Justice Department asked to investigate GLO’s screw job of Houston on Harvey funds

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Not sure that late is actually better than never in this case, but here we are.

A complaint stemming from the Texas General Land Office’s allocation of Harvey disaster recovery funds, which originally awarded no money to Houston or Harris County from a $1 billion distribution, has been escalated to the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development asked the Justice Department on Wednesday to take action against the GLO after finding that it had violated the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against Black and Hispanic residents when it designed a competition to allocate the relief money.

HUD’s review of the GLO’s funding process revealed that the state agency had engaged in a pattern of “discriminatory actions based on race and national origin,” wrote Ayelet Weiss, assistant general counsel for HUD’s Office of Fair Housing Enforcement, in a letter to the Justice Department.

In a separate letter sent to state officials, HUD told the GLO that it knowingly denied communities critical funding, and “compounded the harm” that residents suffered from Hurricane Harvey.

The new correspondence affirmed HUD’s previous finding of discrimination in 2022 against the GLO. At that time, the Justice Department said it would defer consideration of the matter until HUD wrapped up its fair housing investigation.

[…]

Former mayor and now U.S. Rep. Sylvester Turner said Wednesday that while he was glad the findings were being sent to the Justice Department, he was frustrated by the amount of time it took to hold the GLO accountable.

Houston residents whose lives were devastated by Harvey should have received federal aid years ago, Turner said, and instead the GLO diverted those funds to communities in lesser need.

“What do you say to these communities in Houston who have gone without the resources that they need to mitigate flooding in their very own communities?” Turner said. “HUD is doing the right thing in referring this matter to the DOJ, but it just should’ve been done more than two years ago.”

See here for the previous update. I’m with Rep. Turner on this: It’s nice to be validated, but it would have been way nicer to have gotten our fair share of the cash and/or this finding and request for action much sooner than now. I assume the Trump “Justice” Department will trash this as soon as it crosses the Attorney General’s desk. I don’t know what else to say. The Trib has more.

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Paxton asks SCOTx to get him off the State Bar hook

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

As the sun rises in the east.

Still a crook any way you look

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office wants the Texas Supreme Court to throw out a State Bar ethics complaint against him — two weeks after the court dismissed a similar complaint against his assistant attorney general.

Seven out of the nine justices ruled Dec. 31 that First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster could not be disciplined for allegedly making false claims about the 2020 presidential election results in a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Solicitor General Aaron L. Nielson wrote in a letter to the high court Monday that because the commission’s complaint against Paxton was closely related to the complaint against Webster, Paxton’s suit should also be dismissed.

“The Commission’s petition against the Attorney General in this case is based on the same legal theories and underlying facts as—and therefore materially identical to—the one filed against the First Assistant in Webster,” Nielson wrote.

[…]

The Bar’s disciplinary arm, the Commission for Lawyer Discipline, alleged Paxton misrepresented facts of the election with claims unsupported by evidence. The commission accused Paxton of professional misconduct, which violates the bar’s rules. The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas upheld the State Bar’s suit.

In Webster’s case, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the Commission for Lawyer Discipline took it upon itself to attempt to discipline Webster when the U.S. Supreme Court — the court that heard the election lawsuit — did not and didn’t ask the commission to do so. It also intrudes upon the attorney general’s constitutional authority to both file petitions in court and assess the propriety of the claims he makes, the justices ruled.

At the time, Paxton called the State Bar’s complaints against himself and Webster “baseless” and “political retaliation.”

“The Texas State Bar attempted to punish us for fighting to secure our national elections but we did not and will not ever back down from doing what is right,” Paxton said in a statement.

In his letter, Nielson wrote the Fifth Court of Appeals “committed all of the same errors” in reviewing the case as the Eighth Court of Appeals in El Paso did in Webster’s case — hence why Paxton’s suit should be dismissed.

The dissenting justices — Justice Jeff Boyd and Justice Debra Lehrmann — said in their opinion in Webster’s case that the majority’s opinion showed “disdain or distrust” for the commission’s ability to discipline lawyers.

See here for the Brent Webster update. The best I can come up with for why SCOTx would allow the lawsuit against Paxton to continue after giving Webster a free pass is that Paxton was the guy in charge, where the buck stops, and it’s different for that guy to lie and do fraud before a court than for some foot soldier. I don’t actually believe that, I’m quite certain that they’ll give him a lollipop and a pat on the head and send him on his way, but I made myself think up a possibly plausible rationale for them to do the right thing, and that’s what I’ve got. Accountability is for suckers. Start the clock on this one.

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Dispatches from Dallas, January 17 edition

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth: news from the Lege and about the upcoming May elections in North Texas. Also: the Dallas City Manager hiring process is limping to a close; Mayor Johnson changes his mind about the HERO propositions; Fort Worth PD seizes photos from an art museum as possible kiddie porn; Tarrant County jail news, including folks arrested at a County Commissioners’ meeting over protesting deaths; schools news, particularly the discussion about Keller ISD splitting up; water infrastructure news including the latest on the Marvin Nichols reservoir; and more.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of PJ Harvey. One of my goals for 2025 is to listen to more music by women artists, so expect to hear about a lot of women this year.

The big news this week is that the Texas legislature is again in session. As noted by our host, Democrats managed to keep the worst Republican, David Cook, (R-Mansfield), out of the speakership in favor of a slightly less bad Republican, Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock). Cook had pledged to keep all Democrats out of leadership; Burrows didn’t. That’s the slightly less bad.

We’re still in the “what are we going to do this year?” part of the session, so here’s what some of our North Texas legislators have to say:

In other news:

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SCOTUS hears the Texas anti-porn case

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

There’s a lot on the line here.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared conflicted over whether a Texas law regulating adult entertainment websites infringes upon First Amendment free speech rights of adults seeking to access online pornography.

At issue is a 2023 Texas law requiring companies that operate websites where more than one-third of the material is harmful to minors to use “reasonable” age verification measures to ensure users are at least 18 years old. More than a dozen other states have passed similar laws, but Texas’ is the first to be looked at by the nation’s highest court. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision could determine the fate of other states’ laws and set new precedent on how the government can impose age-related content regulations.

More than two hours of arguments on Wednesday concluded with a lawyer for adult entertainment websites contending that the internet is “free” and that it is incumbent upon parents, not websites, to screen out content inappropriate to their kids. Derek Shaffer, the attorney, also pointed out the particular features of Texas’ law compared to that of other states.

“This is the worst of the laws,” Shaffer said. “Texas is telling these targeted speakers that pornography is, among other things, contributing to prostitution. You have a hostile regulator who is saying to adults, ‘You should not be here.’”

[…]

State lawmakers passed House Bill 1101 in 2023 as part of a broader push to prevent children from being exposed to sexual materials. The law quickly drew scrutiny from free speech advocates and adult entertainment websites like Pornhub, who said the law would place undue burden on adults by forcing them to jump through hoops and endanger their privacy to access legal content. Critics also said the law was overly broad and could apply to websites providing information on reproductive rights resources, sexual education and LGBTQ+ literature. The law was initially blocked from going into effect after a federal U.S. District Court Judge found it unconstitutional.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision in November 2023, allowing the law to go into effect. The law carries fines of up to $10,000 per day that a website operates without age-verification requirements and up to an additional $250,000 if a minor accesses sexual material harmful to them. Pornhub has disabled access to Texans since last March, when the 5th Circuit formally vacated the lower court’s ruling.

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Wednesday were asked to consider whether the appeals court applied proper legal reasoning in upholding age-verification. The Free Speech Coalition, a trade group representing adult entertainment websites, argued that the proper standard of review is strict scrutiny, the most stringent standard that is used in cases pertaining to fundamental rights such as freedom of speech. The 5th Circuit relied on rational basis review, a less strict review which considers only whether there’s a legitimate state interest for the law.

Texas’ solicitor general Aaron Nielson argued on behalf of the state and told justices that the law would satisfy any level of scrutiny.

“Age verification today is simple, safe and common,” Nielson said. “Even if heightened scrutiny applies, Texas easily satisfies it.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision on the case this summer. They appeared open to the idea of an age-verification requirement, but some justices seemed concerned about the possible First Amendment implications of a broad ruling. In two separate cases, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that laws aimed to prevent the distribution of obscene materials to minors were unconstitutional restrictions of free speech.

See here for the previous update. There’s not a clear consensus of what the court made of the arguments. Here are two headlines I came across on Thursday afternoon:

Justices skeptical of Fifth Circuit ruling that upheld Texas age-verification internet law

Supreme Court appears sympathetic to law requiring porn sites to verify users’ age

Go guess. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern takes his own shot at it:

In past cases like Ashcroft, the Supreme Court rejected this censorship-first approach, warning against the perils of censoring protected expression in the name of protecting kids. How times have changed. As soon as Derek Shaffer began arguing for the adult film industry on Wednesday, the conservative justices accused him of underestimating the danger and ubiquity of internet porn today. “It’s been 20 years since Ashcroft,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Shaffer. “The iPhone was introduced in 2007 and Ashcroft was decided in 2004. I mean, kids can get online porn through gaming systems, tablets, phones, computers.” There has been an “explosion of addiction to online porn.” Clearly, she posited, relying on parents to “filter” explicit content “isn’t working.” Justice Samuel Alito agreed. “Come on, be real,” he lectured Shaffer. “There’s a huge volume of evidence that filtering doesn’t work. We’ve had many years of experience with it.”

So the Ashcroft court’s sanguine assumption that parents could rely on technology to filter out porn has vanished. Gone, too, is that court’s laissez-faire attitude toward sexually explicit speech, replaced by Barrett’s concern about youth “addiction” to porn. “Do you dispute,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Shaffer, “the societal problems that are created both short term and long term from the rampant access to pornography for children?” (“That is a complicated question,” Shaffer offered.) “Technological access to pornography, obviously, has exploded,” Chief Justice John Roberts opined, adding that “the nature of the pornography, I think, has also changed.” Justice Clarence Thomas added that “we’re in an entirely different world” from Ashcroft, which “was a world of dial-up internet.”

All of these justices appear to harbor some regrets about Ashcroft’s unyielding insistence upon the application of strict scrutiny to online porn laws. But what should replace it? Alito sounded eager to embrace the 5th Circuit’s use of rational basis review, while other justices waffled. Barrett floated the idea of “intermediate scrutiny,” which gives the government more leeway to regulate speech without writing a blank check. Roberts and Kavanaugh seemed interested in applying a kind of pseudo-strict scrutiny that would, in practice, dilute protections for internet porn. Justice Elena Kagan fretted about “the spillover danger” of “relax[ing] strict scrutiny in one place,” noting that “all of a sudden strict scrutiny gets relaxed in other places.” Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson shared that concern, and it’s a weighty one: If the court slackens First Amendment standards for internet pornography, it will inevitably reduce protections for speech that it holds in higher esteem.

The liberal justices are right to fret about the dire consequences of reducing or eliminating constitutional protections for sexual expression online. If the court takes this step, there’s no reason why states’ battle against explicit material must stop at PornHub. States could target online bookstores that sell sexually explicit e-books, for instance, as well as streaming services that carry explicit TV show and movies. As the dissenting judge on the 5th Circuit explained, there is an endless array of graphic media that adults have a constitutional right to access even though it is plainly inappropriate for children. Could a state punish HBO for airing Game of Thrones without first verifying viewers’ age? Under the 5th Circuit’s view, apparently shared by at least one justice, almost certainly.

The best outcome that is on the table is for SCOTUS to send it back to the Fifth Circuit with instructions to apply strict scrutiny. After that, we’ll see. A press release from the ACLU of Texas is here, and TPM, the Chron, and NBC News have more.

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Nate Paul takes a plea

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Another anticlimactic end to an ongoing saga.

Nate Paul, a prominent Austin real estate developer and head of World Class Holdings, has pleaded guilty to a single count of making false statements to a lending institution. The plea, entered Wednesday, concludes an 18-month federal investigation into allegations of bank and wire fraud related to Paul’s business dealings.

Federal prosecutors have recommended a sentence that includes no more than six months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, and a fine of up to $1 million. However, the final sentence will be determined following a pre-sentencing evaluation by the U.S. Probation Office. The plea agreement also stipulates the dismissal of 11 additional charges against Paul.

Paul initially faced a jury trial scheduled for February 18 and was confronting charges that carried severe penalties. He had been indicted in June 2023 on eight counts of bank fraud for allegedly providing false information to secure over $172 million in loans. A superseding indictment in November added four wire fraud charges.

Each of the eight bank fraud counts carried a potential sentence of up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine, while the wire fraud counts each carried a maximum of 20 years and a $250,000 fine. The plea agreement, which remains under seal, caps Paul’s prison time at six months if accepted by the court.

[…]

Paul’s legal troubles also intersected with political controversy, notably involving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paul was accused of receiving improper assistance from Paxton, who allegedly used his office to intervene in legal matters to Paul’s benefit. These allegations contributed to Paxton’s impeachment in 2023, although he was later acquitted in a State Senate trial.

