Talarico rakes it in

Impressive.

Rep. James Talarico

State Rep. James Talarico raised $6.2 million in the first three weeks of his bid for Senate, his campaign announced Wednesday, a massive haul that far outpaces the earliest fundraising numbers tallied by recent Democratic statewide hopefuls.

The staggering total establishes Talarico as an immediate fundraising juggernaut and gives him an early edge over his rival in the Democratic primary, former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who announced a $4.1 million haul over the three months since his July 1 campaign launch.

Last cycle, when he kicked off his challenge to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Allred took two months to bring in the $6.2 million Talarico raised in three weeks. Beto O’Rourke, who set a new standard for Democratic fundraising in his 2018 run against Cruz, needed nine months to raise that same amount.

Talarico’s donations came from more than 125,000 individual contributors across more than 230 Texas counties and all 50 states, according to his campaign. Almost every contribution — 98% — was for $100 or less, with teachers making up the largest share of donors. Talarico’s campaign said it was the most a Senate candidate of either party has raised in the first quarter of their campaign in Texas history.

[…]

Allred’s haul came from more than 100,000 donations averaging $32 each, according to the former Dallas congressman’s campaign, which reported zero corporate PAC donations.

“Colin’s campaign is powered by working people, not special interests,” Allred campaign manager Dan Morrocco said in a statement. “This is a grassroots movement with real staying power.”

See here for the background. Give Talarico his props, that’s a lot of money in a short period of time, and it suggests he will have the ability to raise a lot more. Allred’s total isn’t bad either, and would be reasonably impressive on its own without Talarico in the race. Another way to look at this is that the two of them have combined to raise over $10 million in Q3, and that sure sounds like some enthusiasm on our side to me. Maybe Terry Virts can make that even more impressive, we’ll see. Now we need for some of that – okay, a lot of that – to trickle down to the other races. We can do this. I’m very much looking forward to seeing the Q3 fundraising reports. The Barbed Wire has more.

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Bexar County processing new voter registrations again

Good news.

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Bexar County is once again processing new voter registrations, after a months-long delay caused a backlog of 52,000 registrations to wait in limbo.

Early voting starts Oct. 20 for the Nov. 4 election.

Elections Administrator Michele Carew told reporters Monday that all outstanding applications will be processed before then, and new voters should receive their registration card in the mail before Election Day.

[…]

While most of the state has little on its ballot this November, Bexar County is voting on a pair of big-ticket ballot initiatives, Props. A and B, that could decide the future of a new downtown Spurs arena and East Side rodeo grounds.

It also had one the biggest backlogs of unprocessed registrations among the counties rolling over, according to Votebeat.

Carew said Monday that she didn’t see any evidence Props. A and B were drawing a rush of new voter interest.

Rather, a normal amount of new registrations stacked up into a big backlog because the state system had stopped accepting them for its TEAM update, and then weeks later, Votec also went down.

“There was a time period where nobody was allowed to put in any type of voter registration to the system,” Carew said. “That snowballed with Votec closing, and that’s when we had to completely halt.”

Texas election officials were all in Austin for a conference right after the Votec news, Carew said, and immediately began huddling with the Secretary of State’s office on a plan for this November.

Bexar County will use the free TEAM system this election, then transfer to a new private vendor, VR Systems, which has some additional features.

Though local leaders have gone to great lengths to avoid using state’s system in the past, Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai said that in this case, they’re lucky for the state’s help.

“They have been engaged, responsive and supportive throughout this process,” he said.

See here for more on the Bexar issues, and here for more on similar problems at the state level. I’m glad to hear that this is getting resolved, and that the state was a good partner in doing so. A low bar to clear, but we take nothing for granted these days. I hope the new system Bexar County implements has fewer problems than the old one.

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Second Baptist’s shenanigans

Let them fight.

For nearly 50 years, the RevEd Young led a Houston conservative megachurch that now boasts 94,000 congregants, $1 billion in assets and high-profile members like Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, leading oil executives and prominent business leaders.

That ended on May 26, 2024, when Young said he was stepping down as senior pastor of Second Baptist Church. His son, the Rev. Ben Young, would replace him. At the time, the congregation accepted the transition of power.

More than a year later, Second Baptist is now at war with its own members. In April, a group of congregants, calling themselves the Jeremiah Counsel, filed a lawsuit against church leaders. They claim the church fraudulently passed bylaws that not only allowed Ben Young to be named senior pastor behind closed doors, but stripped the congregation of all voting rights — consolidating power in the hands of a few trustees selected by the Youngs. They want the old bylaws reinstated.

Second Baptist may have the financial means to fight it out in court, but so does the opposition.

Jeremiah Counsel’s leaders include Doug Bech, a retired securities lawyer and founder of Raintree Resorts International who has personally given millions of dollars to the church over the last 36 years; Edd Hendee, founder of the nationally known restaurant, Taste of Texas; and Jim Montague, retired president of IP Petroleum Company.

“Right now a little group of people, mostly family members, can do what they wish with the assets of Second Baptist, and we could not legally stop it,” said Archie Dunham, a longtime church member, a former executive at ConocoPhillips and supporter of the Jeremiah Counsel.

Second Baptist’s spokesman and lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. However, in court filings, the church fought back against the allegations.

“A small group of disgruntled members of the church, unwilling to file this case in their own names, formed… a sham corporation used as a surrogate to pursue their ultimate goal of remaining in or controlling church leadership,” the church wrote.

The church recently secured a protective order that could ban the general public from seeing certain court documents. A trial is set for February.

It’s unclear who will emerge the winner in the court battle. What is clear, experts say, is what this case is all about — the balance of power in one of the region’s largest and more influential churches.

“There are different variations, but it’s always the same,” said Matt Anthony, an Irving attorney who specializes in church and nonprofit law. “It all boils down to who has the power.”

[…]

Unlike most civil suits in Harris County, the church lawsuit – upon Second Baptist’s request – was transferred to Houston’s nascent business court. The courts, created statewide in 2024, don’t have a long enough history to predict how they’ll receive such a lawsuit, said Anthony, the attorney specializing in church and nonprofit law.

Second Baptist requested the business court because of the scale of financial assets in play, according to the church’s documents.

See here for some background. You can read the rest, it’s mostly an inside-baseball story. I have no dog in this fight. I’m kind of amused that this will be heard in the dumb new business court, which has Abbott-appointed judges. Seems fitting.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of October 1

The Texas Progressive Alliance wonders if it really is decorative gourd season yet as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading

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Interview with Desmond Spencer

Desmond Spencer

We wrap up our tour of the HCC districts with Desmond Spencer, one of two opponents to incumbent Renee Jefferson Patterson in District II. (The other opponent is Kathy lynch Gunter, who had also run for this seat in a special election in 2022; you can listen to the interview I did with her then here.) Spencer is an Air Force veteran who founded a consulting firm to help underserved and disadvantaged applicants navigate the graduate school admissions process after his service. He is a policy advisor to Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia and for the last two years has been an adjunct professor of Texas government at HCC. Here’s what we talked about:

PREVIOUSLY:

Felicity Pereyra, HISD District I
Bridget Wade, HISD District VII
Audrey Nath, HISD District VII
Maria Benzon, HISD District V
Michael McDonough, HISD District VI
Monica Flores Richart, HCC Distict I
Renee Jefferson Patterson, HCC District II

More information about the candidates for these and other races can be found in the Erik Manning spreadsheet, where large language models go when they don’t know what to say. Next week we get into the Houston City Council At Large #4 race.

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Rep. Gina Hinojosa said to be running for Governor

All righty.

Rep. Gina Hinojosa

Texas state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat, has told at least two donors that she’s running for governor next year, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: A Hinojosa win in the Democratic nomination would set up a battle with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, seeking a fourth term, for the state’s Latino vote.

What they’re saying: “I’m running for governor,” Hinojosa told an Austin-area Democratic donor in an email. The donor did not want to be identified because it was a private exchange.

  • Hinojosa’s campaign did not respond to an interview request, but Austin political consultant David Butts, an adviser to her campaign, tells Axios “she’s going to get in” — likely in the next couple of weeks.

[…]

💰 Follow the money: Abbott’s campaign has a king’s ransom available to buy ads and mobilize voters — more than $86 million in cash on hand as of mid-July.

  • Hinojosa’s campaign, by contrast, had a shade under $25,000 in cash on hand in its mid-July filing.
  • Several other Democrats have already said they’re running, including Andrew White, a Houston businessman and son of the late Gov. Mark White. He has not yet filed a campaign finance report this election cycle.
  • The filing deadline for primary candidates is Dec. 8.

Zoom in: The daughter of legal aid lawyers from Mission, Hinojosa went to high school in Brownsville before heading to Austin to attend the University of Texas — she graduated from the Plan II Honors program and then earned a law degree from George Washington University.

  • She was elected to the Austin ISD school board in 2012 and first won her House seat, which covers central Austin, in 2016.

See here for the first mention we had of Rep. Hinojosa’s potential candidacy. She would join Andrew White, Benjamin Flores, and Bobby Cole if she follows through. Which I expect she will, as this very much has the feel of a rollout. And then, as is the case for everyone else running statewide, she’ll need to start raising some money. I look forward to the formal announcement.

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Zoox seeks broader regulatory approval

Another step towards offering their robotaxi service.

Zoox has asked federal regulators for an exemption that would allow the Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company to commercially deploy its custom-built robotaxis, which lack traditional controls like pedals and a steering wheel.

The exemption request was first reported by Bloomberg. A Zoox spokesperson confirmed that it has submitted a petition for a “555 exemption” and continues to work closely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration through this new exemption process.

