Skeet Jones indicted and suspended

Have you been waiting for a Skeet Jones update? Well, you’re in luck.

State regulators have suspended without pay the top elected official of Texas’s least-populated county after a grand jury indicted him for cattle rustling.

Judge Skeet Jones, patriarch of a powerful local family that holds many government positions of authority in the oil-rich Permian Basin county, was originally arrested in May 2022. But because of the close blood and political ties tangling up Loving County’s approximately five dozen residents, police had to search far outside its boundaries to find a grand jury to hear the charges.

Two weeks ago, a panel in Howard County, a three-hour drive east of Loving County, handed up the indictment for Engaging in Organized Criminal Activity – Theft of Livestock. Jones and three accomplices are alleged to have illegally rounded up stray livestock and sold them at auctions in Texas and other states. Jones has said he donated the proceeds to charity.

Also indicted on the same charge were Cody Williams, Jonathon Alvarado and Leroy Medlin, a former San Antonio police officer and Loving County sheriff’s deputy who most recently has worked as the Loving County courthouse custodian.

Records from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct show Jones was suspended without pay last Friday. Jacqueline Habersham, executive director of the commission, said that while the agency has discretion over how it treats judges with legal troubles, it almost always suspends those who are indicted until the charges are dismissed or they are acquitted.

“It’s a bad look” to have a judge accused of crimes ruling on other defendants, she said. Jones makes about $140,000 a year.

Jail records show Big Spring police took Jones into custody Tuesday and released him later in the day on $5,000 bond. Jones’s attorney, Jason Davis, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

See here, here, here, and here for all my previous blogging on this topic. I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely bonkers and also binge-worthy this story is. I swear, if someone doesn’t make a miniseries about this eventually, I will riot. Because this story contains so many multitudes, I have to go back and quote some more, lest you miss the further bits of mind-boggling goodness later on.

While Jones has said he did not profit from the sales, Texas law requires stray cattle to be reported immediately to the local sheriff. Sheriffs in both Loving County and neighboring Reeves County said they were never notified, said Marty Baker, who investigated the rustling allegations for the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, a trade organization that maintains its own police force.

Baker, who has since left the cattle raisers association, originally had been called to Loving County when five stray cattle were discovered shot dead on a road outside of Mentone, the county seat. After hearing rustling rumors, he mounted a year-long investigation – including a sting operation in which Baker released a cow, calf and bull and watched as Jones and his team rounded them up and sold them at auction – that culminated in the arrest of the four men.

Although it didn’t come out until later, Baker was assisted in the investigation by Loving County Constable Brandon Jones, the judge’s nephew.

Baker said he had trouble convincing the local prosecutor to take on the case, presumably because of personal and political connections in the sparsely populated county. He said he contacted the Howard County district attorney because one of the auctions where Judge Jones allegedly sold the stray livestock was in Big Spring.

[…]

Loving County Commissioner Raymond King said state law now calls for the commissioner’s court to select an interim judge within 30 days. Normally, identifying a temporary replacement wouldn’t be complicated. But because one of the requirements is that the candidate must be a county resident, it could be here.

“Until we see who’s eligible, we’ll have to wait and see,” he said.

Insert the “Elmo fainting” GIF here. I also invite you to read this very brief story about the indictment of Skeet Jones and his three co-defendants, in which I learned that the word “estray” is, in common law, “any domestic animal found wandering at large or lost, particularly if the owner is unknown. In most cases, this implies domesticated animals rather than pets.” And now I feel like I don’t have to accomplish anything else today, because honestly, how can you top that?

Posted in Crime and Punishment, The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Skeet Jones indicted and suspended

Texas blog roundup for the week of October 30

The thoughts and prayers of the Texas Progressive Alliance are with the people of Acapulco and the people of Maine as we bring you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged , | Comments Off on Texas blog roundup for the week of October 30

October 2023 campaign finance reports – Congress

As promised, here are the Congressional reports for Q3 2023. The Q3 Senate reports are here, the July reports for both are here, and the April reports for both are here.

Sandeep Srivastava – CD03
John Love – CD06
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Pervez Agwan – CD07
Michelle Vallejo – CD15
Sheila Jackson Lee – CD18
Amanda Edwards – CD18
Isaiah Martin – CD18
Francine Ly – CD24
Sam Eppler – CD24
Henry Cuellar – CD28
Julie Johnson – CD32
Brian Williams – CD32
Alex Cornwallis – CD32
Justin Moore – CD32
Rhetta Bowers – CD32
Callie Butcher – CD32
Melissa McDonough – CD38


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
03    Srivastava      324,844    189,640  543,233    138,796
06    Love             30,570     15,175        0     16,048
07    Fletcher        826,992    429,924        0  1,718,774
07    Agwan           546,711    455,366        0     91,344
15    Vallejo         343,382    171,521  100,000    183,578
18    Jackson Lee      53,777    181,007        0    213,042
18    Edwards       1,033,802    204,405    3,299    829,397
18    Martin          316,068     32,333        0    283,734
24    Ly               52,078     39,015        0     25,603
24    Eppler          224,297     80,009        0    144,287
28    Cuellar       1,309,071    751,749        0    602,147
32    Johnson         718,874    314,725        0    404,149 
32    Williams        719,976    195,014        0    524,961
32    Cornwallis      105,101     28,134  104,350     78,599
32    Moore            77,013     11,024        0     65,970
32    Bowers           24,629        982        0     23,646
32    Butcher         107,592     98,106   41,000      9,536
38    McDonough        46,198     42,992   38,893      4,986

Some changes and new names since the last time. Sandeep Srivastava, who had run in CD03 in 2022 and had been listed as a candidate for CD24 for this cycle in the previous report, is now showing as a candidate for CD03 again. As noted in the Senate roundup, John Love is now a candidate for CD06; that’s not really a competitive seat and he’s not exactly burning it down over there, but for now at least I’ll continue to track him. Isaiah Martin makes a strong debut in CD18 – more on that in a moment – while Rhetta Bowers and Callie Butcher make their first appearance in CD32. Remember that some candidate announcements come late in the reporting period, so a small opening number is not necessarily an indictor of future fundraising. There are also two new candidates in CD38, though neither got into the race in time to raise money for Q3. One is “Coach” Cam Campbell, who announced his presence in the race at the August CEC meeting. The other is Gion Thomas, another young candidate, who sent out a press release introducing himself. My Christmas break this year is going to be packed full of interviews.

Pervez Agwan continues to raise a bunch of money, but he’s also spending it pretty quickly. I’m not sure how that will play out for him as the primary comes into focus. He seems to have a sizeable field crew out there, all young people – I saw multiple folks wearing an Agwan T-shirt at that last CEC meeting, and there were more of them serving hamburgers at an event for White Oak Park a couple of weeks after that. The park isn’t in CD07, but some of the people attending the event lived in that district, and they were being courted for volunteer activities. I don’t think he’s a serious threat to Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, but he’s giving it a go.

The aforementioned Isaiah Martin raised that money in about three weeks, a very strong start. He’ll need it given how well Amanda Edwards keeps doing. Who knows at this point if they will be running for an open seat or if Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee will be back. As impressive as all that fundraising is, I don’t know how much it will matter if Sheila is still there.

Going just by the numbers, the field in CD32 is clearly split between Julie Johnson and Brian Williams, and everyone else. Rhetta Bowers was a late entrant and there’s another special session going on, so as noted don’t draw too much inference from her totals. That said, she will have only so much time to make up that ground. The head scratcher in this report is Alex Cornwallis, who appears to have netted about $500 in Q3. I went and did a news search to see if he had dropped out, but I didn’t find anything. I have no idea what to make of that.

The next report will be in January, after the filing deadline, so we’ll have the official lineup for the primary. Expect to see some more new names then.

UPDATE: Rep. Rhetta Bowers has since announced that she will run for re-election in HD113. I presume her lackluster finance report is a main cause for this.

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

Dallas County suffers ransomware attack

Add them to the list.

Dallas County experienced a cybersecurity incident this month that affected parts of its network, an official confirmed on Monday.

In a statement to Recorded Future News, Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said that there is an ongoing investigation into the incident following claims by a ransomware gang that emerged over the weekend.

“On October 19, 2023, Dallas County became aware of a cybersecurity incident affecting a portion of its environment. We immediately took steps to contain the incident and engaged an external cybersecurity firm to conduct a comprehensive forensic investigation,” Jenkins said.

[…]

On Saturday, the Play ransomware gang posted the county to its leak site, claiming to have stolen an undisclosed amount of data, which it threatened to leak by November 3.

The group was behind the devastating attack on the government of Oakland, California — which left the city paralyzed for weeks and exposed troves of sensitive information about city residents, government officials and the local police department.

Jenkins, the Dallas County judge, said the county had brought in outside experts for help.

“Our foremost priority is the safety and security of our employees, the residents, and the public we serve. We have put in place stringent security protocols to safeguard our systems and data and are collaborating closely with our external cybersecurity specialists and law enforcement to address this situation,” he said.

“As the investigation is still ongoing, we do not want to make premature assumptions about the extent of impact or other details, which may evolve as the forensic investigation advances.”

Jenkins added that the County will provide updates once more information is available.

That story also has some details about the City of Dallas ransomware attack, for which recovery efforts are still ongoing. WFAA adds on.

Jenkins said the county became aware of an incident affecting “a portion of its environment” on Oct. 19, and said the county both immediately took steps to contain it and engaged an outside cybersecurity firm to start an investigation into the breach.

“Our foremost priority is the safety and security of our employees, the residents and the public we serve,” Jenkins said in the statement. “We have put in place stringent security protocols to safeguard our systems and data and are collaborating closely with our external cybersecurity specialists and law enforcement to address this situation.”

The investigation is still ongoing, Jenkins said.

No details regarding the extent of the impact have been released as they may evolve during the advancement of the investigation, the statement said.

[…]

WFAA also spoke with Dallas County Senior Sgt. Christopher Dyer Monday. Dye is the president of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Association and worries hackers could have access to his and other county employee’s financial records.

“At this point we know very little and that’s the part that concerns us the most,” Dye said. “We really want Dallas County to be more forthcoming with information, let us know if our personal information has been released, and if so, we’d like them to sponsor some kind of credit monitoring. Personally, I’m very concerned about it. As soon as this interview is over, I’m gonna go lock down my credit.”

I’m sure there will be more details soon. I write about this stuff because I’m worried about it happening here. I’m sure we have good cyber people at City Hall and in Harris County, but all it takes is one click on a phishing email attachment or link that isn’t detected and contained in a timely fashion. If something like this does happen, it’s our personal data that will be exposed. I’m just trying to raise awareness. KERA has more.

Posted in Technology, science, and math, The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

November 2023 Day Nine EV totals: Just the numbers

Yesterday was Halloween, I’m still a little strung out from handing out Trick or Treat loot, so here’s just the updated numbers:


Year    Mail     Early    Total
===============================
2015   24,768   89,599  114,367
2019   11,356   76,613   87,989
2023   10,274  123,609  133,883

The final EV totals from 2015 are here and the final EV totals from 2019 are here. The daily EV report is being posted online now here, but I’m still grabbing a copy each day and saving it for my purposes. The Day Nine file is here.

Once again, 2023 ran just a bit ahead of 2015. Almost 80K votes were cast on the last three days of early voting in 2015, so you can see about where we’d end up if things continue like that. Have you voted yet?

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on November 2023 Day Nine EV totals: Just the numbers

Paxton’s securities fraud trial set for April 15

Mark your calendars. And maybe make plans to camp out at the courthouse overnight if you want to get a seat, I suspect there will be a lot of people wanting to attend.

