He’s a bully!
Does President Barack Obama regularly drop a line to Houston City Council members?
Probably not, but we could soon find out, thanks to a public records request that opponents of the city’s equal rights ordinance, known as HERO, filed this week. It’s a response to a public records request that a nonprofit filed earlier this month seeking correspondence between members that voted down the city’s equal rights ordinance and national anti-LGBT groups.
At the time, Councilman Michael Kubosh called a press conference to denounce the request, saying he was particularly upset that just the six council members that voted against the law, not the full council, were subject to the request. He called it “bullying.”
A week later, however, HERO opponents have taken the same approach. In a request filed Wednesday, conservative lawyer Jared Woodfill sought all communication between pro-HERO council members and a slew of local and national figures and groups, most pro-LGBT.
Fourth on the list, sandwiched between Mayor Annise Parker and the Human Rights Campaign, is Obama. Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders along with mayor-elect Sylvester Turner are also included.
See here for the background. I’m sure CMs Kubosh and Martin will be holding a press conference to denounce this bit of bullying any minute now. Or maybe we’ve all managed to get a grip and recognize that this is just normal politics and nothing to get upset about. Regardless, I expect this request to have about the same effect as the other one, which is to say, not much. But at least everyone will have gotten it out of their system.
I don’t approve of this either. We need to move on. My opinion. You guys are alot like the Republicans. Everyone wants alot of social engineering at the local level. How about we leave all the social issues for the feds and we focus on the budget problems.
How about how mayor white got us in this message by stealing from the pensions.
How about battling discrimination with the FREE MARKET!!!!!!!
I agree with PK (again, I know it gets boring). Those thinking they will find a “smoking gun” for legal action are just as bad as the idiots using the mentality that “we’ll show them by filing our own lame requests to make them just as miserable”, the people who fulfill the requests not the ones you want to “punish” in the first place.
And on the “White’s trickery” note your auto correct seems to have goofed on a bit, it’s pretty simple. He had the city lower benefits for future employees, took large amounts of the pension bonds issued to use for other purposes, started out the funding of municipal and police pensions so low that the snowball effect a certain someone (cough cough) predicted over ten years ago would have profound impact, and he even had the audacity to use non-performing assets (for paper purposes only) to falsely bolster the books for his run at governor.
Steven…..agree… Well said. Also I am typing from a phone.
Time to get ready to work. I have high hopes for Turner. So glad Parker is gone. There is a lot to do.
Or…
Houston could do what other Texas cities like fort worth, plano, etc did.
Pass NDO the without transgender and/or public accomadation.
Let it sit for 2-3 years, then city council tests the waters with transgender and/or public accomadation item.
I think a paid sick leave and ban the ordinance is as important, if not more than a local NDO.