The plea deal emerged shortly after Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra denied a joint motion from prosecutors and Paul’s defense team to delay the trial until April. Judge Ezra expressed frustration at the protracted timeline, declaring the case had “gone on way too long.”

The agreement spares Paul from a lengthy trial that was expected to involve 10-14 days of testimony from the prosecution alone, not including the defense’s arguments and rebuttals.

Beyond the federal charges, Paul faced legal repercussions in a separate civil case. In November, he was sentenced to 10 days in jail for contempt of court, perjury, and violating an injunction in a lawsuit involving a charity. This case also highlighted Paul’s ties to Paxton, with allegations that the attorney general improperly intervened to assist Paul in avoiding foreclosures.

As with pretty much everything related to the Ken Paxton Scandalmatic Universe, there’s a bunch of lore here, with a bit of Remember Some Guys thrown in for extra effect. We were first introduced to our buddy Nate shortly before the 2020 election. Remember that we heard about Nate Paul because a bunch of now-former top lieutenants of Paxton accused him of using the AG’s office to butt into a civil dispute between Paul and the Mitte Foundation on Paul’s behalf. That included interfering with a federal subpoena, which those senior staff members correctly saw as an abuse of the office and its powers. It also led to the allegations that Paxton’s actions on Paul’s behalf constituted a bribe, which in turn led to an FBI investigation of Paxton and the ill-fated impeachment by the Legislature.

And then that’s pretty much it. Paxton skated on the impeachment, and whatever the FBI may have found about his relationship with Nate Paul – there were rumors about forthcoming federal charges against Paxton, ones that never quite made it across the finish line, as recently as a few months ago – it is a sure thing that they’ll never see the light of day now. Paul served a few days for contempt relating to that still-ongoing civil case, and he’ll do a bit more time as a result of this plea deal, and that will be that. I have dozens if not hundreds of posts with the Nate Paul tag, and I won’t even get a lousy T-shirt out of it. Maybe something will happen with the whistleblower litigation, but I think we’ve all learned by now to keep our expectations at ground level.

So that’s it, more or less. Time to turn yet another damn page. Ken Paxton is the most undeservedly lucky bastard in the state. KVUE, the Statesman, and KXAN have more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment, Legal matters, Scandalized! | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

More on the Women’s Pro Baseball League

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good overview of the things this new league will need to do to have a good chance of success.

For the first time since the Eisenhower Administration, women dreaming of playing baseball professionally in the United States will have the opportunity to see that dream realized with a league of their own.

Last October, the Women’s Pro Baseball League (WPBL) issued its first press release to announce the founding of the country’s only professional women’s baseball league, which is set to launch in the summer of 2026. The league is co-founded by Justine Siegal — who is best known for founding Baseball For All, “[A] girls baseball nonprofit that builds gender equity by creating opportunities for girls to play, coach, and lead in the sport” — and Keith Stein, a businessman, lawyer, and member of the ownership group for a semiprofessional men’s baseball team in Toronto. The league has also brought in former Toronto Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston and Team Japan’s two-time Women’s Baseball World Cup MVP Ayami Sato as special advisors.

Women’s baseball has a long, but unfortunately sparse, history dating back to the late 1800s, when colleges in the Northeast, such as Vassar, fielded teams. Since then, women have largely accrued playing time by representing their country’s national team at the Olympics, playing on barnstorming teams – from the Dolly Vardens in the 1870s to the Colorado Silver Bullets in the 1990s – or by earning roles in leagues primarily created for men, from the amateur ranks to the pros (see Mo’ne Davis, Toni Stone, Lizzie Arlington, and more recently, Kelsie Whitmore, among many others). Aside from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, formed during WWII to fill a void left by the male ballplayers fighting overseas, women in the United States have not had a dedicated professional league.

So after all these years without a league, why now? “The past was the right time,” Stein says in a recent interview with FanGraphs. “Thirty years ago was the right time. Four years ago was the right time. Definitely, definitely, now is the right time.” As evidence, he notes, “There’s now a professional women’s hockey league that’s thriving, a professional women’s soccer league, a professional women’s basketball league. They’re all thriving because of the appetite, the incredible appetite, for women’s sport.”

But while the culture does seem primed to welcome more women’s leagues, an enthusiastic fan base only covers half of the demand equation. Unlike the other sports that Stein cites, women’s baseball doesn’t benefit from the existence of college programs to act as a developmental pipeline. Stein says the creation of a league will be a “catalyst for the development of a whole infrastructure around women’s baseball and hopefully spawn the development of a baseball culture in America for women.” And in the meantime, he believes there’s more than enough talent to fill the WPBL rosters. Nearly 700 players registered in the first week or so after the league’s announcement, according to Stein. “We have great professional players from around the world, top players from Japan, the U.S. — everywhere — who are very excited to play with us,” Stein says. “There are over 2,000 women playing on boys high school teams. There are thousands and thousands of players who are ready to play in this league.”

Players and fans can only get an upstart women’s league so far, though; it needs a financial support system to help it get off the ground. One way to do that would be for the women’s league to form a partnership with its male counterpart, as the WNBA did with the NBA. However, for the WPBL, partnering with MLB would mean giving men’s baseball a say in how the women’s league operates. Perhaps wary of this, the WPBL instead is choosing to remain independent and create a female-led league. To that end, the league has composed an advisory board of seven women with decades of experience in baseball and women’s sports. Maybelle Blair, a former pitcher for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, will serve as the board’s Honorary Chair and throw out the first pitch at the WPBL’s season opener in 2026.

The WPBL plans to hold a scouting camp this coming spring, followed by a player draft late in 2025, leading up to its first season during the summer of 2026. The league’s six inaugural teams will be located in the northeastern region of the U.S. to start, with plans to expand nationwide as the league grows. Given its ambitious aims, the challenges of starting a brand new league, and the friction created by a sports culture that is still learning to properly value athletes who aren’t men, the WPBL faces a formidable path forward. Fortunately, trailblazers across women’s sports have mapped a course. The recent explosion of eyeballs on women’s basketball sets up the WNBA as an obvious model for a women’s baseball league, but the WNBA stands on the shoulders of earlier attempts at women’s professional basketball.

Many remember the American Basketball League that started one year prior to the WNBA, and lasted just three seasons, but almost two decades prior, the Women’s Professional Basketball League (WBL) gave American basketball fans their first taste of women’s pro ball. Though the league drew thousands of fans when it tipped off, it folded after three years. The WBL demonstrated that a women’s professional league could work, but it still depended on proper execution off the court. Though women’s sports are generating “incredible interest and support,” as Stein notes in the press release, there’s a lot the WPBL can learn from the missteps of the WBL in three critical areas – team ownership, the on-field product, and media coverage.

See here for the background. The article goes into detail about those three critical areas, and it’s worth your time to read. First on the list is getting the right owners, who will be in for the long haul and who can handle a few years of being in the red as they invest in the league. I’m excited for them and hope very much they get this right.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of January 13

Posted on January 16, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance sends its love to the people of Los Angeles as it brings you this week’s roundup. A portal of verified fundraisers for people affected by the fires is here for anyone who might like to make a donation.

Continue reading →

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Burrows elected Speaker

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Gotta admit, I’m a little surprised.

Rep. Dustin Burrows

Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, was voted speaker of the Texas House on Tuesday, elevating him to one of the most powerful positions in state government.

Burrows’ win marks a disappointing defeat for the insurgent wing of the party who have been working since the last legislative session to push establishment Republicans out of power. Those insurgent Republicans, who wish to push the chamber further to the right, picked up more than a dozen seats in the most recent election cycle and saw this speaker race as their best chance in years to oust the current House leadership.

But while Burrows’ predecessor, Rep. Dade Phelan of Beaumont, was forced to give up the gavel, the elevation of his close ally signals a similar power structure will likely remain in place.

Burrows won the speaker’s race by a vote of 85-55, edging out Rep. David Cook of Mansfield, with nine members who were present but did not vote.

Burrows’ support from Democrats will likely become major ammunition for his Republican critics aligned with the party’s right wing who warned that the new speaker should be chosen by a majority of GOP votes.

It’s unlikely that Republicans will completely unite behind Burrows despite his win. Many of his critics have promised to go after Republicans who supported Burrows in the primary, and the Republican Party of Texas has vowed to censure those members who broke from Cook.

You can see who voted for whom here – the “A” votes are for Burrows, the “N”s are for Cook, and the rest did not vote. While I’ve previously said that the one constant in the Texas Legislature has been quick resolutions to Speaker elections, I thought this one might drag out, just because there was so much bad blood on the Republican side. But it wasn’t to be, so congrats to Speaker Burrows. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, and all that.

I’ve already said my piece about this, and it still holds. Anything that makes Dan Patrick sad is fine by me, and if this gums up the works in passing some bills, that’s likely to be for the best. Take your victories where you can and go from there. The Chron, Reform Austin, Bayou City Sludge, Lone Star Left, and The Barbed Wire have more, with the latter bringing some nicer news about the first day’s events as well.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

El Paso doctor responds to Paxton’s gender affirming care lawsuit

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

Dr. Hector Granados felt puzzled when he first heard of the allegations. The El Paso pediatrician had just finished his hospital rounds early in the morning last fall when he received a call from a friend. The friend saw in the news that Texas was suing Granados.

The office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition Oct. 29 claiming Granados had prescribed puberty blockers and hormones to minors for gender transition – health care the state made illegal beginning Sept. 1, 2023. The court filing accuses Granados of providing gender-affirming care under the false pretense of treating precocious puberty.

Paxton filed the lawsuit in Kaufman County near Dallas, about 650 miles east of El Paso, where one of the 21 patients in the court filing is said to reside. Granados is one of three doctors Paxton sued last year for allegedly providing gender-affirming care to minors.

Granados denied the allegations.

“I was always respectful of the law and I will continue to be because we follow what it specifically mandates,” Granados said. “You’re not able to provide transgender care to minors. We stopped.”

The AG’s office didn’t respond to El Paso Matters’ requests for comment, but called Granados a “radical gender activist” in the lawsuit.

Granados told El Paso Matters he stopped providing gender-affirming care after Texas Senate Bill 14 passed in May 2023 because he didn’t want to risk getting his medical license revoked. He began informing parents and discharging his transgender patients prior to the law going into effect. Since then, he’s continued to see youths for other concerns.

[…]

In a response filed Nov. 25, Bracken filed a motion to move the case from Kaufman to El Paso, and a motion to dismiss the case.

All of the prescriptions cited in the lawsuit were filled in El Paso, according to the state’s court filing. Granados resides and works in El Paso, splitting his time between his three clinics, as well as El Paso Children’s Hospital and the Hospitals of Providence.

Scheduling out-of-town court appearances would be difficult when Granados is on call three weeks every month for neonatal, emergency and pediatric intensive care, Bracken said. Granados would have to make multiple two-day trips to Kaufman to appear in court, taking time away from the patients who depend on him, he said.

See here for the background. The story says Paxton has filed three such lawsuits. I’m aware of two – here’s the post I did on the first one. A little googling around, and here’s the third one:

Paxton accuses Dr. M. Brett Cooper, an associate professor of pediatrics at UT Southwestern Medical Center who also practiced at Children’s Medical Center Dallas, of prescribing various levels of testosterone cypionate to 15 patients between the ages of 14 and 17. Most patients listed in the lawsuit were between 16 and 17 years old.

In the 34-page lawsuit filed in Collin County, Paxton calls Cooper a “scofflaw” and “radical gender activist” — a reprisal of similar labels he used in his first two lawsuits against Dr. May Lau of UT Southwestern and Dr. Hector Granados of El Paso.

Paxton has said the state “is cracking down” on doctors who provide treatment to children experiencing gender dysphoria despite the state’s ban, which took effect Sept. 1, 2023. The law calls for the Texas Medical License to revoke the medical licenses of physicians who violate it.

Paxton said Cooper has prescribed hormone treatment to patients as recently as Sept. 25, and that patients filled prescriptions as recently as Oct. 8.

“Despite the enactment of the law, Cooper continues to prescribe and distribute cross-sex hormones to his minor patients for the purposes of transitioning their biological sex or affirming their belief that their gender identity or sex is consistent with their biological sex,” he wrote in the suit.

Paxton also accuses Cooper of misrepresenting diagnoses and billing codes through diagnoses such as “precocious puberty” or “endocrine disorder” to treat patients for gender dysphoria.

That last bit should be very concerning to everyone, because precocious puberty is a real thing. In the same way that the abortion ban has put a lot of women’s health in jeopardy because they are unable to get timely care during a miscarriage, children with precocious puberty are going to suffer from Paxton’s heavyhandedness. What does he care? Just a little collateral damage in service of the larger goal. I don’t have much faith in what the courts will do with this, but this is where we are.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Just a little reminder

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This story asks a question that it doesn’t quite answer but is worth pondering.

There are rolling hills west of Los Angeles and stretching to the Pacific Coast covered with homes — many now charred by recent wildfires.

