We’re not surprised by this, right? The Texas rhetoric around a key facet of federal health reform — whether the state will expand subsidized insurance to its poorest adults — reached the high water mark on Monday, with back-to-back press conferences at the Capitol featuring political leaders on both sides of the aisle. Republicans including [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Julian Castro’
Gubernatorial speculation: Mike Villarreal and Bill White
A few days back, BOR had a post about who was on deck for 2014, and the first two candidates they speculated about for Governor were two I had not talked about here before, State Rep. Mike Villarreal and 2010 candidate and former Houston Mayor Bill White. (They also listed State Sen. Kirk Watson, but [...]
Meet SWIFT
SWIFT is the State Water Infrastructure Fund for Texas, which would be created by the big water bills of the session, HB4 and SB4. Basically, this is a plan to create a water infrastructure bank, to finance various water projects that the state needs at low interest, with some seed money from the Rainy Day [...]
PPP polls Texas
I have three things to say about this. Texas voters- even Republicans- have had enough of Rick Perry. PPP’s newest poll finds that only 31% of voters think Perry should seek reelection next year, compared to 62% who think it’s time for him to step aside. He’s among the most unpopular Governors in the country, [...]
How about Ellis 2014?
Michael Hurta makes an observation. The only Democratic legislator in Texas who is not up for reelection in 2014 yet also has seven figures in his campaign bank account is Rodney Ellis. Will we hear any Ellis for Governor rumors before session is done? You can see a copy of Sen. Ellis’ January report here. [...]
Optimism abounds at inauguration time
Inauguration time is always a good time to be optimistic. Texas Democrats haven’t had a lot to cheer about in recent years. As San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro is quick to remind you, the political score in Texas is 29-0. In favor of the Republicans. That means 29 Republicans in statewide offices; zero Democrats. But [...]
When, Wendy?
When will Sen. Wendy Davis run for statewide office? Fortified by a convincing re-election victory, state Sen. Wendy Davis is resuming her role as a fierce critic of Republican-led education cuts as she enters her third regular session of the Legislature. Political watchers say the session could set the stage for Davis to run for [...]
What I’ll be looking for tonight
Just a reminder that I’ll be on KPFT tonight starting at 7 PM to talk about the elections. Here’s a preview of the things I’ll be looking for: 1. SD10 – Sen. Wendy Davis vs Mark Shelton: Easily the most important race on the ballot in Texas. Davis has been a progressive champion and a [...]
Draft Julian?
Who wants to see Julian Castro run for Governor in 2014? His fellow Bexar County Democrats, at least. Bexar County Democratic Party Chairman Manuel Medina launched a social media movement last week to draft Castro for the 2014 Texas governor’s race. Medina, who unseated former party Chairwoman Choco Meza in May, describes the push as [...]
Castro puts pre-K on the national stage
In addition to thrusting himself into the national spotlight with his DNC keynote address, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro also brought the discussion about pre-kindergarten education to the fore. Under the biggest spotlight of his political career, Mayor Julián Castro brought national attention Tuesday to his early childhood education initiative. An estimated 26 million people [...]
Don’t forget Joaquin
You can’t have a story about one twin and not have one about the other, am I right? When his minute-older brother gives the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, Joaquín Castro will be nearby, as he always is and has been for big moments in their 37 years as identical twins. On Sept. [...]
Julian Castro is ready for his closeup
Here’s your primer on the rising star, San Antonio Mayor, and DNC keynoter Julian Castro. I’ll let you take it in in all its hagiographic glory, but I’d like to highlight my favorite part, where the authors manage to find someone who Does Not Like Him Very Much and Thinks He Really Isn’t All That: [...]
San Antonio’s pre-k referendum
Houston is chock full of ballot referenda this fall, but the most interesting and potentially consequential one in the state is San Antonio. An initiative from San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro that would direct a portion of sales tax revenue to fund full-day pre-kindergarten unanimously passed the City Council, leaving it for voters to approve [...]
Waiting for Rick (and Greg, and David)
Ross Ramsey breaks out his crystal ball and looks ahead to the 2014 election. Remember this: In his long history in state politics — closing in on three decades — [Rick] Perry has run for everything he said he was going to run for. Given his history, the safest assumption is that Perry will be [...]
Solar’s bright future
Here’s a long story in the Observer about the state of solar energy in Texas. The piece covers a lot of ground, including this bit about what’s going on in San Antonio. San Antonio has emerged as a city willing to turn talk into action and its abundant sunlight into energy to spark what Mayor [...]
The other PPP April polls
In addition to their Presidential poll, Public Policy Polling asked about the Senate race and the future of Rick Perry. In their poll of the GOP Senate primary, they see things tightening up. Every time PPP polls Texas the Republican Senate primary gets closer and closer. What was a 29 point lead for David Dewhurst [...]
