Not yet, anyway. But it’s a matter of time. Charles “Rocky” Rhodes is a professor at South Texas College of Law. He says the case that involves the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is narrowly focused. “The provision of DOMA that’s under challenge here is the aspect of DOMA that prohibits the federal government [...]
Posts Tagged ‘California’
Driverless cars in Texas
You have perhaps heard the news that Google’s driverless car has been approved for street usage in California; specifically, California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill that requires the California Department of Motor Vehicles to draft regulations for autonomous vehicles by Jan. 1, 2015. You may be wondering, with varying degrees of wonder or [...]
Techies and the city
The reason why tech companies are eschewing suburban campuses for urban office locations. For as long as many of us can remember, high-tech industries have flourished in the suburban office parks that are so ubiquitous in Silicon Valley, North Carolina’s Research Triangle and other “nerdistans.” But in recent years, high-tech has been taking a decidedly [...]
California-style primaries
I’m deeply skeptical of this. In 2010, California voters approved getting rid of party-based primaries and adopting a “top-two” set-up, sometimes called a jungle primary. This month, the state tried the new primary model in which candidates of all parties ran at once on the same ballot. The top two vote-getters for statewide, congressional and [...]
Another reason why Texas has a high teen pregnancy rate
We’re lousy at sex education. In the mid-1990s, California embraced sex education that teaches students the importance of waiting until they’re older to have sex, but also the value of using protection if they don’t wait. Compare this with classrooms in Texas, where messages around contraception — if they’re delivered at all — have sometimes [...]
Another day in the sun for Wentworth
The longer that the redistricting litigation drags on, the more opportunities there will be for stories to be written about State Sen. Jeff Wentworth and his bipartisan redistricting commission proposal. State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, has been a longtime proponent of creating a redistricting commission to draw new boundaries every 10 years to reflect [...]
Amazon cuts a deal with California
Interesting. Amazon.com cut a tentative deal with legislative leaders Wednesday night that would allow it to postpone collecting sales taxes from Californians for another year. The company in turn would drop its battle to overturn the state’s new law that required it and many other out-of-state online retailers to collect the taxes. Under the deal, [...]
Amazon to push for ballot initiative in California
I believe we are entering “last refuge of the scoundrel” territory here. Amazon said [last] Monday that it would back a California ballot initiative that would roll back a new state law that forces more online retailers to collect sales tax. Amazon’s decision to support the proposed referendum pits the world’s biggest online retailer against [...]
Amazon versus California
It’s getting real in the Golden State. Saying it won’t force California customers to pay sales tax on their Internet purchases, Amazon.com is severing ties with 10,000 small businesses and individuals here who funnel shoppers to the online bazaar through their websites. The defiant action came hours after Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that would [...]
The California view of Texas’ budget situation
I figure the folks at the LA Times enjoyed themselves writing this story. Texas Gov. Rick Perry delights in telling tales of his California “hunting trips” — hunting for businesses ready to flee the Golden State. But the latest budget projections out of Texas have sharply changed the discussion: The Lone Star State is facing [...]
Prop 8 overturned
Good. In a major victory for gay rights advocates, a federal judge on Wednesday struck down a California ban on same-sex marriage. Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to overturn the voter-approved ban, known as Proposition 8, came in response to a lawsuit brought by two same-sex couples and the city of San Francisco [...]
The Valero effect
This is just what all of our cash-strapped local budgets need right now. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is not typically a big player in school finance debates. But an upcoming decision by the commission could strike a major blow to the budgets of many school districts that will have to be made up, [...]
Seeing gold in green
Denying climate change and the adverse effects of carbon dioxide may be official policy of our Republican leaders, but word has apparently not filtered down to the business entrepreneurs whose capitalistic opportunism those Republicans usually lionize. “Energy is the biggest opportunity Silicon Valley has ever seen,” declared T.J. Rodgers, the founder of Cypress Semiconductor and [...]
If we’re looking for revenue to help deal with that budget gap…
We could always follow the lead of many other states and adopt our own climate plan. Already, ten states in the Northeast have put their electric utilities under a cap-and-trade system known as RGGI. Eleven Western states and Canadian provinces are now laying the groundwork for their own cap-and-trade system, known as the Western Climate [...]
Saturday video break: Demon sheep
You really do have to see the now-infamous “Demon Sheep” ad to believe it. Remember that scene from Altered States where William Hurt breaks out of the isolation chamber and eats a deer, and wakes up the next morning with his mouth all bloody? I think the only thing that surprised me about this video [...]
The SUPERTRAIN passes us by
We knew we weren’t going to get much in the way of funding for high speed rail in Texas, but it still kinda stings to see just how little we got. The $3.75 million that the Lone Star State will receive is a sliver of the more than $8 billion distributed, mostly to states that [...]
Election tidbits for 9/23
- KTRK has another round of candidate videos, this time answering the question “How can you help Houstonians get to work?” – Peter Brown sends out another mailer, this one all about his blueprint for an “Even Better Houston”. You can view it here. – Tom Schieffer goes to college. – “Carlyfornia”, here we come. [...]
Rodney Ellis
Nice profile of State Sen. Rodney Ellis, which talks about his propensity for introducing long-shot bills, and his persistence in getting some of them passed over the course of multiple sessions. This bit summarizes it well: “Occasionally, Senator Ellis will pick an issue whose time has not yet come, but that’s the legislative process, in [...]
Solar power
As you know, I’ve been a big advocate for wind energy on this site. Texas has done a lot to make itself a leader in that industry, and I believe it will pay many long-term dividends. But just as we have a lot of wind in this state (insert your own joke here), we also [...]
California breathin’
We may get some cleaner air to breathe here in Texas thanks to California and President Obama. Obama ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to review the Bush administration’s refusal to allow California and 13 other states to set the nation’s toughest vehicle emissions standards. During a ceremony in the White House East Room, Obama signed [...]