A crook any way you look

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s long-delayed trial on securities fraud charges has been set for April 15.

State District Judge Andrea Beall scheduled the trial during a hearing Monday morning in Houston. Paxton attended the hearing but did not speak at it.

Paxton was indicted on the charges over eight years ago, months into his first term as the state’s top law enforcement official. The charges stem from accusations that in 2011 he tried to solicit investors in a McKinney technology company without disclosing that it was paying him to promote its stock. Paxton has pleaded not guilty.

The trial is a reminder that Paxton’s legal problems persist even after the Texas Senate acquitted him last month in an impeachment trial on unrelated allegations. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick presided over that trial and has faced intense criticism for taking $3 million from a pro-Paxton group in the lead-up to the trial.

“Unlike the impeachment, this is going to be a fair trial,” special prosecutor Kent Schaffer told reporters after the hearing. “This judge is not corrupt. This judge is not on the take.”

The hearing was brief and did not settle one lingering pretrial issue: how much the special prosecutors should get paid. The judge also scheduled a February pretrial conference.

[…]

While the Senate’s acquittal was a political triumph for the third-term Republican, Paxton still has significant legal issues. In addition to the securities fraud case, he faces a federal investigation into the claims by his former top staffers, who allege he abused his office to help a friend and donor, Nate Paul.

In the securities fraud case, the prosecutors’ pay may be the last major pending issue before the trial. In 2018, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals struck down the fee agreement, arguing that it fell outside legal limits for what such attorneys may be paid. The court ordered a previous Harris County judge overseeing the case to come up with a new payment schedule, but that never happened and the prosecutors have continued to go unpaid.

During the hearing Monday, Paxton lawyer Bill Mateja sought to propose an order addressing the pay issue from his side’s perspective. But Beall repeatedly said she would decide on her own.

The judge did not indicate when she would make a ruling on the pay, according to one of the prosecutors, Brian Wice.

Wice said Paxton’s lawyers are so focused on their pay because they have known “the only way to derail this prosecution was to defund it.” Wice said he is owed “a lot” and Schaffer estimated he has “500 unpaid hours” dating back to 2016.

The prosecutors have previously raised the possibility they could withdraw from the case if they are not paid. Asked about that Monday, Schaffer said “we have to see what happens,” while Wice promised he is “not going anywhere.”

See here for the previous update, which also provides some more background on the longstanding pay issue. Note also that we are still awaiting the appellate hearing on his State Bar of Texas complaint, which had originally been scheduled for September 5 but was postponed because of the impeachment trial. There’s now a new State Bar complaint against Paxton, but we’re likely months away from a decision about whether or not they’ll even pursue it, let alone whether we’ll get to an actual hearing. I figure that appellate date will be sometime in November or December. As for the FBI investigation, they can issue some indictments anytime they want. I’ll make room on my calendar for whatever they have in mind. The Chron and the Press have more.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

November 2023 Day Eight EV totals: You can’t out-nerd me

This Chron story about early voting through Sunday made me grind my teeth.

One week in, early voting turnout has surpassed the levels seen in the last two Houston mayoral elections — but not overwhelmingly so — perhaps a surprise given the prominence of front-runners John Whitmire and Sheila Jackson Lee and the national attention the race has earned.

About 101,000 Harris County residents have already voted early this election cycle, either by mail or in person, compared with about 63,000 Harris County residents one week into the 2019 early voting period and about 82,000 residents during the same time period in 2015, the last time there was an open mayoral race.

But raw vote totals do not tell the whole story. There are also significantly more registered voters in the county: nearly 2.6 million registered voters in Harris County this election cycle, up from 2.1 million in November 2015.

If you consider turnout as a percentage of total registered voters, turnout is actually lower this year than in 2015. It sits at just 3.9% of total registered voters in Harris County this election cycle, compared to about 4% during the 2015 cycle.

Well, I agree that the whole story has not been told. This is because “Harris County” and “Houston” are two separate entities, and so one has to be extra careful when making comparisons. Let’s take a deeper and more complex look at the numbers, because I believe the picture being painted here is misleading.

To be clear, article author Matt Zdun is comparing Harris County turnout in 2015 and 2023, and I don’t have a quibble with that. But his references to the open Mayoral race, which was also a feature of 2015, and expressing “surprise” that turnout isn’t higher than it is – even though it definitely is in raw numbers – gives the impression that the Mayor’s race this year is somehow falling short. What I’m saying is I don’t believe you can come to that conclusion with the numbers provided.

What I mean by that is perhaps best expressed as a chart, which shows the number of registered voters in Houston and Harris County, and the percentage of those voters in Houston:


Year    Hou RVs   Harris RVs   Hou Pct
======================================
2015    979,401    2,054,717    47.67%
2019  1,085,813    2,329,277    46.62%
2022  1,133,155    2,543,162    44.56%
2023  1,154,157*   2,590,121    44.56%*

The asterisks for 2023 are because those are estimates. I used the percentage from 2022 to estimate the current number of RVs in Houston based on the November 2023 RV figure for Harris County. The real number is likely a bit smaller, but I have no idea how much smaller. Note that if I used a smaller RV figure for Houston, the effect I’m about to show would be greater.

My point here is that the growth in Harris County voter registration is about 30% from Houston, and 70% from not-Houston. As such, given that there’s nothing more exciting for non-Houston people to vote on now than in 2015, the rate of growth of turnout should be a bit slower than the rate of growth of RVs, since most of those RVs aren’t voting in this Mayoral race.

Let me throw another chart at you, this one providing a different turnout estimate based on an estimate of the share of the early vote that’s actually coming from Houston:


Year   Hou vote  Harris vote   Hou Pct
======================================
2015    268,872      421,460    63.80%
2019    244,979      389,494    62.90%

The point here is that the turnout report we get doesn’t specify how many of those voters were actually in Houston. But we can estimate that based on those final percentages above. Doing that, using the numbers given for 2015 and 2019, and using 63.0% for 2023 based on the increased voter registration disparity but somewhat mitigated by the open Mayoral race, and we get the following; yes, one more chart:


Year    Hou EV    Hou RVs  EV TO
================================
2015    52,411    979,401  5.35%
2019    39,461  1,085,813  3.63%
2023    63,604  1,154,157  5.51%

I have made at least three assumptions in calculating these numbers. One, my estimate of Houston’s 2023 registered voter total. Two, my estimate of the 2023 Houston share of the Harris County vote. And three, that the final ratio of Houston-to-Harris voters is the same for early voting. Any of these could be off in any direction and by any amount, so my entire construction here is held together by duct tape and dental floss.

But that’s basically my point here. These numbers are more subtle and complex than they are being portrayed by Matt Zdun. My assumptions may be wrong, but I think they’re all very reasonable, and if anything I’ve erred on the side of making that final comparison less favorable to 2023. The bottom line, which I’ve used a lot of words to get to, is that you can’t just conclude that early voting turnout is “down” compared to 2015, not based on just the Harris County turnout and RV totals. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, and there’s definitely an argument that it isn’t. Don’t draw conclusions you can’t fully justify.

All this still overlooks two other points. One is that an increase in early voting doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in overall voting. As we’ve discussed before, it may be that what we are seeing is mostly a shift in voting behavior, which has very much been the case in even-numbered years but not in the odd years, at least so far. I have not seen any analysis of the voter roster, which might indicate if what we’re seeing is mostly old reliables with no noticeable bump in new voters. I’m not in a position to analyze that myself, so I’ll just keep caveating myself.

And two, there’s a non-trivial number of Houston votes that get cast in Fort Bend County, too. In 2019 there were 4,187 such votes, and in 2015 it was 4,847. Again, not a huge amount – I have no idea how many so far – but they can be consequential, as the 2015 Mayoral runoff made clear. It wouldn’t shock me if Fort Bend adds in another 6-7K total votes in the end. Comparing Harris to Harris year-over-year is fine – I do it all the time, and it keeps things consistent. Just don’t forget that it’s not the whole story.

With all that out of the way, here’s today’s EV update:


Year    Mail     Early    Total
===============================
2015   23,650   73,905   97,555
2019    9,699   66,255   75,954
2023    9,816  106,731  116,547

The final EV totals from 2015 are here and the final EV totals from 2019 are here. The daily EV report is being posted online now here, but I’m still grabbing a copy each day and saving it for my purposes. The Day Eight file is here.

I’ve already said plenty, so I’ll just note that the totals for this Monday and the Week 2 Monday from 2015 are nearly the same – this Monday was slightly ahead, but by like a hundred or so – which means that if I did the same turnout calculation as above, 2023 would be slightly less ahead of 2015. But even if it had slipped behind, the same point would hold. You’ve got to really do the work to be able to say anything about the turnout.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Who still wants to teach at HISD?

This is bad, right?

Perelman is one of 137 teachers who left Houston ISD during the first month of school this year, all but five of them of their own volition, according to public records obtained by the Houston Chronicle. That’s twice as many teachers who resigned or retired from the district than during the same time frame last year, when 68 teachers left, only two involuntarily.

Staff turnover overall jumped from 441 employees during the first five weeks of school last year to 535 this year, a difference primarily made up by teachers, records show. The number of principals who left during that time rose from seven last year to 11 this year, and assistant principals from three to seven.

“All across our community – at NES, NES-A, and non-NES campuses alike – members of Team HISD are demonstrating their commitment to our students,” HISD said in a statement. “If some people choose to leave the district and go in another direction, we respect their decision to find opportunities that work for them.”

More than half of teachers who left HISD between Aug. 28, the first day of school, and Oct. 1 worked in one of the 85 schools in or aligned with Miles’ New Education System, where Miles has focused his boldest attempts at “wholesale systemic reform.” Teachers have been asked to stick to standardized lesson plans and a rigid instructional model that leaves little room to deviate from the curriculum, offering timed lessons and daily quizzes that are meant to gauge student performance and keep them on track.

Critics have blasted the plans as a “one-size-fits-all” model that leaves struggling students behind and removes agency from teachers.

Miles attempted to make up for the increased demands on teachers by offering higher salaries and $10,000 stipends at the 28 original, reconstituted NES schools in the Wheatley, North Forest and Kashmere feeder patterns, which appear to have gone some way in assuaging the stress of the transition. Only 14 teachers resigned from NES schools during the first month, records show, the same amount of teachers as left those schools last year.

Records from NES-aligned schools such as Benavidez, which operate identically to NES schools but offer only stipends, not higher salaries, tell a different story. Sixty teachers left those 57 schools last month, compared to 20 during the same period last year.

[…]

Toni Templeton, a research scientist at the University of Houston Education Research Center, said that more time, as well as information around certifications, experience and student enrollment, would be needed to fully understand the consequences of the early turnover, but that teacher mobility is concerning because it’s tied to declines in student performance.

Research also shows that teacher retention is strongly tied to school culture, she said.

“Part of what they’re doing is a complete cultural shift… so anytime you see this cultural shift, I think its going to take some time for things to work themselves out,” Templeton said. “It seems like what you’re seeing now, and what you’re hearing, is that teachers aren’t happy with the changes being made and going to a culture that better fits what they believe and think about teaching.”

I will once again acknowledge that we are still very early in the year, and we have very little actual data about how students are performing so far. A lot of stories, not so many numbers. We have two very different views of the underlying reality, one from Mike Miles and one from his many critics. I will also acknowledge that maybe we’re not hearing much from the people who think everything is going great. We sure are hearing from those who don’t think that.