An NHTSA spokesperson told TechCrunch that Zoox applied for a temporary exemption from eight Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards applicable to its passenger car equipped with an automated driving system. The NHTSA is reviewing Zoox’s application and will publish a notice seeking public comment after the agency conducts its initial review.

The request follows two milestones that put Zoox closer to operating a commercial robotaxi service.

Earlier this month, Zoox launched a free robotaxi service that is open to the public in Las Vegas. And in August, the NHTSA gave Zoox an exemption to demonstrate its custom-built robotaxis on public roads.

While the August exemption cleared up a long-standing debate over whether Zoox’s custom-built autonomous vehicles complied with federal motor vehicle safety standards, it only covered research and demonstrations on public roads. This latest application is separate and would broaden the scope and pave the way for Zoox to launch a commercial robotaxi service.

That Bloomberg story is paywalled, or I’d have used it as the source. Zoox is currently doing a demo in Las Vegas, in a limited area and using fixed routes. The goal of this approval is to let them compete as a proper robotaxi service, where cities like Austin are in the wings. Since it seems that these things are designed to be easy and not too expensive to manufacture, they could ramp up very quickly once they get that approval. Which I expect they will, though how long it will take is not clear to me.

As noted, Zoox is demo-ing in Las Vegas. Here’s one person’s experience with that.

I test rode Zoox on two trips around the Vegas strip on a course prescribed by the company and one trip from the Resorts World casino to the Luxor hotel, a distance of 3.17 miles.

I summoned a Zoox for a ride to Luxor like I would an Uber, Lyft, or Google’s Waymo: I opened the app and entered my origin and destination. The primary difference is that rides are limited to a few select destinations, not an entire service area. Another is that the service is currently free. Zoox has not provided any information on pricing once paid rides begin.

Unlike Waymos, which are retrofitted Jaguar SUVs, Zoox are purpose-built. The car has floor-to-ceiling clear doors on each side. There is no steering wheel and no pedals. The car can hold four people, two on each side facing each other. That is great for conversation, but if more than two of you get motion sickness when traveling backwards, Zoox is not the vehicle for you.

The seats in the Zoox vehicles are public-transit comfortable, which is to say they’re not. Within a minute of sitting down, my back was uncomfortable. Within 10 minutes, my butt was numb.

The interior is spartan. Each side of the Zoox has two Qi charging pads. Of course, there are cupholders. There is also a touch-screen panel that shows the time remaining on the trip. I could adjust the temperature and play music from its selected stations.

On one ride, my Zoox suddenly slowed to a crawl. I couldn’t see an obvious reason and Zoox public relations didn’t respond to a request for an explanation. It eventually unglitched and the rest of the ride was uneventful. On another ride, it correctly waited as an ambulance took a left across our path. The human driver behind us wasn’t patient, honking immediately after the ambulance passed.

One nice touch: Zoox doesn’t have the annoying ticking of the turn-signal indicator while you wait to make a turn. That shows the value of a purpose-built car; you don’t have to carry forward elements that were built for a different era.

Otherwise, the rides were unremarkable — which is the way it should be. After riding Waymos around San Francisco, I have no qualms about riding in autonomous vehicles (AVs). They are safe drivers, sometimes annoyingly so. AVs follow the rules as if a DMV tester were riding shotgun, evaluating every maneuver.

I dunno. I’m not the target audience for this – I’d rather take public transit if available, and if not I’ll just get a human-driven vehicle. I do believe that autonomous vehicles will be safer than human-driven vehicles – Waymo’s track record so far shows that they already are very safe – but there are enough bugs to work out in the overall experience that I’m in no rush. I don’t mind talking to a driver, I don’t mind listening to their choice of music, I’d like to be able to deal with a person if something unexpected comes up. You do you, but I have no desire to be a beta tester or early adopter.

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Interview with Renee Jefferson Patterson

Renee Jefferson Patterson

We continue our visit with the candidates for HCC Trustee. Today we move into District II, where incumbent Renee Jefferson Patterson was appointed to fill the seat earlier this year after Charlene Ward Johnson was elected to HD139. Patterson is herself an HCC graduate, and is the founder and owner of a premier design firm specializing in luxury residential, commercial, and construction design, after having spent fifteen years in HR in the energy industry. She was a candidate for Houston City Council District B in 2019, which had a bit of drama associated with it. She’s now running for her first full term as Trustee against two opponents. Here’s what we talked about:

PREVIOUSLY:

Felicity Pereyra, HISD District I
Bridget Wade, HISD District VII
Audrey Nath, HISD District VII
Maria Benzon, HISD District V
Michael McDonough, HISD District VI
Monica Flores Richart, HCC Distict I

More information about the candidates for these and other races can be found in the Erik Manning spreadsheet, which has powers beyond the comprehension of mortal men. More from HCC tomorrow.

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Redistricting trial 2.0 begins

And they’re off.

This week, a trio of federal judges will consider whether Texas can use its new congressional map in the 2026 election, marking the first legal test for the districts produced by a summer of intense partisan clashing.

State lawmakers redrew the electoral lines with the goal of adding five more Republican seats from Texas to the GOP’s narrow House majority. But a cadre of individuals and advocacy groups now argue this unusual mid-decade redistricting is unconstitutional on several fronts, including that lawmakers illegally relied on race and drew a map that violates Black and Hispanic voters’ rights to equal protection.

They are asking the court to stop the state from using the map for the fast-approaching midterms, which would likely mean reverting to the most recent version passed in 2021 and used in each of the last two elections. The state, meanwhile, argues the new lines should stand because they were drawn with the nakedly political — yet court-sanctioned — motive of winning more GOP seats, without regard for race.

The hearing, which begins Wednesday in El Paso, will stretch for nine days. The three-judge panel, which is also overseeing an ongoing lawsuit against the four-year-old maps, will then issue a ruling on whether the new districts can be used in the midterm and, if not, which map should be used instead.

As both sides, and all three judges, are acutely aware, time is short. The filing deadline for candidates is Dec. 8, with other election administration deadlines approaching even faster.

“All of this, every part of this, is about the clock right now,” said Justin Levitt, a voting rights expert at Loyola Law School. “The plaintiffs want an answer as soon as possible. Texas wants to stall like crazy. All of this is about what’s going to get a court to deliver an answer before the next election.”

The case turns on a familiar argument, with plaintiffs arguing in one of their motions for a preliminary injunction that, if the districts are allowed to stand, “Latino and Black Texans will be irreparably harmed, deprived of their right to exercise their voting rights on equal terms with Anglo Texans.”

As with the 2021 map, the state is rebutting those claims by contending the maps were drawn “race-blind.” Their court filings have also embraced the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2019 ruling that the courts cannot intervene to stop partisan gerrymandering, as long as the map in question abides by other constitutional protections.

It was Trump’s demand for more GOP seats and the ensuing “political arms-race that motivated Texas legislators to redistrict mid-decade, not race,” the state wrote last week. Quoting Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the state said, “as is often the case, ‘when Donald Trump says jump, the Republicans simply ask how high.’”

[…]

It will be up to the three judges to sort through similar claims from the different plaintiff groups to determine whether the map should be allowed to remain in effect.

A preliminary injunction is typically an extraordinary measure, granted by a court only when they believe the plaintiffs are likely to succeed at trial and there is potential harm to wait that long to intervene.

These same players, from the judges to the plaintiffs to many of the witnesses, have been locked in litigation with each other for four years. Because the judges have yet to rule on the 2021 maps, it’s hard to predict how they might handle this request, Levitt said.

But returning to El Paso so soon after the monthlong trial concluded, it’s safe to anticipate some tension from everyone involved, he said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the three-judge panel hearing this case is crazy frustrated,” he said. “Four years of [this case], and then Texas just comes in with an Etch-A-Sketch redraw that basically erased their work.”

See here for the previous update. I have no idea what to expect. I do think there’s a fighting chance that the plaintiffs could get an injunction, but I have a hard time believing that the Fifth Circuit and SCOTUS would allow it to stand. One tries to be hopeful anyway. We’ll see how combative the hearing gets. Michael Li shares an excellent guide to the claims and districts that will be at issue, and Houston Public Media and Democracy Docket have more.

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Rep. Rosenthal to run for RRC

A bit of a surprise, at least to me.

Rep. Jon Rosenthal

State Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, announced Monday that he is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission — the powerful agency that regulates the state’s oil and gas industry — rather than seeking reelection in next year’s midterms.

Rosenthal has served in the Legislature’s lower chamber since 2019 and is an oilfield mechanical engineer by trade. He said both those experiences uniquely qualify him to oversee Texas’ energy industry.

“I’m running for Texas Railroad Commissioner to bring accountability and common-sense solutions to an agency that desperately needs both,” Rosenthal said in a statement. “Texans deserve a commissioner who understands both the technical and policy sides of energy. That’s me.”

The commission is made up of three members who are elected to serve six-year terms, staggered so that one seat is on the ballot every two years. If Rosenthal emerges as the Democratic nominee, he would be in line to face Commission Chair Jim Wright, a Republican who has announced for reelection and will have to make it out of his own primary next year.

Rep. Rosenthal is a top-tier Good Guy – he’s good on policy, he’s good on being involved with GOTV efforts, and he’s just a good person. I haven’t spoken to him about this, so I don’t know if he decided there was a real chance to win this cycle, if he’d rather take a big leap than spend another session in the hell that the Lege has become, something else, or some combination. Whatever the reason, he’ll be an asset to the ticket and a massive upgrade over any of the current incumbents. As of the July finance report, he had $42K on hand, so he has some work to do there. I wish him all the best.

