2013, a position he held for eight years, helping steer the courts through COVID. Chief Justice Nathan Hecht appointed him to the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee. The Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists named him judge of the year twice. He’s the highest-rated civil judge in the Texas Bar Association survey. His trial numbers and docket aren’t comparable to the others because of his time as an administrative judge.

[…]

District Judge, 164th Judicial District — Cheryl Elliott Thornton

Judge Thornton, 66, gets low ratings in the Houston Bar Association’s survey: 55 percent say she “needs improvement” for “uses attorney’s time efficiently.” She has the biggest backlog of all the civil courts with 3,988 active cases on her docket. Elected in 2020, Thornton says that she inherited a backlog that was particularly bad, not just because of Hurricane Harvey and COVID, but because the 164th didn’t have a permanent judge after her predecessor was indicted for fraud. Thornton told us, “We try to move things out as fast as we can within a year, but the reality is when I came into this court, my oldest case was 2009.”

[…]

District Judge, 165th Judicial District — Jill Yaziji

Judge Ursula Hall didn’t attend the editorial board screening for this race and let us know later that she missed because a family member had a serious illness. We understand that personal circumstances can affect anyone’s work, for weeks or even months. In the 165th, however, lawyers and their clients have had to wait several years for rulings. After more than a dozen reprimands, the 1st Court of Appeals threatened Judge Hall with contempt proceedings. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct gave her a public warning and ordered her to obtain additional education for failing to rule in a case. Her Houston Bar Association ratings are abysmal with 86 percent saying she “needs improvement” in the “rules decisively and timely” category. The court administrator figures tell the same story: only 20 non-jury verdicts and 29 jury verdicts since 2019, and a backlog of 3,085 active cases.

[…]

District Judge, 333rd Judicial District — Tracy D. Good

The least we can expect of a judge is to step aside from cases in which they have a clear relationship with the defendant.

Apparently, Judge Brittanye Morris, 33, didn’t know that. Shortly after winning the 333rd District Court race in 2020, she ruled in favor of a developer named Ali Choudhri but “failed to either disclose her relationship” or recuse herself. That finding comes straight from an official reprimand by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. When we asked Judge Morris for her side of the story, she remained remarkably composed, saying “didn’t know Mr. Choudhri very well” and that “I was a pawn” in the war between him and another developer.

I’ve just quoted a bit from each, so please go read the rest. They did the work on this, using available data and talking to attorneys who have cases in these courtrooms, and I appreciate that! Very much! It’s why I wanted them to do these. One can certainly quibble with any individual choice they made, but they gave us a lot of useful information. Use it as you see fit.

The useful information I have is the judicial Q&As. I have them for most of the candidates in these races:

Judge Kyle Carter, 125th Civil District Court
Lema Mousilli, 125th Civil District Court
Andrea Zepeda – I did not get a response

Judge R.K. Sandill, 127th Civil District Court
Denise Brown – I did not get a response

Nicole Perdue, 133rd Civil District Court
Brandi Croffee, 133rd Civil District Court

Judge Mike Engelhart, 151st Civil District Court
Erica Hughes, 151st Civil District Court

Judge Robert Schaffer, 152nd Civil District Court
TaKasha Francis, 152nd Civil District Court

Judge Cheryl Elliott Thornton, 164th Civil District Court
Joy Dawson Thomas, 164th Civil District Court

Jill Yaziji, 165th Civil District Court
Judge Ursula Hall – I did not get a response

Judge Brittanye Morris, 333rd Civil District Court
Tracy Good, 333rd Civil District Court

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Texas blog roundup for the week of February 19

The Texas Progressive Alliance will get back to you after it’s finished its world tour of Presidents Day mattress sales, so in the meantime please enjoy this week’s roundup.

Continue reading

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2024 Primary Early Voting, Day One: And we’re off

It’s Early Voting time, everyone’s favorite time of the year. I’m just going to get right into it, I’m sure there will be stories to note later but for right here and right now, it’s just the numbers. Here are the Day One totals for this year. Here are the final totals from 2012, 2016, and 2020. As of Day One from those years, with Dems on top and Republicans below:


Year    Mail    Early    Total
==============================
2012   4,644    1,570    6,214
2016   6,344    3,292    9,636
2020  11,571    6,819   18,390
2024   3,769    6,279   10,048

2012  10,027    3,380   13,407
2016   8,172    4,548   12,720
2020  12,890    5,411   18,301
2024   2,448    7,347    9,396

My early thought was that Dems would be right around the 2016 turnout is good for at least one day. I’ll take my victories where I can. Dems are slightly ahead of Republicans, which is closer than I’d expect in the end but may not mean anything right now.

Mail ballots are obviously down from 2020, which as we know was weird in more ways than any of us would like to remember. I wouldn’t read too much into that. For what it’s worth, Dems had 22,144 mail ballots sent out as of Tuesday, with a couple more days in which they can be sent, while that number is 7,691 for Republicans. I feel confident saying that more Dems will vote by mail when all is said and done.

That’s it for now. I’ll do these most days but probably not every day. When do you plan to vote? I might do it today or tomorrow, we’ll see.

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Judicial Q&A: Lillian Alexander

(Note: As I have done in past elections, I am running a series of Q&As for judicial candidates in contested Democratic primaries. This is intended to help introduce the candidates and their experiences to those who plan to vote in March. I am running these responses in the order that I receive them from the candidates. Much more information about Democratic primary candidates, including links to the interviews and judicial Q&As, can be found on Erik Manning’s spreadsheet.