I’ve written before about my concern that parents who don’t like the Mike Miles schools will vote with their feet, and we’ll see if a drop in enrollment fueled by that as a result. It’s too early to say whether something like that may happen, but we also clearly need to worry about the teachers doing the same. What do we do if this kind of turnover continues? Mike Miles has a vision, but if not enough teachers buy into it, where does that leave us? You may note that the higher-paid teachers at the official NES schools aren’t leaving at higher rates than before, so maybe that’s the answer: pay the teachers enough and we’ll be able to draw in and retain enough of them. And hey, paying teachers more, that’s great. But if we have to pay every teacher like we pay the teachers at NES schools (which, again, as a matter of principle, is fine), then we’re back to the same questions we’ve raised before about the financial viability of the Mike Miles plan. Is the Lege going to help out here? It’s not looking good for that right now. So what’s the plan?

And finally, to come back to the question of the data and what it will say about HISD’s progress, what happens if we find that the NES schools do improve, but other schools see declines? I want to be careful in how I say this because I won’t want to set up a situation where the NES schools are being pitted against the other schools, but ideally we’d like all schools to do better, or at least not do worse. What happens if that’s not what we get? Normally, an elected Board of Trustees would hold the Superintendent responsible for subpar performance. That ain’t happening here. So again I say, what does happen then?

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

November 2023 Day Seven EV totals: My one crazy theory

We are officially one week into early voting for the November 2023 election. Here’s how it’s been going in Harris County so far:


Year    Mail     Early    Total
===============================
2015   21,141   61,008   82,149
2019    6,799   55,937   62,736
2023    9,284   91,676  100,960

The final EV totals from 2015 are here and the final EV totals from 2019 are here. The daily EV report is being posted online now here, but I’m still grabbing a copy each day and saving it for my purposes. The Day Seven file is here.

Before I get to my crazy theory, two points to note. One is just that Week One this year was super high volume. The difference in in-person voting is astonishing, more than making up the gap in mail ballots. Whatever else is going on, people have been turning out at a nice clip so far. And honestly, that shouldn’t be a surprise. At least four Mayoral campaigns have been advertising at some reasonably heavy level to push their voters out, and so they have been. (I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that Annie Garcia has been using that $1.5 million loan to her campaign yet, but perhaps the 8 day report will tell me something.) The campaigns for the two city propositions, the Harris County hospital bond, and several state propositions have also had visible ads. The first rule is making sure people know there’s an election, and that has been happening.

The second point is that the gap in mail ballots is unlikely to decrease. In 2015, over 43K total mail ballots were sent to voters, while this year that total is just under 21K. That’s fewer than the total number of mail ballots already returned in 2015. The ballot return rate was just under 50% at this point in 2015, and it’s a bit under 45% so far this year, so not too different. Almost 70% of mail ballots were returned in 2015 as of the end of early voting; if we match that this year, another 5-6K will arrive. All of that happening would make the final gap around 15K. The in person total has well more than made up for that as noted, but Week Two and especially the last day can get busy for in person voting, so there is some volatility.

And that brings me to my crazy theory, which honestly is pretty straightforward. One possible – indeed, I’d say likely – explanation for at least part of the increase in early voter turnout so far is simply that we have longer hours for early voting in the first week now than we did in 2015, or any year before 2018. In 2015, early voting in Week One still ran from 8 AM to 4:30 PM for Monday through Friday. It was 7 to 7 on Saturday, then 1 to 6 PM on Sunday. Now it is 7 AM to 7 PM every day except Sunday, when it is noon to 7. Just look at the EV reports that I’ve linked to above, the hours for each day are listed. Longer hours = more voters. It’s quite simple.

Does that account for all of the difference? Probably not, and there would be no way to tell for sure in any event. Does this mean that more people are shifting from Election Day to voting early, or maybe from Week 2 to Week 1? Maybe, but it’s too soon to tell. What about the fact that there are now (per the SOS) 550K more registered voters in Harris County than there were in 2015? (There were as previously noted about 150K more voters in the Harris County part of the City of Houston in November 2022 than there were in 2015; that number is likely a bit bigger now.) That surely has some effect as well. Point being, there are multiple factors here. Early voting hours are one of them. I’m sure it had some effect on the turnout so far. How much, and what it means beyond that, is not a question I can answer, at least not now. All I’m saying is, if you see reporting that talks about the level of turnout so far, these are things to keep in mind whether the story mentions them or not.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The looming Kerr County election disaster

I have five things to say about this.

Responsibility for running elections in Kerr County has shifted among three different people in the past two months. The first two officials bailed on the job after a months-long effort by one Republican county official to rid the county of electronic voting equipment and begin hand counting all ballots. The push has divided the overwhelmingly Republican county — a verdant stretch of the Hill Country split by the Guadalupe River — and will cost taxpayers around $250,000 due to the many changeovers.

So far, the effort has failed. Still, Kerr County Republican Party Chair Paul Zohlen told Votebeat the effort — led largely by Republican County Commissioner Rich Paces — has “single-handedly taken a wrecking ball to one of the finest election departments in the state.”

“This had never happened before,” Zohlen said. “And now the county clerk will have to put together a team and impart the 10 to 15 years of experience they need by March of 2024.”

Until late August, elections in Kerr County, home to Kerrville and with a population of more than 50,000 people, were managed by the tax assessor’s office. Bob Reeves, a Republican elected to the role in 2018, told Votebeat he refused to continue the work because of the growing distrust in elections there, which made an already time-consuming, stressful, and low-paying job nearly impossible.

“I was put between a proverbial rock and a hard place,” Reeves said. The recent demands for hand counting stemming from baseless suspicions about the security of the current system, he said, made the work seem hopeless.

The duties, therefore, were transferred to Jackie Dowdy, the county clerk. She, too, refused and resigned her position entirely. Her chief deputy, Ian Collum, was appointed as interim clerk while the county conducts the search for her replacement. He and others in that department, which has not handled elections in more than a decade, will now be placed in charge of helping Kerr County’s 40,000 registered voters cast their ballots in 2024.

Fueled by misinformation and baseless claims that electronic voting equipment is manipulated to change election results, the push to hand count ballots in Kerr County is similar to other efforts happening across Texas and elsewhere. Communities that have recently embraced hand counting of ballots — a method that election administration experts have said and studies have shown is less accurate, more costly, and less secure — have become hotly divided. In some cases, such as Cochise County, Arizona, it has pushed election officials out of their jobs and fractured trust in local elections.

Experts told Votebeat it may take years to undo the chaos and to restore the erosion of trust in elections that the effort to hand count has created in Kerr and elsewhere.

“These communities are spending an incredible amount of time trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. And as a result, creating a whole series of new very real problems,” said Justin Grimmer, a professor in the department of political science and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University who is currently conducting research on efforts to hand count ballots in counties across the country.

Only a small handful of counties in Texas — all with populations of fewer than 10,000 residents — hand count their election results. In West Texas’ Glasscock County, which has fewer than 800 registered voters, it made little sense to buy expensive equipment for a job that could easily be done by hand, for example. Their small numbers and short ballots allow these counties to complete and submit vote totals within 24 hours of the polls closing on Election Day.

Right now, the effort to hand count ballots in Kerr County has reached a stopping point. This fall, a vote to change the county’s counting process ahead of 2024 failed. But neither Paces nor county election officials believe this fight is over.

“This was just the first skirmish,” Paces told Votebeat.

[…]

The prospect of hand counting put Reeves, he told Votebeat, in what he perceived to be legal jeopardy. If the county were sued over the results of a future election, or if a lawsuit questioned the accuracy of hand counting, he would not be able to defend the practice in a courtroom. He also had no confidence that hand counting could be done in the time set under law, which requires counties to report results 24 hours after polls close. He also would not be able to explain why commissioners disagreed on whether to trust electronic vote-counting equipment even though he says he has confidence in the machines.

“Without their unanimous support I could not do my job properly,” Reeves told Votebeat after he resigned his election duties in August. By law, unless the county creates an elections department and appoints an elections administrator, the county clerk must serve as the county elections officer. The Texas Election Code allows the county commissioners, however, to transfer the election administration duties from the clerk to the tax-assessor collector, if needed – and if both departments are in agreement — which Kerr County did in 2008.

[…]

Meanwhile, Reeves tried other ways to show Paces and the other commissioners that hand-counting the ballots of the county’s more than 38,000 registered voters would not be feasible. With the help of county workers, Reeves tested how long it would take to count 100 ballots from Kerr County’s March 2020 Republican primary: “With fresh eyes, it took an hour to count 32 ballots,” Reeves said.

He also warned that the county already struggles to find enough election workers and the facilities for the 20 polling locations for each election. In order to hand count, the county would likely need to double the number of poll workers, the funds to pay them and larger spaces to conduct hand counts based on the number of ballots. “That’s more than 200 people that we’d need to work nonstop,” Reeves said.

None of the evidence Reeves or others showed to Paces changed his mind.

There’s a lot more, and it gets more deranged, so read the rest. My five things:

1. This is what happens when a significant portion of the population is fed a constant and unwavering diet of lies and propaganda. That said, as Fred Clark and others have pointed out, the people who do believe this stuff choose to believe it because they want to. There’s plenty of information that is easily accessible to them that patiently explains to them why the stuff they choose to believe is wrong, yet they continue to believe it. It’s a choice. They have agency.

2. It would be absolutely hilarious if Kerr County, which as the story notes voted 75% for the Former Guy in 2020, puts itself into a position where it would be unable to accurately report its November 2024 tally in a timely fashion because they aren’t anywhere close to being done. Yes, I know, in states that allow expansive voting by mail, some results aren’t fully counted until several days after the election because of later-arriving ballots, but that’s planned and expected. And they have up-to-date daily totals along the way. This is all hypothetical for now, but as our boy Commissioner Paces says, it ain’t over.

3. Which leads to the question, would the Legislature be at all interested in the failure of a county like Kerr if they have this kind of self-inflicted disaster? Would they want to step in and prevent this from becoming a possibility? Given that Sen. Bob Hall, the platonic combination of stupid and malicious, is a huge proponent of hand-counting, as long as he’s in the Senate the odds of backsliding are much greater than the odds of making progress.

4. That 32-ballots-in-an-hour pace may seem slow, but it’s two minutes per ballot. Given the number of races, the need to at least double-check everything as you go, the need to write stuff down as you go, and everything else that comes with a manual process, this seems like a reasonable rate. It’s a real question whether it could be maintained over many thousands of ballots – there were almost 28K ballots cast in Kerr County in 2020, and this is a growing populace – because people get tired and lose focus when doing repetitive tasks. For the record, at two minutes per ballot, 28K ballots would take 933 hours, or almost 39 days, to count. That’s like a month longer than it takes those everyone-can-vote-by-mail-and-any-ballot-mailed-by-Election-Day-counts states take to get a high-confidence final tally.

(By the way, there were over 1.6 million ballots cast in Harris County in 2020. At one second per ballot, which I think we can all agree is faster than anyone could count by hand even if we didn’t have so damn many races on them, it would take 19 days to get through them all. At two minutes per ballot, it would take about six years and three months. I hope we can all agree that whatever you think of Harris County elections in recent years, we reported results faster than that.)

(And yes, you could obviously lessen the amount of time for counting ballots by throwing more people at it. But 1) you have to actually be able to hire all those people, 2) the more people doing the counting, each of separate piles of ballots, increases the chances of a screwup, which among other things might result in the need to start all over again from scratch, and 3) we haven’t even talked about how much space 1.6 million ballots would take up.)