San Antonio B-Cycle keeps on growing
It’s very cool to watch. [B-cycle and city officials announced] plans to add three bicycle stations in April, at HemisView Village apartments, the San Antonio Housing Authority park on South Flores Street, and the 1221 Broadway apartments, said Cindi Snell, executive director of San Antonio B-cycle and co-owner of Bike World. That will bring the [...]
San Antonio chooses its solar provider
Nice. Under a bright winter sun Wednesday, CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby introduced the companies selected to build one of the country’s largest solar projects and a solar manufacturing plant in San Antonio, an investment of more than $100 million. OCI Solar Power, whose parent is a South Korean chemical company, will build the solar [...]
Food trucks
The city of San Antonio is preparing to overhaul its regulations of food trucks. In San Antonio, strict mobile food vending laws make it difficult for food trucks to flourish. Acknowledging the need for change, officials are jump-starting a process to get more moveable feasts on the road. City Manager Sheryl Sculley has ordered a [...]
San Antonio moves forward with streetcar plan
San Antonio City Council has voted to approve funding for a five-year transit expansion plan that includes a streetcar line. The vote all but guarantees construction of the city’s first urban rail project since San Antonio ended its electric streetcar operation in 1933. “I do believe what this plan does is it looks forward,” [Mayor [...]
Recycling water
There’s more than one way to conserve water. The city of San Antonio recycles theirs to get the most out of what they have. “During wet seasons, the river functions like any other river would,” says Steve Clouse, the chief operating officer of the San Antonio Water System. “But during the dry seasons, we used [...]
San Antonio City Council extends domestic partnership benefits to city employees
Good for them. On Thursday, words like “abomination,” “sin” and “Satan” were commonplace in City Council chambers as the audience weighed in on a tiny portion of San Antonio’s $2.2 billion budget. The council listened to three hours of public comment on an estimated $300,000 line item that will extend benefits to domestic partners — [...]
There’s more than one way to do it
Really interesting story about the different approaches being taken by Austin and San Antonio to draw clean energy jobs to their towns. While Austin has taken the traditional route of offering various types of incentives to help create a market for clean energy there, San Antonio has leveraged its ownership of its utility company to [...]
House approves Congressional map
Once again, that was quick. Rejecting charges that the GOP plan to redraw congressional district boundaries discriminates against minorities and punishes Austin, the Texas House just tentatively approved the partisan plan 93-48. The new map in a revised Senate Bill 4 divides Travis County into five districts, like a plan approved earlier by the Senate. [...]
San Antonio’s extended term limits
This year for the first time, most candidates on the ballot for San Antonio city offices are not subject to the old term limits law. San Antonio [once] had some of the nation’s strictest term limits for City Council — two 2-year terms and then a lifetime ban on service. Voters in 2008 relaxed those [...]
SAISD’s Trustee elections
I don’t know much about San Antonio ISD or the makeup of its board, but I know they’re about to have some very interesting elections next month. Name the ills of a typical inner-city school district and San Antonio has them all: low academic achievement, high dropout rates, declining enrollment. But the biggest problem, say [...]
Thousands attend the Save Texas Schools rally
Our voices have been heard. Whether we are listened to remains to be seen. Parents, educators, and students from across the state marched to the Capitol Saturday for the Save Texas Schools rally to express their concern over what could amount to a $10 billion reduction in state funding for schools. Initial estimates put attendance [...]
Rally Day
Thanks in part to our only Governor, those attending today’s rally are even more fired up about it. As thousands of teachers, school staffers and parents prepare for a state Capitol rally Saturday against education cuts, they’ve found new recruits and fresh motivation from an unlikely source: Gov. Rick Perry. Reacting to Perry’s comments, some [...]
Castro running for re-election
Not that this was a surprise, but now it’s official. Under picture-perfect skies and surrounded by his family and young people he called the future of San Antonio, Mayor Julián Castro formally launched his re-election bid Sunday. He chose Café College — an effort he launched to help high school students obtain financial aid information [...]
San Antonio still in for Austin rail line
I wish them the very best of luck with this. San Antonio officials will continue to pursue a passenger rail line that one day could connect the Alamo City to Austin, a transit project that’s already been in the works for more than a decade. The city’s endorsement Wednesday of the Lone Star Rail District [...]
Castro gets involved with school politics
This will be interesting to watch. Mayor Julián Castro will take an active role in local school board elections and superintendent appointments, he said in an interview Saturday outside SA2020′s final community workshop, one in which education was heralded as key to the city’s future. Castro, stepping directly into a domain previous mayors have avoided, [...]
Recycling for apartments
The city of San Antonio is taking a big step forward in expanding its recycling program. The new amendment ensures that all families and individuals living in apartments, condominiums, townhomes, high rise condominiums and San Antonio Housing Authority properties have an adequate number of recycling containers in which to dispose of recyclables and that the [...]