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Interview with Monica Flores Richart

Monica Flores Richart

This week we will feature the HCC Trustee races and candidates. Three Trustees are up for a six-year term, though only two of them have opponents; trustee Cynthia Lenton-Gary has no challenger for District VII. The incumbent in District I is Monica Flores Richart, who did us all the huge favor of beating Dave Wilson in 2019. (Wilson has since claimed another one of his warehouses as a residence and is the Trustee in District IV; we’ll deal with him again in 2027.) Richart is an attorney who has also served as a political consultant, and she worked in the Harris County Clerk’s office on projects to implement countywide voting, extended voting hours, and greater accessibility to underserved communities. She now has a MAGAfied opponent who is being backed by Dave Wilson, which makes this a very important race. I’ve known Monica for almost 20 years, I think she’s one of our most thoughtful elected officials, and I urge you to support her re-election. My interview with her from the 2019 campaign is here, and my interview with her for this year’s campaign is below:

PREVIOUSLY:

Felicity Pereyra, HISD District I
Bridget Wade, HISD District VII
Audrey Nath, HISD District VII
Maria Benzon, HISD District V
Michael McDonough, HISD District VI

More information about the candidates for these and other races can be found in the Erik Manning spreadsheet, which is part of any nutritious breakfast. More from HCC tomorrow and Wednesday.

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Recall Houston says it will start collecting petition signatures

Okay.

Mayor John Whitmire

Could Houston voters soon decide the fate of Houston Mayor John Whitmire?

Experts say it’s an extremely long shot, but a group of Houstonians will start collecting signatures next week to remove the mayor from office.

Mayor Whitmire has been in office for more than a year and a half.

Recall for Houston was formed soon after he took office, and you might see its members out and about collecting signatures around town starting on Oct. 6.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t worried about the future of the city,” Alejandro Alegria with Recall for Houston said. “Whitmire has already done an immeasurable amount of damage.”

[…]

Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the group’s effort is that, based on the city’s current population, members would need to collect more than 63,000 signatures within 30 days just to get the recall on the ballot.

That’s more than 2,000 signatures a day.

All of those signatures must be from registered voters in the city of Houston.

“They’ll have to probably collect about 100,000 signatures to be certain that they have enough valid signatures during the 30-day window,” Jones explained. “What will happen is that you’ll have people that will sign but they won’t be registered voters or they won’t be registered in the city of Houston.”

See here, here, here, and here for some background. I will note that the group’s name is Recall Houston, not “Recall for Houston”, but that’s the least of their problems. I will also note that they did not file a finance report for July, so at least as of then they had no funds with which to carry out this effort. That seems like a pretty big obstacle, but perhaps they have been busy working on that, in a manner sufficiently under the radar that no one noticed it.

They did say they would start this effort in the fall, so kudos for that. I suppose the reason for beginning now is so that canvassers can station themselves at early voting locations, which at least eases the concern about ensuring that only registered voters are signing; the Houston-versus-not-Houston issue can be dealt with by asking people if they’re voting in the At Large #4 race, I suppose. Easier said than done, if you’ve ever hung out at a busy EV location, and this will require a lot of volunteer (or paid person) time and effort, but it is a strategy. We’ll see how it plays out for them. Oh, and if they succeed, I presume this means that the recall election itself would be next May. Campos has more.

Posted in Election 2025, Election 2026 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The National Weather Service is basically broken

It’s being held together by duct tape and twist ties, and it’s all the fault of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, all those Project 2025 assholes, and every cowardly Republican in Congress.

Some National Weather Service staffers are working double shifts to keep forecasting offices open. Others are operating under a “buddy system,” in which adjacent offices help monitor severe weather in understaffed regions. Still others are jettisoning services deemed not absolutely necessary, such as making presentations to schoolchildren.

The Trump administration’s cuts to the Weather Service — where nearly 600 workers, or about 1 in every 7, have left through firings, resignations or retirements — are pushing the agency to its limits, according to interviews with current and former staffers.

The incoming head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has promised to prioritize filling those jobs, and the White House recently granted the Weather Service an exemption from a government-wide hiring freeze. But as the Atlantic hurricane season peaks and wildfires ramp up in the West, hundreds of positions remain vacant, staff said. Forecasters are currently watching two storms, including one that could pose a threat for the eastern United States by early next week.

So far, exhausted employees have maintained weather monitoring and forecasting almost without interruption, staff said. But many are wondering how much longer they can keep it up. If the government shuts down next week when funding runs out, many employees could also find themselves working without pay, at least temporarily.

“We have a strained and severely stretched situation,” said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization, the union that represents the agency’s workers. The Weather Service has a famously dedicated workforce, he said, but workers can put in only so many long hours and extra shifts. “There’s a breaking point.”

Fahy said two offices — one in California’s Central Valley and another in western Kansas — no longer have enough staffing to operate around the clock. And, he added, “there are still a dozen offices across the country that are operating on reduced staffs.”

John Sokich, who worked for the Weather Service for 45 years before retiring in January, said the agency is “unfortunately, incredibly adept” at keeping its forecasts and warnings going in strained circumstances. Still, he compared the Weather Service these days to a sprinter forced to extend an all-out race from 200 yards to a mile.

“They’re going to run out of gas,” Sokich said. “They’re going to start missing things. They can’t sustain that level of effort for much longer. You just can’t sprint a mile.”

[…]

Even before this year’s losses, the Weather Service was considered understaffed, employing roughly 4,300 people — 200 below ideal personnel levels, agency leaders said at the time. But the sudden cuts were unprecedented in the agency’s recent history, Fahy said. Between 2010 and 2015, for example, roughly 600 workers left the Weather Service through attrition and retirement — this year, the same number vanished in a matter of months.

“In my time here, the agency has never, ever been below 4,000,” said Brian LaMarre, who worked for the Weather Service for more than three decades before taking a position as chief meteorologist with Inspire Weather. “This is uncharted waters.”

As a result, some local forecasting offices lost the ability to operate 24/7, cut back on launching weather balloons or staggered shifts ahead of extreme weather. Over the summer, the Weather Service grew so concerned about diminished forecasting teams that the agency offered to cover moving expenses for any workers willing to transfer to hard-hit offices in coastal Texas and Louisiana, among other places.

Now, midway through a hurricane season that forecasters initially expected to bring as many as 19 named storms, staff are finding ways to keep things running, they said — often at significant cost to their work-life balance and physical and mental health. Managers are picking up forecasting shifts. In a bid to ensure robust forecasting, some offices are sharing their employees remotely with understaffed locations, at times requiring those staffers to work overtime or through weekends.

I’ve said multiple times that we’ve been very lucky to avoid a major hurricane so far this year. Big storms like Gabrielle and Humberto have gone out to sea. That luck may be running out. We may pull through this time, but who knows how much longer the overworked staff at the NWS can hold on. Just imagine the next big storm entering the Gulf of Mexico and bearing down on our shoreline. How much confidence would any of us have in the information available? It’s just a matter of time before we find out.

Posted in National news | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Weekend link dump for September 28

“Every single case of hepatitis B in a child is a tragedy, because we have the tools to prevent this. So no number of children getting hepatitis B and developing chronic disease is acceptable in the U.S.”

Go ahead and drink that diet soda. Your brain will be fine.

“There are potential legal ramifications to making poor team-building choices and making employees feel that they can’t opt out without damaging their careers.”

“So, inconstancy, fallibility, forgetfulness, suffering, failure — these, apparently, are the unautomatable gifts of our species. Well, sure. To err is human. But does the AI skeptic have nothing else to fall back on than an enumeration of mankind’s shortcomings? Are our worst qualities the best we can do? It’s hard not to read the emphasis on failure as an ambivalent invitation for the machines to succeed. The final notes of the AI-and-I essay are cowed resignation, awed acquiescence, and what Trotsky called the “terrifying helplessness” of cultural production at “the beginning of a great epoch” — all from the very writers best placed to condemn AI’s creep into literary life. “What if we take seriously the idea that AI assistance can accelerate learning — that students today are arriving at their destinations faster?” Hsu asks. But what if we don’t?”

“Google already shares your data. That’s part of the contract that you make when you sign up for a Google product. So that should come as no surprise to us. The surprise now is that Google is going to share that data with other companies that are then going to be able to use that data for purposes we never imagined.”

How to Tell the Difference Between a Lone Wolf and a Coordinated Effort by the Radical Left”.

“Putting the Homan and James stories together it becomes clear why the federal Public Integrity Section has, in effect, been shut down. If your aim is to indict enemies and protect friends, having such an office isn’t just needless; it’s a problem. It’s at best an impediment and complication to indicting foes, if not a total barrier. They’ll ask questions or make trouble like the recently departed U.S. Attorney in Virginia did. They’re also liable to end up indicting friends like Tom Homan. Legitimate prosecutors are quite literally a double threat to the new operation.”

“RFK Jr’s war on vaccines is about shaming women, not helping kids”.

RIP, Bernie Parent, Hall of Fame goalie who helped win the only two Stanley Cups in Philadelphia Flyers’ history.

Awkward. And good for you, Howard Stern.

If you are reading this, then the latest version of The Rapture was a dud. Again.

“A confusing contradiction is unfolding in companies embracing generative AI tools: while workers are largely following mandates to embrace the technology, few are seeing it create real value.” The term for this is “workslop”. You’re welcome.

“Republicans have filed for divorce with the free market, in favor of a threesome with authoritarianism and quackery.”

Trump’s tariffs have destroyed the shrimp industry.

“As a general matter I don’t think people without strong political attachments like the idea of corporate suits censoring what you’re able to see in your town for political or backdoor deal type reasons. So let the fight commence.”

RIP, Sonny Curtis, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer/songwriter who performed with Buddy Holly, opened for Elvis Presley, and wrote hits like “I Fought the Law” and the theme to the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Make Canadian football Canadian again.