Lillian Alexander

1. Who are you and what are you running for?

I am Lillian Henny Alexander and I am running for the 507th District Court in Harris County, Texas.

2. What kind of cases does this court hear?

The 507th Family District Court handles a variety of family-related cases, including but not limited to divorce, marital property disputes, name changes, enforcements, child custody, child support, adoptions, termination of parental rights, cases involving the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, and other related matters.

3. Why are you running for this particular bench?

I am pursuing this particular bench with a profound sense of purpose, fueled by my experiences as a lawyer, volunteer, and, most significantly, as a daughter of a teacher and a working mother to two young children. The challenges faced by working parents are not merely legal matters to me; they are deeply personal. Navigating the complexities of family court is not an abstract concept but a reality that I intimately understand.

As a mother, I have experienced firsthand the strains of balancing a demanding career with the joys and responsibilities of parenthood. My perspective is fresh and grounded in the daily struggles of working people who often find themselves entangled in the intricate web of family court proceedings.

In reference to the Houston Chronicle Editorial board’s statement, “Judge Maldonado, the county’s longest-serving family judge, is its lowest-ranked and her time on the bench leads us to believe that someone else would do a better job”.

4. What are your qualifications for this job?

I have practiced family law for 13 years since I was licensed in 2011. I operated independently as the sole practitioner in handling hundreds of family law cases. I have acquired substantial courtroom experience, actively engaging in legal proceedings related to family law matters. This encompasses representing clients in diverse cases, including divorce hearings, child custody disputes, and child support matters. My courtroom experience extends to effectively advocating for clients’ interests and my ability to litigate effectively in the realm of family law.

My extensive experience is rooted in addressing the everyday legal challenges faced by ordinary people. My clients are working class truck drivers, plumbers, teachers, people that are not rich. To accommodate their financial situations, I offer flexible payment plans and frequently provide case discounts, understanding the financial strains they may face, whether it's supporting their children’s school supplies or meeting child support obligations. Many of my clients, not being financially well-off, find resolution through mediation, as they prefer to avoid the costs associated with prolonged trials, often due to work constraints. Every individual, regardless of their financial status, deserves exceptional legal representation. My commitment is to serve as an attorney for the person next door, someone relatable and trustworthy, offering fair pricing that reflects my belief that being a family law attorney isn’t about becoming wealthy. It’s about providing quality legal assistance to people who remind me of my own family.

5. Why is this race important?

This election holds significant importance as we stand at a pivotal moment in the 507th, with over 57% expressing dissatisfaction with the perceived fairness and courtesy of the court. As a candidate, I bring a spirit of upliftment and humility to the role of serving as a family court judge.

Fundamentally, a judge’s duty is to transform the perception of the court from being accessible only to the wealthy or privileged to a space open to all who seek its services. The Family Court must consistently uphold principles of fairness and impartiality, regardless of one’s background, circumstances, or connections. It should serve as an arena where everyone is treated equitably, ensuring that the law is applied justly and consistently.

A judge’s responsibility is not to make the courtroom easier for some while making it harder for others. Rather, it encompasses a solemn obligation to safeguard the rights and interests of working people, acknowledging their unique challenges within the legal system.

6. Why should people vote for you in March?

I possess the necessary experience to serve as a family law judge, along with the requisite judicial temperament. However, I firmly believe that being an effective judge entails more than just experience; it demands a dedication to fairness, compassion, and a sincere understanding of the myriad challenges confronting families in our diverse community. Your vote for me signifies support for a family court judge committed to enacting positive change, placing the needs of our families above personal ambitions, and cultivating an atmosphere where every individual is treated with the utmost respect and dignity.

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UH/Hobby Center polls Harris County Dem primaries

Make of this what you will.

Sean Teare is leading incumbent Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg by a nearly three-to-one margin in the upcoming Democratic primary election, according to the latest survey from the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston.

Among likely voters, 59% plan to vote for Teare, while 21% support Ogg. Another 20% said they are unsure.

“Kim Ogg has been at odds with some members of the local Democratic party, most notably in her interactions with the Harris County Commissioners Court,” said Renée Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School and one of the researchers for the project. “That hasn’t gone unnoticed by some primary voters. Others may be concerned about well-publicized issues in the courts.”

Support for Ogg is highest among independent voters who intend to vote in the Democratic primary election, with 31% supporting Ogg. That compares to 44% of independents who back Teare.

The survey, which was released today, also found strong support for U.S. Rep. Colin Allred in his race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, with 66% of Harris County primary voters saying they will vote for Allred, compared to 7% for his top rival, state Sen. Roland Gutierrez. Harris County is expected to account for one out of every six votes cast statewide in the March 2024 Democratic primary election.

Almost two-thirds of voters, or 63%, plan to vote for incumbent Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. None of the other candidates in that race drew more than 2% of survey respondents.

The UH/Hobby Center main page for this election is here, and a more detailed breakdown of the data is here. They also found that Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee led Umeka “UA” Lewis by a 41-7 margin, while Annette Ramirez “led” in the race for Tax Assessor with 12%; everyone else was in single digits and about two thirds of voters didn’t know yet who they supported. There were no questions about support or approval for President Biden, though that was touched on in their previous statewide survey, and at least as of today there was no polling of either of the two Congressional races or SD15.

