Ridiculous. It’s never been easy fighting powerful polluters in Texas. A bill approved by a Senate committee today would make it even harder. With a big push from the Texas Chemical Council and the Texas Association of Business, the Senate Natural Resources Committee voted 6-3 today for legislation “streamlining” (read: weakening) the process that communities [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Harris County Attorney’
County settles with Treasures
It’s over, at least for now. When city of Houston lawyers settled a public nuisance lawsuit against Treasures last December, Harris County attorneys continued to pursue the jointly filed case, saying they needed more assurances from the strip club that it would operate above board. Under a late-Monday settlement with the club, however, county attorneys [...]
City settles with Treasures, county still on the case
Noted for the record. Prominent strip club Treasures, hauled into court as an alleged public nuisance and haven for crime by city and county attorneys seven months ago, has agreed to put $100,000 in a nuisance abatement fund as part of a settlement with the city of Houston, City Attorney David Feldman said. Harris County [...]
Constable Trevino indicted
Lovely. Longtime Precinct 6 Constable Victor Trevino was indicted Friday, accused of failing to report cash campaign contributions, diverting money from his youth charity for personal use and using deputies to serve eviction notices and then keeping the delivery fees. Trevino was charged in four felony indictments alleging abuse of official capacity, misapplication of fiduciary [...]
More strip club cash in the county races
Given the prevalence of strip clubs in Houston, I’m actually a bit surprised we don’t see more of this in our elections. Four people associated with the strip club Treasures have contributed a combined $48,700 to the Republican challengers for Harris County attorney and a civil district judgeship – men who could, if elected, oversee [...]
All the interviews for 2012
As we begin early voting for the November election, here are all the interviews I conducted for candidates who are on the ballot as well as for the referenda. These include interviews that were done for the primary as well as the ones done after the primary. I hope you found them useful. Senate: Paul [...]
30 Day finance reports, Harris County candidates
Here’s a look at the 30 day campaign finance reports for Harris County candidates. All reports can be found by going to the Harris County Clerk campaign finance reports page. Candidate Office Raised Spent Loans Cash ========================================================== Garcia Sheriff 192,670 120,957 0 388,197 Guthrie Sheriff 158,700 48,633 171,000 98,152 Alessi Sheriff 1,019 2,007 700 1,719 [...]
Interview with Vince Ryan
We return to non-referendum races as we enter the last week before early voting. For the first of my last two interviews I have for you a conversation with Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan, who was elected along with Sheriff Adrian Garcia and a slew of other Democrats in 2008. Ryan, who was recently endorsed [...]
Endorsement watch: For the watchdog
The Chron endorses County Attorney Vince Ryan for re-election. Because crime makes more headlines than drawing up contracts for bond issues or conducting reviews of county agencies, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office has a much higher public profile than the Harris County Attorney’s Office. But measuring the relative value and importance of the two [...]
SOS ups the ante against Sumners
It’s getting real at the Tax Assessor’s office. Harris County election officials got a bit of a surprise Friday morning when they attempted to open the county’s spending account on the Texas Secretary of State’s office website and found their access blocked. State officials have temporarily cut off the county’s voter registration funding. “We received [...]
SOS versus Sumners
It’s not a steel cage death match, but it’ll do. In a strongly worded letter today, the Texas Secretary of State’s office told Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar Don Sumners that his decision not to purge presumed-dead voters from the rolls before the Nov. 6 election likely violates the law and compromises the [...]
Who wants to sue over the HCDE election?
Depends who you ask. At a court hearing July 30, the county, both political parties and an attorney for [runoff winner Erica] Lee all said they wanted the department of education’s suit dismissed (the school board wanted it to continue). First Assistant County Attorney Terry O’Rourke said a dismissal would be the most “efficient” thing [...]
HCDE runoff will be held
So ruled a judge yesterday in the ongoing lawsuit filed by the HCDE to void the Democratic primary in Precinct 1 Position 6. The Harris County Department of Education told a federal judge Monday it wants to proceed with the lawsuit as a growing number of parties sought to dismiss the case. Sarah Langlois, general [...]
July campaign finance reports for Harris County candidates
You know the drill by now. Office Candidate Raised Spent Cash Loans ============================================================ Sheriff A Garcia 47,025 41,900 357,818 0 Sheriff L Guthrie 70,176 75,646 33,075 157,000 Sheriff C Pittman 11,309 11,566 5,217 24,000 DA M Anderson 73,888 60,980 33,371 0 DA L Oliver 0 150 0 0 County Atty V Ryan 56,571 33,047 145,606 [...]
Boundary screwup could affect HCDE race
This is just freakin’ great. Because of a mix-up with the new district boundaries, not everyone who was qualified to vote in a school trustee race was able to and some voters who weren’t supposed to, were allowed to cast a ballot. And the implications of all this may be far reaching. There are a [...]
GOP results, Harris County
Bullet points for all these result posts, I was up way too late last night. See the numbers here and the chat transcript from last night here. – You could have sold me on any result in the GOP DA primary going into yesterday, but I definitely did not expect such a wide margin. Mike [...]
Endorsement watch: Madden in HD137
The Chron picks Joe Madden as their preferred candidate to succeed Rep. Scott Hochberg in HD137. In the Democratic primary on May 29, an impressive slate of candidates has come forward to run for Hochberg’s seat representing the 137th District in the Texas House. But one would be hard pressed to find a first-time candidate [...]