RIP, Hugo Mojica, local political candidate, activist, City Council staffer. I met Hugo in 2009 when he ran for my Council district, he always struck me as someone doing his best to do good. He was only 50 and I know he has kids, so I was very sad to hear this news. Rest in peace, Hugo.

“The American Library Association announced Monday that the 88-year-old [George] Takei will serve as honorary chair of Banned Books Week, which takes place Oct. 5-11.”

“Yes, it sure is terrible that we judged Kirk for what he vehemently believed, as well as for his actions as a human being, instead of being classy and pretending he didn’t believe any of those things in order to secure him a spot as a hero to all Americans.”

Want to buy some genuine Muppet stuff? Here’s your chance, with that and more from the Jim Henson Company.

RIP, Claudi Cardinale, Italian actor best known for The Leopard, The Pink Panther, and Once Upon a Time in the West.

“In a shocking decision, Apple TV+ has postponed the premiere of the Jessica Chastain drama series “The Savant,” offering another chilling example of how business giants are running scared of the Trump administration, and bowing to pressure before it even exists.

“No One Is Sure If It’s Illegal to Accept a $50,000 Bribe Stuffed In a Cava Bag, Thanks to the Supreme Court”.

RIP, Bobby Cain, one of the so-called “Clinton 12”, who helped integrate one of the first high schools in the South in 1956. I knew nothing about any of this before reading this obituary. This guy was a damn hero, and he suffered greatly for it. Please read about him.

“Three days into trial, Amazon has agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission accusing the tech giant of duping consumers into signing up for Prime subscriptions, which users were impeded from canceling.”

“Almost a decade ago, I realized I’d been duped, and now it seems like a faction of the right-wing base is starting to wake up too. There’s a reason that ICE raids and Jan. 6 and abortion bans make you uncomfortable—that is the humanity inside of you screaming for you to change.”

A suspect has been identified in the infamous “yogurt shop murders” that shook Austin in 1991. The suspect is a very bad guy who’s been dead since 1999; the city of Austin and Travis County made a total hash of the original investigation, with two men serving multiple years in prison despite not having anything to do with it.

“Tom Cillo, the 58-year-old defensive lineman and powerlifter hoping to become the oldest player to play in a college football game since 2009, is building his own brand. Cillo signed a name, image and likeness deal with Aspercreme on Friday, becoming the oldest player to sign an NIL deal.”

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Still more voter registration problems

Criminy.

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Darcy Hood mailed her voter registration application to the Tarrant County elections department in July, after she turned 18.

Months later, her application still hasn’t been processed. And it’s unclear when it will be.

With the Oct. 6 deadline to register to vote in the November constitutional amendment election approaching, tens of thousands of Texans are in the same situation, waiting in suspense for their applications to go through, a process that normally takes a few days or weeks.

In interviews, private conversations, and emails, county elections officials from across the state point the finger at the state’s voter registration system, known as TEAM, which has long had functionality problems. They say that after the software was overhauled in July, the problems began proliferating: Voters’ previous addresses override their new ones, their voting precincts don’t populate correctly, and sometimes the registration information doesn’t save at all.

“One day it works and we can get stuff done, and the next day it doesn’t and nothing gets done,” said Pam Hill, the elections administrator in San Patricio County. “That’s the trend right now.”

The executive board of the Texas Association of County Election Officials met on Sept. 2 with Christina Adkins, the state’s elections division director, and Deputy Director Kristi Hart to discuss the problems. In an email sent afterward to association members and obtained by Votebeat, the board said it “unambiguously stated the level of frustration from our members” regarding the need for clear guidance and training, the absence of which “has placed unexpected burdens and stress on our members.” The board said it would begin offering some training and peer support itself.

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office said it anticipated some technical issues with this “once-in-a-decade upgrade.” Adkins told election officials this month that many of the problems stem from county officials not knowing how to use the updated system.

But several county election officials said the system didn’t work well during training sessions earlier this year, which limited opportunities for hands-on testing.

Meanwhile, the unprocessed registration applications keep piling up. Hood’s application is one of around 13,000 that Tarrant County election officials say are pending state verification. Travis County says it has more than 12,000 applications that need to be processed, and Bexar County has more than 40,000. A Texas voter whose application was received on time but not processed by the time of the election can still cast a provisional ballot, but there’s a risk those ballots won’t be counted.

“I hate that our voters are going through this, and it’s through no fault of their own,” said Clinton Ludwig, the Tarrant County elections administrator. The voters are doing what they’re supposed to do, and we’re also trying to do what we’re supposed to do.”

[…]

State officials have pushed back on some of the counties’ complaints. “There is a difference between a county saying this doesn’t work and a county saying, I don’t know how to do this,” Adkins, the state election director, said in a Sept. 17 video call with local election officials that was recorded by the state and shared with Votebeat. “We want to really make sure that we’re drilling down on the things that are issues versus areas where you need more training.”

In statements to Votebeat, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office said that the rollout of the updated version of TEAM is a multi-stage process, and that the office has “planned accordingly.”

The task involves “migrating more than 20 million records and training more than 2,500 users,” the office said. “Technical issues are to be expected with a rollout of this size, and that is why we chose this constitutional election cycle for this transition.”

“We are working long hours to help our counties prepare for the November election and upgrade to a new version of TEAM that will ultimately result in more efficiently managed elections,” the office said.

The state and the vendor that developed the system “continue to respond to issues and concerns,” the office said.

The Secretary of State’s Office has assigned 30 employees to work directly with counties to train them and answer technical questions about the new system, the agency said, three times as many as it had in the previous TEAM update.

“As we are in the middle of a once-in-a-decade upgrade of the state’s voter registration system, our focus right now is on supporting counties in preparation for the upcoming election,” the agency added. “Any verdict on the new system is far too premature at the moment.”

See here for some background. I don’t know what to make of this. There’s still some time to get this fixed, and if she really wanted to, SOS Jane Nelson could ask Greg Abbott for an emergency order allowing people whose registrations were made on time but not processed on time because of this still eligible to vote. Beyond that, all I can say is check the registration of any new or updated voter you know. My 18-year-old is in there, but yours may not be. At least this should be fixed in time for next year’s election.

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The city screws with the Main Street light rail line

All done in silence, no notice and no transparency.

Seen at the Ensemble/HCC station on 9/26/25

Light rail passengers are facing longer delays while taking Metro’s Red Line route through downtown after the city adjusted the timing of traffic lights.

Local officials have not responded to questions about the extent of the problem, and it’s unclear how long it will last. Some public transit users expressed their frustrations on social media as they documented MetroRail cars stopping at red lights more frequently instead of continuing through well-timed, extended green lights, like normal.

[…]

Metro officials say they’re aware of the delays, and that they’re currently working with city officials to find a solution that balances the needs of both commuters on the road and public-transit riders.

“Our shared goal is to keep Houston moving so everyone can enjoy the streets we share,” Metro officials said in a statement.

Early Friday morning, Metro posted a recent update on its website, stating that riders should plan their trips for possible delays as the agency works toward a solution.

It’s unclear whether the issue affects the entire Red Line or only specific areas, but several online users have reported delays along Main Street. The traffic signal timing is managed and controlled by the city of Houston, according to Metro.

Mary Benton, a spokesperson for Mayor John Whitmire, and the city’s Public Works Department did not respond to requests for comment about the traffic-signal adjustments. Metro spokesperson Anna Carpenter referred questions to the city and said the agency doesn’t have access to which street lights were adjusted.

Carpenter later sent an email after the publication of this story stating that Metro is working with Houston Public Works on traffic management across all transit options.

The agency is preparing for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the Texas Department of Transportation’s Interstate 45 realignment and reconstruction project, which includes service enhancements and adding more trains. The expansion has required them to adjust scheduling and timing.

The rail system uses “transit signal priority,” which enables minor adjustments to traffic signal timing and helps MetroRail move through intersections more efficiently.

Houston resident Marcus Strohm shared photos online of his travel frustrations on the Red Line. He said it stopped at two red lights before getting to the Downtown Transit Center, and then stopped at two more before heading to the Bell Station.

I took the embedded picture on Friday afternoon at the Ensemble/HCC station. It was extremely noticeable how much longer it took to get through downtown, as for the most part we were just going block to block. None of this makes any sense. The train has had priority signal timing since its inception in 2004 with no problems. There was no advance notice of it, and as you can see no one in any position to comment on what happened is saying anything. If this is here to stay and not a temporary screwup, it sure is going to make us all look like a city of buffoons for the World Baseball Classic and the FIFA World Cup next year.

What the Metro spokesbot is saying on Twitter is even more ludicrous, because there was no problem that needed to “find a solution that balances the needs of both commuters on our system and those on the road”. Even without someone messing around with this, you can’t go more than a couple of blocks east-west downtown without hitting a red light. I drove the carpool home from my daughter’s east-side-of-midtown high school for two years, believe me on this one. There was nothing to be gained by doing this. All that was accomplished was breaking something that had been working fine for 20 years. At least going by the comments in that thread, people are angry about this, and they should be. Undo whatever was done, right now, and be done with it.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

State lawsuit on Tarrant redistricting has its hearing

We’ll see what happens.

A district court judge is expected to decide whether to grant a temporary injunction against Tarrant County’s new commissioner precincts next week.

It’s part of a lawsuit filed by the League of Women Voters of Tarrant County and the League of United Latin American Citizens Fort Worth Council 4568. The lawsuit alleges the county’s mid-decade redistricting is unconstitutional, naming Tarrant County, the commissioners court and County Judge Tim O’Hare as defendants.

Judge Megan Fahey on Thursday heard arguments and testimony in the 348th District Court in the request for an injunction filed by the two groups.