5. Commissioner Paces moved to Texas from Ohio ten years ago. The main wingnut local agitator who has been egging him on is a California transplant. (*) This is a reminder that not every batshit wingnut idea comes from the natives, and not everyone who moves here from elsewhere, even from a state like California, is helping to turn Texas blue.

Anyway. Read the rest, and know that no matter how brain-meltingly stupid things can get, they can always get worse.

(*) In the story, the Kerr County Judge at one point said to this noxious lady “I know you’re new from California, and you don’t understand how Texas local government works. We’re required to abide by and follow the law.” This too made me laugh.

Posted in Election 2024, The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Waller mural story

I’m going to keep an eye on this.

Even before artists Brad Smith and Kay Ray-Smith finished their first contracted mural in Waller, northwest of Houston, the community took notice — and lots of photos.

“It instantly, as we were working on it, became a selfie wall. There were so many cars we could barely paint,” Ray-Smith recalled Friday.

But since then, the couple say, things have taken an upsetting turn. One resident took issue with their first mural: Its colors were too bright, in her view. Waller City Council then, in February, adopted an ordinance severely restricting new murals in the town of less than 3,000.

So last week the Smiths, whose company is called Tilt Vision Art, filed suit against the city of Waller in federal court, claiming the mural ordinance is an unconstitutional restriction on free speech. They want the ordinance repealed.

[…]

“The whole thing just really makes me angry and very, very sad,” said Ray-Smith, explaining that she and Smith decided to reach out to attorneys because they felt the ordinance doesn’t just restrict their rights; it could stifle the free expression of other artists, business owners and residents who want to paint a Christmas tree on their barn or a portrait of Willie Nelson on their garage door.

“At the end of the day, artistic expression is covered by the First Amendment,” said Joshua Polk, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit focused on economic freedom that is representing the Smiths in their suit. “What our clients want to do is earn a living bringing happiness to people with public art.”

Pacific Legal previously sued the city of Houston over an ordinance restricting performing music in public, Polk said. That ordinance was deemed unconstitutional and struck down by a federal judge in December, after which Houston formally removed it from the books.

Waller Mayor Danny Marburger did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did any member of Waller City Council.

Waller’s new ordinance stipulates no murals on residential buildings or on the primary facade of any building. It also prohibits murals that contain commercial messages or advertising, as many of Tilt Vision’s murals for businesses do. Artists who want to put a mural on the side of a nonresidential building must register it with the city in advance, a process that includes substantial paperwork and a nonrefundable $500 fee.

You can see examples of this couple’s work here, and I found a story about Kay Ray-Smith and her art here. My non-lawyer’s opinion of this city ordinance is that it does seem excessively strict, for reasons that are not clear to me. I could see the Ray-Smiths winning in court, though there’s always uncertainty in that. I’m on their side, for what that’s worth.

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

Weekend link dump for October 29

“This is a horror host show, a broadcasting format that’s been around since the 1950s. Horror host shows feature zany characters who introduce a B horror movie. They screen the film interspersed with bumper segments, originally to lead in and out of commercial breaks, but now often used to break up the movie and make jokes about it. Today, the format has taken many different forms, from nationally syndicated TV specials to streaming platforms to TikTok.”

“Those experiencing domestic violence are facing a reality where an inability to receive reproductive care is also further endangering their lives, new data shows.”

What Ted Cruz Doesn’t Understand About College Sports“. I mean, he doesn’t understand lots of things about lots of things. And in this particular case he has a lot of company. Consider this your semi-regular reminder to be extremely skeptical about anything this guy says.

“So, what are the consequences here? Nothing concrete — not the loss of power or influence, surely. Not legal repercussions, ever. Consequence is not felt by the fathers, who get exactly what they bargained for to their last breath. And it isn’t really felt by the children, except insofar as they are given the world while being denied only one thing — their father’s love — and thus being doomed to a comfortable, unsatisfying existence. No, when it comes to the lives of the 1%, the real consequences are felt by the rest of us, living in the world of bad drugs and media filth these titans have created and then left behind.”

“SAG-AFTRA clarifies that yes, fine, actors’ kids can dress like Spider-Man“.

RIP, Esther the Wonder Pig. Click the link if you have to ask, or if you don’t.

RIP, Bobi, world’s oldest dog.

“A Brief History of Baseball Games Take Too Long”.

“Our nation has experienced a tremendous spike in firearm deaths just as gun marketing made a transition from selling firearms for hunting and sporting to marketing highly lethal, military-style weapons to civilians, including children. That marketing is supposedly aimed at adults, but the platforms those influencers appear on, including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, are largely populated by kids.”

“[Rep. Ken] Buck isn’t exactly an honorable man or a good legislator. That’s not surprising; it’s been some time since the GOP has been a party in which honorable people, or good legislators, are at all welcome. That means that opposition to Trump, within the GOP, has to come from people who are compromised, unserious, downright evil, or some combination of all of those things.”

Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty.

“A New Way to Inspire People to Get a COVID Vaccine”.

“Well, if we’re talking about people who won’t stop bringing up the past, perhaps we should reacquaint ourselves with how Timberlake spent literal years dragging Spears through the mud for his personal and professional gain.”

“So-called “pause ads” — they only turn up a few seconds after a viewer has decided to halt the programming, and not every time one does — are seeing new movement in the streaming world, with the format appearing more frequently on Hulu since July, according to Josh Mattison, senior vice president of revenue management and operations for Disney Advertising. Pause ads are also in motion in venues such as NBCUniversal’s Peacock and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max.”

RIP, Richard Roundtree, iconic actor best known for the Shaft movies and TV show.

“Senate Confirmation Is a Recipe for Politicizing Military Personnel Policy”.

“The absolute, undeniable baselessness for that 2022 panic offers a lesson that America seems incapable of learning. That means poor Dr. Best is doomed to continue being the Poisoned Halloween Candy Guy until he retires and passes that title along to some younger apprentice.”

“Groups seeking to keep President Trump off the ballot next year notched a key legal victory this week, after a Colorado state judge sided with their view of an arcane but critical question: Does Congress need to do anything for Trump to be disqualified under the Constitution’s Disqualification Clause?”

RIP, Rock Brynner, son of Yul Brynner who had a pretty darned interesting life.

RIP, Richard Moll, actor best known as Bull the bailiff on Night Court.

RIP, Matthew Perry, actor best known as Chandler Bing from Friends.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged | 3 Comments

Spotlight on the Harris County Clerk

But first, a few words about early voting so far.

Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth reports that voters have cast more than 54.4K in-person ballots during the first four days of Early Voting for the November 7 Joint General & Special Elections. More people are choosing to vote early compared to the most similar election in 2015, when only 36.3K voted in person during the same time.

“We are looking at an increase of about 50%. We have been working hard to ensure Voting Centers are up and running on time, and voters are getting in and out easily,” said Clerk Hudspeth. “Voters are showing interest in this election and are eager to make their choices ahead of November 7.”

There are 42 political entities on the November 7 ballot. However, voters will only see the contests that are connected to the address where they are registered to vote. Some may see a minimum of 15, while others a maximum of about 35 contests on their ballots. Only voters who live within the City of Houston’s legal boundaries are eligible to vote in the Houston Mayoral, Controller, and City Council races.

“More than 700 election workers are stationed at the 68 Voting Centers across Harris County during the early voting period, and more than 6,000 will be working at the 701 Voting Centers on Election Day, November 7,” added Clerk Hudspeth. “It takes a lot of people to run an election, and I am grateful for each and every one of them.”

The comparison here is just for in person voting; as previously noted, when you throw in mail ballots 2023 is still ahead but by a lot less. If things continue as they have been, though, that gap will grow. Why this is happening is not clear, and we won’t have a truly full picture until November 7.

In the meantime, Clerk Hudpseth knows that eyes are on her and her team.

Internally, Hudspeth said she is “providing hands-on leadership and making myself accessible to all employees no matter who they are or their level of seniority.”

Externally, Hudspeth said she is “letting voters know that I’m all about working to do all possible within the law to create an election infrastructure that makes sure that all voters are served well and treated equally, no matter who they are, how they look, how they communicate, or what they believe.”

In recent weeks, she has kept a particularly active profile, holding press conferences and attending Commissioners Court meetings, a starkly different approach than Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett, who has missed multiple public appearances in the weeks since taking on voter registration duties.

You can read the rest, much of it is familiar and some of it I discussed with her in our interview. The next paragraph in this story talks about the multiple changes in who has been conducting elections in Harris County in recent years, and now with the impending retirement of Ann Harris Bennett, we’re going to get some more change on the voter registration side of things as well. Just something to keep in mind, and a reminder that the next election for that office will be very important.

And by the way, through Friday, Day Five, we’re now at 71,911 in person votes and 79,978 total votes. A whopping 3,264 mail ballots were added on Friday, bringing the total to over 8K. That compares to 48,207 in person votes, 21,141 mail votes, and 69,348 total votes for 2015. I’ll have a full report on Monday, including a stray thought about why early voting this year has been so robust. In the meantime, whatever it is, it’s still happening.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Another HISD threefer

Once again, too much news and too little time…

HISD special ed teachers say new instructional model under Miles is too rigid to support children.

Brian Tucker started getting help for a speech impairment and learning disability in second grade at his Houston ISD elementary school.

Decades later, he still talks to the teachers who helped identify him for those vital services, and as a special education teacher in the district now, works to provide that same support to his own students.

But Tucker and other teachers say they are struggling to accommodate the wide-ranging, individual needs of special education students under a strict new instructional model introduced by Superintendent Mike Miles in the New Education System schools.

“The system is not very flexible and the model has to start incorporating our kids in special education,” Tucker said. “We’re still waiting on more directions on what’s the best way to provide the accommodations.”

[…]

Tucker, who is nearing retirement and has elderly parents to support, was attracted to the New Education System by better pay and a new challenge. He left his former campus and started his 21st year in education at Sugar Grove Academy, an NES middle school in Sharpstown, as a special education teacher serving seventh- and eighth-grade students in English Language Arts and reading.

His colleagues are “magnificent,” with everyone working well together and invested in the students, Tucker said. But the instructional model is too regimented, inflexible and fast-paced to properly support children with disabilities or other learning differences, he said. Kids who struggle with concentrating or processing information, for example, may not finish or fully understand a concept before the teacher moves on to the next slide in the lesson plan.

“I’m able to provide (accommodations) — I’m just not able to provide them with the fidelity that I would like,” he said. “I try my best, but it’s hard when it’s timed so fast and you’re trying to move between the kids.”

Tucker said he is no longer able to work with students in small groups or help children complete the Demonstration of Learning, a timed and graded assessment given to students every day in core classes to measure their understanding of a specific lesson.

Children with disabilities are protected by a federal law that guarantees them access to a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment so they can access the general education system. Instructional and testing accommodations help level the playing field for special education students to access the same material as their peers in the classroom.

As is typical, the district disputes all of the things that are being said by its critics. I dunno, the teacher who was himself a special ed student at HISD seems pretty credible to me. I have a feeling that there will be a lawsuit over this, given the federal accommodation laws. Improving special ed, which again was a real problem of long standing at HISD, is one of Mike Miles’ mandates, and he says it’s a priority. I’d like to see more evidence of that.

HISD teachers say English language learners struggle under ‘one-size-fits-all’ instruction.

While teaching English language learners has always been a formidable challenge in Houston ISD, some educators say the job has become increasingly difficult this year because they face enormous pressure to implement a standardized instructional model that leaves some emergent bilingual students frustrated and floundering in the classroom.