Polling is hard and polling in specialty races like primaries is harder, so while this is all interesting and may well be reasonably accurate, I would take it all with some level of skepticism. Not because of any specific issues or complaints, just that we don’t have any history of similar polls to compare this to and there very likely won’t be any other polling to provide further data. I think the numbers are plausible enough – I’ll be very interested to compare them to the final numbers – I just know that I will grind my teeth down to the gums every time I see this poll referenced in a news story as an immutable fact. This is interesting data. It may turn out to be very accurate and prescient data. But right now it’s a data set of one, and that can only tell us so much. I’m just asking you to keep that in mind.

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Endorsement watch: For Teare

The Chron makes their choice in the biggest local primary, and their choice is Sean Teare for District Attorney.

Sean Teare

When we endorsed Harris County’s top prosecutor, District Attorney Kim Ogg, for a second term in 2020, we credited the Democrat with prioritizing a fair criminal justice process “that engenders trust in the system.” We have applauded her bold reforms and brave calls, such as diverting low-level marijuana cases, ending prosecutions of people found with trace amounts of drugs, tossing wrongful convictions, supporting unpopular exonerations of innocent men, and instituting a cultural sea change that prioritizes justice above winning.

“The exoneration of innocent individuals is as important as the conviction of guilty ones,” Ogg said after the exoneration of Lydell Grant in 2021, flipping the script of some of her predecessors. “The highest responsibility of a prosecutor is to see that justice is done.”

Nearly four years later, with a string of high-profile case losses on her record, a stubbornly high backlog of criminal cases dating back to Hurricane Harvey, a reputation for mercurial management, frayed relationships with the commissioners who fund her office, and a perception that she lets personal grudges and politics cloud her judgment, she has lost some of that trust. Even among once-ardent supporters.

That includes Sean Teare, the former prosecutor now vying for her job in the Democratic primary. He says he returned in 2017 to the DA’s office from private practice specifically to work for Ogg, who immediately promoted him to lead the vehicular crimes division. Over time, he says he observed how Ogg’s decisions and shortcomings as a manager affected the agency’s mission to protect public safety: “I’m running to restore the integrity, to restore the competence in that office,” Teare told this editorial board in a side-by-side interview with Ogg. He added: “What you haven’t heard in seven and a half years is the elected DA admit that she’s part of the problem and in some cases, the problem.”

To be clear, the DA’s office isn’t an island. It’s part of an intricate system in which stakeholders such as prosecutors, police, judges, forensic lab staff and politicians weighing budget requests must depend on each other to keep the gears of justice turning. No matter what. No matter if a hurricane floods the courthouse, as happened in 2017, or a global pandemic sends crime surging, as happened from 2020 through 2022. In her own office, which processes tens of thousands of criminal cases each year, Ogg, 64, often must delegate life-altering decisions to her subordinates.

“We can’t micromanage every case,” Ogg told us. “So, we rely upon the training we’ve provided them and the supervision that we try to provide them to make the best decision based on their judgment at the time.”

Even so, Ogg is responsible for overarching decisions that influence everything from employee morale to public trust in the criminal justice system to outcomes in the courtroom. Incidentally, our concerns with endorsing her for a third term are not necessarily the same that led county Democratic precinct chairs to vote 129-61 to admonish Ogg for not adequately representing Democratic values. Their complaints included Ogg’s investigation of fellow Democratic officeholders. In our view, Ogg was justified if not duty-bound to investigate elected officials regardless of party. We make no bones about Ogg doing her job; we’re concerned she’s not doing it effectively enough.

My interview with Sean Teare is here and my interview with Kim Ogg is here, and you should listen to them both if you haven’t already. This is a long op-ed that covers a lot of ground, more about Ogg than Teare though there’s plenty about him, and it is also worth your time.

In addition to some nods in Republican primaries, the Chron also makes endorsements in the two contested Democratic primaries for Supreme Court.

Born in Dallas and a graduate of the University of Texas law school, Randy Sarosdy worked for 24 years in Washington D.C. with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, often defending corporate clients in labor, environmental and intellectual property cases. Those are the sorts of complex civil cases that go before the Texas Supreme Court. He relocated to Austin and, after six more years with Akin Gump, joined the Texas Justice Court Training Center and became a teacher for new judges, including justices of the peace, who are not required to have a law degree.

Sarosdy, 71, also served as the executive director of the Texas Center for the Judiciary. One of the important but underappreciated aspects of the job on the Supreme Court is leading statewide initiatives that improve the judicial system or increase access to justice. Sarosdy is particularly well suited for that work. His motivation to run, he told us, is to protect fundamental rights under the Texas Constitution. He notes, correctly, that in the wake of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, state courts now play a greater role than before around abortion and voting rights.

[…]

Voters have the choice between a deeply qualified justice serving on an intermediate appellate court and a district judge who appears to be drawn to quixotic quests to effect change.

Bonnie Lee Goldstein, 62, has a breadth of experience that’s well suited to serving on the Texas Supreme Court. She has 20 years in the judiciary including 11 as a municipal judge, six as a civil district judge and three on the 5th District Court of Appeals in Dallas. If she wins in the primary, she would face Jane Bland, a well-respected justice. Goldstein told us she believes voters should always have a choice, and she’s certainly the most qualified one.

The other primary candidate is Joe Pool, a district judge in Hays County who has run for Supreme Court three times before in Republican primaries, though he seems to be more of a crusader than a partisan.

The first race is for Place 2, the second is for Place 6. I don’t have anything for you on them, I didn’t send my Q&As to the statewide candidates. For what it’s worth, after reading this endorsement piece, I’m in agreement with the Chron’s assessments.

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Any early thoughts about what primary turnout might look like?