The request comes as the two organizations work with the Texas Voting Rights Coalition in an attempt to stop the voting maps, which opponents have described as racist and a power grab.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued Thursday that the map is not legally valid because it focuses on population and partisanship without consideration for other state constitutional requirements for redistricting.

Nina Oishi, a voting rights staff attorney at the Civil Rights Project, said the lawsuit is about ensuring Tarrant County residents have a fair voice in county government.

[…]

The League of Women Voters and LULAC allege in the suit that the county’s “secretive, rushed process” violated the Texas Open Meetings Act and intentionally discriminates against Black and Latino voters. It says O’Hare and most of the commissioners violated the state constitution in the process.

The petition notes that the court in 2021 conducted a review of precincts by “explicitly adopted criteria.’ The criteria, among several rules, required any new map to “avoid racial gerrymandering” and “have compact and contiguous precincts,” according to the suit.

The suit says precincts at the time were “evenly distributed” accounting for recent population growth and recalls that the court voted to keep that electoral map in effect until the next census in 2030.

Attorneys defending the county on Thursday said in their opening arguments that those claims are false and that the commissioners court has the right to redistrict commissioner precincts.

See here for more on this lawsuit, and here for more on the federal lawsuit. The Open Meetings Act angle remains the most interesting and least obvious part of this. If there’s going to be a halt to the new map, I feel like that will be the reason, in large part because I doubt Republican judges will buy into the other arguments. If the name Megan Fahey is familiar, it’s because she’s the judge in the lawsuit against Powered by People that Ken Paxton filed. I don’t know how she got so lucky as to draw both of those, but there she is. A ruling is expected this coming week. KERA and WFAA have more.

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State files its response to the redistricting lawsuit

They’re playing the oldies, not the new tune that the Trump Justice Department tried to woo them with.

Texas officials acknowledged in a new court filing that the Justice Department’s rationale this summer for pushing them to redraw the state’s congressional maps was flawed, but insisted that they were still well within their rights to push ahead with the plan.

“Its ham-fisted legal conclusions notwithstanding, the DOJ Letter apparently sought to provide political cover for Texas to engage in partisan redistricting,” the Texas Attorney General’s Office said in a 41-page document filed late Tuesday.

The filing comes as Republican state leaders are hoping to protect the new map from a legal challenge ahead of next year’s midterms. Since launching the redistricting push at the behest of President Donald Trump, they have leaned heavily into the fact that the new maps are intended to help the party win seats next November.

“The rationale behind the President’s request is simple,” the filing says. “Republicans currently have a razor-thin majority in the United States House of Representatives; if Democrats flip four seats in the upcoming midterm elections, they would take control of the House.”

That’s a different explanation than the Trump administration seemed to give this summer when officials at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division alleged in a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott that four Democratic districts had been illegally drawn to lump voters based on race.

They argued at the time that two blue districts in Houston — one represented by U.S. Rep. Al Green and another left vacant by the deaths of Sheila Jackson Lee and, later, Sylvester Turner — sort voters along “strict racial lines,” while another district, represented by U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, is majority Hispanic. And they said U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey’s Fort Worth district was similarly race-based.

The Attorney General’s Office downplayed that rationale in the new filling and instead leaned into the political motivations behind the push, pointing out that other states like California and Massachusetts have taken similar steps.

See here for some background. Just as a reminder, the claim that the map that Republicans drew in 2021 and have been defending ever since as a race-blind partisan-only effort is actually an illegal race-based gerrymander was cited by Greg Abbott and the rest of state leadership as a justification for the special session that led to the current map:

I suppose this was the less awkward way to go, not throwing out everything you said under oath in the trial over that map. The hearing over the new map begins next week. See this thread from Michael Li for more.

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The Loving County takeover attempt

This is bonkers, and I am here for it.

Sheriff Dave Landersman said he started hearing about the group aiming to take over his county a few months ago. It began with locals reporting unfamiliar faces around the Loving County courthouse and the new community center in this sparsely populated, but oil-rich area near the New Mexico border.

It wasn’t that residents never saw newcomers. Thousands of workers come and go every day, servicing the Permian Basin oil and gas boom. But groups of Black women and children were unusual; the 2020 U.S. Census had counted no African-American residents here. Many of the recent arrivals were from out of state and seemed surprised by the harsh West Texas conditions — “city people,” Landersman said.

Keionta Hinton, the owner of Fat Boys Cafe and known as Miss Kay, said her first contact was in June, when two women, two men and a girl entered the restaurant. She likes to talk to customers over Louisiana soul food, the diner’s specialty.

“We’re here to take over your county,” she recalled one of the women telling her. “I’m going to be one of your commissioners.”

“She was very serious,” Hinton said. “Not playing around.”

Moving voters into a community to gain control of its government might be considered a far-fetched strategy if it weren’t for one fact: It is occurring in Loving County, which has a long tradition of doing exactly that.

In recent years, the community of fewer than 100 residents has been riven by bitter family feuds. To gain advantage in attaining and holding power, opposing sides have tried to game the voter roll, registering far-flung family members or offering residences to visitors for the purpose of claiming their vote.

The upshot: Loving County’s tiny electorate, its history of loose voter registration and the tens of millions of dollars of oil money splashing into its treasury annually has made it both attractive — and vulnerable — to an organized group of people wanting to wrest control.

“This is the perfect place to try something like this,” acknowledged Constable Brandon Jones. “It’s the chickens coming home to roost.”

In late June, Chief Deputy Larry Pearson drove northwest out of Mentone to find the new group’s settlement so the department could have a GPS position in case of a 911 call, a necessity in the nation’s least-populated county. About 35 minutes down rough oil company roads, he found an RV and what looked like a still unframed house.

A second visit revealed a cluster of RVs, tents and generators. As Pearson drove away, he received a call from a man identifying himself as Dr. Malcolm Tanner threatening legal action.

Backgrounding Tanner wasn’t hard. Tall, charismatic and a self-described “entrepreneur, philanthropist, educator” and “visionary leader,” Tanner leads an organization called Melanated People of Power, which he has described as a movement seeking political and economic opportunity for those traditionally disenfranchised. He boasts a sizable social media presence — 244,000 Facebook followers and 70,000 on TikTok. His posts explained Loving County’s newcomers.

“I’m out here in Texas. Loving County, Texas,” he said in a mid-July Facebook reel viewed nearly 2 million times. “If you want to get a home, and stop paying rent, your mortgage or even the taxes on it, we’re going to build y’all a home. Right here. For free. We’re hoping to have a hundred homes out here, with the intention of putting 2,000.”

In a video posted in July to TikTok, Tanner, who lists an Indiana address on Loving County appraisal records, summarized his longer-term intentions.

“Not too often do you see a brother that looks like me come into the county and take the entire county over,” he said. “Well, I have taken the entire county over, out here in Loving County, Texas. When these elections hit in 2026, we’re going to wipe the board. Everybody that I selected will be elected.”

At the cafe, Hinton said she has counted about 30 new arrivals as of late August, from Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Houston. The group recently attempted to register more than two dozen new residents to vote using a Mentone P.O. Box, according to Landersman, who doubles as the county voter registrar.

Tanner declined to comment. When Houston Chronicle journalists visited the group’s settlement to interview the newcomers, a resident called Tanner, who in a phone call accused them of trespassing and then sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Chronicle.

A day later, he filed a civil rights complaint against Loving County and its sheriff’s department in federal court seeking $450 million in damages. The county has denied wrongdoing and asked for the case to be dismissed.

You really need to read the rest. One minor quibble is that 70,000 TikTok followers really isn’t all that much. One source I found says that some 67K accounts have at least 100,00 followers, while another 42K have between 50,000 and 100,000. It’s not nothing, but it’s nowhere near the top of the charts.

Anyway. On the one hand it would be hilarious for a bunch of folks from all over the place move into Loving County and vote its entire county government out. That would be far from the strangest thing to happen in this weird, tiny county, but it would be the funniest. On the other hand, this whole thing has deeply strange vibes, and it would hardly be a surprise if a significant number of the people who were enticed to move there came to regret that decision. All I can say for now is that I hope the Chron keeps up its Loving County coverage. Every virtual trip there is just wild.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

The second life of old EV batteries

Very cool.

East of San Antonio in Bexar County, 500 electric vehicle batteries at the end of their automotive lives will soon be repurposed to provide energy storage for Texas’ electric grid, a California company, B2U Storage Solutions, announced on Tuesday.

The batteries, housed in 21 cabinets the size of shipping containers, create a second life for the technology made from critical minerals, including lithium, nickel and cobalt, for another eight years, said Freeman Hall, co-founder and CEO.

Once the site is built and in operation later this year, the batteries will charge when there is an excess of renewable energy production on the grid and the cost of power is cheap. The Texas facility will have a total capacity of 24 megawatt hours.

B2U Storage Solutions, based in Los Angeles, plans to deploy three more grid-storage projects in Texas throughout the next year, totalling 100 megawatt hours across the state, the company said. Assuming the average household uses 30 kilowatt hours per day, it’s enough energy to power 3,330 homes for a day, Hall said.

The site near San Antonio will interconnect to the CPS Energy distribution system, one of the nation’s largest city-owned utility companies.

“We’re really helping to pioneer and demonstrate to the automotive industry that repurposing makes a lot of sense for a pretty healthy number of batteries before they’re truly ready for end of life and recycling,” Hall said in an interview.

[…]

In looking for battery storage options for their solar projects, the two developers realized the first wave of commercial EV batteries were beginning to wrap up their roughly 10-year automotive life. Aware of research that these batteries’ state-of-health, measuring the difference between a new battery and a used one, circled up to 80 percent, Hall and Stern hypothesized that they could build technology to use the battery packs as they came from the vehicle, avoiding any repurposing costs.