“We know they’re just learning the language, but in this system, everyone is supposed to be moving at the same pace,” said Brian Tucker, a teacher at Sugar Grove Academy, an NES middle school. “And that cookie cutter doesn’t work for everybody.”

[…]

One teacher at Las Americas Newcomer School, a small NES-aligned campus in southwest Houston, said district officials told teachers to remove alphabet posters from classroom, saying they were inappropriate for a middle school, and limit the use of dictionaries, which many non-native English speakers rely on to look up words during class.

Although Las Americas caters to recent immigrant and refugee students who have little to no English language proficiency, district officials expect the campus to implement a “one-size-fits-all” approach, the teacher said. For example, students are being challenged with grade-level work, such as writing a limerick or reading Walt Whitman passages, even while they are still acquiring rudimentary English.

“Many of them, it’s their first year being in school. They don’t know the language. I have a classroom with at times four different languages spoken. And we’re forced to do the same slides and the same work as a regular, general education school,” the teacher said.

I dunno, maybe one size doesn’t fit all? Because students are individual people with individual needs? Obviously, a certain amount of standardization is needed, but the whole point is to meet the students’ needs so they can do their best. There’s a lot more to this story – the dread new library policy makes an appearance along the way – and it actually ends on a somewhat hopeful note. But seeing these two stories more or less back to back really caught my attention.

Verizon, HISD ending deal that helped connect 56,500 students to internet.

Verizon Wireless is moving to cancel an internet connectivity program that provided devices and data plans to tens of thousands of Houston ISD students, the result of the district’s lack of commitment to continuing the partnership, company officials said Wednesday.

The change potentially deals a blow to efforts to combat the digital divide in Texas’ largest school district, where about 56,500 students and 2,500 teachers have benefited from the program. Many of the participating HISD schools serve large numbers of Black and Hispanic students in lower-income neighborhoods, particularly on the district’s north and east sides.

In a statement, Verizon Wireless officials said they have moved to terminate an agreement with HISD to give free technology to students in 36 schools. Verizon, through a nonprofit known as Digital Promise, has worked with HISD on the initiative since 2020.

“Verizon Innovative Learning has made several attempts to continue its partnership with Houston ISD, and would be delighted to continue the partnership upon their response and demonstrated commitment to the program,” Digital Promise spokesperson Jessica Schuler said in a statement.

HISD officials did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. It is unclear whether HISD has alternate plans to provide computers and internet access to students.

sigh

This is why we can’t have nice things.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Another HISD threefer

Ismaili Center construction milestone

Cool.

Houston’s new Ismaili Center is set to reach its tallest point in construction in the coming days, marking a milestone celebrated by dignitaries and local officials during a topping-off ceremony Monday at the cultural landmark’s site in the Montrose neighborhood.

The building has slowly taken shape since construction began in 2022 near Buffalo Bayou Park, transforming what was once a grassy field off Montrose Boulevard into a towering skeleton of steel beams and concrete. It’s one of seven Ismaili cultural centers worldwide and the first in the United States.

Greater Houston has the largest concentration of Ismaili Muslims in the U.S., according to spokesperson Farah Lalani of the Ismaili Council for the Southwestern United States, with an estimated 35,000 to 40,000 practicing this branch of Shia Islam calling the region home.

Prince Amyn Aga Khan, the younger brother of the Ismaili leader Aga Khan, thanked Mayor Sylvester Turner for his contributions to the center at a downtown luncheon Monday marking the construction progress.

“Today’s topping out ceremony of the Ismaili Center is a fitting occasion on which to honor your significant contribution and lasting legacy,” he told Turner.

[…]

Monday’s milestone has been years in the making. The Aga Khan Foundation purchased the land near Allen Parkway and Montrose Boulevard in 2006, but excavation did not begin until 2021. Although the center had reportedly been set to open in 2024, Samji said it likely will not be ready until mid-2025.

Ismaili Center Houston aims to be an architectural and cultural marvel for the city. The center will be adorned with Turkish marble and include gardens on all four sides, terraced plantings and water features inspired by ancient Islamic architecture.

The green spaces will include native flora and could serve as a retention pond for nearby Buffalo Bayou during floods, Samji said.

See here for the previous update in 2021, when construction started. As you know, I have been obsessed with this site for a long time. I can’t wait to see the finished product.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ismaili Center construction milestone

Saturday video break: CityNerd visits Houston

An urban planner who has mostly heard negative things about Houston visits our city for a couple of days, and finds quite a bit about it that he likes:

Found via Evan Mintz. It’s about 20 minutes (there’s about two minutes at the end that’s an ad read) and worth the time. You’ll likely recognize a few of the scenes. Enjoy!

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Saturday video break: CityNerd visits Houston

Anti-gay Waco JP’s lawsuit heard by SCOTx

Now we wait.

Texas Supreme Court justices Wednesday questioned whether a Waco justice of the peace should remain under threat of a judicial oversight body’s sanctions if she continues refusing to marry gay couples.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct gave Judge Dianne Hensley a public warning in 2019 for performing opposite-sex weddings for couples, but declining to perform same-sex wedding ceremonies on religious grounds — a move that casted doubt on her capacity to act impartially, according to the notice. Her refusal occurred in the wake of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that required all states to license same-sex marriages.

Hensley serves as a justice of the peace in McLennan County, an elected official whose role includes hearing traffic and misdemeanor cases; presiding over landlord and tenant disputes; and, among other duties, can include conducting weddings.

Following the 2019 warning, Hensley filed a lawsuit alleging that the judicial commission violated her rights under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The 1999 act was designed to ensure the government cannot “substantially burden” free exercise of religious beliefs.

The state’s highest civil court heard oral arguments Wednesday after an appeals court affirmed a lower court’s decision to toss her legal challenge last year on grounds that the commission acted within its powers and is protected from lawsuits due to sovereign immunity.

The case is believed to be among several that will attempt to expand the reach of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that let a Colorado web designer refuse same-sex couples. However, most of Wednesday’s proceedings revolved around what Hensley had already done and what could happen to her in the future.

Justices asked why Hensley had not appealed the warning instead of suing the agency.

Hensley’s lawyer Jonathan Mitchell told justices that she would not have received the recourse she sought — including money and injunction against future sanction.

[…]

The commission’s lawyer, Douglas S. Lang, argued to justices that they should not grant a license to discriminate.

One justice asked Lang what the difference was between Hensley’s case and instances of a judge stating their stance on an issue while campaigning for their seat. Lang said it was not an issue that Hensley had talked about, but her actions — which is what was sanctioned.

Justices also asked Lang about the difference between judges who refuse to marry same-sex couples and judges who do not perform any marriages to avoid the matter altogether — and what that portends for their impartiality. Justices of the peace can but are not required to conduct weddings.

“She has chosen to marry some folks and not others. She has chosen to discriminate between some folks in the state of Texas, in favor of other people — and it flies in the face of impartiality,” Lang said.

Justice Jimmy Blacklock followed up with a hypothetical about a judge who stops doing marriages because of an objection to same-sex marriage — why wouldn’t that judge manifest the same bias, he asked.

Lang responded that a judge does not have to say why they do not want to conduct marriages.

Blacklock asked if the hypothetical judge would go before the conduct commission if they explained their reasoning for stopping to be similar to Hensley’s.

Lang returned to Hensley and her conduct, not her belief: She reached out to a Waco newspaper and wearing a judge’s mantel told a reporter that she would not marry a same-sex couple because of her religion, he said, citing the actions that were outlined in the 2019 warning. She also got her court clerks to give an assumed gay couple a handout that said the judge could not perform same-sex weddings due to sincerely held Christian beliefs.

The handout also included alternatives for where the couple could go. Blacklock asked if that was conduct that undermined her impartiality. Repeatedly, Lang turned to Hensley’s actions being at issue.

See here for the previous update. I don’t know what SCOTx will do – I fear they’ll rule for the plaintiff, but I think there’s a decent chance they may find some technical reason to rule against her – but I will say that I like the way Attorney Lang argued for the State Commission. This was about her actions, not her beliefs, and that’s what the court should focus on. They may choose not to, and that would be bad if they do, but at least it’s been made clear to them what the real issue is. All we can do now is hope for the best. And work to elect better politicians at all levels of government.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Anti-gay Waco JP’s lawsuit heard by SCOTx

California DMV pulls Cruise permits

Some bumps in the road there.

A driverless Cruise car sits in traffic on Austin Street in downtown Houston on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023. Photo: Jay R. Jordan/Axios

Citing public safety concerns about Cruise‘s robotaxi line operating in San Francisco, California DMV officials announced Tuesday that the agency had suspended permits for the driverless cars deployed by General Motors’ autonomous vehicle subsidiary.

Cruise had already been under investigation by federal and state transportation officials after several crashes, some involving pedestrians. In response to the Department of Motor Vehicles’ decision, Cruise pulled its driverless vehicles from the road in California.

“Public safety remains the California DMV’s top priority, and the department’s autonomous vehicle regulations provide a framework to facilitate the safe testing and deployment of this technology on California public roads,” the agency said in a statement. “When there is an unreasonable risk to public safety, the DMV can immediately suspend or revoke permits.”

DMV officials cited violations of state regulations for the suspension, including safety issues based on the vehicles’ performance and safety information that the “manufacturer has misrepresented.” The suspension order said Cruise failed to disclose all the relevant video from an Oct. 2 crash, initially showing only the first part of the crash to investigating state officials — omitting the part in which the Cruise vehicle dragged a pedestrian about 20 feet while pinned underneath the driverless vehicle. Cruise officials, in a statement to The Times, denied that they did not share all of their video with investigators.

DMV officials said that there is no set time frame for a suspension, but that the agency provided Cruise with “the steps needed to apply to reinstate its suspended permits.” It wasn’t immediately clear what those steps would include.

The suspension does not affect Cruise’s permit for testing its autonomous vehicles with a safety driver behind the wheel, according to the DMV.

See here for more on the NHTSA investigation, which is covering some similar ground. Cruise has paused service in San Francisco for now, and they have a rollout for LA planned that may be affected, but that is unclear. They’re still operating elsewhere, including Austin and Houston. None of this changes my view of their service or of autonomous vehicles in general, which to reiterate is that I don’t think the technology is there yet, but we’ll see if either of these turn up anything more concerning. NPR and Slate, which points out another issue with Cruise and its business model, have more.

UPDATE: Cruise has now suspended all service, which means no more robotaxis in Houston for now. No word yet how long this pause will last.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Here’s the latest new area code

Hello, 621.

Houston, you’re getting a new area code.

On Wednesday, the Public Utility Commission of Texas announced they’ve approved the addition of 621 for the Houston area to keep up with the population growth we are seeing here in Southeast Texas. The 621 area code joins the other ones in Houston — 281, 346, 832 and the original 713.

Customers will get the 621 area code once all numbers are with the existing area codes are exhausted. The PUCT expects the addition of 621 will hold us over for another nine years.

The new area code won’t affect existing phone numbers.

