From the inbox on Friday: Today the Board of Directors of the Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast ACTION FUND Inc, (PPGCAF) voted to endorse the following candidates for the November City Election. Each of the endorsed candidates has demonstrated a strong commitment to the health and well being of Texas women and families. PPGCAF encourages all [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Andrew Burks’
A first look at the 2013 elections
It is 2013, right? So while we have the SD06 special election and the new legislative session to worry about, it’s not too early to start talking about the 2013 elections. Let’s start with a peek at the campaign finance reports from last July of the Houston officeholders who will be on the ballot this [...]
MFU Houston encounters some resistance
No one ever said updating Houston’s food truck ordinances would be easy. On Tuesday, more than 50 mobile food truck owners and supporters showed up at a council committee hearing to push for changes to the city’s mobile food unit ordinance, saying it would promote economic growth and improve vitality downtown. “The way the ordinance [...]
No term limits referendum this fall
Much as I dislike our silly term limits ordinance, I think this is the correct term of action. A City Council committee on Monday killed a proposal to ask voters whether to give the mayor, controller and council members up to 12 years in office. They currently are limited to six. Councilman Andrew Burks, whose [...]
Council defers on strip club fee
Tagged for a week. Consideration of a $5-per-head fee on customers of strip clubs to pay for reducing the city’s backlog of untested rape kits has been delayed for a week. Council members Melissa Noriega and Al Hoang both tagged the item, a parliamentary maneuver that puts off an agenda item for one week, no [...]
Budget amendment time
Now that Mayor Parker has formally submitted her proposed budget for fiscal year 2013, it’s time for Council members to submit their amendments for consideration. I’m going to start at the bottom of the story with the two proposals that intrigues me the most. Two members called for a November election to amend the city’s [...]
Two cities, one argument about airports
Turns out Houston isn’t the only city squabbling with United Airlines about airport expansions. There’s a similar fight going on in Chicago. Mayor Rahm Emanuel has gotten tough with the teachers union and muscled the City Council. But will he mess with somebody his own size? Mr. Emanuel is at odds with airline boss Jeff [...]
Council is skeptical of Hobby International
Not so clear skies for expanding Hobby Airport into an international terminal. A consultant’s study that forecasts an economic boon for Houston if Hobby is made into an international airport came under fire from city council members Monday as “biased” and “custom-made just to satisfy the demand of Southwest” Airlines, which is asking the city [...]
Tag this
Live by the pointless parliamentary maneuver, die by the pointless parliamentary maneuver. City Councilwoman Helena Brown’s colleagues, after weeks of frustration over her delays of what they consider vital city business, reached the limit of their patience Wednesday and twice took the unusual step of quashing her parliamentary maneuvers and admonished her to stop. [...] [...]
January finance reports: City of Houston
Yes, I know, there are no city of Houston elections this year. (Not yet, anyway.) But the candidates and officeholders have to file reports anyway, covering the period from their last report through the end of the year. That period may be from eight days before the December runoff, eight days before the November election, [...]
Runoff precinct analysis, At Large #2
One of Santa’s election elves came by on Friday with a delivery of Harris County precinct data for the 2011 runoff elections. You can guess how I spent some of my weekend. Before I launch into the numbers, here are a few caveats about them. First and foremost, this is the first election under the [...]
Don’t draw broad conclusions from muddled evidence
I have a number of issues with the analysis presented in this Chron story about what happened in the runoffs and What It All Means. The results illustrate a continuation of a national trend of anger and frustration toward government during the worst economic stretch since the Great Depression, political observers said. In short: Voters [...]
Christie, Burks, Davis, Brown
Those are your runoff winners. Jack Christie’s victory was the most dramatic, coming in his fifth attempt to defeat Jolanda Jones, an opponent he had forced into multiple runoff elections. Helena Brown was the other candidate who beat an incumbent, defeating Brenda Stardig by a 10 percent margin for the District A seat, according to [...]
November was like 2007, December is more like 2005
Here’s the daily report for the first six days of Early Voting in the runoff. There have been 17,568 votes cast so far, with today still to go. That means there have been more early votes cast in Harris County than there were in the entire 2007 runoff, when 11,374 ballots were cast before Runoff [...]
Runoff overview: At Large #2
For a guy who’s run multiple campaigns for Council – more than he can remember – Andrew Burks is somewhat of a cipher. Let’s see what the Chron overview of the At Large #2 runoff says about perennial candidate Andrew Burks. Andrew Burks Jr. is harder to pin down. He’s a lifelong black Democrat who [...]
Eight day runoff finance reports
Seven of the eight campaign finance reports for the runoff have been posted; all but Jack Christie’s were available online as of last night. Let’s have a look at them. First up, District A: Candidate Raised Spent Loans Cash on Hand ==================================================== Stardig 74,103 42,308 0 81,023 Brown 13,840 13,340 0 4,409 Helena Brown may [...]
Early voting for city runoffs begins today
You remember that we have runoff elections for four Houston City Council positions, right? Well, early voting starts today and runs through next Tuesday, December 6. Here are the early voting locations that will be open for the runoff. Early voting will run from 7 AM to 7 PM each day except Sunday the 4th, [...]
Looking ahead to the runoffs
The runoff election for the city of Houston will be Saturday, December 10. It’s going to be an extremely low turnout affair – as was the case with the general election, I expect the runoff to have about the same level of turnout as the 2007 runoff, in which 25,382 ballots were cast. Look at [...]