Why yes I do, thanks for asking. The early indicators are that we are in for lower than usual turnout.

With President Joe Biden facing only token opposition in the Democratic primary and Trump pulling away on the GOP side, the presidential race won’t be driving voter turnout, leaving that work to lower-budget campaigns that have a fraction of the resources to do that work.

That has Republicans and Democrats bracing for what could be half the turnout that would normally happen in a year with competitive primary elections. In 2020 and 2016, for instance, when there were competitive presidential primaries, Texas had more than 4 million voters cast ballots.

In 2012, with both races already essentially decided before Texas voted, just 2 million people showed up to vote — 16% of the electorate.

“Historically, the primaries always have relatively low turnout,” said Billy Monroe, a political science professor at Prairie View A&M University.

But it gets even worse without a hot presidential primary drawing voters to the polls, he said.

Turnout in the November 2020 presidential election was 66%, compared with just 25% for the primary elections.

That lower primary turnout has real ramifications down the ballot, where candidates for Congress or the Legislature have to change their tactics compared with a big turnout election where the primaries are getting a lot of attention.

“It totally changes the dynamics,” said Ford O’Connell, a veteran GOP campaign strategist. “The universe of voters you can count to show up is decreasing.”

The article has a chart showing total statewide primary turnout for Presidential years for both parties combined, but that’s not granular enough for me. This is what I want to see:


Year   Harris D   Harris R     State D     State R   HD Pct   HR Pct
====================================================================
2020    328,496    195,723   2,094,428   2,017,167   15.68%    9.70%
2016    227,280    329,768   1,435,895   2,836,488   15.83%   11.63%
2012     76,486    163,980     590,164   1,449,477   12.96%   11.31%
2008    410,908    171,108   2,874,986   1,362,322   14.29%   12.56%
2004     78,692     82,212     839,231     687,615    9.38%   11.96%

“HD Pct” is the percentage of statewide Democratic turnout that came from Harris County; “HR Pct” is the same for the Republican side. If you needed another way to visualize the mantra that Harris County is Democratic now, there you go.

I don’t have any deep thoughts here. Before I put this chart together my thinking was we Dems will have better turnout than 2012, mostly because there are several high-profile non-Presidential primaries, but won’t get to 2020 levels. Maybe we’ll be around where 2016 was, I dunno. Ask me again after early voting starts.

I do expect Dems to beat Republicans in turnout in Harris County. We have two Congressional primaries with candidates that have raised over a million dollars, we have the open SD15 race and the District Attorney race and a couple of State House races and even the Tax Assessor race, which is lower profile but still involves an open seat and a group of active candidates. Oh, and also that US Senate primary, in which some money is being spent.

That latter race may drive higher Democratic turnout statewide than Republican turnout. There are a bunch of State House primaries into which a ton of money plus the direct involvement of Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton will drive voters to the polls, but there are only so many of those and there isn’t that much beyond them. I don’t want to go too far out on that branch because I don’t know what the county race situation is in some high-population deep red places, but at least Dems have one statewide race to generate interest, and as noted there’s action in Harris County. We’ll see where that takes us. I’ll check on this as we go forward.

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Judicial Q&A: Judge R.K. Sandill

(Note: As I have done in past elections, I am running a series of Q&As for judicial candidates in contested Democratic primaries. This is intended to help introduce the candidates and their experiences to those who plan to vote in March. I am running these responses in the order that I receive them from the candidates. Much more information about Democratic primary candidates, including links to the interviews and judicial Q&As, can be found on Erik Manning’s spreadsheet.

Judge R.K. Sandill

1. Who are you and in which court do you preside?

I am Judge R.K. Sandill, and I have presided over Harris County’s 127th Civil District Court since 2009.

2. What kind of cases does this court hear?

State civil district courts have original jurisdiction for civil actions over $200 that do not involve issues related to family proceedings, juvenile cases, or criminal actions.

3. What have been your main accomplishments during your time on this bench?

Since my inauguration in January 2009, I have resolved more than 21,000 matters and tried over 1,600 cases. I am the only civil district court judge in Harris County who adjudicates all cases filed in his court, including seizure/forfeiture and tax cases.

I have also worked to expand access to the justice system by requiring implicit bias training for all court appointees, incorporating anti-bias instructions in all my jury charges, and allowing for the automatic rescheduling of trials for all lawyers who are expecting the birth or adoption of a child.

4. What do you hope to accomplish in your courtroom going forward?

I want to continue my legacy of progress for Harris County District Court to make justice more inclusive. That can be done by expanding accommodations to the average citizen who cannot readily attend court, participate in juries, or see the court as a place where only bad things happen to regular people. Expand my ad hoc mediation program that allows for free mediation so parties can settle disputes without huge financial burdens.

I plan to incorporate AI into daily court processes to make the more routine parts of the judicial process more efficient.

5. Why is this race important?

The decisions made in civil court have profound social and economic impacts throughout our county, state, and nation. Those impacts touch the lives of persons far beyond the parties involved in any given case. We see more and more that our very Democracy is being challenged in courts across the country, often beginning in the district courts. I want to remain on the bench to ensure that the rule of law is followed and that the residents of Harris County have hard-working jurists who operate with fairness and integrity.

6. Why should people vote for you in March?

When I was elected in 2008, it was a monumental shift in Harris County politics. It paved the way for Democratic majorities in County Government, a new Democratic Congressional district, and increasing the size of the Harris County Democratic Legislative delegation. There is now a poignant attack on democracy and it has been slowed in our courts. We must hae our best in these positions, and I believe my experience and record show I am prepared to serve another four years.