See here for the background, and here for the PUCT’s press release. As noted, the 346 area code was rolled out in 2013, so that estimate of nine years before another code is needed is probably pretty accurate. That release, by the way, says that the OG 713 area code “was created in 1947 as one of the original four numbering plan areas (NPA) assigned to Texas”. I assume that 214 and 512 were also among those four, but I’m not sure which would have been the fourth – I figure it’s either 915 or 806. I spent three years in the early nineties as the tech support department for a small software company and I made calls to pretty much every existing area code at that time. I could have told you the code for almost any city or state, or the city/state associated with a code back then, it was so much a part of my daily existence. Once the new codes with something other than a 0 or 1 came on the scene, circa 1994 or so, that was the end of that. Anyway, look for the 621 code at a business or home near you soon. The Chron has more.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

November 2023 Day Three EV totals: All in person

We’re at the first Friday of early voting for the November 2023 election, and a pattern is beginning to emerge. This is the data through Day Three:


Year    Mail     Early    Total
===============================
2015   18,196   27,596   45,792
2019    6,050   26,206   32,256
2023    4,742   41,701   46,443

The final EV totals from 2015 are here and the final EV totals from 2019 are here. The daily EV report is being posted online now here, but I’m still grabbing a copy each day and saving it for my purposes. The Day Three file is here.

It took less time than I might have guessed for 2023 turnout to catch up to, and indeed surpass, 2015 turnout. The reason for that is simple – in person daily voting so far has been going like gangbusters. It has been more than enough to make up for the large difference in mail voting. Note that for all three years the overall totals were about the same on the Tuesday and the Wednesday. That continued to be true for Thursday and Friday in 2019, while Thursday dipped a little and Friday surged ahead in 2015. What I’m saying here is that we should probably expect more of the same over the next two days for this year as well.

Someone asked me earlier if this dip in mail ballots might mean that we’re seeing a younger electorate. I’ll have to look at the voter roster to take a stab at that, but my best guess is probably not, at least not by much if at all. I think two things might be happening. One is I think the campaigns are pushing in person voting more than they’re pushing mail voting. I say that because there are just fewer mail ballots out there, and maybe they don’t want to mess with the hassles even if the convoluted process for getting and submitting a mail ballot is somewhat less fraught these days. The other possibility is that we’re finally starting to see a shift to early voting for city elections the way we’ve seen them for state and federal (that is, even-numbered year) elections. Remember that as of the two most recent city election years, most ballots were cast on Election Day. That hasn’t been true for an even year since 2006. I do not expect to get anywhere close to the high levels of early voting that we’re now used to, but if we wind up with 55-60% of all ballots cast by next Friday, it wouldn’t shock me.

If that’s the case, then we need to temper our expectations for final turnout. It’s too early to think about that, and I absolutely still believe we’re going to hit 300K for the city overall, I’m just saying this as an early warning against reckless optimism. I still remember the absurdly frothy turnout projections we got in 2008, as no one had yet realized we were in a new paradigm for when people voted. Now, it may be that we’re still in a majority-on-Election-Day world for odd-year elections, in which case we really are headed for the stratosphere. I’m not ready to believe that, and you shouldn’t be either. Ask me again in a week.

So. Have you voted yet? Has anything surprised you so far? Leave a comment and let us know.

UPDATE: The Day Four total is 59,241 votes, which compares to 56,011 from 2015. I voted yesterday at West Gray, it was moderately busy but no wait time.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on November 2023 Day Three EV totals: All in person

Challenge filed to the law barring felons from running for office

I’ll be keeping an eye on this.

Derrick Broze

Derrick Broze, barred from the upcoming mayoral election because of a two-decades-old felony conviction, sued the state of Texas, arguing its election law is unconstitutional.

Broze, a 38-year-old independent journalist and activist, started campaigning for City Hall’s top job at the beginning of 2023. In June, the city denied his application to get on the ballot after he self-reported a previous felony record.

In the complaint filed Monday, Broze contended the Texas Election Code’s eligibility rules against all candidates with unresolved felony records are too restrictive. In contrast, he said, the state constitution only excludes individuals convicted of “high crimes” such as bribery, perjury and forgery from holding office.

Broze was convicted of felony drug possession in 2005 when he was 20 years old. A judge gave him two years of probation at the time. He violated parole and was then sentenced to two years in prison.

He was struggling with drug addiction and depression during those years, Broze said, but he has since rebuilt his life and focused on community activism around civil liberties, environmental protection, homelessness and other causes.

His non-violent drug conviction, Broze argued, does not fit the criteria of a “high crime.” The denial of his ballot application stands as a demoralizing reminder that, even after nearly two decades, he still cannot fully participate in society, he said.

“I did my time, paid my debt to society,” Broze told the Chronicle. “Being blocked from the ballot because of having a felony in Texas is just another barrier to entry that felons like myself have to face.”

The state election code specifies that candidates must not have been “finally convicted of a felony” unless they have been pardoned or “released from resulting disabilities.”

Past candidates have argued that completing probation equates to being released from such disabilities. But an opinion from Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office asserts that such a candidate would need a pardon, judicial clemency or a writ of habeas corpus invalidating the conviction.

[…]

Gerald Birnberg, a constitutional law attorney and ex-chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, said Broze’s case could have far-reaching legal impacts since many points in his lawsuit have not been fully litigated in court.

He agreed with Broze’s argument that his drug conviction should not count as a “high crime” since it does not involve dishonesty, unlike other listed offenses. However, this does not necessarily mean the state constitution prohibits additional laws that extend beyond its specified crimes, Birnberg said.

“At least we could add some clarity to the Texas Election Code,” Birnberg said. “I also believe that we would be well served to have people who have been through that experience as an elected office. That perspective can teach us what it takes to rehabilitate people.”

As the story notes, Broze was able to run for Mayor in 2019 because he filled out that form differently. Broze wrote an op-ed advocating his position after being denied a spot on the ballot this year, after changing how he filled out that form. He cites the case of Cynthia Bailey, in which there was never a decision on the merits of the law, while the story references perennial candidate Brad Batteau, who fills his form out as Broze did in 2019. The takeaway from all this is that the law, and the opinion on the law by Ken Paxton, is unclear. I’m very much on the side of restoring voting rights for felons who have completed their sentences, and that includes eligibility for office. I don’t know what the likelihood of success is here, but I’m rooting for Mr. Broze.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Challenge filed to the law barring felons from running for office

Private dam proposal withdrawn

Good news.

After months of opposition by communities along the Llano River, the former CEO of Houston-based energy company Phillips 66 has withdrawn his permit application to build a private dam on his ranch in Edwards County, according to state environmental regulators.

Greg Garland’s Waterstone Creek LLC had sought state permission to dam the South Llano River in an application filed five years ago. The permit, if approved, would have allowed the LLC to create a pond roughly equal to six olympic-sized swimming pools.

The dam would have been the first private dam built in the Llano River watershed since 1976 — and the first built for recreational purposes like swimming, boating and fishing. At a public meeting about the application that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality held in August, Garland said the pool’s purpose was to promote more wildlife and fish on his property.

The agency received a letter from Peter T. Gregg, a representative for Waterstone Creek LLC, with a formal request to withdraw Garland’s application on Oct. 18, a day after The Texas Tribune published a story on the dam controversy.

Gregg and Garland did not respond to requests for comment.

“The dam is dead, the dam is dead,” said Linda Fawcett, president of the Llano River Watershed Alliance and a resident of Junction who lives about 60 miles southwest of Gregg’s property.

Fawcett and others along the river had expressed concerns about the proposed construction of a private dam along the South Llano River. They said it would start a domino effect of property owners building more private dams, which could alter the river’s natural flow and send less water into the Highland Lakes.

Up and down the Llano River, local officials also had spoke out against the possible privatization of a section of a public river.

See here for the background. I had drafted a post based on that October 17 Trib story, but hadn’t had the chance to publish it yet because there’s been so much damn news lately. That post is beneath the fold, and there’s a lot of interesting history about private dams and this project in particular. I’d call this an unequivocal win for everyone who was at risk by this proposal. Read on for more about that.

Continue reading

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Private dam proposal withdrawn

Rep. Jarvis Johnson to run for SD15

The field grows.

Rep. Jarvis Johnson

Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, announced Tuesday he will run for Texas Senate to fill the seat currently held by mayoral candidate John Whitmire.

“I know the issues affecting our communities. We’ve been neglected by the state. They’ve underinvested in our children’s futures,” Johnson said in a video posted to social media.

He also went after Gov. Greg Abbott, saying the third-term Republican is seeking to defund Texas schools with his voucher proposal and that the GOP is “attacking Harris County and trying to take away our freedom and our liberty.”

A business-owner and lifelong Houston resident, Johnson previously served on the Houston city council and was elected to the state House in 2016.

During his time in the Legislature, Johnson has pushed to end Confederate Heroes Day as a state holiday and served as vice chair of the public safety committee, where he advocated for a bill championed by Uvalde families that would have raised the age to buy a semi-automatic gun.

Whitmire is a front runner in the race to become Houston’s next mayor. If he fails to win the Nov. 7 election, it’s not clear whether Johnson would still choose to challenge the longtime senator who is the only Democrat to chair a committee in the GOP-dominated Senate

You can see that video here. Rep. Johnson joins a field that includes Molly Cook, Karthik Soora, and most recently Todd Litton. I think he’s been a pretty good State Rep, and I look forward to seeing what kind of campaign he runs.

Two points to consider: One is that between the entries of Litton and now Rep. Johnson, I sense that a perhaps now increasing number of people are betting on a Whitmire victory in the Mayor’s race. I can’t quantify this, and it’s the easiest hot-take thing to say since it isn’t based on anything but a vague gut feeling. It would also be easy for Rep. Johnson to stay where he is and run for a mostly obstacle-free re-election; making this announcement ensures that other people, ones who will be capable of mounting a credible campaign, will now take steps towards filling the seat he holds. At the very least, that will be awkward if in fact Whitmire does not get elected Mayor. Politicians tend to have pretty sensitive risk calculators. That he would risk this should tell us something, however we want to interpret it.

And two, just as the loser of the presumed Whitmire-SJL runoff will have the time to file for their old seat in the event that becomes an option, so would Rep. Johnson be able to change his mind if he needed to. As with Whitmire and SJL, he will find that he has company in that race, and a tailor-made “he doesn’t actually want this job” attack to be levied on him. Like I said, this is where his risk calculator led him.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Ann Harris Bennett not running for re-election

We will elect a new Tax Assessor-Collector next year.

Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Ann Harris Bennett, a second-term Democrat, announced last week she will not seek re-election in 2024. She will continue to lead Harris County’s voter registration process through the upcoming presidential cycle, though a string of absences from recent election administration events raise questions about her performance on the job.

Bennett won the job in 2016 after defeating Republican incumbent Mike Sullivan. While managing property tax collections and vehicle registration, she has navigated significant changes in her office: losing oversight of the county’s voter registration process in 2020, then regaining those responsibilities just weeks ago.

[…]

Bennett wrote in a public letter last week that her decision was made “with a heavy heart” and “after careful consideration.” She attributed her departure to her desire to focus on her family and her health.

Prior to regaining her voter registration duties, Bennett sat on the five-member Harris County elections commission, the group that oversaw hiring the elections administrator. She never attended one of the meetings in person, instead joining the meetings virtually.

Bennett was absent from a Harris County Commissioners Court meeting in late August that included a public discussion of the election transition process. While County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth attended the meeting, gave a brief update to members of Commissioners Court and answered reporters’ questions, Bennett sent a deputy instead.

Wendy Caesar, chief deputy at the tax assessor-collector’s office, explained Bennett’s absence to reporters: “Ms. Bennett’s an elected official. If she’s not here, I’m her chief deputy, and she’s asked me to come here. I cannot divulge where Ms. Bennett is, but I’m here as her chief.”

She also missed a joint news conference her office hosted with the county clerk to answer questions about the transition when the law abolishing the elections administrator went into effect on Sept. 1. Bennett’s director of communications, Laura Smith, told reporters Bennett was unable to attend because she had a family member in critical care.