North and northwest of San Antonio are similar hills that make up the Texas Hill Country. They too are covered with homes as the region’s population grows, especially with retirees and other homebuyers. Some seek the quiet life, and others just want a home with “a Hill Country view.”

But do they face the same vulnerabilities as homes in California?

The Texas A&M Forest Service reports that many of these Texas homes in the hills are served by volunteer fire departments, which means longer response times to an emergency. Forest Service Spokeswoman Dayziah Petruska said it could take up to an hour for some of these departments to arrive on the scene of a wildfire in a remote area. She said the long response time could be the same for her agency in some spots of Texas.

She said forest service experts constantly access fire weather conditions where wildfires could break out at any time and stage equipment and personnel accordingly. “Based off fire weather, we staff in different areas of the state, with that being our own employees,” she explained. “And then we also bring in — whether it be out-of-state or Texas Intrastate Fire Mutual Aid System. So, those are structure firefighters who have been trained to do wildland firefighting.”

Petruska said Fredericksburg is a hub where heavier equipment is kept at the ready for Hill Country fires.

So prevention is important. She explained that residents in those hilly communities can take important preemptive steps to protect their homes from a wildfire.

[…]

Petruska added that fire also travels faster up hills, and cedar trees are a particular concern — they’re full of resin and are very combustible.

She said it’s important to control the number of embers that could be created by a wildfire. Those little smoldering chunks of vegetation or debris can become airborne and spark another fire where they land, sometimes far away.

There’s some useful information for homeowners who need to be aware of wildfire risks, but it doesn’t get into the question of how likely is such a thing to happen somewhere in Texas. I don’t have an answer to that either, but I am reminded that the biggest and most destructive wildfire in state history was the Bastrop fire of 2011, which is to say in recent memory. Here’s a reminder of what that experience was like, from someone who was affected.

[Alice] Traugott, who was 63 at the time of the fire, was at H-E-B buying deli meats when her husband called to tell her they were being evacuated from their home, and to meet him at the Roadhouse restaurant on Texas 21.

She left her groceries on the conveyor belt of the checkout counter and drove straight to her husband, to find him with their four dogs in his truck, a few of his musical instruments, her kindle and jewelry.

“And that’s all,” Traugott said, a mother of four sons.

They spent the next two nights at a Holiday Inn, which did not take long to reach capacity.

“I was aggravated because I thought, ‘Oh this is stupid,’ because I thought the firemen would put the fire out,” Traugott said. “I had no concept of what a wildfire was … I thought the firemen would put the fire out because that’s what firemen do, they put out the fire. I didn’t understand what a wildfire was.”

A couple days later, residents who were asked to evacuate were told to go to a local middle school. A large map of the county was hung on the wall of the school’s gymnasium, and a firefighter was telling people whether their home was burned or not.

Donning clothes she had been wearing for the two days, Traugott approached the firefighter and gave him her address.

“He looked at the map and he said, ‘I’m sorry, your house is gone,’” Traugott said. “And I said ‘get out.’ I couldn’t believe it.

“People say it’s just stuff, you know. It’s just your house, it’s just your furniture. But it doesn’t feel that way at first. It feels like you almost don’t know who you are, or what you’re supposed to do, where you’re supposed to go.”

She returned to her 3-acre estate a few days after the fire passed it, equipped with a mop, rags and pail full of soap, thinking she would just have to clean her house.

“There was nothing left,” Traugott said. “There was nothing to clean, there was nothing to scrub. There was nothing to sift. It was down to the tad, down to the cement slab. There was nothing left, and I kept thinking: where did the refrigerator go? Where did the washer and dryer go? Where’s the bathtub?

“It was just unrecognizable rubble and ash, that’s all that was left — and that’s when I realized what a wildfire is.”

As big and bad as that fire was, it’s nowhere close to what’s happening now. I don’t know what the risk is here – 2011 was also a year of record drought, which was certainly a contributing factor – but it will never be zero. I’d like to see a story that gets into that, if only as a reminder. In the meantime, I just thought it was worth remembering what had happened here, not that long ago. If you want to do something now, a portal of verified fundraisers for people affected by the fires is here for anyone who might like to make a donation.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

SCOTx hears Paxton’s appeal of the Annunciation House case

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

A big one.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office told sometimes skeptical Texas Supreme Court justices Monday that El Paso’s Annunciation House migrant shelters are harboring undocumented immigrants and can’t use Catholic religious beliefs as a legal justification for its actions.

“Annunciation House is not immunized because of its religion,” Assistant Attorney General Ryan Baasch said in oral arguments over the agency’s appeal of an El Paso court ruling that blocked efforts to force the Catholic nonprofit to turn over records or face potential closure.

“Do you disagree that this is religious activity?” Justice Debra Lehrmann asked Baasch.

“It may be, and then there’s going to be a question of whether the activity at issue here substantially burdens the religious activity,” Baasch replied.

“If it’s a religious activity, how could it not substantially burden it? I think you want to shut it down?” Justice Jeff Boyd asked.

“The substantiality would be a big part of that inquiry, and I don’t think that there’s enough facts on the record here to determine if the burden has been substantial,” Baasch said.

The Texas Supreme Court is hearing the attorney general’s appeal of 205th District Judge Francisco Dominguez ruling in July, when he rejected what he called “outrageous and intolerable” actions by Paxton’s office in seeking to potentially strip Annunciation House of the right to operate in Texas.

The state’s highest civil court is considering several issues, including whether Annunciation House’s provision of offering hospitality to people who entered the country illegally violates a state law against harboring undocumented immigrants, and whether the attorney general’s efforts to compel Annunciation House to produce records violates the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits government officials from interfering with a person’s free exercise of religion.

“There has been no violation of the harboring statute because Annunciation House, an established Ministry of the Catholic Church, does not hide undocumented people from law enforcement. Hiding them is an element of the harboring statue,” Warr told the justices.

She also stressed that the vast majority of people hosted by Annunciation House are legally in the country because they were released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while courts consider their immigration cases.

“Most of the people who we house are brought to us by ICE after they have processed them and they need a place to stay,” Warr said.

[…]

Paxton has denied that his office is interfering with religious freedom, and argued in a brief to the Texas Supreme Court that Garcia acknowledged in testimony that Annunciation House “does not offer confessions, baptisms, or communion, and makes ‘no’ efforts to evangelize or convert its guests to any religion.”

The Texas Conference of Catholic Bishops filed a brief with the Texas Supreme Court in support of Annunciation House’s arguments. The bishops said that underlying Paxton’s argument “is the notion that his office, and not the Catholic Church, is the proper arbiter of who is ‘Catholic’ enough to be a Catholic ministry.”

First Liberty Institute, one of the nation’s leading Christian conservative organizations advocating for religious liberty, also sided with Annunciation House in a brief filed with the Texas Supreme Court.

The brief said the high court previously ruled that the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act “requires the government to tread carefully and lightly when its actions substantially burden religious exercise.”

“Shuttering a religious nonprofit like Annunciation House is hardly treading lightly,” First Liberty Institute said in the brief.

The First Liberty Institute support could be helpful to Annunciation House before the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court because of its conservative background and history of successfully arguing religious freedom cases.

The El Paso Chamber and El Paso County filed briefs to the Texas Supreme Court in support of Annunciation House. The America First Legal Foundation – a nonprofit advocacy group founded by Stephen Miller, an architect of President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration policies – filed a brief in support of Paxton.

See here for the previous update. A ruling is likely months away, and may wait until after a SCOTUS case that touches on some similar issues is decided. The newest member of the Supreme Court is sitting this out, for reasons that were not specified. I’m generally not a fan of statutes like the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is based on the national law and which to my mind are generally enacted to favor conservative religious interests, and the First Liberty Institute is usually a villain in these matters. That both of them stand in the way of Paxton’s crusade is more than a little ironic. If that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes. The Trib and the Chron have more.

Posted in La Migra, Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Oh, who needs board approval anyway?

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Heck of a job, y’all.

Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles’ administration greenlit about $870 million in spending over the past 16 months without receiving required school board approval, breaking district policy and frustrating some board members.

HISD administrators did not bring about 130 purchase agreements — all made through a process that allows HISD to skip soliciting bids from vendors — to the district’s state-appointed board for monthly approval, bypassing a step designed to provide oversight and transparency. Many purchase agreements dealt with day-to-day district operations, such as maintaining school grounds and renting equipment, while a handful were for consultants.

The total potential value of the purchase agreements amounted to about $55 million per month during the 16-month period, nearly double the monthly average of $30 million approved during the two years before that span, a Houston Landing analysis shows.

In a video posted Monday morning on YouTube, Miles said HISD administrators did not intentionally hide any agreements. Miles said district staff misunderstood district policy and have now corrected the issue.

“Prior to winter break, we discovered that we weren’t following all the policies related to procurement review process,” Miles said. “One important step is board approval, and that step was missed.”

[…]

Board members Adam Rivon and Rolando Martinez said none of the contracts immediately stood out to them as bad spending, but the breach in policy concerned them.

“While I appreciate efforts to address the issue retroactively, I’m not satisfied because these mistakes make it harder for parents and the community to trust that things are being handled the right way,” Rivon, a member of the district’s Audit Committee, said in a statement.

The district’s internal auditor reviewed each unapproved purchase agreement and found no violations of the law, Miles said. Similar audits will be conducted quarterly going forward, he said.

HISD administrators presented the full list of purchase agreements made from mid-August 2023 to mid-December 2024 to board members for retroactive approval during their December board meeting. At that meeting, board members raised the issue briefly without discussion, went into closed session out of public view for three hours and, ultimately, tabled the vote.

“It came to my attention, through communications with staff members, that the board had not seen all expenditures made under (HISD’s purchasing policy),” Board president Audrey Momanaee said in December, explaining why she had added the issue to the board agenda.

Board members are expected to reconsider approval of the vendor awards on Thursday. Actual spending has likely been lower than $870 million, because the purchase agreements set the maximum amount that district officials can spend on a specific expense.

[…]

In August 2023, about two months after Miles’ appointment, HISD passed a policy raising the amount Miles’ administration can spend without board approval from $100,000 to $1 million on contracts awarded through the bidding process. However, the change did not apply to vendor awards made through cooperative agreements, which were still supposed to receive board approval, regardless of their value.

However, starting in September 2023, HISD stopped bringing spending agreements made through purchasing cooperatives to the board. They did not bring any more to the board for approval until December 2024, aside from a $1 million contract for education consultant Kitamba MGT in February 2024.

Martinez acknowledged he “could have done a better job of looking at that policy” and recognized earlier that purchase agreements were no longer coming before the board. But Martinez said he wasn’t aware of the issue, and nobody in Miles’ administration informed him they had stopped presenting the contracts.

“I don’t feel like it’s a board issue. The superintendent has taken responsibility and they’ve owned up to the mistake. It really falls on them,” Martinez said. “This is an operational challenge. My expectation is that they come back to us and say, ‘This is how we’re going to correct it.’”

There doesn’t appear to be anything weird or questionable about the spending itself. The whole issue is that for reasons unclear, these purchase agreements stopped being presented to the Board of Managers for approval until someone finally noticed what was happening. It’s not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is embarrassing, and despite what Board member Martinez says, it’s as much on the Board of Managers as it is on Mike Miles, because none of them ever managed to wonder why they weren’t being asked for these approvals any more. If the elected Board had done this, it would absolutely be held up as a failure on their part.

Which is why I strongly disagree with this:

Eileen Hairel, a member of the District Advisory Committee that provides feedback to HISD’s administration, said she is “deeply concerned” by the error. She sees it as an example of poor governance and a possible setback in HISD’s efforts to pull itself out of TEA intervention.

“HISD will only get out of the state takeover if the board and district meet the exit criteria set out by the TEA, one of which is improved board governance,” Hairel said in a statement. “The foundation of good governance is sound policy and district compliance with that policy.”

No. That failure of governance is on the appointed Board and the appointed Superintendent. If anything, this should be a catalyst for getting the Board out of there in a more expedited manner. The rest of us don’t bear any responsibility for it.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

I-10 elevation project is now underway

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I had managed to forget that this was out there. And then I had to get on I-10 west on Monday morning and was rudely reminded.

A major construction project off Interstate 10 has kicked off with the intent to elevate the highway, reduce flooding in the area, and remove a pesky bridge that has been the source of dozens of 18-wheeler crashes.

But the construction, which kicked off Monday, will cause a traffic nightmare.

The five-lane westbound highway will now shrink to a three-lane roadway from Taylor Street to the Heights Boulevard exit. The two closed lanes will open back up after that exit. Commuters might have to live with that change for the foreseeable future, as the entire project won’t be completed until late 2028.

One of the end results of the construction project will be the removal of the Houston Avenue bridge, under I-10. That bridge, which is the scene of dozens of incidents each year, is frequently hit by 18-wheelers trying to squeeze under the overpass. The work is expected to last from mid-2025 through late 2027.