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Early voting for the 2024 primaries begins today

From the inbox:

Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth announces that Tuesday, February 20, starts Early Voting for the March 5 Joint Primary Elections. The polls are open February 20 to March 1, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., except Sunday, February 25, noon to 7 p.m. Harris County has countywide polling, which means voters can go to any of the 79 early vote centers open across the county.

“Political parties hold primary elections to determine their candidates for the November General Election,” explained Clerk Hudspeth, the county’s chief election official. “While this is a presidential election this year, voters will also vote for Texas officials running for office at the federal, state, and local levels.

In Harris County, the Democratic Primary has 119 races, and the Republican Primary has 122. However, voters will only vote in contests connected to the address where they are registered. Voters will see from 56 to 65 contests on their ballots, depending on where they registered to vote and which primary election they are voting in. Voters can view and print a sample ballot to take to the polls on our website.

“Texas is an open primary state; citizens do not have to register with a party to vote,” added Clerk Hudspeth. “During an election cycle, voters may participate in either primary election but not both. At the polls, voters must choose whether they want to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary when they check in.”

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 these forms of photo ID may fill out a Reasonable Impediment Declaration (RID) at a Vote Center and present another form of ID, such as a utility bill, bank statement, government check, or voter registration certificate.

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

See here for more on the joint primary, which may be a one-off or may be the new normal depending on what the next Lege does. We at least will have only one page to print and scan now, so hopefully that will facilitate things a bit. You can find the early voting locations here and here. I may pick a new place to try this year, there are a couple between where I live and where I work that I’ll consider. If you’re not in Harris County, Houston Landing has some information for you about where to vote.

Here’s a list of all my interviews and Q&As so far:

Karthik Soora, SD15
Michelle Bonton, SD15
Molly Cook, SD15
Rep. Jarvis Johnson, SD15
Todd Litton, SD15
Beto Cardenas, SD15

Nasir Malik, SD07

Annette Ramirez, Tax Assessor
Danielle Bess, Tax Assessor
Jerry Davis, Tax Assessor
Desiree Broadnax, Tax Assessor
Claude Cummings, Tax Assessor

Christian Menefee, Harris County Attorney
Umeka Lewis, Harris County Attorney

Kim Ogg, Harris County District Attorney
Sean Teare, Harris County District Attorney

Amanda Edwards, CD18

Pervez Agwan, CD07
Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, CD07

Melissa McDonough, CD38
Gion Thomas, CD38

Marquette Greene-Scott, CD22

Danny Norris, HD142

Lauren Ashley Simmons, HD146
Ashton Woods, HD146

Mo Jenkins, HD139
Charlene Ward Johnson, HD139
Rosalind Caesar, HD139

Justice Richard Hightower, First Court of Appeals, Place 8

Justice Peter Kelly, First Court of Appeals, Place 9

Justice Jerry Zimmerer, 14th Court of Appeals, Place 3
Velda Faulkner, 14th Court of Appeals, Place 3

Justice Charles Spain, 14th Court of Appeals, Place 4

Justice Meagan Hassan, 14th Court of Appeals, Place 6

Judge Kyle Carter, 125th Civil District Court
Lema Mousilli, 125th Civil District Court

Judge R.K. Sandill, 127th Civil District Court

Nicole Perdue, 133rd Civil District Court
Brandi Croffee, 133rd Civil District Court

Judge Mike Engelhart, 151st Civil District Court
Erica Hughes, 151st Civil District Court

Judge Robert Schaffer, 152nd Civil District Court
TaKasha Francis, 152nd Civil District Court

Judge Cheryl Elliott Thornton, 164th Civil District Court
Joy Dawson Thomas, 164th Civil District Court

Jill Yaziji, 165th Civil District Court

Judge Brittanye Morris, 333rd Civil District Court
Tracy Good, 333rd Civil District Court

Allison Jackson Mathis, 338th Criminal District Court

Vivian King, 486th Criminal District Court

Judge Julia Maldonado, 507th Family District Court
Lillian Alexander, 507th Family District Court – coming tomorrow

Juan Aguirre, County Criminal Court at Law #16
Ashley Mayes Guice, County Criminal Court at Law #16

Fran Watson, County Probate Court #5
Chavon Carr, County Probate Court #5
Troy Moore, County Probate Court #5

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Endorsement watch: Sticking with SJL

The Chron, in what I believe is its final endorsement of interest for this cycle, stays with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in CD18.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Jackson Lee, Espinosa told us, “has a track record of really stepping in for families.”

That record rarely shows up in the Congressional record, where the congresswoman is consistently ranked one of the most effective lawmakers. But what really makes her effective is her seniority, her institutional know-how, and her ability to get the right person on the phone when her constituents need it — whether it’s opening an emergency warming shelter in northeast Houston during a hard freeze or making sure a grieving grandson can make his evening flight.

That’s why we are sticking with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and encourage voters to do the same.

We did not meet with Robert Slater, whose fundraising numbers suggest he’s not a viable candidate in this competitive race.

But the other competitor in this primary cannot be written off. The impressive Amanda Edwards, 42, is the first real threat to Jackson Lee since she took office since 1994. Edwards’ policy chops and savvy (she’s a municipal finance attorney) made her a standout on Houston City Council. She was also out in the community fixing up homes after Hurricane Harvey.