Bennett did not attend a meeting on her department’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year on Sept. 7 either. No reason for her absence was given.

Though Bennett will be in charge of voter registration and maintaining Harris County’s voter rolls during the high-stakes 2024 presidential election cycle, she did not respond to questions from the Chronicle about her numerous absences. Bennett turned down an interview request from the Chronicle, then declined to answer questions about whether she has worked from the office over the past year or plans to do so next year.

Mike Doyle, chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, said he hasn’t seen Bennett since her last virtual appearance at the elections commission in May, but her office has experienced staff who know what they’re doing.

“There’s no reason to believe that the professionals in the office are not fully capable of handling what they’re assigned to do,” Doyle said.

You can see a copy of her letter herre. I have no personal knowledge of the situation, but it sounds consistent with someone who is having health issues. Whatever the case, I wish her all the best. Harris County’s voter registration numbers have steadily increased on her watch so I don’t have any complaints about that, but I will be very interested to hear from potential successors what their plans are to continue increasing the rolls, deal with interference from the state, and what they thought about the Elections Administrator’s office. As the story notes, there are no known candidates at this time but I would expect that to change soon.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Lubbock County passes “abortion travel ban”

It’s time to take this to court.

Three county commissioners approved an ordinance Monday that would bar pregnant Texas women from traveling through Lubbock County for an abortion in another state.

The commissioners – Jason Corley, Terence Kovar and Jordan Rackler – voted for the ordinance, which can only be enforced by private citizens who file lawsuits against people assisting pregnant Texans seeking an abortion. Commissioner Gilbert Flores, and County Judge Curtis Parrish abstained from voting.

Lubbock County is now the largest county to weigh in on the policy pushed by anti-abortion activists. It joins three other rural counties — Goliad, Mitchell and Cochran — in Texas that have already passed similar ordinances, despite the state already having one of the most restrictive bans on abortion in the U.S.

The ordinance is being pushed by the same organizers who started the “sanctuary city” ordinance movement before Roe v. Wade was eventually overturned. In 2021, Lubbock, the county seat, was the largest city to pass a “sanctuary city for the unborn” ordinance.

The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors. Become one.

Much like that ordinance, the travel ban would be enforced through private lawsuits filed against the people who “knowingly transport any individual for the purpose of providing or obtaining an elective abortion, regardless of where the elective abortion will occur.” It would not punish the pregnant woman.

Parrish, the county judge, wanted to postpone a vote until March 2024, to give the commissioner’s court more time to look at the legal purpose of the ordinance and what the physical impact would be to the county and taxpayers.

“We are a pro-life county, but we shouldn’t need a piece of paper that says you can’t drive on our roads,” Parrish said.

Legal scholars have said these so-called “abortion travel bans” have questionable enforcement mechanisms, making them more like a ceremonial declaration than a legally binding statute. In an opinion following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote “May a state bar a resident of that state from traveling to another state to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.”

See here for some background. I don’t know what the exact mechanics of this will be – someone has to be identified as a plaintiff, to begin with – but this needs to stop, and the best chance of doing that is in the courts, as fraught as that sounds. Either there’s a right to travel in this country or there isn’t. You can drive from Texas into Oklahoma or New Mexico to gamble at a casino, or (as a certain furniture guy likes to do) cross over the Louisiana state line and place a bet on a sporting event from your phone. You can drive to Colorado and smoke marijuana. There are lots of things you can do in other states that you can’t do here, and you can freely travel to them without worrying that some fascist wannabe will sue you for it. It’s time to make Brent Kavanaugh live by his words. Even if these “bans” really are little more than ceremonial, they still contribute to fear and the belief that there’s no hope and no alternative. The real goal is to get a federal law affirming abortion rights on the books, but until then we need to get this crap off of them.

UPDATE: The city of Amarillo has decided not to vote on this same proposal, at least for now. I think it’s more likely to eventually pass there than not, but at least they don’t want to be rushed into it. And once again I say, by whatever means necessary, this needs to stop.

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

Texas blog roundup for the week of October 23

Every member of the Texas Progressive Alliance would be a better Speaker than Jim Jordan, and is also capable of putting together a better weekly blog roundup than he ever could.

Continue reading

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged , | Comments Off on Texas blog roundup for the week of October 23

The recording

I have three things to say about this.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, expressed regret Monday and said she is “not perfect” after a recording came out that appeared to show her berating staff with profanity.

Jackson Lee is running for Houston mayor, and the recording was sent from an anonymous email account to multiple news organizations Friday, three days before the start of early voting. She broke her silence on it in a statement Monday night.

“I want to convey to the people of Houston that I strongly believe that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, and that includes my own staff,” Jackson Lee said. “I know that I am not perfect. I recognize that in my zeal to do everything possible to deliver for my constituents I have in the past fallen short of my own standards and there is no excuse for that.”

On the recording, which is about a minute and a half, a voice that sounds like Jackson Lee’s can be heard erupting at a staffer who does not have a document she was looking for. She tells the staffer she wants him to have a “fuckin’ brain” and says “nobody knows a Goddamn thing in my office – nothing.” She refers to another staffer, who is apparently not in the room, as a “fat-ass stupid idiot” and adds both staffers are “fuck-ups.”

“It’s the worst shit that I could have ever had put together,” Jackson Lee says. “Two Goddamn big-ass children, fuckin’ idiots who serve no Goddamn purpose.”

Former staff members did not respond to requests for comment about the recording.

Jackson Lee’s campaign has refused to verify the recording and only referred to it as an “alleged recording” in the title of her statement.

“To anyone who has listened to this recording with concern, I am regretful and hope you will judge me not by something trotted out by a political opponent, that worked to exploit this, and backed by extreme Republican supporters on the very day that polls open, but from what I’ve delivered to Houstonians over my years of public service,” Jackson Lee said in her statement.

1. I haven’t listened to this recording, and I don’t know its provenance. Nor do I know how it found its way to the press, though given the contents it’s hard to imagine it not getting out. (The Whitmire campaign denies any responsibility for it, as noted later in the story.) While Rep. Jackson Lee has not officially confirmed that this is a recording of her, the apology speaks for itself. This recording of words that she said exists. That’s the more important part of the equation.

2. Rep. Jackson Lee has long had a reputation for being a difficult, even abusive, boss. A lot of that is based on older stories, though there was a more recent lawsuit brought by a former staffer who claimed she was wrongfully fired; the suit was later dismissed. Whatever the facts are there, she has been subject to more scrutiny than many others in similar positions because she’s a Black woman. Just look at the comments on any news story involving her, or the replies to any tweet or Facebook post, and take in the seething, vicious hatred. Plenty of other women, especially women of color, go through the same thing. That said, no one in a position of power should ever speak to an employee or other person in a subordinate role like this. It’s gross, it’s abusive, it’s completely unacceptable. It’s also far too common in too many workplaces. If Rep. Jackson Lee really wants to demonstrate her regret, she might consider using some of her power to lift up the workers who are on the receiving end of such abuse.

3. One can be a good member of Congress and also be a bad boss. I’m a longtime constituent of Rep. Jackson Lee, and I’m happy that she represents me in Congress. She votes as I’d like her to, she works hard to stay in touch with the district, she has been a force for political good. A member of Congress is one voice out of many, so a chaotic office won’t have that much effect on the overall function. (Lord knows, there’s plenty of other chaos in Congress right now to take care of that.) I think it would be harder to be a bad boss and also a good Mayor because there’s more immediacy to what a Mayor does, which increases the need to treat one’s staff well. This is another thing that I don’t know how to quantify, but I feel comfortable saying that a Mayor with a strong relationship with their staff is better positioned to succeed than one without. I hope this is another thing Rep. Jackson Lee is thinking about. The Chron has more.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , | 22 Comments

November 2023 Day One EV totals: You’ve got no mail

It’s that time you’ve been waiting for, so here’s what you want:


Year    Mail     Early    Total
===============================
2015   14,240    8,891   23,131
2019    5,407    7,973   13,380
2023    3,289   12,740   16,029

The final EV totals from 2015 are here and the final EV totals from 2019 are here. The daily EV report is being posted online now here, but as you can see by the generic URL that will have the latest file. I’m still grabbing a copy each day and saving it for my purposes, and you can see the file for Monday here.

The obvious point of interest here is the decline in the number of mail ballots. The decline from 2015 to 2019 makes sense to me, given the anti-HERO vote as a driver of turnout in 2015. There were also more ballots mailed out in each of those years – 40K as of the first day of early voting in 2015, 20K as of the same date in 2019, and 16K in 2023. The rate of return of mail ballots is lower in 2023 than in the other years – about 35% in 2015, 25% in 2019, 20% this year. There’s time for that to go up, and mail ballots are still being sent out, but this is worth keeping in mind.

On the other hand, the number of in person voters is much higher this year than it was on Day One of either of those other years. The flow of mail ballots returned tends to be slower than the daily march of in person voters, so the difference in total turnout can narrow quickly. Again, I’m not sure what the driver of these differences are, but there’s nothing to suggest at this time that we’re headed for an unexpected level of turnout. It’s still my contention that hitting 300K, which will not require an especially high percentage of registered voters to participate, is well within range. Ask me again in a few days, but for now I think we’re on track. We may just get there via a slightly different route than what I had anticipated.

UPDATE: Day Two numbers are here, with another strong day for in person voting. The gap with 2015 is down to about 4K because of the volume of in person voters.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on November 2023 Day One EV totals: You’ve got no mail

Endorsement watch: For Huffman in G, eventually

You really have to read all the way through this endorsement to understand who exactly it is they’re endorsing. Stop too soon, and you’ll get the wrong idea.

CM Mary Nan Huffman

We have a confession to make. When super-lawyer Tony Buzbee announced his run for the District G seat on City Council, we were somewhat intrigued. As journalists, we are in an endless battle to make the important stuff — city budgets, tax increments, infrastructure plans — not boring. No matter what you think of Buzbee, and his most recent legal success getting an impeachment acquittal for Attorney General Ken Paxton, the man is definitely not boring.

There was the time he parked his World War II-era Sherman tank in front of his mansion to the consternation of his River Oaks neighbors. Not long after, he alleged that a woman he brought home destroyed $300,000 of artwork including two Andy Warhol pieces. In 2019, he ran for mayor saying City Hall smelled of corruption and hauled in a wheelbarrow of manure for emphasis. When he forced Mayor Sylvester Turner into a runoff, Buzbee gave a rambling speech that raised eyebrows and left some wondering about his lucidity. These days, he seems to have turned a corner in his personal life. He’s vocal about his sobriety, but that hasn’t lessened his flair. Just consider that in the middle of defending Paxton and announcing his City Council bid, he also helped launch a new brand of THC-infused drinks called HoBuzz as an alternative to alcohol. Genius marketing. We’ve been forced to mention it at least three times in editorials.

Buzbee’s ability to garner headlines has piqued the interest of voters — and so have the substantive issues he’s campaigning on. They see burst water mains going unrepaired for days, gushing thousands of gallons of water during a drought. They see hulking housing projects approved by the Houston Housing Authority going up without having heard about them from their citycouncilmember in advance. Although this wealthy part of Houston — bounded by I-10 and Westheimer, stretching from the Addicks and Barker reservoirs to Upper Kirby — pays an outsized chunk of the city’s taxes, they often feel forgotten.