[…]

According to previous Chron reporting, TxDOT made some changes to the original elevation plan, lowering I-10 main lanes east of Studemont, ten feet lower than existing lanes with a max height of about 120 feet above Houston Avenue due to community resistance.

Main lanes would be kept at or below existing HOV lanes, with a max height of 70 feet, according to the agency.

See here, here, and here for some background. I’m just going to say what I said before, because it remains the truth: This is going to suck, bigtime. And we’ll be hip deep in I-45 construction well before this is over. 2025 is already on my short list of “worst years ever” and we’re not even in February. ABC13 has more.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Precinct analysis: County races 2024 part 1

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY:

President
Senate
Railroad Commissioner

I’m going to break up the countywide race analyses into two posts, to make my life a little easier. I’m also going to reduce the overall amount of information I’m putting in them, to make it a little easier to read and so I can focus on the main highlights. This post will look at the races for District Attorney and County Attorney. Next up will be Sheriff, Tax Assessor, and HCDE Trustee.


Dist     Simon    Teare    Dist    Simon%   Teare%
==================================================
HD126   47,761   29,439    HD126   61.87%   38.13%
HD127   53,722   35,813    HD127   60.00%   40.00%
HD128   45,910   19,150    HD128   70.57%   29.43%
HD129   51,699   32,738    HD129   61.23%   38.77%
HD130   62,990   27,451    HD130   69.65%   30.35%
HD131   10,822   32,382    HD131   25.05%   74.95%
HD132   53,549   36,510    HD132   59.46%   40.54%
HD133   43,025   31,611    HD133   57.65%   42.35%
HD134   41,009   56,972    HD134   41.85%   58.15%
HD135   28,531   33,004    HD135   46.37%   53.63%
HD137   11,672   16,651    HD137   41.21%   58.79%
HD138   41,482   30,436    HD138   57.68%   42.32%
HD139   18,310   39,500    HD139   31.67%   68.33%
HD140   11,157   16,722    HD140   40.02%   59.98%
HD141    8,682   28,273    HD141   23.49%   76.51%
HD142   15,647   34,870    HD142   30.97%   69.03%
HD143   15,114   20,396    HD143   42.56%   57.44%
HD144   19,724   18,880    HD144   51.09%   48.91%
HD145   20,705   37,183    HD145   35.77%   64.23%
HD146   12,967   41,335    HD146   23.88%   76.12%
HD147   15,670   47,291    HD147   24.89%   75.11%
HD148   23,700   26,757    HD148   46.97%   53.03%
HD149   20,094   25,468    HD149   44.10%   55.90%
HD150   47,621   30,571    HD150   60.90%   39.10%
        	
CC1    106,312  255,522    CC1     29.38%   70.62%
CC2    148,063  136,468    CC2     52.04%   47.96%
CC3    300,785  189,308    CC3     61.37%   38.63%
CC4    166,403  168,105    CC4     49.75%   50.25%


Dist     Smith  Menefee    Dist   Smith%  Menefee%
==================================================
HD126   47,538   29,093    HD126   62.03%   37.97%
HD127   53,566   35,276    HD127   60.29%   39.71%
HD128   45,804   18,871    HD128   70.82%   29.18%
HD129   51,724   32,171    HD129   61.65%   38.35%
HD130   62,928   26,856    HD130   70.09%   29.91%
HD131   10,816   32,205    HD131   25.14%   74.86%
HD132   53,455   35,987    HD132   59.76%   40.24%
HD133   43,575   30,403    HD133   58.90%   41.10%
HD134   41,168   55,755    HD134   42.47%   57.53%
HD135   28,602   32,671    HD135   46.68%   53.32%
HD137   11,765   16,335    HD137   41.87%   58.13%
HD138   41,662   29,732    HD138   58.36%   41.64%
HD139   18,406   39,143    HD139   31.98%   68.02%
HD140   11,211   16,540    HD140   40.40%   59.60%
HD141    8,819   28,006    HD141   23.95%   76.05%
HD142   15,741   34,574    HD142   31.28%   68.72%
HD143   15,023   20,280    HD143   42.55%   57.45%
HD144   19,806   18,605    HD144   51.56%   48.44%
HD145   20,683   36,672    HD145   36.06%   63.94%
HD146   12,860   41,082    HD146   23.84%   76.16%
HD147   15,642   46,963    HD147   24.99%   75.01%
HD148   23,783   26,347    HD148   47.44%   52.56%
HD149   19,985   25,345    HD149   44.09%   55.91%
HD150   47,469   30,136    HD150   61.17%   38.83%
        	
CC1    106,578  252,985    CC1     29.64%   70.36%
CC2    148,161  134,624    CC2     52.39%   47.61%
CC3    300,642  185,786    CC3     61.81%   38.19%
CC4    166,650  165,653    CC4     50.15%   49.85%

These were the two closest races of the five, with Menefee winning by 1.16 percentage points and 17K votes; Teare won by 1.9 points and 28K votes. The closeness of the races is reflected in the district results, and yes that’s Menefee losing in Commissioners Court Precinct 4. The obvious takeaway here is that Democrats didn’t give themselves a lot of slack when they redrew the Commissioners Court map in 2021. They need to win countywide by a big enough margin to feel comfortable. Which I’m sure everyone was at the time, but here we are now. I believe we can get back to where we were, or at least close to it, but that’s what we need to be working on now.

And while I would really like to have that aggregate cushion, I think the incumbent Commissioners will have a bit of an advantage. Or at least, they’ve got more of their fate in their own hands than most. I have a lot of faith in them. I just don’t want to have to rely on it.

The other positive we ought to have going into 2026 that we didn’t have in 2024 or 2022 is a District Attorney who isn’t going to spend all his time and energy crapping on Democratic judges and Commissioners. I would say one of the best things that could be done for local Dems in 2026 is to have Sean Teare loudly and continuously tout his accomplishments, especially as they pertain to cleaning up the various messes he’s inherited. The more this helps ease up crowding in the jail, the better. Pairing that with funding for an ad campaign to provide a counterpoint to those obnoxious “stop Houston murders” ads, and we’ve got something. That part isn’t on Sean Teare, I’m just saying. But really, just not having that headwind should be beneficial.

Next up will be the next three countywide races. Let me know what you think.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Harris County passes backup power rule for nursing homes

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good.

Assisted living facilities and nursing homes in the unincorporated areas of Harris County now are required to install backup power generators to keep heating and cooling systems operational during electrical outages, making the county among the first in Texas to implement such a mandate.

The mandate, included in the county’s revamped fire code, comes after the derecho in May, followed by Hurricane Beryl in July, that left more than 2 million households and businesses without power during sweltering temperatures. During the hurricane, at least 14 nursing homes and 30 assisted living facilities in Harris County lost power for multiple days.

“This is for all of our families, whether it’s our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents, all of us. We’re all aging, and this could be us,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Lesley Briones said at a Wednesday news conference to announce the new requirement.

At least 120 facilities throughout unincorporated Harris County will be required to have secondary power systems that switch on within three hours after an initial power loss. The updated code also requires facilities to implement emergency communication systems for rapid response, provide power for essential medical equipment and secure evacuation measures through powered doors and elevators.

Briones proposed the mandate be added to the county fire code at Commissioners Court’s Nov. 12 meeting. It passed unanimously.

Wednesday’s announcement sent at least one statewide association of assisted living facilities scrambling for answers.

Carmen Tilton, Vice President of Public Policy at the Texas Assisted Living Association, said that she did not learn about fire code change until it was enacted Jan. 1.

She said the association has been trying to find out details about the changes — the most she has heard from Harris County officials was at Briones’ news conference touting the mandate — and the organization already is fielding questions from assisted living facilities that are impacted.

“I wish we had been brought in on these conversations because I think we could have helped,” she said. “Right now, I have a whole lot more questions and answers.”

County officials said facilities will have until Jan. 1, 2026, to comply with the new requirements, which they said they hoped will be enough time to prepare and implement changes.

Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen said she recognized there likely will need to be some flexibility with that date because some facilities could face delays securing permits or generators.

[…]

Christensen said her team, along with other local officials and the Texas Department of Health and Human Services will collaborate to notify and educate facilities about the new backup power requirement. She added she is cognizant the new regulation likely will come with a steep price tag.

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission in 2021 estimated the cost of installing a new generator capable of supporting certain air temperatures could range from $20,000 for a new and smaller facility to $720,000 or more for an older and larger facility, according to the Texas Tribune.

The fire marshal’s office already conducts annual inspections on nursing homes and assisted living facilities to ensure they are in compliance with state regulations for their licenses, making the new mandate “another box we need to check,” Christensen said.

A failure to comply with the new requirement could result in citations, but Christensen said the fire marshal’s office likely will try to steer facilities toward compliance.

“When you look at our fire code, a lot of people think of it as enforcement,” Christensen said. “It’s not about enforcement — it’s about education. Our goal is to prevent a fatality before it happens, whether it be by fire, heat or cold.”

There’s more, and there are some nuances to all of this, including what defines different types of facilities, so read the rest. I think this is a good approach, with the right goal of getting the facilities in question to comply by making sure they know what they need to do. I’ll be very interested to see where we are at this time next year. Note that this mandate is for unincorporated Harris County, not for within Houston city limits. Mayor Whitmire had a lot to say about the senior-living apartments in the city after several of them had issues during the derecho, but as yet there has been no action on the city’s part to do anything about it. Hopefully that’s on his agenda for this year. The Chron has more.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Comet alums unite in support of Fertitta’s WNBA bid

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

They’re getting the band back together.

Cynthia Cooper did not get closure when the Houston Comets folded.

One minute, she was a star player on Houston’s four-time championship-winning WNBA team. The next minute, her phone was blowing up with texts and the dynasty was dead. And unlike some of her Comets teammates, Cooper didn’t go on to play for other teams in the league.

So that’s why Cooper said she is “thrilled” that Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta is submitting a bid for a WNBA expansion franchise — and including the Comets in his plan.

At a Rockets home game in late December, Fertitta met with Cooper, Comets coach Van Chancellor and Comets star Tina Thompson in his suite at Toyota Center. He wanted to gauge their interest in his expansion proposal. They responded with unbridled enthusiasm.

“And trust me, to get us all together, I think, demonstrated to him how supportive we would be and how thrilled we are,” Cooper said.

Cooper said the WNBA’s return would fill the “void” the Comets left in the Houston sports landscape.

“I don’t think you can talk about having a W franchise in Houston and not marry it with the legacy that the Comets left,” Cooper said. “It would be a very emotional thing to have the W back, an opportunity to pay tribute to friends like Tina Thompson and Sheryl Swoopes and get the public back rallied around the W as well as, more specifically, a Houston franchise.”

Chancellor coached the Comets for the first 10 of their 12 seasons. He, too, is advocating for the WNBA’s return to Houston, whether the new team is called the Comets or not. But if he has any say, it would be.

“Ever since I moved back here from LSU, all I’ve heard is, ‘Do you think we’re gonna get a team? ’ and, ‘Why don’t we get a team? ’ And I would love to see a team come back here,” Chancellor said. “I think we’re still in the hearts and minds of a lot of fans here in town.”

In a statement provided to the Chronicle this week, Fertitta said, “The Houston Comets helped put the WNBA on the map and the City of Houston deserves the chance to once again show how great of a place it is for women’s basketball. We still proudly display the Comets championship banners and retired jerseys at Toyota Center. It’s been far too long; it’s time to bring the WNBA back to Houston.”

See here for the most recent update. They need to get Sheryl Swoopes on board to really complete the team, assuming they can get her to knock it off with Caitlin Clark already. Be that as it may, as an oldtime Comets fan, this warms my heart.

It’s a long story, so go read the rest. Remember that one of our competitors for a WNBA team is Austin, and they seem to have their act together as well. You can learn more about that on this recent episode of CityCast Austin, featuring an interview with Fran Harris about her efforts.

Posted in Other sports | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Weekend link dump for January 12

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

“It may be a foolish optimism, but if Trump can be nudged in the right direction and convinced, he came up with the idea, as he did with the successor to NAFTA, he might not be quite the disaster so many of us rightly fear. It’s a long shot, but what is life without hope?”

“But then he’ll come out with something like the Truth Social post above, and I’ll be reminded that wealthy and powerful people like Trump or Andreesen or, of course, Elon Musk are often far more ignorant than policy wonks can easily imagine.”

“Counties across the southern half of the U.S., especially those with large and socially vulnerable populations, will be much more exposed to wildfire, drought and extreme heat than other parts of the country as the region’s climate warms in the coming decades, according to new research from the U.S. Forest Service and Resources for the Future.”

How to filter out AI crap from your search results.

RIP, Mike Rinder, former Scientologist turned whistleblower who won an Emmy along with Leah Remini for a documentary about that religion.

“Trump team takes aim at crown jewel of US climate research”.

“Yeah, America can still build stuff“, as shown in a bunch of charts.

“The FBI is warning sports leagues about crime organizations targeting professional athletes following a string of burglaries at the homes of prominent NFL and NBA players.”