So the two solar developers purchased 300 Nissan Leaf batteries. The carmaker had run into a powertrain warranty issue with the world’s first mass-market EV, as the range they promised in the lease with the customer fell short.

To fix the warranty and guarantee, Nissan swapped out the battery packs and found themselves with thousands of batteries that were still useful, Hall said, just not for driving. The batteries still had thousands of cycles left in a less-demanding scenario, like stationary storage for renewable energy.

That’s when the solar developers initiated the EV pack storage technology fundamental to B2U, which currently operates three facilities using retired batteries from electric vehicles like Teslas, the Honda Clarity and Nissan Leaf in California.

B2U’s technology allows the company to buy the retired EV battery packs without having to modify them, creating large-scale storage projects for less than if they were installing new batteries.

No real insight here, I just think this is a great idea. I hope they and others are able to do a lot more of this going forward.

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Interview with Michael McDonough

Michael McDonough

We finish up our week with HISD candidates with Michael McDonough, who is challenging incumbent Trustee Kendall Baker in District VI. McDonough recently retired after a 30+ year career at HISD, where he was a math teacher, a soccer coach, and a principal at three schools, most recently Bellaire High School. You may have spotted him more recently at Hermann Park, where he is the conductor of the mini-train there; the embedded photo above came from a feature story about that. I did not ask him about his train-driving, but I did ask him about his time at HISD and his plans for being a trustee, and you can listen to that here:

PREVIOUSLY:

Felicity Pereyra, HISD District I
Bridget Wade, HISD District VII
Audrey Nath, HISD District VII
Maria Benzon, HISD District V

More information about the candidates for these and other races can be found in the Erik Manning spreadsheet, which will soon be a major motion picture. Next week we move on to HCC.

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Andrew White makes it official

As expected, Andrew White made his encore effort for Governor official on Wednesday. I got two different impressions of it, based on which news story I read about it. From the Chron:

Andrew White

Andrew White, a Houston businessman and son of the late Gov. Mark White, officially jumped into the race to challenge Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday, branding himself an “independent Democrat” who will stay above the political fray.

White, whose father spent four years in the Governor’s Mansion in the 1980s, is arguably the biggest name to enter a so-far sleepy Democratic primary to challenge Abbott, who is seeking a record fourth term.

White told Hearst Newspapers he believes Abbott is “driven by politics” and failing to deliver on key issues like health care. He pointed to the Texas Republican’s longstanding opposition to Medicaid expansion, leaving billions in federal funding on the table.

“Texans want a leader who rises above the culture wars,” White said in an interview. “What really matters are schools, hospitals and infrastructure. You know, good old, traditional issues that affect every Texan.”

[…]

White argued Democratic voters [in 2018] weren’t “ready” for him, saying the party was “playing a lot of identity politics” and focused on movements like Black Lives Matter and MeToo.

“I think they’re ready for me now. They’re ready for a candidate that looks and speaks and acts — and with the background that I have,” he said. “I’m a balanced candidate. I’m a candidate, as an independent Democrat, that’s willing to work with both sides. I’ll work with reasonable Republicans and Democrats to get stuff done.”

This did not thrill me. Like, you can’t escape the culture wars because the Republicans are enthusiastically engaging in them – we’ve all seen what kind of laws they’ve been passing in the Lege lately, right? – and because Dems have tried that strategy in the past and it didn’t work (see: gay marriage in 2004, for one prime example). Especially in the time of Trump 2.0, when the single biggest complaint among Democratic voters (and a lot of independents) is that Dems are not doing nearly enough to fight back against the current depredations, I’m just not sure who he thinks is “ready” for him now that wasn’t then.

But the Trib story cast him in a more favorable light.

Andrew White, a Houston businessman and son of former Gov. Mark White, launched his bid for governor Wednesday, vowing to run as an independent in the Democratic primary.

“I’m not a culture warrior — I’m a problem solver,” White said in a news release. “Whether it’s floods, school shootings, or the grid failing, we need leaders who prepare us before disaster strikes, not just show up after.”

White, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2018, argued on his website that Gov. Greg Abbott “answers to extremists” and has left billions of dollars of federal funds on the table in opposing Medicaid expansion. He also accused Abbott of costing Texans billions more in electricity bills after Winter Storm Uri and through the private school voucher program he pushed lawmakers to enact earlier this year. In a news release, White called Abbott the “architect of these culture wars.”

“It’s time for a new approach,” White said on social media, adding that Democrats needed to expand their base, including independents, to defeat Abbott. On his website, White said he was “determined to build bridges while others burn them.”

I can live with the “independent” framing, though one must, you know, actually win the Democratic primary, by convincing Democratic primary voters to vote for you, before you can bring that forward. At least here, he sounds more pugilistic, which is sorely needed. Specifically blaming Abbott for the “culture wars”, and tying that to the failure to solve problems because he’s in the pocket of those who fund those culture wars, is an approach with some merit and appeal. How he runs with that from here will be the key. Let’s just say he’s still got some skeptics to convince.

Posted in Election 2026 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The THC age limit is in effect

Time to show your ID, I guess.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission on Tuesday approved an emergency rule to ban liquor license holders from selling THC products to anyone under the age of 21, the agency’s first step toward fulfilling an executive order by Gov. Greg Abbott that called for stricter regulation of the products.

The emergency rule, which also requires retailers to verify IDs at the point of sale and only applies to those that also sell alcohol, takes effect as soon as it is posted to the Texas Register, expected later Tuesday. The agency does not intend to begin enforcement until Oct. 1 to give it enough time to relay the age limit to retailers. TABC license holders found to be violating the rule after Oct. 1 will have their license revoked, according to the rule.

The commission approved the rule just hours after releasing its text to the public, and less than two weeks after Abbott ordered TABC and the Texas Department of State Health Services to ban sales of THC “to minors” and to require verification of ID of all customers attempting to buy the products. The Tuesday morning meeting was the first public step toward fulfilling the governor’s directive by either agency.

However, the TABC’s rule does not encompass the entire landscape of retailers that sell the products. There are about 60,000 TABC license holders, such as restaurants and liquor stores, that can’t sell THC to people under 21 under the new rule. The rule wouldn’t apply to smoke shops, gas stations and online retailers that do not sell liquor and presumably do not have a liquor license with TABC. TABC communications director Chris Porter said the Department of State Health Services will be tasked with drafting its own rule for the remaining retailers, and enforcement may eventually be moved over to TABC.

TABC rules approved on an emergency basis are only in effect for up to 180 days, suggesting that the agency will formally adopt the 21 age limit and other regulations by then. The formal rulemaking process includes further public meetings and testimony and is expected to begin at the commission’s next meeting on Nov. 18. Conversations between TABC and DSHS to further determine regulatory duties for each agency are ongoing, Porter said.

[…]

Lukas Gilkey, the CEO of Austin-based manufacturer of hemp-derived products Hometown Hero, called the commission’s approval “historic” and long overdue.

“For them to do this today is actually a really big deal for the industry and legitimizes the industry, so it’s an honor to be here and have them do that,” Gilkey said.

Mark Bordas, executive director of trade association the Texas Hemp Business Council, called the TABC rule a great start and said he expects TABC and DSHS to be able to work together to create a smooth regulatory process throughout the formal rulemaking period.

Betsy Jones, director of policy and strategy for Texans for Safe and Drug-Free Youth, noted her advocacy group had little time to review the rule proposal before the meeting and urged the agency to take careful consideration when reviewing how best to regulate hemp products in the state going forward.

“We know there’s still problems with alcohol, so we don’t want to see the same problems starting to happen because we opened up access to something without thinking about these issues.

Several advocates against the use of THC products testified against the rules as they were drafted entirely.

Aubree Adams, director of advocacy for Citizens for a Safe and Healthy Texas, advocated for the agency to increase the age restriction to prohibit anyone under the age of 25 from buying THC products, arguing the brain needs to be completely developed to reduce risk to people using cannabis products. Adams also noted that a large percentage of hemp products are purchased online, where TABC’s rule does not apply.

Christine Scruggs, an outspoken advocate against any recreational use of cannabis products, said her son struggled with THC dependency and suffered mental health effects from it before undergoing treatment.

“I no longer believe that any safe age is OK for hemp or cannabis products. Any person could be affected,” Scruggs testified.

See here and here for the background. My interpretation of who the TABC’s rule applies to suggests that any retailer who sells THC products and isn’t a TABC license holder is not covered by that rule. I think that probably also means that despite the executive order, they can continue to sell to whoever they want (at least, to anyone over 18) on the grounds that no one has the legal authority to stop them. This is very much one of those situations where you should absolutely not trust me to provide legal advice. I Am Not A Lawyer, this is my best guess. When DSHS publishes their rule, we’ll see if there are still loopholes.

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Interview with Maria Benzon

Maria Benzon

The other open HISD seat is in District V, where two-term incumbent Sue Deigaard declined to run again. There are two candidates running to fill that seat, and today we will hear from Maria Benzon, a veteran educator with over 25 years of experience as a teacher, district specialist, and assistant principal; she is also a professor with a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology. Benzon is also an HISD graduate and parent, who coaches Odyssey of the Mind and youth volleyball. She ran for this position in 2021 as well, and you can listen to that interview here. Her opponent in this race is Robbie McDonough, I sent emails to the one address I could find for his campaign but never got a response. If that changes, I’ll have an interview with him at a later date. Today, here’s the interview I did with Maria Benzon:

PREVIOUSLY:

Felicity Pereyra, HISD District I
Bridget Wade, HISD District VII
Audrey Nath, HISD District VII

More information about the candidates for these and other races can be found in the awe-inspiring Erik Manning spreadsheet.

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The “who’s running for Governor” question again

It’ll be there until there’s a final answer.