Saggy pants
I’m not much of a candidate forum attender, but I wish I had gone to this one. Half-a-dozen candidates in runoff City Council elections each made his or her case as champion of the downtrodden before a mostly black and Latino audience at a Fifth Ward church on Saturday afternoon. Council aide Alvin Byrd faces [...]
Early voting for city runoffs begins today
You remember that we have runoff elections for four Houston City Council positions, right? Well, early voting starts today and runs through next Tuesday, December 6. Here are the early voting locations that will be open for the runoff. Early voting will run from 7 AM to 7 PM each day except Sunday the 4th, [...]
Precinct analysis: 2011 At Large #2
What can you say about a ten-candidate pileup? Let’s start by seeing what the district numbers look like: Dist Thibaut Perez Burks Goss Fraga Dick Pool Griff Robinson Shorter ==================================================================================== A 15.69% 17.99% 13.94% 3.03% 6.93% 11.67% 6.41% 11.35% 9.75% 3.25% B 8.93% 6.65% 31.58% 1.83% 4.70% 4.43% 5.48% 3.93% 18.52% 13.94% C 18.49% 10.79% [...]
More thoughts on the Council elections
One district at a time… – I confess that I did not see the District A result coming. Helena Brown did raise a decent amount of money since entering the race at the filing deadline, about $22K through the end of October, which makes me wonder how she might have fared if she had gotten [...]
2011 Houston results
Let’s go through the races… – Mayor Parker won with a shade under 51%, with none of her opponents cracking 15% on their own. Obviously, this is not a position a Mayor with no serious opposition wants to be in, and it won’t surprise anyone if one or more potential opponents for 2013 are on [...]
Eight day finance reports, part II
Finishing what I started… – Fernando Herrera‘s report appeared on Tuesday. He raised $15,835, spent $27,185, and has $242.87 on hand. There were several expenditures on signs and a couple for “Advertising” that didn’t give me much of a clue about what kind of advertising they may be – there were two items totaling $4060 [...]
Filing deadline today
Today is the last day to file for the November 2011 election, which means that today is the day we separate the contenders from the pretenders and see which perennials will bloom on the ballot. There are no surprises so far, but as always it ain’t over till it’s over. As of the close of [...]
At long last, HCC campaign finance statements
As you know, I had sent an Open Records request to the HCC General Counsel to get copies of July campaign finance reports for all HCC Trustees and candidates. I sent that in on August 10, and the reply I got said I would have a reply within 10 business days. Sure enough, exactly two [...]
Tuesday late filers report
This is a semi-regular tracker of late campaign finance report filings for City of Houston elections. I’ll keep this up until either everyone has filed, or we all get sick of it and I move onto other trivial obsessions. With that said, here are today’s contestants: 1. Andrew Burks, District D. Burks actually filed his [...]
HCDE moves to eject Wolfe
The strange saga of Harris County Department of Education Trustee Michael Wolfe takes another weird turn. The Harris County Board of Education has voted to begin legal proceedings to kick Trustee Michael Wolfe off the board. Fellow trustee Jim Henley said the movement to oust Wolfe is based on his numerous absences and Wolfe’s “lack [...]
Runoff precinct analysis, At Large Council races
Continuing on with the precinct analyses from the runoff, here’s a look at the City Council At Large races. First up, At Large #1: Dist Derr Costello Derr% Cost% ==================================== A 7,200 8,160 46.9 53.1 B 5,737 4,859 54.1 45.9 C 9,001 9,870 47.7 52.3 D 11,804 7,487 61.2 38.8 E 5,754 9,154 38.6 61.4 [...]
Initial thoughts on the runoffs
I’ll go through them one race at a time, with the unofficial vote totals minus Montgomery County for each. Once I have precinct results, I’ll go through those and do a more detailed analysis. Mayor Annise Parker – 81,971, 52.78% Gene Locke – 73,331, 47.22% This was perhaps a bit closer than one might have [...]
Eight days out finance reports, At Large candidates
Continuing on with our look at the eight days out reports, here’s how things stack up for the At Large Council candidates in the runoffs. Candidate Raised Spent Loans Cash PAC $$ PAC % =============================================================== Derr 26,692 13,034 5,000 5,487 8,650 32.4 Costello 193,225 165,200 15,000 16,065 71,000 36.7 Candidate TV Radio Mail Phone Field [...]
What the others are saying about Hotze’s endorsement
So here’s the Chron coverage of the Hotze endorsement. Of the many things I find unfathomable about this, here’s the item at the top of the list. Kris Banks, president of Houston’s GLBT Political Caucus, which has endorsed Parker, questioned why Locke did not distance himself from Hotze. “He came to us seeking our endorsements, [...]
Hotze endorses Locke
It’s what we’ve all been waiting for, and now it’s on its way to a mailbox near you, as local hatemeister Steven Hotze has endorsed candidates in all six City of Houston runoffs and sent a mail piece out touting his preferred slate. Martha has all of the scans of the mailers. Pay particular attention [...]
Lovell v. Burks
And here’s the Chron story on the At Large #2 runoff, featuring Council Member Sue Lovell and Andrew Burks. Unlike Jones v. Christie, my opinion that CM Lovell will retain her seat is much more common. Burks does have a base of support in the African-American community, where he’s picked up several endorsements, but I [...]