“A better way to look at all of this is that we remain in an intense, sometimes violent and close to deadlocked struggle over the future of the country. It is no more done today or tomorrow than it was four years ago.”

There are a lot of reasons why second seasons of popular streaming shows tend to have fewer episodes than Season One did.

RIP, Perry, miniature donkey who inspired Eddie Murray’s Shrek character.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule on Tuesday that will bar medical debt from being included in credit scores.”

“But many smaller bollards are evaluated to withstand impacts of 5,000-pound vehicles, a number that easily covers most cars and trucks but falls well below the weight of even a Tesla Model X, to say nothing of a big, new EV like a Silverado.”

“Is your car company violating your privacy rights?”

“The highly decorated soldier who exploded a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas used generative AI including ChatGPT to help plan the attack, Las Vegas police said Tuesday.”

RIP, Peter Yarrow, singer-songwriter and co-founder of Peter, Paul and Mary. I had forgotten about this sordid aspect of his life before reading the obituary. Worth remembering, however you ultimately feel about it.

“In essence, the voice phishers are using an automated Apple phone support line to send notifications from Apple and to trick people into thinking they’re really talking with Apple.”

“This is what Musk has become: a machine for reposting red meat for the MAGA base that he almost certainly knows to be bogus.”

I’m sure there are plenty of potential buyers of TikTok. Doesn’t mean the Chinese will want to sell it.

Anita Bryant has died. Whether or not you know who that is, I heartily encourage you to listen to this episode of Slate’s One Year: 1977 podcast, which tells the story of her fight against gay rights in vivid detail.

“Merchan’s action Friday means that Trump’s criminal case is concluded and he enters office —ten days from his sentencing—a convicted felon.”

RIP, Sam Moore, legendary soul singer, one half of Sam & Dave, best known for hits like “Soul Man” and “Hold On, I’m Coming”.

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Where the Lege might go next on abortion

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

There’s always further to go.

Last legislative session was the quietest in decades for abortion. After successfully banning nearly all abortions, Republicans were wary about continuing to push an issue that is widely unpopular with voters.

This session, coming off a Republican rout in November, Seago is hopeful that lawmakers will feel more empowered to continue restricting abortions, and especially abortion pills.

“Texas is uniquely positioned to lead on these cutting-edge pro-life issues,” Seago said. “Some of our friends in red states are still playing defense. They’re fighting off constitutional amendments. They’re still fighting off exceptions to their laws. We’re in a solid place to start fighting back.”

Texas has no mechanism to put a constitutional amendment to increase abortion access on the ballot without the approval of lawmakers, and while Democrats have filed bills to add more exceptions to the abortion laws, they are once again expected to not get any traction.

But whether conservative efforts to further restrict abortion pills will take hold also remains to be seen. Rep. Nate Schatzline, a conservative Republican from Fort Worth, has filed House Bill 1651, which would make it a deceptive trade practice to send abortion pills through the mail without verifying that they were prescribed by an in-state doctor after an in-person exam.

Another bill, HB 991, filed by Republican Rep. Steve Toth of The Woodlands, would allow lawsuits against websites that provide information about obtaining abortion pills. Elisa Wells, co-founder of Plan C, an information repository about telehealth abortion access, said they expect any challenge to their work to run afoul of free speech protections.

“Texas is a state that values free speech, but despite that, they’re taking action to try and limit free speech with respect to abortion,” she said. “It’s a bit hypocritical.”

Wells said they take seriously any legislation that might further restrict access to abortion in states like Texas. But she said even if all the domestic access routes were shut off by lawsuits and legislation, there are international providers prepared to keep providing pills to people who need them.

“It’s ironic that a lot of these legal actions and court decisions and attempts to restrict access are what is shining a spotlight on … the fact that abortion pills are available by mail,” she said. “Every time there’s a decision like that, we just see the traffic to our site just exponentially increase. These anti-choice actions are the best advertisement.”

I’ll be shocked if there isn’t a bill to follow in Louisiana’s footsteps by reclassifying mifepristone as a controlled substance. If one hasn’t been filed yet, I’m sure it will be. At this point, just about anything they could do will likely require a massive amount of surveillance and intrusiveness to work, run afoul of the First Amendment, materially harm other forms of health care as collateral damage, or some combination of the three. Look to see what’s on Greg Abbott’s priority list. Anything there is almost a sure bet to pass, even if it requires a special session.

The first part of the story is about the Paxton lawsuit against that New York doctor, which is more complex and unpredictable than I first thought. For sure, it won’t be the only shots fired in that direction. Read it and see what’s coming.

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Very few minors actually get gender-affirming care

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

How many transgender teens in the U.S. are receiving medical care related to gender transitions? According to a peer-reviewed research letter published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, the answer is very, very few.

It’s a key data point as Republican lawmakers in Congress and around the country continue to focus on transgender youth in contexts ranging from sports to bathrooms to doctors’ offices. In a legislative sprint over the last few years, half of U.S. states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care. Some of those laws have been blocked in court, and one such legal case was just argued in the U.S. Supreme Court in December.

The care at issue includes puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone therapy — medications that help transgender teens develop characteristics that align with their gender identity. Use of these treatments is supported by major American medical groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“It’s important to put numbers to the debates that are currently happening,” says Landon Hughes, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. “There weren’t any peer reviewed studies that were looking at the rate of hormone use and puberty blocker use among youth in the U.S., and so we wanted to fill that void.”

Hughes and colleagues at Harvard and Folx Health, a virtual LGBTQ health care company, used a data set of private insurance claims from 2018-2022 that included more than 5 million adolescents.

“The total number of youth who had any diagnosis of gender dysphoria was less than 18,000,” Hughes explains. “Among those folks, there were less than 1,000 [youth] that accessed puberty blockers and less than 2,000 that ever had access to hormones.”

In other words, the study found that less than 0.1% of teenagers with private insurance in the U.S. are transgender and receive gender-related medicines.

A recent mental health survey from the CDC found a much higher percentage — 3% of high school students — self-identified as transgender. Not all transgender people seek a medical diagnosis or treatments related to their identity, notes Lindsey Dawson, director of LGBTQ health policy at the research organization KFF. “Much more common is to change hair grooming, style of clothing, using a different name,” she says, pointing to KFF research.

See here for some background. I doubt this changes many minds – if anything, I think it might make the leading anti-trans zealots feel more free to pursue their goals, since the constituency they’re attacking is so small. I will just note that when such zealots score a political victory, they never congratulate themselves and then move on to other pursuits. They take it as evidence they should push farther, which in this case would mean trying to pass similar bans on such care for adults, and seeking to criminalize any attempts to work around that. The best course of action is always to keep them from getting that foothold in the first place.

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Tesla seeks permit for robotaxi service in Austin

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Who wants this?

Tesla is in early talks with the authorities in the city of Austin, Texas, about its autonomous vehicle technology, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.

A Tesla employee has been in touch with the city’s autonomous vehicle task force since at least May to establish safety expectations for the vehicles, the report said, citing emails acquired by public records requests.

Tesla had revealed a prototype of the eagerly anticipated Cybercab, a driverless and pedal-less vehicle, at its Hollywood robotaxi event in October, with CEO Elon Musk later announcing plans to introduce an “unsupervised version” of its driver-assistance technology in California and Texas next year.

For several years, the electric vehicle maker has offered a package known as Full Self-Driving, or FSD, which, despite its name, is not entirely autonomous and necessitates continuous driver supervision.

[…]

During an earnings call in October, Musk revealed that Tesla is currently pilot-testing a ride-hailing technology in the Bay Area with its employees, utilizing an in-house app and vehicles equipped with safety drivers.

I mean, I don’t trust anything Elmo says or does, and I wouldn’t give him a dime of my money if I could help it, but you do you. Austin already has Waymo robotaxis if you must get this kind of ride; as previously noted, Cruise is out of the picture. For better or worse, Tesla and Edlo are likely to have a smoother path to regulatory approval, so in the short term they need to show that they’ve got something worth certifying. I wouldn’t if I were you, but I’m sure someone will. Reform Austin has more.

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Paxton sues TikTok

Posted on January 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Feels like this is about to be moot, but here we are.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday sued TikTok for the second time in recent months, accusing the social media company of violating deceptive trade law by downplaying its addictiveness and exposing children to explicit material.

The suit argues that TikTok, a short-form video app, violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act by listing itself on app stores as appropriate for children and not enforcing its community guidelines effectively. The Apple App Store lists TikTok as rated for those 12 and older, while the Microsoft and Google Play Stores list the app as appropriate for users who are 13 and older.

The 66-page filing, which has several redactions, details several TikTok posts containing inappropriate material that seemingly violate the guidelines and ways the app can circumvent parental controls on smartphones through an in-app browser. At one point, the lawsuit states the inappropriate material also included child sexual abuse content, although that section of the suit is largely redacted.

“TikTok actively worked to deceive parents and lure children onto their app despite the presence of an overwhelming amount of profane and illicit material,” Paxton said in a statement Thursday. “Companies may not jeopardize the health and wellbeing of Texas children by blatantly lying about the products they provide.”

A spokesperson for TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Several times the suit references an investigation conducted by the state that found videos which contained depictions of drug use, self-harm and sexually explicit acts. In December, Paxton’s office announced it would investigate several social media platforms’ privacy and safety practices for children, however the office did not clarify in its announcement Thursday whether the investigation mentioned in the lawsuit was related.

[…]

This is the second lawsuit Paxton has filed against TikTok in just over three months, as the attorney general’s office filed a suit accusing the company of violating the new Securing Children Online through Parental Empowerment Act. The SCOPE Act, which has received its own legal challenges, forbids companies from selling a minor’s personal information without parental approval, and the October lawsuit claims TikTok circumvented the law several times. The new lawsuit was filed in the same Galveston federal district as the first suit, and dozens of other lawsuits against social media platforms have been filed across the country in recent years.

I didn’t blog about that previous lawsuit, either I missed the news or just didn’t get to it. This all feels a little weird, since it looks like SCOTUS will uphold the federal ban that would take place on January 19, but I guess it’s not too late to aim for the news cycle. I should note that the SCOPE Act, the basis for that first suit Paxton filed against TikTok, was partially blocked by a different federal court last September. It’s not clear to me how that ruling affects Paxton’s litigation, which came after the ruling. My expectation is that this all goes away after SCOTUS does its thing. We should know soon enough.

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Hotze’s desperation

Posted on January 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

What a loser.

Republican activist Stephen Hotze asked a federal judge to step in on a civil case against him, saying the lawsuit was part of a Democrat-led conspiracy.

Hotze on Dec. 31 asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas to issue injunctions that would delay a February trial over the lawsuit accusing him of instigating a 2021 assault and false imprisonment of an air conditioner repairman. A man who worked for Hotze’s Liberty Center for God and County was following the repairman as a part Hotze’s investigation of supposed ballot harvesting during the 2020 election.

The new lawsuit accused former District Attorney Kim Ogg of “conspiring” with private attorneys to use the civil lawsuit to obtain evidence that was later used to bring felony charges against Hotze.

The DA’s office hadn’t responded to Hotze’s lawsuit as of Thursday morning.

“[Hotze] was only criminally prosecuted due to his political views and the fact that Liberty Center was investigating voter fraud in an election where the Democrats were successful,” Hotze’s lawyer, Jared Woodfill, wrote in the filing.

It’s Hotze’s latest claim that the criminal and civil cases brought against him are part of a vast conspiracy.

Hotze accused the district attorney’s office of violating his rights to free speech and equal treatment under the law, and circumventing his protections against self-incrimination. The lawsuit seeks damages and asks for a restraining order stopping the DA’s office and other, unnamed people from participating in the civil trial before the criminal case against him is completed.

The state lawsuit brought by the repairman, David Lopez, is scheduled to go to trial Feb. 17, according to court records.

Hotze’s lawsuit accuses Ogg of targeting him for “exposing voter fraud,” in Harris County and claims the lawyers representing Lopez are connected to the Texas Democratic Party. Hotze claims he participated in discovery for Lopez’s lawsuit while being unaware he was under criminal investigation

See here for the most recent update. Don’t try to make sense of any of this, Hotze was brain-wormed before brain-worming was cool. I will admit that I thought the criminal case would come first, mostly because a conviction would greatly strengthen the civil case, but there’s no reason why it has to.

My take on this is simple: Hotze knows he’s guilty as hell, and he’s going to get creamed in the civil case. As such, he will do anything to put off that day of reckoning, in the hope that some deus will come ex machina-ing and save his sorry ass. I look forward to seeing the civil case begin next month. Reform Austin has more.

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More lawsuits involving Tony Buzbee

Posted on January 11, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

He sure stays busy.

Houston attorney Tony Buzbee is once again suing Jay Z’s Roc Nation, alleging that the entertainment company and others encouraged one of his former clients to sue The Buzbee Law Firm in exchange for lucrative gain.

Filed last week in the Harris County district court, the suit claims Roc Nation financed efforts by attorney Marcy Croft and law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, to persuade Buzbee’s former client Jose Maldonado to sue him in exchange for money.