Edwards was hailed as a rising star in 2019, when she stepped down from City Council. But since then, she’s struggled in elections: First she got buried in a crowded primary race for U.S. senator in 2020. Then, after she entered the Houston mayor’s race, Jackson Lee jumped into it at the last minute, undermining Edwards’ likely sources of support. Edwards dropped out of the mayor’s race, and ran for what appeared to be Jackson Lee’s open congressional seat.

If Jackson Lee had won the mayor’s race, Edwards would have been a shoo-in for this seat. But of course, Jackson Lee didn’t win. And now she wants to keep her old seat.

There’s a chance that Jackson Lee’s mayoral loss has hurt her enough to leave the door open for Edwards. In this race, Edwards has raised far more money than Jackson Lee. The younger candidate has, it seems, used that money in part for glossy campaign videos that present her as the candidate with a fresh perspective with deep Houston roots, ready to take the torch.

On policy issues, there’s little difference between the two candidates. And in a few areas, including technology, we even believe Edwards would be the better policymaker. She wants to think about systems — whether immigration or disaster recovery or health care — to get things done more efficiently. In our meeting, she recalled her father’s battle with cancer: “I happen to be someone who, at a very early age, witnessed systemic breakdowns,” she said.

Most elections, as others have noted, boil down to “Experience matters” versus “It’s time for a change”. That is entirely the choice here, and I understand anyone making either one. (Those who will vote for Slater, I have to ask: What election did you think you were voting in?) You can listen to my interview with Amanda Edwards here; I trust you know enough about Rep. Jackson Lee to do without an interview, though I did try to get you one. As I noted before, my gut says that Rep. Jackson Lee will win, but it won’t be easy and I won’t be shocked if this intuition is wrong. If there’s any polling data out there, I am unaware of it.

In re: SJL’s mayoral debacle maybe hurting her in the CD18 primary, Campos (a big Whitmire booster) thinks it should. I disagree – I don’t think this Mayoral election was nastier in any way than others were. That’s partly because SJL had no money in the runoff, which contributed to her margin of defeat and quite likely the lack of nastiness, since she had no budget for any scurrilous attacks, at least of the old fashioned kind. That same lack of resources might be keeping this race on the civil side as well; there are plenty of Edwards ads out there, but they’re all about her. We’ll see if that makes a difference.

Further reading: this Trib story about the CD18 primary. Much of it is ground we have covered here – the Mayor’s race and its timing, Edwards’ fundraising advantage, that recording of SJL berating staffers – but this bit was of interest:

The runoff election for the Houston mayor’s race stretched over nine congressional districts overlapping Harris County. Jackson Lee beat Whitmire among voters in her own district but only by a narrow two-point margin. Vincent Sanders, a Harris County Democratic Party precinct chair, said that’s a signal that the congresswoman could be vulnerable.

“It did show some cracks in that solid image of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee,” he said. “That’s kind of where we are and it did show that she was somewhat vulnerable,” he said.

Jackson Lee’s battle to retain her seat is made tougher by 2021 redistricting, Sanders said. because the 18th district now inhabits more young white professionals who do not have the same level of loyalty to her as longtime district residents.

“A lot will come down, I think, to turnout and particularly the ability of Edwards to turn out younger voters and Anglo voters, because if the turnout is predominantly African American and older, that’s going to benefit Congresswoman Jackson Lee,” [Rice poli sci prof Mark] Jones said.

There’s something to what Vincent Sanders says, though again I think her lack of money for the runoff needs to be taken into account. No money means no ground game. I firmly believe that one reason SJL scored fewer votes in December than in November is that she didn’t have the resources needed to remind her voters that they needed to get back out there and vote again. Job #1 in any election is to make sure everyone you want to vote for you knows there’s an election and that you’re in it. Hard to do when you don’t have any money.

But again, we’ll see. The rest of that story reminds us that while Edwards has scored some nice endorsements, SJL still has tons of institutional support, and that will carry some weight in a primary. We’ll know soon enough.

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Judicial Q&A: Justice Jerry Zimmerer

(Note: As I have done in past elections, I am running a series of Q&As for judicial candidates in contested Democratic primaries. This is intended to help introduce the candidates and their experiences to those who plan to vote in March. I am running these responses in the order that I receive them from the candidates. Much more information about Democratic primary candidates, including links to the interviews and judicial Q&As, can be found on Erik Manning’s spreadsheet.

Justice Jerry Zimmerer

1. Who are you and in which court do you preside?

Jerry Zimmerer, incumbent Justice 14th Court of Appeals, Place 3.

2. What kind of cases does this court hear?

The Texas Court of Appeals primarily hears cases involving appeals from trial courts in both civil and criminal matters. This includes

  • Civil Appeals: These can involve various issues such as contract disputes, family law matters (e.g., divorce and child custody), personal injury claims, property disputes, and appeals from administrative agencies.
  • Criminal Appeals: These cases involve appeals from criminal convictions in trial courts. The Court of Appeals reviews whether errors during the trial affected the case outcome or violated the defendant's rights.
  • Juvenile Appeals: Cases involving juveniles, including delinquency matters and appeals from decisions of juvenile courts.

Overall, the Court of Appeals serves as an intermediate appellate court in the Texas judicial system, reviewing decisions from trial courts to ensure they were made correctly and fairly according to the law.

3. What have been your main accomplishments during your time on this bench?

When I took office, I had three primary initiatives for my first term:

  • 1st was to eliminate the backlog.
  • 2nd was to use my office as a vehicle to promote democratic values.
  • 3rd was to help facilitate our Democratic Primary Process through a series of voter education tools.