Even as some Texas Democrats are optimistic about their chances in next year’s midterm elections, the party’s most recognizable names are so far avoiding the chance to take on Gov. Greg Abbott, whose approval rating is at an all-time low as he seeks a record fourth term.

U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Dallas Democrat who has among the highest name recognition in the state, told Hearst Newspapers this week that the only statewide race she is considering is for U.S. Senate — potentially joining an already crowded Democratic primary featuring two of the party’s other most prominent young prospects: James Talarico and Colin Allred.

But Abbott is fresh off a series of polarizing battles — from his push for school vouchers to redrawing the state’s congressional map — that showed the Republican governor closer than ever before to President Donald Trump. That no major candidate appears ready to challenge him has left some Democrats and political analysts scratching their heads.

“I think failing to run a serious candidate against Greg Abbott is a mistake,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic strategist. “There’s a sense he’s more vulnerable than any other time he’s been governor. He’s become such a polarizing figure.”

The governor had a 40% job approval in August, according to polling by the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Politics Project. It was the lowest approval rating he has registered since taking office in 2015. Half of Texas voters disapprove of Abbott, meanwhile — matching an all-time high in 2021. The trend was even worse among independents, 55% of whom disapproved, though that was down from a peak of 60% in June. Just 19% approved.

A majority of Texas voters also said they believe the state is on the wrong track for the first time since August 2023. Only 38% said it is headed in the right direction.

Joshua Blank, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Politics Project, said the findings don’t mean Abbott is vulnerable at the moment. The governor has a massive war chest, no serious Republican primary challengers and plenty of time to moderate his messaging.

I should note that in my casual observation, governors are least popular at the end of a legislative session. That seemed to be the case with Rick Perry as well as with Abbott. I can’t go all G. Elliott Morris on you here, I don’t have the data at hand, this is just my anecdotal reckoning, which I put here to say that Abbott’s approval rating could drift back up just because people aren’t hearing so much about the terrible things the Lege is doing. It also may drift down if the same happens with Trump and the economy goes in the dumpster.

“Is he vulnerable? Not currently,” Blank said of Abbott. “However, if people’s concerns about the economy don’t reverse, if 2026 looks like 2018, and if Democrats manage to put together a credible ticket that’s well funded, we could see a pretty competitive election.”

“The thing that’s sort of inexplicably missing at this point is a challenger,” Blank said.

Angle said he is confident a competitive race will develop. He said he thinks many Democrats were waiting to see how the Senate field shook out. That race has drawn most of the attention, with an already bruising Republican primary between U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, who Democrats see as an ideal opponent.

[…]

Abbott is not without any challengers already. Bobby Cole, a rancher and retired firefighter, has filed to run. Bay City Councilman Benjamin Flores is running, as well.

The field appears set to grow. Andrew White, son of the late Gov. Mark White, on Tuesday filed initial papers to run for governor again. The 52-year-old Houstonian lost a Democratic primary runoff in 2018 to Lupe Valdez, the former Dallas County sheriff who later lost to Abbott in the November general election.

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat, recently registered several domain names indicating she could be gearing up for a gubernatorial campaign. A source familiar with her plans said she is “strongly considering all her options for how to serve Texas.”

Beto O’Rourke, the state’s best-known Democrat, hasn’t publicly ruled out a rematch against Abbott after losing his 2022 bid.

O’Rourke declined to comment for this article, but earlier this year, he told CBS11: “I’m taking nothing off the table.”

See here for more on Andrew White and Gina Hinojosa. Andrew White has now made it official; I’ll have more on that tomorrow. As for Rep. Hinojosa, for all we know she was just responding to a special offer from her domain registrar. And Beto, I dunno. He too would have to show something different from his previous candidacies, if only to prove that he’s not the same-old, same-old. There are plenty of people who are excited by Beto as a candidate, and there are plenty of people who would prefer he not run for anything again. He too will need to show how he’s learned and grown since 2018 and 2022. If he’s running, about which we’ll have to wait and see.

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Here come the robot umps

Cued up for next season.

Major League Baseball will implement a challenge system for balls and strikes in the 2026 season after the league’s competition committee voted Tuesday to usher in the era of robot umpiring.

Following years of testing in the minor leagues, as well as during spring training and at this year’s All-Star Game, MLB forged ahead with a system that will give teams two challenges per game.

Hitters, pitchers and catchers will be the only ones allowed to trigger the system by tapping their head, and if a challenge is successful — the pitch will be shown on in-stadium videoboards — teams will retain it.

While the vote in favor of the automated ball-strike challenge system was not unanimous — some of the four players on the 11-man committee voted no, according to sources — the vote was a fait accompli, with MLB owners all in favor and in possession of a six-seat majority on the committee.

“I commend the Joint Competition Committee for striking the right balance of preserving the integral role of the umpire in the game with the ability to correct a missed call in a high-leverage situation, all while preserving the pace and rhythm of the game,” commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday in a statement.

The ABS system uses similar technology to the line-calling system in tennis, with 12 cameras in each ballpark tracking the ball with a margin of error around one-sixth of an inch. The ABS zone will be a two-dimensional plane in the middle of the plate that spans its full width (17 inches). The zone’s top will be 53.5% of a player’s height and the bottom 27%.

Teams that run out of challenges over the first nine innings will be granted an extra challenge in the 10th inning, while those that still have unused challenges will simply carry them into extras. If a team runs out of challenges in the 10th, it will automatically receive another in the 11th — a rule that extends for any extra inning.

During the league’s spring training test this season, teams combined to average around four challenges per game and succeeded 52.2% of the time, according to the league. Catchers, whose value in framing pitches outside the zone to look like strikes could take a hit due to the new rule, were the most successful at a 56% overturn rate, while hitters were correct 50% of the time and pitchers 41%.

MLB’s minor league testing, which started in 2021, led to Triple-A players in 2023 using ABS challenge three days a week and a full ABS system, with every pitch adjudicated by computer, the other three.

Support among league executives grew around the challenge system as the more palatable of the two options for fans, allowing for umpires still to play a role in balls and strikes but to have a backup system in case of blown calls in integral moments.

Adding the robot umps is likely to cut down on ejections. MLB said 61.5% of ejections among players, managers and coaches last year were related to balls and strikes, as were 60.3% this season through Sunday. The figures include ejections for derogatory comments, throwing equipment while protesting calls and inappropriate conduct.

Big league umpires call roughly 94% of pitches correctly, according to UmpScorecards.

See here, here, and here for some background. The idea has been out there for awhile, and in the end I think the challenge system, which has been in use in the minors, is the right way to go. It’s quick and unobtrusive, it does improve accuracy, and it means your favorite player is less likely to get tossed for arguing about a ball/strike call that went against him. I’m okay with it, the fans seem to be okay with it, most players are okay with it. Bring it on and let’s see how it goes. The Bandwagon, which disputes the use of the term “robo umps”, and MLB’s press release have more.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of September 24

The Texas Progressive Alliance will not be silenced as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading

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Interview with Audrey Nath

Audrey Nath

Challenging incumbent Bridget Wade in District VII is Audrey Nath, one of many Mike Miles critics on the ballot that I noted in July. Nath is a pediatric neurologist, an MD/PhD from Rice and UT-Houston, and an HISD mom. She’s been a critic of the takeover from the beginning and has been in the news for her activism on several occasions; you can see some of the coverage on her bio page, and I noted a Chron feature story that was about her leading an effort to assist students who were affected by the change from wraparound services to Sunrise Centers. She is on the HCDP endorsement slate for HISD. Here’s what we talked about:

PREVIOUSLY:

Felicity Pereyra, HISD District I
Bridget Wade, HISD District VII

More information about the candidates for these and other races can be found in the stupendous Erik Manning spreadsheet.

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District Clerk Marilyn Burgess not running for re-election

A bit of a surprise.

Marilyn Burgess

Marilyn Burgess, the elected Harris County district clerk, is not running for a third term in 2026, she said in a statement days after voting for her own pay increase amid a salary grievance.

Burgess, the Democratic clerk tasked with assembling jurors and housing civil and criminal court records, said she would not run for any other political office, either. She took office in 2018. Her political plans capped a lengthy statement in an email from her office Monday. The same email took exception to salaries for elected officials lagging behind appointed leaders in Harris County.

She makes more than $179,000 a year as district clerk, an amount she believes is too low.

Her grievance comes as elected constables are poised to receive a pay increase to $260,000 after similarly pursuing a challenge to their salaries. Burgess asked for a similar amount in her grievance, saying in a statement Monday that she has a “bigger staff to manage and more responsibilities to fulfill as District Clerk than several of our constables do.”

The grievance did not garner her desired outcome.

Last week, Burgess asked the grievance committee, which she is a voting member of, for the raise and went as far to motion for a $81,000 pay bump. Burgess and other members voted for the increase, but Commissioners Court took no action on the raise Thursday on their recommendation. Commissioner Adrian Garcia, who outlined Burgess’ steps to get the raise, challenged her on whether she believed her participation in the vote was a conflict, but county attorneys said the appearance of a conflict is not a legal conflict.

“So it looks bad,” Garcia said. “It may not necessarily be illegal, but it’s horrible on the face of it.”

In a statement, Burgess said her grievance was not about her salary alone. She said clerks in her office are underpaid as well.

“It was about fairness, transparency, and accountability,” Burgess said. “It was about highlighting the bloated, inequitable pay of appointed department heads during a supposed budget crisis.”

