The legislation to create a state water infrastructure fund, and the joint resolution that authorized tapping the Rainy Day Fund for up to $2 billion to seed it, had a rocky road in the legislature and wasn’t completed until the last weekend of the regular session. Now the task is to pass the constitutional amendment [...]
Posts Tagged ‘turnout’
Early voting safe for now
Glad to hear it. A bill that would slash the number of days allowed for early voting is likely to be pulled after scathing testimony Monday from opponents who said the bill was discriminatory and retrogressive. House Bill 2093, by state Rep. Patricia Harless, R-Spring, would limit the early-voting period in Texas to seven days [...]
From the “Turning out more Democratic voters will mean more Democratic votes” department
I think that’s a fair way of characterizing this Texas on the Potomac post. Last November, the Houston Chronicle completed a database analysis of the changing population patterns of the state and the changing voting proclivities of key demographic blocs. Our conclusion: Texas would become competitive by 2020 and a true toss-up state by 2024 [...]
On African-American turnout in city elections
Bill King makes an observation about Ben Hall’s chances in the upcoming Mayoral election. When Lee Brown was elected mayor in 1997, many pundits predicted that with Houston’s growing minority community, Houston had seen its last white mayor. That, of course, proved not to be the case as Bill White and Annise Parker defeated minority [...]
A word with Bird
The Observer interviews Jeremy Bird, the head honcho of Battleground Texas. Texas Observer: Why Texas? Why not Battleground Georgia or Battleground Indiana? Jeremy Bird: One reason is staffers from Texas, whether it’s organizers in battleground states who are from Texas or just the people in our organization who had either worked in Texas during the [...]
Sylvia Garcia wins SD06 runoff
Congratulations, Sen.-elect Sylvia Garcia. Former Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia beat State Rep. Carol Alvarado in the runoff race for the Senate District 6 seat, according to preliminary results. Garcia earned 53 percent of the vote, compared to Alvarado’s 47 percent with 95 percent of precincts counted, according to the Harris County Clerk. Shortly after [...]
Early voting ends in SD06
Early voting ended in the SD06 runoff yesterday. As of when I went to bed, the final daily totals had not been sent out – the daily totals as of Monday, which are here, hit my inbox at 9:30 AM Tuesday, so I don’t really expect them till some time today. I’ll update this post [...]
Day One runoff EV totals
Here’s your Day One runoff EV report for the SD06 election. For comparison purposes, here’s the final report from the first round. This isn’t apples to apples, of course, because there were 12 EV days in Round 1 whereas there will only be seven days this time, but note that the in person total yesterday [...]
Early voting starts today for SD06 runoff
It’s runoff time for SD06. Early voting begins today and runs through Tuesday, February 26. Here are the early voting locations, which are the same as they were for the first round: Location Address 1 Harris County Administration Building 1001 Preston, 1st Floor Houston TX 77002 2 Holy Name Catholic Church 1912 Marion Street Houston [...]
A Republican view of 2014 in Harris County
Big Jolly is feeling pessimistic about his team’s chances in Harris County next year. Now let’s look at who will be on the playing field for us. There will be a lot of statewide action, with unknown Dems – let’s ignore them for now. Sen. John Cornyn is a good conservative senator but at this [...]
It’s Sylvia versus Carol in the runoff
Pretty much as expected. Here’s the vote totals from the County Clerk: Candidate Votes Pct ========================= Garcia 7,416 45.37 Alvarado 6,803 41.62 Bray 1,014 6.20 Olmos 461 2.82 Martinez 403 2.47 Reyes 125 0.76 Selva 73 0.45 Delgado 52 0.32 Two points of interest here. One is that the Election Day vote total was 7,747, [...]
Final SD06 early voting turnout
Here’s the final daily record of early voting in SD06. Tuesday was the strongest day as expected, with a bit over 1,000 ballots being cast, but that just got the total to 8,245. With four more days for mail ballots to arrive, I’d guess the number will ultimately be about 8,500 when the first results [...]