I have succeeded in each of these initiatives. But I am not done; I have more to do next term.

4. What do you hope to accomplish in your courtroom going forward?

  • I hope to maintain a prompt docket, writing clear opinions that help explain the law.
  • I want to help develop and support the State Bar of Texas in creating a new specialization called "Effective Administration of Justice." This would create a new credential for judges and help them develop processes to run court dockets better and manage cases.

5. Why is this race important?

The appellate court's role is to provide a forum for the resolution of legal disputes, interpret laws, and ensure that the government's actions align with the principles outlined in the Constitution. The appellate courts ensure a system of checks and balances, promoting accountability and preventing any branch from accumulating unchecked power.

6. Why should people vote for you in March?

  • Education Matters: I hold three law degrees, did my internship at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and am credentialed by the A.A. White Institute in International Commercial Arbitration.
  • Experience Matters: This year, I will celebrate 40 years as a practicing trial lawyer and judge.
  • Family and Life Experience Matters: I come from a long line of strong women. I have raised two strong daughters.
  • Endorsements Matter: AFL-CIO, LGBTQ+, BAND, and others.
  • Caring Matters: More than all the above, I care about the state of our judiciary. Our courts should not be extensions of our political parties but rather a place for reason to prevail.
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Our one page ballot

Good news.

Harris County voters and election workers can look forward to one major improvement in the upcoming March primaries: the county’s lengthy ballot now fits on one piece of paper, rather than two.

The change is due to a recent software upgrade from Hart InterCivic, the manufacturer of Harris County’s voting machines, that allows the ballot to be printed with two columns.

“We typically have one of the largest ballots in the nation,” said Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, who took over election duties in September after the Texas Legislature abolished Harris County’s elections administrator position.

Hudspeth said reformatting the paper ballot was near the top of her list of priorities when she took on the role.

[…]

Harris County had 12,833 spoiled ballots in the Nov. 2022 election, a high volume that resulted from frequent paper jams, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office preliminary audit findings.

Auditors found that multiple voting locations reported problems specifically with the acceptance of the second page of the ballot.

In the weeks after that election, then-Elections Administrator Cliff Tatum called for improvements to the system that would reduce the number of paper jams.

Election judges have been surprised and relieved to hear about the one page ballot, Hudspeth said.

County officials are considering it a big win, as well.

“Clerk Hudspeth and her team deserve a ton of credit for making this change happen,” said Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia’s spokesperson Scott Spiegel. “Doing democracy in Harris County just got a whole heck of a lot more efficient because of this effort.”

Very good to hear, although one wonders what took them so long. Formatting a second column hardly seems like a breakthrough in graphic design or technological innovation. I know enough to know these things can take more time than you’d think they might, but still. Better late than never. And pour one out for Cliff Tatum, who recognized the problem but wasn’t able to be there for the fix.

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Endorsement watch: Really? That guy?

For some reason, the Chron endorses Rep. Harold Dutton in HD142.

Rep. Harold Dutton

As a graduate of Fifth Ward’s storied Wheatley High School, Rep. Harold Dutton has never equivocated on his legislation that enabled the state takeover, or “giveaway,” as Dutton calls it, over poor performance. And he still doesn’t express regret despite drawing two primary challengers who question it.

“When I looked at the reading scores for third graders, it was appalling,” he said of the schools in his district. Sure, he’s pushed for higher literacy standards and more screening for reading disorders for students to get the help they need, but for many he’s simply the guy who brought state-appointed Superintendent Mike Miles to town.

[…]

[T]his board has found common ground with the representative’s sense of urgency around the issue of schools and systems that fail students routinely. We endorsed him in the last primary that he very nearly lost.

This time around, his challengers shared an emphasis on education but both objected to the takeover and the loss of local control. Both were passionate but failed to persuade us they’d be better legislators in this tough political climate than the incumbent has been. Danyahel “Danny” Norris, 43, a studious lawyer, current plaintiff in a legal challenge to Texas voter laws and a former professor who helped expand adult education opportunities as a member of the Harris County Department of Education board, said he would’ve preferred other options, perhaps fining districts with bad scores and reinvesting the funds in struggling campuses. Attempting to manage a district’s budget this way doesn’t strike us as a better idea.

Clint Horn, 48, a personable pastor who works in leadership learning and development at MD Anderson Cancer Center, underscored the need for more accessibility to elected officials, something constituents currently displeased with Dutton might relish.

Their priorities largely overlapped with Dutton’s: fully funding public education, supporting early childhood education and opposing school vouchers, for example.

As for differences, while both challengers dinged Dutton for his decision not to cast a vote on the impeachment of Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, the biggest divide seemed to emerge around transgender-related legislation. Horn described himself as holding a lot of conservative views and also being willing to listen to others. He sided with Dutton on several issues, including bills Dutton supported to require youth athletes to compete only according to their gender assigned at birth and another to ban puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans kids. Norris diverged here saying the bills were overzealous.

My interview with Danny Norris is here. That picture of Dutton, which is from his campaign website, has got to be from his freshman legislative year of 1985. Click on the link to the Chron’s editorial to see something contemporary. If that were his biggest sin I wouldn’t care. It’s time for a change, let’s just leave it at that.

Next, the Chron endorses Bill Burch for Railroad Commissioner.

Bill Burch

Bill Burch recalls being one of the first people on the scene when a blowout on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico caused a massive explosion. As a well-control emergency response expert, he’s been called to help manage oil-related disasters across the globe from Algeria to Kuwait to the Niger Delta.