I did hear some rumblings about this last week, related to the grievance, but I didn’t have much detail and had forgotten about it by the time I saw this headline. I kind of agree about the Constables’ salary – it’s my understanding this was a result of the HPD raises, which forced similar increases in other law enforcement agencies so they wouldn’t lose people to higher-paying places like HPD, and this in turn meant that some subordinates in these offices would now make more than their elected bosses – but that doesn’t mean that the District Clerk position was underpaid. I don’t know enough to say one way or the other, but I’m going to guess that her complaint is not likely to generate a lot of public support. The public generally does not like when elected officials get raises, whatever the merits of those raises are.

So we will have a new District Clerk in 2027. I’m not aware yet of any candidates for the office, but I’m sure we will start hearing names soon. Filing season for the primary is always sooner than you think. Campos has more.

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Talarico passes the first test

Fundraising. What did you think I was going to say?

Rep. James Talarico

In his first public appearance after launching his U.S. Senate bid, state Rep. James Talarico said he had sprinted over the highest hurdle a first-time candidate for statewide office must face: proving he can attract the kind of money it takes mount a credible campaign in a state the size of Texas.

“Twelve hours ago, we started with zero dollars in our Senate campaign account,” the 36-year-old Austin Democrat told an enthusiastic audience at the outdoor rally on Sept. 9. “But in just 12 hours, thousands of people across this state, across this country, giving $5, $10, $15, have (contributed) more than $1 million.”

The boast carried a familiar ring. Two years earlier, Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas used the same example in the early hours of his Senate campaign to show that he had the wherewithal to compete in a state long dominated by Republicans. At that time, Allred claimed a fundraising haul of $3 million in the first 36 hours. By the time he won the primary, Allred had collected more than $21 million and outraised his nearest rival for the Democratic nomination by a margin of 20-1. He then lost to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in the general election.

Now, both Allred and Talarico are in the race, meaning the primary could become especially expensive. That is raising questions about whether the Democratic donor base can afford to underwrite the cost when the final outcome in November 2026 remains very much in doubt for the party.

“Texas isn’t the only state with a competitive U.S. Senate primary,” said University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus. “So how much are donors going to be willing to invest in a state where the chances of winning in November haven’t been all that great?”

Democratic consultant Glenn Smith, who has run two statewide campaigns in the past but is no longer involved in elective politics, said Talarico’s early fundraising numbers, like those of Allred two years ago, demonstrates Democratic excitement heading into the midterm election. The challenge for any candidate is to convert excitement into action.

“If I were them, I’d be bragging about (early fundraising prowess), too. But money is not the true measure,” Smith said, adding that candidates still have to develop and sell a winning message and do the nuts-and-bolt work of campaigning. “It’s like having a newborn colt and going out and betting he’ll win the Kentucky Derby. A lot’s got to happen.”

Yes, a lot has to happen, money isn’t everything, lots of other candidates are out there seeking money, yadda yadda yadda. Having the resources to run an actual statewide campaign, with the ability to reach out to millions of voters, is a necessary condition of being a credible candidate. Talarico passed the first test. Believe me, if he hadn’t pulled in a decent number since his announcement, that would be news too, just really not the kind you want. Now we go from here.

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Interview with Bridget Wade

Bridget Wade

Continuing with our week of HISD Trustee race interviews, the next two days will be in District VII, where the incumbent is Bridget Wade, who defeated Anne Sung in 2021. Wade is the past President and longtime member of the Briargrove Elementary PTO, from which she is a graduate. In addition to being a Trustee, she is a member of the Houston ISD Foundation Board and The First Horizon advisory board, she has chaired the Advisory Board for The Blaffer Museum of Art at The University of Houston and the National Advisory Board for The Blanton Museum at The University of Texas, and led a special task force for Methodist Hospital. The interview I did with her in 2021 is here, and the interview for this year is below:

PREVIOUSLY:

Felicity Pereyra, HISD District I

More information about the candidates for these and other races can be found in the fabulous Erik Manning spreadsheet.

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Third lawsuit filed against Ten Commandments law

This one is a followup to the first one.

Texas’ Ten Commandments law is facing another legal battle after a coalition of 15 families filed a lawsuit against their school districts to block the mandate to display the religious text in classrooms.

The new lawsuit comes after U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio granted a preliminary injunction last month to 16 families suing Houston, Fort Bend, Cy-Fair, Alamo Heights and other school districts. While the lawyers representing the families said the case set a precedent for other districts to follow, Attorney General Ken Paxton directed all other school districts outside of the lawsuit to comply with Senate Bill 10.

Monday’s filing lists 14 districts as defendants, including Conroe ISD, which had previously been cautioned against placing the Ten Commandments up by its district counsel while awaiting Biery’s decision. District officials later said they would comply with the law after Paxton’s directive.

The latest legal battle, which will also play out in San Antonio, builds upon Biery’s ruling last month. It says after that ruling, the plaintiffs’ counsel sent a letter to every school superintendent in Texas not mentioned in the lawsuit, stating that “although the districts may not be technically bound by the court’s ruling, they have an independent legal obligation to respect their students’ constitutional rights.”

Plaintiffs are seeking a declaratory judgment that SB10 is unconstitutional, a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and permanent injunctive relief to prevent the school districts from complying with the law, according to the court filing.

It’s an ongoing effort from families of a variety of faith groups, including those who are Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Baha’i, or nonreligious, who believe the Ten Commandments in school interfere with their religious freedom.

[…]

In the case Biery presided over, Paxton’s office represented all school districts with the exception of Austin ISD and Houston ISD. His office did not respond to comment at the time of publication on whether it would represent the districts in the lawsuit filed Monday.

See here, here, and here for the background. After the first ruling was handed down, Ken Paxton was out there telling school districts that were not defendants in that suit that they still had to comply with the new state law, the ruling didn’t apply to them. The ACLU was saying the opposite, that the judge declared the law unconstitutional and other districts should heed that or have a bigger mess to clean up later. This lawsuit is about that mess. My assumption is that another ruling, one that reiterates the first one, will likely make most if not all of the other school districts accept that they have more to fear from the courts than they do from Ken Paxton. I don’t envy them the position they’re in – it really sucks having a lawless, vindictive asshole as the Attorney General – but the law is what it is. We have a chance to elect a better AG next year, so maybe put some thought into that as a possibility. I don’t know what the timeline will be for this, but the outcome seems pretty clear. The ACLU’s press release is here, a copy of the complaint is here, the Fort Worth Report and TPR have more, and I still have no idea what the situation is with the lawsuit that was filed in North Texas.

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Bexar County’s voter registration problems

Not great, Bob!

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Bexar County is sitting on more than 45,000 voter registration forms that haven’t been processed — less than 50 days before voters decide whether to devote public dollars to a downtown arena for the San Antonio Spurs.

That’s because a third-party vendor that managed voter rolls for Bexar County and 22 other Texas counties went out of business this summer, forcing the counties to shift to the state’s Texas Election Administration Management system, or TEAM. The state software, typically used by smaller counties, has been slow to roll out in Texas’ fourth-largest county.

“This is an unprecedented situation. The vendor abruptly shut off their services, disrupting the voter registration functions of 23 Texas counties,” said Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State. “Of those, 14 have requested to join the TEAM system, and we are working as diligently as possible to onboard those counties ahead of the November election.”

The defunct firm, California-based VOTEC, provided software that the county’s election administrators use to store data of registered voters, match them with the correct voting precinct and ensure they get the right ballot at the polls.

Last week, Bexar County Commissioners Court approved $1.5 million in the county’s new budget to adopt a new third-party system. But with no contract signed, that system won’t be in place for the November election.

[…]

Most smaller Texas counties use the state’s system, but larger ones such as Bexar County rely on outside vendors with tools that TEAM lacks, such as digital signature checks. Those features make it easier to manage the high volume of voters, Carew said.

VOTEC told its customers in August that it was going out of business. The company has experienced financial woes over the years. In 2024, it hit Texas counties with a surprise surcharge to stay afloat.

The company was one of just three firms the state approves to manage voter registration data.

Bexar County chose to move to the state’s system for the November’s election rather than quickly switch to another vendor, but it made the call later than other counties that had already asked the state for help.

The state upgraded TEAM this summer and told counties it would be ready in July. But Bexar County is still waiting for the state to finish mapping addresses to precincts so voters can be matched correctly.

Voter registrations have piled up at Bexar County’s elections office — and people who have applied still technically aren’t registered voters.

“Until we process them through the TEAM system, there’s not a way for me to say that they are considered an active voter,” [Bexar County elections administrator Michele] Carew said.

The predicament puts the county at odds with state law, which states that voter registrations become effective 30 days after they are submitted.

“Each one of the eligible voters should have already received the voter registration card from us,” Carew said. “Technically, we’re out of compliance.”

What a mess. From my outside perspective, as someone with no vested interest in the Spurs’ arena, I can say at least this ought to be fixed in time for the 2026 election, when it will really matter. That’s not of any comfort to those who are affected now, of course. Good luck sorting this all out by early October, y’all. The San Antonio Report has more.

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Interview with Felicity Pereyra

Felicity Pereyra

Welcome to the start of the 2025 interview season! I went into this early on thinking there wouldn’t be much, as there are no city of Houston elections, but with the special elections in CD18 and At Large #4 it turned out to be busier than expected. But have no fear, I’ve got it covered. This week will be all about HISD, where there are five races, two of which are for open seats, ensuring that the next elected Board of Trustees will be different than the one we have now. We start in District I, my district, where data scientist and political organizer Felicity Pereyra is running unopposed to succeed Elizabeth Santos, who chose not to run for a third term. An HISD and University of Houston graduate, she has worked on Presidential campaigns as well as projects for the Census and Hurricane Harvey recovery. She’s on the slate of candidates endorsed by the Harris County Democratic Party, most of whom you will hear from this week. Here’s the interview:

The world famous Erik Manning spreadsheet is back, and you can learn more about all these candidates as well as track previous interviews there. I’ll have more of these each day this week.

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