Last day of early voting in SD06 today
Today is the last day for early voting in the SD06 special election. Voting has not been terribly brisk so far. Through Monday there have been 7,178 total votes cast. You can see the daily figures here. Monday was a little slow because of MLK Day and no mail ballots arriving – we’ll see if [...]
January reports for SD06 candidates
Stace beat me to the punch in reporting on the January campaign finance reports for SD06, so I’ll have to one up him by being more obsessive thorough in bringing the numbers. So here we go. Seven of the eight candidates filed a January report for the race. Susan Delgado was the lone exception, but [...]
Three days of early voting in SD06
I’m not sure that the Chron’s classification of early voting so far in SD06 is accurate, but I’m not sure how I myself would characterize it since we have so few precedents to draw on. Three days into early voting, the race to replace the late state Sen. Mario Gallegos continues to heat up, as [...]
Chron overview of SD06
The day before early voting begins in the SD06 special election (which is today), the Chron previews the race. It has a lot of stuff we already know, and it mostly focuses on the two frontrunners, Sylvia Garcia and Rep. Carol Alvarado, so I’m not going to recapitulate that. There are a couple of interesting [...]
Pity the poor judges
It’s hard out here on a judge. For longer than anyone remembers, you had to be a Democrat to be a district judge in Texas – or just about any other political office. When the Democratic Party split apart in the South over civil rights, Republicans gained the upper hand, so much so that by [...]
Early voting is a good thing
I do not understand the point of this article at all. Time was when early voting amounted to a handful of absentee ballots, sent in by the elderly, infirm and conscientious after attesting they would not be able to go to the polls on Election Day. Today it’s open to everyone and accounts for almost [...]
And now a word from the HCDP
Note: The following is a guest post written by Michael Kolenc A week has come and gone since the election, and while we still wait for the provisional ballots to be counted, we can say that the 2012 elections gave Harris County Democrats a reason for celebration. We won elections from the top to the [...]
Today’s the day
At long last, the death march known as Election 2012 will come to an end today, at which time we can begin gearing up for the next elections in 2013, 2014, and 2016, as well as dreading what the Legislature has in store for us. If you haven’t already voted, you can find your Harris [...]
We know the potential, but what’s the plan?
I trust we’re all familiar with the basic points that Eva Longoria and Gilberto Hinojosa make in Politico about Texas’ potential to become a swing state, perhaps by 2016. There’s nothing that Nate Silver didn’t address, and I could just refer to my response to that and leave it be, but there is one more [...]
Elsa Caballero: Public Employee and Janitors Mobilize in Support of City of Houston Bonds
Note: The following is a guest post. For the past month, Houston’s janitors have joined forces with our city’s public employees in favor of the City of Houston bond package and METRO referendum on the ballot this election cycle. Volunteers, made up of HOPE and SEIU Local 1 members, are having voter-to-voter conversations about the [...]
More early voting
Early voting continues to go gangbusters in Harris County – here’s my updated spreadsheet for your perusal. The numbers are certainly impressive, but to keep things in perspective, it’s an increase of about 20% over 2008, whereas 2008 was more than double the turnout of 2004 through Day Four. Year Day 4 total =================== 2004 [...]
Everybody loves early voting now
From the County Clerk’s office: The Chief Election Officer of the County, Stan Stanart, announced [Monday night] that Harris County voters set a new record for voting during the first day of Early Voting in person. 47,093 persons voted on Monday, shattering the November 2008 first day total of 39,201. “We had a record breaking [...]
Traci Jensen’s challenge
I got the following from the Traci Jensen campaign the other day: This past Wednesday morning, Traci and her Republican opponent Donna Bahorich participated in the Greater Houston Partnership’s “Meet the Candidates: State Board of Education” forum. This was the first time Traci and Bahorich had ever met. Three candidates running in two other area [...]