Few of these disasters, he said, rival the level of groundwater contamination and environmental malpractice he’s seen all across Texas as a result of the lax oversight of Texas’ oil and gas industry. While the Texas Railroad Commission purports to both promote that industry and protect the state’s natural resources, the reality is the agency has, for years, only shown interest in doing half of that job. Christi Craddick, the incumbent Republican chairwoman on the commission whose seat Burch is vying for, is so entrenched in the industry that she owns numerous mineral interests and refuses to recuse herself when the agency makes rulings on companies whose stock she owns.

Burch, 49, brings a level of expertise — and, we would hope, integrity — that is sorely lacking in the agency. He has a deep understanding of the technical complexities of drilling, wastewater disposal and even seismic activity, which has become a significant problem in parts of the oil-rich Permian Basin in West Texas. Even though he’s never run for office or held a government post, there is no question Burch has done his homework on the Commission. He can rattle off the number of districts the agency oversees and the inadequate number of inspectors they employ. If elected, he said he would propose dispersing inspectors across the state to monitor hundreds of oil wells and rigs, and push to raise their pay to attract and retain quality talent. Critically, for an agency that allows oil and gas companies to vent and flare methane and other toxic gases into the air with impunity, Burch said he would reject every requested flaring permit except in emergency situations.

“The Railroad Commission is intentionally set up to be a self-funded, self-regulated industry with lack of resources,” Burch told us. “They don’t want environmental regulations in the state of Texas. Under-funding the agency removes their ability to have any kind of teeth to hold operators accountable and enforce the laws.”

I got nothing for you on this one, I didn’t try to do interviews for this race. Just didn’t have the time to make it a priority. Check out Burch’s website and that of his opponent, Katherine Culbert, to learn more. The Chron cited Culbert approvingly as well, saying she had the proper qualifications but they preferred Burch. At least we don’t have any Grady Yarbrough types this time around. I note with some interest that the Erik Manning spreadsheet shows Culbert as having voted in the last four Republican primaries. That’s always going to stand out – sometimes that means the person is a convert, sometimes it means they’re up to no good. Looking at her website and her personal and campaign Facebook pages I don’t see anything that sets off red flags for me. But look for yourself and see what you think.

The Chron endorses Ashley Mayes Guice for the new Harris County Criminal Court at Law #16.

Ashley Mayes Guice

Fortunately, Harris County Democratic voters have two accomplished primary contenders competing for the bench. Juan J. Aguirre, 57, is a Del Rio native who has been a criminal defense attorney in private practice for nearly two decades, with experience in all 16 misdemeanor and 26 felony courts. Although he has been practicing for nearly a decade more than his opponent, Ashley Mayes Guice, we were more persuaded by the kind of experience Guice has under her belt, and feel certain she would hit the ground running.

Guice, 40, was raised in Katy and has practiced criminal law since 2011, with stints as a prosecutor and as a public defender. She has “sat in every seat in a courtroom a lawyer could possibly sit in,” she told us.

In 2022, after Judge Erica Hughes of Criminal Court-at-Law No. 3 was appointed to a federal immigration bench, Harris County Commissioners Court named Guice her replacement. Guice said she wasted no time in her 11-month tenure, presiding over four jury trials and decreasing the docket size by 20 percent. After the timing of her term didn’t allow Guice to run for the bench as an incumbent, the county court-at-law judges voted to keep her on as staff attorney. That birds-eye view Guice has gained by offering legal and ethical assistance to the judiciary on an administrative level would serve her well as a judge, helping her to run her docket smoothly and efficiently.

We appreciated that both Aguirre and Guice were sensitive to factors that lead to recidivism, as well as issues of indigent defense and mental health jail diversion. But Guice stood out for her evenhanded take on bail, which she was adamant about not using “as an instrument of oppression,” she said, even as she has revoked bonds in cases where someone charged with a misdemeanor went on to commit a higher-level offense.

My judicial Q&A with Ashley Mayes Guice is here, and my Q&A with Juan Aguirre is here. Always nice to have two strong choices.

And finally, the Chron went for another judicial challenger by endorsing Lillian Alexander in the 507th Family District Court.

Lillian Alexander

Judge Julia Maldonado, the county’s longest-serving family judge, is its lowest-ranked. In the 2023 Houston Bar Association poll, 51% of responding lawyers gave her “Needs Improvement,” the lowest grade. For “Demonstrates impartiality,” 52%. For “Follows the law,” 54% flunked her. For “Is courteous and attentive to attorneys and witnesses,” 58%.

She told us that she treats “everyone with dignity and respect” but we’ve seen problems with her temperament during our most recent endorsement screening and ones in the past.

Our editorial board values experience, so we tend to favor incumbents. In this case, Maldonado’s time on the bench leads us to believe that someone else would do a better job.

Her opponent in the Democratic primary, family law attorney Lillian Henny Alexander, promises to run a more respectful courtroom, and one that’s more hospitable to the everyday people who end up there. Alexander, 37, is a graduate of Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law. Being the mother of two young children, she says, makes her especially sensitive to the needs of working families.

“People come to us in crisis,” says Alexander. “For some it’s the first time they’ve ever been in a court. We owe it to them to hold ourselves accountable.”

My Q&A with Judge Maldonado is here. I have just today received Lillian Alexander’s Q&A responses, so you will see them a little later this week. I will take this opportunity to once again implore the Chron editorial board to get back to doing endorsement screenings for the Civil Courts. Not doing so leaves a gaping hole in our knowledge base.

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