The Quinn Emanuel law firm is representing Jay Z, formally known as Shawn Carter, in a lawsuit filed by Buzbee in October. Croft, a Mississippi-based attorney, has represented Roc Nation in previous lawsuits regarding prison reform, according to court records.

“Rather than focus on suits by former clients for allegations of misconduct, Tony Buzbee is trying to distract with nonsense lawsuits — which of course Roc Nation has nothing to do with,” a Roc Nation spokesperson said in a statement. “Buzbee will have to answer for his failure to vet his Jane Doe plaintiff, while submitting her demonstrably false story to a court where he hasn’t even been admitted to practice, and subjecting the world to an NBC News interview disaster. The lies on the court will not survive scrutiny.”

“On behalf of Defendant Marcy Croft, two individuals attempted to call Plaintiff (Maldonado) many times,” the lawsuit reads.”They then went to what they believed was Plaintiff’s home. They actually went to his father’s home. They identified themselves as federal officers. When they realized they had the wrong house, they continued to contact Plaintiff. They were pushy.”

Buzbee filed a similar lawsuit last month against Roc Nation for allegedly conspiring with and paying former clients to sue him. The Houston attorney is currently representing over 100 clients who claim Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sexually abused them. Buzbee said the efforts by Roc Nation are an attempt to intimidate him and his firm to not pursue cases against Combs.

See here, here, here, and here for the background. I have to wonder, when Tony Buzbee – who has plenty of other litigation to manage – filed that initial suit against Sean Combs, did he expect this kind of response? Was he aware of his potential exposure, or is this all penny ante stuff that any longtime high-profile lawyer might have faced? I have no idea, and maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. He sure likes being busy and being a main character, and he’s got that in plentiful supply here.

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Republican State Rep accuses state GOP Chair of ethics violations

Posted on January 10, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Oh, my.

Rep. Cody Harris

A Republican Texas House member is calling for the state party chair to be investigated, alleging that he illegally threatened and intimidated lawmakers who are not supporting the party’s preferred candidate for House speaker.

In a complaint filed to the Texas Ethics Commission on Wednesday, Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, alleges that Republican Party of Texas Chair Abraham George violated numerous ethics rules — including those related to bribery — by threatening to send mailers or censure lawmakers who support Rep. Dustin Burrows for House speaker.

Burrows, of Lubbock, and his main opponent in the race, fellow Republican Rep. David Cook of Mansfield, have been in an increasingly acrimonious political standoff since late last year, when a majority of House Republicans voted to support Cook’s speaker bid. The same day, Burrows announced that he had enough bipartisan support in the 150-member chamber to win a majority and become speaker.

Burrows’ defiance of the House caucus, by continuing his campaign for speaker relying on Democratic support, soon prompted a pressure campaign from the Texas GOP. The party and George have since vowed to send negative mailers about Burrows supporters into their districts, and to censure any Republican who does not vote for Cook — a move that, under recently adopted party rules, would bar those lawmakers from appearing on a primary ballot for two years.

Harris cited those two moves in his complaint. He alleged that George’s threats to “expend funds on mail pieces” amount to an “economic benefit” for a primary candidate who might run against Harris, and thus constitute a bribe. Harris also took issue with the party’s new Rule 44, which was passed last year and prohibits censored Republicans from appearing on primary ballots for two years.

“While the constitutionality of amended Rule 44 is doubtful,” Harris wrote, “the rule in conjunction with the respondent’s threatening rhetoric amount to a violation” of the Texas government code’s section on legislative bribery.

This is of course related to the ongoing Speaker’s race, which I confess I had not expected to drag on for this long. I still think this will all get settled by the time January 14 rolls around, but nothing would please me more than to see the House be unable to kick things off because the Republicans are too busy hating each other. This session will suck once it does get started, so the least they can do is provide us with a few cheap laughs before the carnage begins.

Lone Star Left picks up on a particular detail.

The complaint alleges that Abraham George’s conduct was intended to intimidate or coerce a state representative into selecting the Speaker of the Texas House, violating Sec. 302.032 of the Government Code.

[…]

Here’s the thing: Violation of Sec. 302.032 of the Government Code is a criminal offense, not a civil one. It’s a second-degree felony, which can result in a two-year prison sentence. The TEC’s jurisdiction primarily focuses on campaign finance, political advertising, and lobbyist regulations.

Complaints to the TEC can result in investigations and civil penalties, but the TEC cannot impose criminal penalties. If a case involves potential criminal violations, the TEC can refer the case to a district attorney.

We’ll have to monitor this case. RPT Chairman Abraham George may be jailed if the TEC refers it to a district attorney.

I mean, that would be hilarious, though whether anything further would happen is open to debate. And look, while I love me a good “Republicans in disarray” story, so far none of this has stopped them from passing bills and winning elections. It would be nice if that were to change, but we’re still waiting for the proof of concept. Enjoy this for what it is, but don’t lose perspective.

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HISD’s message about the forthcoming weapons detection systems

Posted on January 10, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I got this in my inbox on Wednesday.

Dear High School Families,

The most important thing HISD does each day is keep your student safe while they are at school. At each high school campus, HISD employs a layered approach to campus safety that brings together campus-based HISD PD officers, the Raptor Technologies school security platform, and most importantly, the vigilance of our staff and students. All of these pieces work together to keep your students safely in school, and dangerous contraband out of school.

As a District, we constantly evaluate the tools we have in place. District leaders and HISD PD leadership have determined weapons detection systems in our high schools are a necessary tool to keep our high school campuses safe and secure.

When fully implemented, all students, staff, and visitors entering all high school campuses will be screened by the Open Gate weapons detection systems. In order to ensure minimal disruption to student learning, we will begin in January and February by implementing weapons detection at one new campus each week. Implementation will begin at campuses where firearms have previously been found. Beginning in March, we will add multiple campuses each week, until all high school campuses have weapons detection systems fully operating by May 2025.

Our goal is to ensure that these systems do not interfere with the learning environment at our campuses, but there are things that will be different once we implement these systems:

  1. All students will need to enter their building through designated entry points each morning. This may be a change from current practice.
  2. Students, staff, and visitors will need to pass through the screening towers and remove their laptops from their bags or backpacks.
  3. When the system identifies a potentially prohibited item, the individual will receive secondary screening, typically a more thorough review of their backpacks, pockets, and other personal belongings.

Families at our high school campuses will be notified 1-2 weeks before weapons detection systems are implemented at their campus. That communication from your student’s principal will include all of the following:

  • An invitation to a campus community meeting to answer your questions before the system is formally implemented.
  • A detailed explanation of the new entry processes for students arriving in the morning, and visitors to the school during the day.
  • More information about items other than weapons or contraband that may trigger secondary screening that students may want to avoid bringing to school.

All campuses will practice the new entry protocols before the weapons detection system is implemented at their campus to minimize delays and disruptions once the system is installed.

Please review the attached Frequently Asked Questions document for answers to some initial questions, and plan to attend your campus’ information session when it is scheduled.

See here for the background. The FAQ mentioned above was linked in the email and it can be found here. It mostly restated what was in the main message, but it did include a link to a brief YouTube video, made by the Lee County school district, that showed how this works (that district appears to be using this for the lower grades as well). It notes that NRG Stadium uses OpenGate screening devices, and added this little bit extra:

What happens if the weapons detection system alarms for a suspicious item?

Answer: Weapon detection systems are primarily screening for firearms; however, they will alarm for other items as well. If an individual triggers an alarm, they will receive additional screening to determine the nature of the item that triggered the alarm. In many cases, secondary screening will determine there is no prohibited item and the individual will enter the building. If secondary screening reveals a prohibited item, school staff will work with HISD PD to determine the next steps.

What items may trigger an alarm other than firearms?

A: The systems in HISD will be set to alert to a certain trigger. As such, car keys, loose change, cell phones, etc should not trigger an alert from the system. Laptops, tablets, and other large metal objects may cause the system to alert. When this happens, individuals will receive additional screening, the item(s) will be cleared, and the individual will be allowed to enter the building.

So it doesn’t really say what else might trigger the system to alert. I think we can all infer that they’re also looking for knives, but beyond that it’s unclear. I suspect they just don’t want to tip their hand at this time.

As I said, I’m not surprised by any of this and I don’t think it’s worth fussing about. It is very much worth asking what this costs, now and going forward, and I would expect students at the high schools should plan for it to take longer to get in their buildings every day, because there’s no way this won’t slow things down significantly. If you have more questions, show up at the community meeting when your school announces the installation at their campus and ask your principal about it.

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Dispatches from Dallas, January 10 edition

Posted on January 10, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth, we have a short week for several reasons: first, we’re still recovering from the short week last week at New Year’s; second, we have a snowpocalypse going on in the Metroplex (no worries, sports fans, the Cotton Bowl is still on as of this writing); and third, I’m working on a project that I’ll talk more about later.

What we have for you right now is: the big stories of 2025; the fight for Speaker of the Texas House in North Texas; bills for the upcoming legislative session; one more departure from the Dallas city administration; Jay Hartzell is leaving UT-Austin for SMU; the Star-Telegram has an editorial about the Mercy Culture trafficking shelter fight; the first area jail death for the year; wild hogs in Irving; another local preacher who’s a sex offender, this time convicted for sexual assault of a teenaged girl; museum news in Dallas; and a sad story about a fire at a Dallas bazaar that resulted in the deaths of animals in a pet store.

This week’s post was brought to you by the final part of the NPR Music’s 124 Best Songs of 2024 playlist. That was an eight-hour playlist and I felt like I learned a lot about where music was last year.

Let’s get on with the news:

  • Axios is watching a number of stories in 2025: vouchers at the Lege, the exodus and replacement of Dallas city officials, World Cup preparations, the power grid, airport expansions at DFW and McKinney, housing affordability, and population growth. I expect to see all of these topics come up here as well.
  • It turns out that the gun Shamsud-Din Jabbar used in his New Year’s attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans was purchased in Arlington. Thanks, Texas gun control laws.
  • The Dallas Observer has a list of North Texans who may be pardoned over their role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Let’s hope Trump’s short attention span focuses somewhere else and the justice system gives these folks their due.
  • The fight on the Republican side for Speaker of the Texas House is getting hot and heavy. Earlier this week Collin County’s favorite boy, Attorney General Ken Paxton, rallied in North Texas with a rogue’s gallery of North Texas hard-right folks to support David Cook (R-Mansfield) for speaker. Also at the rally: Rep. Nate Schatzline (R-Fort Worth), Rep. Tony Tinderholt, (R-Arlington), Rep. David Lowe (R-Fort Worth), Rep. Mike Olcott (R-Graford), Rep. Mitch Little (R-Carrollton), and Rep. Andy Hopper (R-Denton), among others. The Texas Tribune has more, including planned future stops in Tyler, Leander, and Conroe.
  • Fort Worth’s goals in the upcoming Lege session include amending SB 2038, which allows property owners to leave a city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction if they vote to do so. Given how much the Lege hates cities, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
  • My state senator, Nathan Johnson, is yet again trying to expand Medicaid here in Texas, larding the proposal with elements that have passed in other conservative states in hopes that Republicans will vote for it. KERA has more. I agree with Johnson that the outlook for Medicaid expansion is poor but I still wish him the best with this bill. In related news, a national survey has found Dallas County is the least-insured major metro area in Texas and among the least-insured areas nationally.
  • Dallas officials are keeping an eye on Senator Borris Miles’ (D-Houston) proposal to mandate big cities implement civilian oversight boards for their police departments. That’s another one where I wish the author luck and don’t think it’s going to happen, for all that Dallas really needs more civilian oversight given how many more police we’re about to hire.
  • The Dallas Morning News identifies the key players in the push to legalize casino gambling in Texas. The big pro-gambling player is Miriam Adelson, who donated 13.7 million to PACs last year; everybody else is Republican and their attitudes range from gambling being a low priority to hardline opposition.
  • The City of Dallas is losing its Environmental Director, who is going to a job in private industry. D Magazine has a scathing description of his term in office, so maybe this isn’t an entirely bad thing. Either way, add one more to the list of folks getting out of Dodge.
  • It’s been a year since the historic Sandman Hotel exploded in downtown Fort Worth and we still don’t know why it happened. The Star-Telegram reports irregular construction practices during the hotel’s renovation and the smell of a gas leak before the explosion. KERA’s story notes that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation was closed with no fines because the investigator had emergency surgery and the statute of limitations ran out. The real reason we don’t have an answer, as both stories suggest, is that it’ll all come out during the civil trials where injured workers are suing the hotel.
  • The Star-Telegram has an editorial about the Mercy Culture shelter approval, which correctly points out that Mayor Mattie Parker gave Mercy Culture a blueprint for how to push the city (the Star-Telegram uses the word “bully”) into approving the shelter over neighborhood objections. Mercy Culture is well-connected (Rep. Nate Schatzline preaches there) and has religious liberty lawyers on speed-dial. They won’t be the last church to use such tactics to get something they want from Fort Worth. If you’re interested in church and state separation, you should read this editorial.
  • After the problems with the pollbook in Dallas County elections in November, the state decertified the flawed ES&S software that caused the problems. Now Dallas County is worried the updated software won’t be ready by April 21, when early voting for the May election starts. I’m not pro-pencil and paper voting, but I have to admit this is not one of the many problems the old-school methods had.
  • In unwelcome but unsurprising news, Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare will run for reelection.
  • Last Friday there was a protest about the deaths in the Tarrant County Jail under Sheriff Bill Waybourn. Waybourn was reelected in November. Since the beginning of his tenure as Sheriff in 2017, 70 inmates have died in the jail.
  • We have our first jail death in the Metroplex of 2025 and this time it’s in North Richland Hills. The deceased was arrested on New Year’s Eve on a DWI charge and died the next day. The medical examiner has not yet released a cause of death. The Star-Telegram also has the story.
  • Here’s one of my problems with vouchers: state money will end up sending kids to financially questionable schools like New Hope Christian Academy in Plano, which shut down with three days’ notice in early November, leaving students with nowhere to go, families with tuition payments lost, and teachers with no paycheck.
  • Speaking of school closures, here’s a list of eleven public schools in the Metroplex that will close in 2025 due to declining enrollment and budget crunches.
  • You probably have already heard the news, but Dallas’ gain is Austin’s loss for a change: Jay Hartzell is stepping down as President of UT Austin to lead SMU. The DMN has an exclusive interview with Hartzell about the decision and a look at how the two schools compare. The Texas Tribune also has the story.
  • Rhome, a northeastern exurb of Fort Worth, is quitting Facebook in favor of an app called GoGov. This story came out before the news about Meta ditching its fact-checking and loosening its moderation standards.
  • Wild hogs are rooting the suburban lawns in Irving. It looks like there are only ten instead of thirty to fifty.
  • McKinney didn’t get a bond for airport expansion to pass in 2023, but they’re plowing ahead with an expansion anyhow. Apparently this is the second time the city has pushed ahead with the airport after a failed bond package.
  • The Daystar Network is losing churches and pastors who broadcast with them over their child sex abuse scandal. Among those who have departed: local Dominionist preacher Lance Wallnau.
  • A local minister who works with a church in Duncanville and local megachurch Watermark turns out to have a 30-year-old conviction for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl; he was her youth minister, had sex with her, and “ran away with her” to Las Vegas. Watermark has him in their prison ministry but he doesn’t work with minors; the DMN covered this scandal in 2012 with dueling opinion pieces and also have a current article on the matter.
  • I post about this every year but here’s the story about the 2024 Prestonwood Baptist Christmas show, which is a celebration of Jesus’ birth by way of suburban excess. Prestonwood, in Plano, is a well-connected Baptist megachurch. It counts Attorney General Ken Paxton among its members.
  • We’re about to see some high-speed rail lawsuits in Dallas. Hunt Realty Investments, which owns the property on the southwest side of downtown that includes the Hyatt and Reunion Tower, is lining up to sue the City and the The North Central Texas Council of Governments Regional Transportation Council over plans for Dallas-Fort Worth high-speed rail that would impinge on that property. The transportation council is expected to ask for $1 million in legal fees to prepare for the impending lawsuit after receiving demand letters for information. The Fort Worth Report also has the story, including a map of the property involved and the likely ultimate route. Houston folks, this story is about the intracity rail between Dallas and Fort Worth only; it doesn’t include the proposed Dallas to Houston rail line.
  • Unsurprisingly, in the split between MAGA Republicans and tech barons, the DMN falls on the side of the tech barons. Here’s the DMN’s editorial in favor of H-1B visas to demonstrate their stance.
  • Dr. Harry Robinson, Jr., the founder of the African American Museum in Fair Park, has retired after a long career envisioning, building, and collecting for the museum. Here’s an interview with him with a local station and another with D Magazine. The African American Museum has been on my list for a while, but these stories have definitely increased my interest.
  • In other museum news, the Dallas Historical Society has just clinched two major donations totalling $8 million that will transform the society and its Fair Park museum. Spouse and I were members briefly before the pandemic, but haven’t gotten back to it yet; this seems like a good moment to get reacquainted. The DMN article also serves as a puff piece on the Executive Director of the Society, who seems like a great leader for the group.
  • Last, a sad story from northwest Dallas, where a fire at the Plaza Latina Bazaar killed almost 600 animals in a pet store on the premises. The animals were mostly birds who died of smoke inhalation. A dozen animals were saved and treated, including a turtle; the only two humans on the premises escaped unharmed. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
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Who wants to sell Houston’s water to West Texas?

Posted on January 9, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I have questions.

Gov. Greg Abbott is said to be exploring a plan to buy water from Houston and send it to West Texas — a potentially contentious idea that comes as he has teased “totally transformative” measures in the upcoming legislative session aimed at keeping the state from going dry.

Mayor John Whitmire told the Houston Chronicle that the governor called him to discuss the state purchasing “excess” water from the city — an idea Whitmire said he is open to if it means Houston can get much-needed infrastructure funding.

“He called me and said, ‘Would you consider selling your excess water to the state that we then sell to West Texas?’” Whitmire said in an interview. “We get monies for our infrastructure. They get their water. It would be a win-win.”

Conversations between the city and state began sometime in the fall, said Greg Eyerly, director of Houston Water. Houston produces 183 billion gallons annually and supplies it to millions of Southeast Texas residents, as well as infrastructure critical to the state like the ship channel and refineries.

Communities and businesses that operate in the Permian Basin have been clamoring for access to more water as their aquifers run low after decades of largely unrestricted drilling. And data centers for AI and cryptocurrency that are cropping up around the state need vast supplies of water to cool their servers.

But the idea of moving water across the state has long faced pushback from some state lawmakers, including advocates in East Texas who worry about draining the region’s lakes and reservoirs. And according to a recent State Water Plan, the 15-county region that includes Houston could face a water shortage for municipal needs by 2030.

[…]

In September, Abbott told a gathering of local officials in South Texas — a region facing significant water needs — that “substantial conversations” were already underway with lawmakers about bills that would be “totally transformative” for the state’s water supply.

“We’re working on plans to ensure that we will be water plenty way past 2050,” Abbott said, without offering details. “This is going to be a generational-type approach to comprehensive water development across the state.”

A report filed last month by a state Senate committee said the chamber “must act to address water supply shortages soon in order to avert serious consequences.”

Whitmire said the city could build new reservoirs to hold water it sells to the state, and in exchange, the city could receive funding to help shore up its crumbling infrastructure. Houston needs about $15 billion in estimated water fixes alone, Eyerly said – some of which the city is obligated under an agreement with the federal government to complete. Houston has lost 36 billion gallons of water due to leaky pipes in the past two years – enough to supply the 900,000-person city of Fort Worth with water for a year.

Local leaders have long cited a need for repairs to the Houston water system, namely pipes and the rebuilding of an entirely new East Water Purification Plant, which supplies 65% to 70% of city residents with water.

Local officials could try to use the water infrastructure demands as a bargaining chip with Abbott.

Josh Sanders, Whitmire’s head of intergovernmental affairs, said the administration is still determining what the city needs for its water infrastructure. Projects like pipe replacement, new pump stations that treat water for the ship channel and for chemical plants on the southeast side, and emergency water for the Texas Medical Center could all be on the table.

Let me start by saying some of these numbers are confusing. Early on there’s a sidebar link to an earlier Chron story titled “Houston needs $4.93 billion for water repairs. Will Texas lawmakers help pay the bill?“, but Houston Water director Greg Eyerly is saying the price tag is $15 billion. To me, the starting point for any negotiations about this is the state picking up most if not all of the tab to fix these problems. There’s a big difference between $5 billion and $15 billion, though, so especially if the actual cost is on the higher end, Houston should expect to be on the hook for some of it. Let’s see how good we are at these negotiations.

One thing that fixing the system would accomplish is we’d stop losing all of that water to leaks. This story cites a 36-billion gallon loss for 2023, and a story from 2022 said “Houston lost nearly 20 billion gallons of water from January to August of this year”, so we are talking massive amounts of water that we’re losing along the way. Addressing that would make any plan to sell water elsewhere a lot more palatable. So what will the state do for us?

And yes, if they do play ball here, I would consider it a win for Whitmire’s make-nice-with-the-state-overlords approach. There are times when I’m happy to be proven wrong, and this would be one of them.

One more thing:

Charles Perry, a Republican from Lubbock who has long pushed for more state investment in water infrastructure, said he plans to introduce a bill in the coming weeks that would dedicate state dollars to new supply projects like marine desalination. Rather than leaving water funding to local jurisdictions, Perry said, lawmakers need to “move to a statewide infrastructure conversation, just like we do roads and bridges.”

But it’s still unclear whether Houston has the water to spare. While the city may have plenty of water, Perry questioned whether the region has enough to supply other parts of the state. Parts of Harris County and surrounding counties already face water shortages, he said.

Perry, however, said Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have both asked whether work could be done to collect flood water from the San Jacinto River and other waterways that could be sent to other parts of the state.

“The conversation early on was, ‘Can we help the flooding in Houston by diverting this water and creating a new supply?’ And I’ve said absolutely, and always have said that,” Perry said.

If Houston were to show that it does have plenty of excess water, Perry said, the state should consider it.

Desalination, both of brackish groundwater and of water from the Gulf of Mexico, has been a topic of interest for over a decade. There are issues with that approach, such as “what do you do with all that salt”, but it’s on the menu of possibilities. I’d still like to get Houston’s issues addressed, whatever else we do.

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Houston and Harris County to get Beryl relief funds

Posted on January 9, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Good news.

The Biden administration announced Tuesday that Houston and Harris County will receive a combined $382 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to assist in recovery from May’s flooding in Kingwood and Hurricane Beryl in July.

Houston will receive nearly $315 million. Harris County will get more than $67 million. The state of Texas, as a whole, will receive $555.6 million.

Mary Benton, Mayor John Whitmire’s spokesperson, said the city will assess how leaders plan to distribute the cash.

The funding is part of a $12 billion package being distributed by HUD to communities impacted by disasters across the country.

“Over the last two years, too many communities have been impacted by devastating disasters — damaging homes, destroying infrastructure, and stretching local capacity to recover,” said HUD director Adrianne Todman.

“This $12 billion in disaster discovery funds will help rebuild homes, develop affordable housing, assist impacted small businesses, and repair roads, schools, water treatment plants and other critical infrastructure. The impacts of these funds will be felt for years to come — especially for disaster survivors and communities in the most impacted areas.”

[…]

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said via email that it’s crucial for the county to receive funds directly from the federal government to speed up recovery projects.

“This direct allocation of funding is not only going to help us recover from past disasters, but to build up our resiliency against future disasters,” Hidalgo said.

That’s the best part of it, the money is coming straight here. We don’t have to kiss the Land Commissioner’s ass, or compete with Grimes County for whatever H-GAC decides to dole out. Sure seems to me to be the better way to do this. May it be a long time before we have to do it again.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of January 6

Posted on January 9, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance still thinks that 2025 is a science fiction year from the future as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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HISD’s progress on special education

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

This is a big part of the takeover mandate, so making progress on fixing the identified issues with special education is a must.

Houston ISD’s state-appointed superintendent and Board of Managers have maintained a laser-like focus on improving schools’ state-issued accountability scores since taking over the district in June 2023, overhauling 130 campuses with staffing and curriculum reforms to improve academic results.

That’s because one of the most challenging criteria for the district to exit the state takeover is that no HISD campus can receive failing ratings from the TEA for consecutive years. Forty-one campuses received a D or F rating from the Texas Education Agency in 2024, according to unofficial results.

But another exit criterion demands that HISD meet all state and federal requirements in its long-struggling special education department, according to the TEA. In 2024, the state issued “needs intervention” as the district’s special education determination status. HISD enrolled more than 18,000 children in special education services in 2024, or about 10% of the student population. (The third and final criteria to exit state takeover is improving board governance.)

Reports commissioned by the district in 2011 and 2018 detailed major gaps in HISD’s special education practices, and in 2016, just 7.4% of HISD students received special education services — about half the national average. A 2020 TEA investigation found that HISD had “significant, systemic and widespread” issues with its special education services, violating state and federal laws designed to ensure students with disabilities receive needed supports.

A state-appointed conservator began monitoring HISD in December 2020, including setting goals and publishing monthly reports on the district’s progress. New exit criteria were added at the advent of the state takeover in June 2023.

HISD reported that it “significantly improved” its services for special education students in the 2023-24 school year, although conservators wrote in May that the district still remains slightly “off track” to reach full compliance with its goals and legal mandates.

See here, here, and here for some background. There are seven criteria by which HISD is being measured, which the story gets into. It looks like decent progress is being made, which is great both for the stakeholders and for everyone’s wish to usher Mike Miles back to Dallas. Check it out.

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Possibly the last time I will write about Kim Ogg

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Congrats on the new gig.

Former Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has been hired in a new position within the county.