Endorsement watch: The list so far
The Chron printed their list of primary endorsements so far yesterday. It’s more impressive for what they haven’t done yet as early voting starts. After a couple of years of getting most of their business done before actual voters started weighing in, this year was back to bad old habits of taking their sweet time. [...]
County Attorney report on Constables
County Attorney Vince Ryan has completed a report his office began in December to examine some of the practices in the Constables’ offices. At that time, the FBI was investigating and was on the verge of arresting now-former Constable Jack Abercia, while Constables Victor Trevino and May Walker were being investigated by the District Attorney [...]
30 day financial reports, Harris County offices
Candidates for county offices who are in contested primaries are also required to submit 30 day campaign finance reports. I’ve been going through the County Clerk’s campaign finance reports page to collect what’s there; ones for Democratic races are on the 2012 Primary page. Since I whined so piteously last time about how sucky the [...]
Constables and eviction notices
This is just wrong. With the help of their taxpayer-funded offices, five Harris County constables have been using a little-known eviction fee to add thousands of dollars a year to their base $120,000 annual salaries. State law allows a constable to pocket fees – ranging from $10 to $20 – for serving a “notice to [...]
January finance reports: Harris County
January is a very busy month for campaign finance reports, since they are due for all levels of government. I’ve been busy updating the 2012 Primary Election pages for Harris County and elsewhere in Texas with reports as I can find them. Here’s an overview of some races of interest in Harris County. I’ll have [...]
County sues over dioxin
More like this, please. Harris County has filed a lawsuit in state court to recover hundreds of millions of dollars from local waste management companies and a Pasadena paper factory responsible for storage of a human carcinogen that has leaked into the San Jacinto River. Named as defendants in the action, which seeks penalties of [...]
Investigations all around
There’s a second grand jury looking into Harris County DA Pat Lykos. Sources close to the investigation said a special prosecutor was appointed last week to look into claims by Shirley Cornelius, a 27-year-veteran of the office, that she was asked to change her time cards to delete accrued compensatory time. Cornelius would not comment [...]
A little perspective about redistricting
So now we wait for the full Supreme Court’s ruling on AG Abbott’s requests to stay the 2012 elections, which by the way would only apply to the elections affected by the disputed redistricting maps. Other primary elections for things like the SBOE, statewide and county offices, would proceed as usual in March while the [...]
Two views of county government
There was an interesting quasi-point/counterpoint in the Sunday op-eds between County Judge Ed Emmett and County Attorney Vince Ryan. I say “quasi” because it’s not really clear they were debating each other, but they were both talking about county government and how it works. Here’s Judge Emmett‘s piece. In the private sector, major companies frequently [...]
Sylvia for Something
So many rumors, so little time. Among those voicing support for the alternative [County Commissioners] map was Sylvia Garcia, who was Precinct 2 commissioner from 2002 until this year. Garcia’s loss – by 2,310 votes – to Republican newcomer Jack Morman in last November’s election was the first time in 36 years an incumbent commissioner [...]
Harris County passes its budget
It’s about what you’d expect. Facing an 11.3 percent drop in revenue, Harris County Commissioners Court passed a budget today that could mean dozens of law enforcement jobs cut or left vacant, hundreds fewer patients receiving mental health counseling and fewer books in county libraries. The $1.23 billion budget reflects a revenue drop of $156.8 [...]
County asks about exemption from drainage fee
Interesting. County Treasurer Orlando Sanchez has asked County Attorney Vince Ryan for an opinion on whether the county has to pay the city of Houston’s new drainage fee. Sanchez already has his own opinion. “You’re getting a government, the city of Houston, starting to dip into multiple jurisdictions’ pots,” Sanchez said. “At some point, you just have [...]
Pollution prosecution
Not really sure what to make of County Commissioner Steve Radack’s proposal to create a new pollution control department that will more aggressively pursue violators. “We have people out there violating the law and they’re polluting,” Radack said. “They’ve been getting away with it for a long, long time while it’s been under the health [...]
Amicus briefs filed in Galveston beach case
Good for you, Vince Ryan. Harris County today joined other public agencies and activists in urging the Texas Supreme Court to reconsider a recent opinion that critics contend blocks public access to most beaches on Galveston island. County Attorney Vince Ryan filed a friend-of-the court brief on behalf of the county and the Texas Conference [...]
Pretrial services
Interesting story about one of the many ways the county’s budget shortfall is manifesting itself. With the blessing of the county attorney’s office, Harris County Pretrial Services has stopped supervising inmates let out of jail on bail, forcing bail bondsmen to more closely monitor their clients and sending judges scrambling to find someone to keep [...]
Ryan issues opinions about poll watching
Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan has issued a couple of opinions relating to poll watching that may help clear things up a bit. The first opinion has to do with where poll watchers may and may not go: Poll watchers are entitled to observe all election activity from the time the electionworkers arrive at the [...]
DOJ gets a call on voter intimidation allegations
Day Two of early voting saw far fewer allegations of voter intimidation and the possible arrival of the Justice Department to keep an eye on things. Responding to complaints that poll watchers were intimidating voters in predominantly minority polling locations, County Attorney Vince Ryan summoned the county chairmen of both major parties to his office [...]