On Sunday, it was confirmed that Ogg had been hired as a senior policy advisor for Harris County Pct. 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey’s office.

“Commissioner Ramsey is looking forward to the wealth of knowledge she’ll bring to Precinct 3,” a spokesperson tells KPRC 2.

Cool, whatever. Jobs like that tend to be out of the public eye, but you never know. What I do know is that I’d been hearing a lot of speculation that after Ogg’s heel-turn endorsement of Ted Cruz, she was somehow in line for a major appointment under Trump. As in, US Attorney for Houston, or a federal bench, that sort of thing. I suppose those things are possible – one never knows what kind of backroom deals are struck when such unexpected alliances are formed – but my reaction has always been to guffaw when I hear it. I imagine the list of people who have been Republicans for more than five minutes and who might reasonably expect to be higher on the favors list than Kim Ogg is quite lengthy. I can’t imagine they’d appreciate being sprung over by an opportunistic johnny-come-lately.

Not my problem, to be sure, and if I’m mistaken and the whining is as I’d expect, I’ll certainly enjoy it. But there are still some traditional rules of politics that apply, and this is one place where they likely will. Go ahead and prove me wrong. The Chron, which notes that Ogg will be taking a bit of a pay cut for this new gig, has more.

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The “Enron Egg”

Posted on January 8, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

I know, I know, I need to stop paying attention whatever this is. It would seem I can’t help myself.

The very unserious company that took over the defunct Enron brand on Monday unveiled its supposedly “groundbreaking” product: the Enron Egg.

But the Enron Egg is no normal egg, company leadership claimed the device is a “micro-nuclear reactor” capable of powering entire homes. Enron CEO Connor Gaydos made the announcement in a video that the company claimed was from the Enron Power Summit, an event for which the Chronicle was unable to confirm the location, date or time.

Gaydos, the 28-year-old behind the satirical conspiracy theory “Birds Aren’t Real,” claimed the Enron Egg could continuously power a home for 10 years.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have harnessed the power of the atom, introducing the Enron egg, the world’s first micro nuclear reactor for residential, suburban use,” Gaydos said in the video. “This little device can power your entire home for up to 10 continuous years.”

Gaydos and Enron have made lofty promises for the company’s supposed return in what has appeared to be a publicity stunt thus far. Skeptics have pointed to a clause on Enron’s website labeling its content as parody. Gaydos addressed that criticism in a post on X made Friday afternoon.

“As if I didn’t know people would immediately find that in our Terms of Service. People sharing it around like they’re forest gumbo discovering the shrimp business,” Gaydos wrote. “Putting performance art in our terms of service is the highest IQ behavior possible in the age of rogue government bureaucrat witch hunts.”

Gaydos claims the Enron Egg is safe for in-home use because it has 20% enriched uranium, which is below the 90% threshold typically used in nuclear weapons, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a public policy organization geared toward the responsible and ethical application of science. Uranium that is 20% enriched is still classified as “highly enriched uranium” and can still be used in weapons, according to the union.

Let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?

I got nothing. I wonder again who this joke is for. It’s elaborate and multi-layered, I’ll give them all that much. But even the Chron reporters are wondering who’s paying for this gag.

But with the company erecting billboards and taking out full-page ads in both the New York Times’ and the Houston Chronicle’s print editions — the latter of which can cost as much as $1.4 million, according to WebFx, a digital marketing firm — it’s clear that, while Enron’s revival may be an elaborate prank, there’s very real money at stake.

The phrase “more money than brains” comes to mind, but maybe I’m the sucker. We’ll see what’s in the next episode.

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Abbott appoints a bunch of judges

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

It’s good to be the king.

Justice Jimmy Blacklock, a conservative ally of Gov. Greg Abbott, has been named the new chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. He replaces Nathan Hecht, the court’s longest serving justice, who stepped down at the end of December due to the mandatory judicial retirement age.

Abbott appointed his general counsel, James P. Sullivan, to take the seat vacated by Blacklock’s promotion.

“The Supreme Court of Texas plays a crucial role to shape the future of our great state, and Jimmy Blacklock and James Sullivan will be unwavering guardians of the Texas Constitution serving on our state’s highest judicial court,” Abbott said in a statement.

As chief justice, Blacklock will take on a larger role in the administration of the court. During his tenure, Hecht helped reform the rules of civil procedure and was a fierce advocate for legal aid and other programs to help low-income Texans access the justice system. But, as he told The Texas Tribune in December, when it comes to rulings, “the chief is just one voice of nine.”

Adding Sullivan to the court will further secure the court’s conservative stronghold. While Hecht came up in an era when state courts were less politically relevant, Blacklock and Sullivan are both young proteges of an increasingly active conservative legal movement.

Blacklock attended Yale Law School and clerked on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and after a stint in private practice, he joined the Texas Office of the Attorney General under Abbott. He helped lead Texas’ aggressive litigation strategy against the Obama administration, defending the state’s restrictive abortion and voter identification laws, gay marriage restrictions and crusade against the Affordable Care Act.

When Abbott became governor, Blacklock became his general counsel. Abbott appointed him to the bench in December 2017, when he was just 38 years old.

The Texas Supreme Court has transformed over the last few decades from a plaintiff-friendly venue dominated by Democrats to the exclusive domain of increasingly conservative Republicans. Abbott, a former justice himself, has played a huge role in this shift, appointing six of the nine current justices, including Sullivan.

Sullivan graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. He spent four years as Texas assistant solicitor general during Abbott’s tenure as attorney general, and in 2018, became Abbott’s deputy general counsel. In 2021, he became the governor’s general counsel.

Justice Hecht had his merits and I wish him well, but boy is it a sign of the times to be feeling even a little nostalgic about his time on SCOTx. But the right-wing legal movement keeps 3-D printing newer and more efficient drones to replace guys like him, so here we are.

But wait, there’s more.

Gov. Greg Abbott made nine December appointments to district court seats to fill posts opened due to incumbents’ moves, resignations, new court seats or election losses.

On Tuesday, Abbott appointed Lance Long to the Harris County 183rd District Court, effective Jan. 1. Long’s predecessor, Kristin M. Guiney, a Republican, won election to the First Court of Appeals.

Long leaves his post as assistant criminal district attorney for the Smith County District Attorney’s Office. His prior experience includes serving as a Harris County prosecutor, managing his own law firm, and as a staff attorney for the Harris County Office of Court Management.

Maggie Jaramillo was appointed Dec. 20 to the Fort Bend County 458th District Court, a seat left vacant by Judge Chad Bridges’ election win to the Fourteenth Court of Appeals.

Jaramillo was an associate judge for the 268th District Court in Fort Bend County. Previously, she served as judge of the 400th District Court, was a prosecutor in the same county, an attorney in private practice, and she started her career as an assistant county attorney in Starr County.

Caroline Dozier was appointed Dec. 20 to the Harris County 228th District Court, which was abruptly left vacant by the death of Judge Frank Aguilar, a Democrat who was killed in a car crash accident.

Dozier was chief of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office misdemeanor trial bureau. She served with the district attorney’s office for over 30 years.

[…]

Lori Ann DeAngelo was appointed Dec. 19 to the Harris County 495th District Court, a court that was created by the legislature, effective Oct. 1, 2024.

DeAngelo was previously appointed to the 487th District Court in Houston but lost the seat in the general election to Democratic Party opponent Stacy Allen Barrow.

All of them, Blacklock and Sullivan included, will be on the 2026 ballot. Let’s make sure we channel some energy into those races next year. Oh, and for those of you who complain about our partisan judicial elections, this is a reminder about how many of our judges got their start by being appointed. Most of them by Greg Abbott.

UPDATE: One more:

Failed district attorney candidate Dan Simons was tapped by Gov. Greg Abbott to preside as a state district court judge for the next two years, officials said.

Simons, who narrowly lost to newly elected District Attorney Sean Teare on the Republican ticket, was appointed Tuesday to the 496th District Court, one of Harris County’s three new courts. His term will expire either Dec. 31, 2026, unless he runs for that seat and wins.

Simons applied for the judicial position after the November election. He plans to start hearing cases in late January after closing his criminal defense practice, he said.

[…]

Simons, like Teare, worked for Harris County District Attorney’s Office, rising to chief prosecutor for a misdemeanor court before his 2017 departure, when Ogg started her first term, according to county records.

His final months at the office were marked by mixed performance reviews and allegations of questionable ethics. One supervisor lamented that Simons was unprepared and sought to win cases, rather than seek justice. Some presentation of cases were misleading, according to the review. Simons disputed the review.

Another prosecutor accused Simons of instructing her to lie during plea negotiations. A disciplinary committee considered the allegation but said it lacked sufficient evidence. No disciplinary action was taken but Simons was ordered to watch a video on prosecutorial ethics instead, records show.

Must be nice to have Greg Abbott there to help you fail upward.

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Arlington wants in on flying taxis

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Charles Kuffner

Every time I come across a story about flying taxis, I learn something new.

[Arlington] Mayor Jim Ross announced with dramatic flair during his State of the City address in October that the city will take commercial transit to the skies by 2026. Experts told KERA News that might be a stretch, but it’s not implausible.

The air taxis would be based out of Arlington’s airport, according to the city.

The most likely scenario is that Arlington has the equipment and infrastructure for special demonstrations during the World Cup, according to Ernest Huffman, aviation planning and education program manager at North Central Texas Council of Governments.

Huffman said getting flying taxis to Arlington won’t depend as much on determination or hard work by city leaders as regulations and technology.

“There’s a few things that we’re going to need in place,” Huffman said. “We’re not looking to have flying taxis as a viable transportation mode for the World Cup games. All we’re looking to do is demonstrate the technology for the World Cup games.”

[…]

The Federal Aviation Administration told KERA News in an emailed statement that it’s been working to get regulations ready for flying taxis. The agency has already made progress, finalizing rules for flying taxi pilot and instructor qualifications. Most of them are expected to be electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL.

The administration has also been working with three companies to approve designs for eVTOL taxis. Archer Aviation and Joby are the furthest along, with certification expected soon.

[…]

Huffman said the biggest hurdles to clear will be regulations.

Flying taxis won’t require too much special infrastructure. Much of what they would need is easy to build.

Takeoff and landing happen at one of two places: vertipods and vertiports.

Vertipods would be most commonly seen and would look similar to a helicopter pad. In Arlington, they might be in places like a parking lot at one of the stadiums, downtown or somewhere at UT Arlington’s campus. They don’t need to be flashy as long as they provide a safe designated place to land.

Vertiports will require a bit more. Huffman said they’ll be two or three stories tall and offer places to park and charge eVTOL aircraft. They’re more likely to be seen at major airports but could also be found in downtown areas with taller buildings where the elevation would be a benefit.

Huffman said neither of those will create too many issues when implementing flying taxis.

Those regulations will be the toughest hurdle for cities like Arlington.

Each company producing eVTOL aircraft will have to get certification from the FAA, and that can take years.

Price will be an obstacle when eVTOL does become available.

Jinzhu Yu, an assistant professor of civil engineering at UT Arlington, said early adopters should expect to pay high prices for trips through the skies of North Texas. He’s been working with the Council of Governments in research to predict the price of flying taxis.

“What we’re looking at in terms of passenger per mile, the range is pretty wide,” Yu said.

Right now, that range looks to be about $4 per mile to $11 per mile for passengers. Uber is expected to charge around $5.70 per mile.

“If we use that number in our model, there will be very few flying taxi trips,” Yu said. “Flying taxis are similar to other technologies where in the very beginning it’s very expensive but as technology improves or infrastructure develops, those costs are going to go down.”

In the end, he expects Uber will try to make it below $3 per mile. In the long run, eVTOL is expected to relieve traffic congestion, reduce emissions and draw tourists who might come to Arlington just to try out flying taxis.

Earlier this month I learned what a “vertiport” is, and now I see that I didn’t have its complete definition. I suspect some of that places that I had thought were vertiports are actually vertipods instead. The more you know!

Aviation guy Huffman says in this story that he doesn’t think flying taxis will have regulatory approval for public use until 2027, which would be too late for the FIFA World Cup. But his wording makes me think that private use could be in play. Given the discussion in this story about the price point for this service, all my questions about who the market is for this remain.

That said, depending on the range of these aircraft and the future adoption of other types of aircraft, I could see the market for longer trips being potentially pretty robust. A lot of that I think will depend on how convenient and affordable it is to get to and from the vertiports/vertipods, since the main competition at least at first is just driving yourself from, say, Houston to Galveston or one far-flung part of the Metroplex to another. The flying part of it may well be fun and relaxing, but the first and last miles count, too.

Another point mentioned in this story is the noise factor. The comp for an individual eVTOL is a refrigerator, which we can all agree is pretty quiet overall, but in the aggregate that could be quite noisy. That said, in comparison to any main road, or especially a highway, it’s likely a lot less bothersome. But it could mean bringing that noise to places that are much quieter now, and it will be an add-on rather than a replacement. We’ll just have to see what it’s like.

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