“I have to think that somebody like Tony Buzbee could be a much sharper thorn in the saddle,” Nick Kornuta, an HOA president in Eldridge/West Oaks, told us when we reached out to him and other neighborhood leaders by phone.

In fact, Buzbee, 55, can be more than a thorn and a provocateur. Besides his win for Paxton, he got felony charges against former Gov. Rick Perry thrown out and won a $41 million settlement for a spider-bit victim. There’s no question he’s had big wins in court and we have no doubts Buzbee could torch city department heads about potholes on social media and stage spectacles designed for maximum media exposure. City priority lists may well yield more quickly under such pressure. Greg Travis, the previous councilmember, has endorsed Buzbee, claiming Huffman has failed to keep street rebuilds and repairs in the district moving. He claims Buzbee will get projects moving faster.

We urge voters in City Council District G to stick with incumbent Mary Nan Huffman. She won a special election in January 2021 after Travis resigned to run for an open state representative position. A 40-year-old former prosecutor, she voices dissent at City Council meetings as one of the few conservatives while avoiding the controversial statements her predecessor made. Although constituents may not notice her advocating for them, she’s been effective. When the housing department put forward their recommendations on affordable housing, she persuaded the mayor and fellow councilmembers not to submit a letter of support for Felicity Oaks, a proposed development inside Loop 610 and the only one considered for District G. This editorial board unsuccessfully urged Turner to ignore Huffman, but her opposition likely doomed the proposal, which is what many of her constituents wanted.

That right there, the sixth paragraph in this long article, is the first mention of the incumbent, and the only paragraph about her that is mostly positive. The remainder is more Buzbee and some criticism of Huffman. Note also that there’s no rhetorical qualifiers or other indicators of a shift – no “all that said” or “nonetheless” or what have you – before the sudden turn to endorsing Huffman. I had just about convinced myself that the headline on this was wrong when I finally got there.

I consider myself a student of the “Chronical election endorsement” form, and I have no idea what is going on in this one. Was there a split on the Board and this was the compromise? Was they day this was written National You’ve Got To Hand It To Him Day? Who knows. The headline tells you what you need to know, if the article itself wasn’t clear. My interview with CM Huffman is here.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Interview with Conchita Reyes

Conchita Reyes

I’m always a little hesitant to say I’m done with interviews for a given cycle because there’s almost always a candidate who comes forward after I say that. Usually, it’s because we missed a connection earlier and when that happens I will always try to accommodate – as long as it’s before Election Day, it’s not too late. And so today I present you with my interview with At Large #1 candidate Conchita Reyes, who is fresh off of being endorsed by the Chronicle. Reyes is an accountant who has been a fiscal administrator for the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and has a long background in city politics, as her aunt was former At Large Council Member Gracie Saenz. She has worked for then-Controller Sylvia Garcia, serves as the liaison for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Council 19 – Johnny Mata and LULAC Council 60, and has served on the board of several non-profits. Here’s what we talked about:

PREVIOUSLY:
Kathy Blueford-Daniels
Dani Hernandez
Judith Cruz
Plácido Gómez
Mario Castillo
Cynthia Reyes-Revilla
Joaquin Martinez
Tarsha Jackson
Leah Wolfthal
Melanie Miles
Abbie Kamin
Sallie Alcorn
Letitia Plummer
Nick Hellyar
Obes Nwabara
Danielle Bess
Holly Vilaseca
Marina Coryat
Donnell Cooper
Twila Carter
Casey Curry
James Joseph
Mary Nan Huffman
Richard Cantu
Fair For Houston/Yes On Prop B
Lesley Briones on the Harris Health System bond referendum
Dave Martin
Chris Hollins
Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth

And once again I say that is my final planned interview for this cycle. I will take a little time off and then interview the Mayoral candidates for the runoff. It’s a short break from then until the rush of 2024 primary interviews, so I’m going to enjoy it. The Erik Manning spreadsheet is here. My previous posts about the 2023 HISD election are here and here. My posts about the July campaign finance reports for City Council candidates are here and here, and my post about the July campaign finance reports for Controller candidates is here.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Interview with Conchita Reyes

Hey, remember Colony Ridge?

What if I told you that it was all a big nothing?

Gov. Greg Abbott named Colony Ridge a top state priority when he placed it on the third special legislative session agenda — heeding calls by right-wing media to crack down on the fast-growing Liberty County subdivision that had become a haven for organized crime and illegal immigrants from Latin America.

Abbott vowed to take action on “any issue that needs to be enforced, in terms of a new law in the state of Texas, to make sure we’re not going to have colonies like this in our state,” he said in a Sept. 25 interview.

But nearly two weeks into the special session, no major bills to address Colony Ridge have been filed or debated. And on Thursday, the House State Affairs Committee held a hearing to discuss the subdivision without considering any specific legislation.

“Why are we even here doing this?” Rep. Jay Dean, R-Longview, wondered aloud.

Lawmakers heard testimony by local officials and the CEO of the housing development that told a different story than the one peddled by some conservatives in recent weeks — one of a small county exploding in population in its unincorporated areas that would likely benefit from more funding for law enforcement and infrastructure, as well as stronger regulatory authority for county officials.

Local officials refuted claims made by right-wing media and Republican elected officials including Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton that Colony Ridge had become too dangerous for law enforcement to effectively police and had overwhelmed local government resources.

Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said Abbott’s public concerns that the subdivision was a “no-go zone” for law enforcement were unfounded.

“There’s no such thing as a no-go zone in Texas,” McCraw said. “We obviously talked to the sheriff… and he assured us that was not the case. Certainly, our sergeant didn’t think so. Our troopers can go anywhere.”

See here for the previous update. I mean, I guess Steve McCraw could be part of the conspiracy, but he is one of Greg Abbott’s top minions, and it was Abbott who took all that wingnut chatter seriously enough to put something on the special session agenda, so either this goes Even Deeper Than You Thought or Abbott was played by and/or caved to the wingnut noise machine and as usual there was nothing there. You tell me which is more likely.

There is of course an impeachment revenge angle, because there will always be an impeachment revenge angle as long as Ken Paxton exists.

Paxton sent a letter Thursday to Abbott, Patrick, Phelan and Republican Texans in Congress that revealed the results of an Attorney General’s Office investigation into Colony Ridge. Paxton said that the subdivision “appears to be attracting and enabling illegal alien settlement” and “has drawn far too many people and enabled far too much chaos for the current arrangement to be tolerated by the state.”

“The scale of the Colony Ridge development has proved unmanageable for effective law enforcement and other key standards of acceptable governance,” Paxton wrote. “Violent crime, drug trafficking, environmental deterioration, public disturbances, infrastructure overuse, and other problems have plagued the area and nearby towns.”

He singled out two Republican lawmakers, Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville and Rep. Ernest Bailes of Shepherd, for sponsoring a bill in 2017 that enabled Colony Ridge to establish a municipal management district. Notably, Nichols and Bailes also supported this year’s unsuccessful effort to impeach Paxton and remove him from office.

Those who testified Thursday pushed back against the claims made by Paxton and others.

Liberty County Judge Jay Knight said it is inaccurate to describe Colony Ridge as a colonia, like the substandard settlements on private land populated largely by immigrants and found in Texas counties near Mexico.

“This has water, sewer, ditches and roads, yes,” Knight said. “The water is regulated by TCEQ and it’s a private company that owns it… the roads become property of the county. It’s ours to take care of.”

And this is how we do development in Texas, especially in the lesser-populated parts of the state. Always has been, and almost certainly always will be. You want to address that, I’m sure the builders’ lobby will have some thoughts on the matter.

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

Endorsement watch: Chron goes for Whitmire

The Chron endorses John Whitmire for Mayor.

Sen. John Whitmire

Close your eyes for a moment and ask yourself: in this city of immigrants who start companies and win World Series, of silvery skyscrapers and moonshot cancer fighters, of astronauts who train for Mars, culinary stars and energy upstarts, of money that’s fast and beats that are slow and surreal, what should the mayor of Houston look like? Or talk like? Or act like?

Of all the options, chances are, you didn’t envision a 74-year-old white male career politician from Hillsboro who is partly funded by Republican megadonors and proposes to fight crime by enlisting the help of 200 Department of Public Safety troopers.

Chances are, you didn’t envision John Whitmire.

With that description, it’s easy to assume that he fits a mold, even the one in a TV attack ad lumping the lifelong Democratic state senator with Republicans, suggesting he’s buddies with Gov. Greg Abbott and that somehow he’s the darling of the NRA — even though the organization gives his voting record an F.

Whitmire fits no mold. He has charted his own course, from his meteoric rise as a college dropout who at 23 won a newly created state House seat, to to his evolution from Texas House class clown to Senate criminal justice chairman, to his transformation from prison builder to bipartisan criminal justice reformer. Whitmire earned national recognition in the mid-2000s for teaming up with a Plano Republican to show that a “tough on crime” state could be “smart on crime” as well by closing prisons and, instead, expand diversion and treatment programs. He was later heralded for ending Texas’ biased pick-a-pal grand jury system and protecting mentally ill inmates through the Sandra Bland Act. Today, Whitmire represents a majority Black and brown district and is the longest serving member in the Senate, earning him the honorary title of “dean.” He’s the only Democrat to chair a committee in the Republican-controlled chamber.

[…]

As mayor, Whitmire insists he’d be committed to diversity and equity, and the city’s 22 department heads will reflect that. What he lacks in youthful pep or pigment he makes up in connections and know-how: “You don’t have my experience when you’re 35. It’s that simple. I’ve worked with nine mayors and seven governors,” he says. “Experience matters.”

While deploying his $10 million war chest in the race was a controversial if legal move, no one can deny that he has built an impressive coalition of support including Democrats, Republicans, community groups, labor unions, law enforcement and people across Houston’s vast rainbow of racial and ethnic diversity. And yes, some supporters such as Richard Weekley and Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale have given to Republicans and Tilman Fertitta, who donated $100,000 to Trump’s reelection bid, though all have given to Democrats. Whitmire says all they can expect in return is good governance.

It’s clear that Whitmire is well-prepared to do the unglamorous work of making this city function. After we considered the ideas, experience and campaign finances of 18 Houston mayoral candidates, only Whitmire, longtime U.S. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and businessman Gilbert Garcia made our short list.

Like Whitmire, Jackson Lee, 73, is a Houston mainstay. Also a Democrat, she served as an appointed municipal judge and was elected three times to the Houston City Council before being elected to Congress in 1995.

She is a tireless advocate for her majority-Black district, and a champion of immigrant causes. She authored the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act and fought for the passage and recent reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.

On the other hand, she has never been able to shake her reputation as an imperious, micromanaging boss and difficult colleague. No doubt, racism and sexism make her a favorite target of the political right, but it’s hard to dismiss her persistently high staff turnover, misbehavior on airplanes and testimony from former staffers alleging abusive treatment.

She makes no apologies. “This is a tough business,” she told the editorial board, “and, yes, women are treated differently for being tough, and I am tough. There is nothing that I ask my staff to do that has not been relevant to the people of this constituency.”

Jackson Lee emphasizes her Washington connections, an advantage when the city is seeking billions in federal funds. She told us she wants to make Houston a tech city, a livable city. She will work to create jobs and ensure public safety, she said, while making sure that basic services meet Houstonians’ needs.

VOTING IN HOUSTON: What to know before the 2023 elections

We believe she has served Houston extraordinarily well, and we have endorsed her for reelection to Congress time and again. But she’s not the bridge builder Houston needs now at City Hall.

At 60, Gilbert Garcia is a relative youngster. Engaging, with a neon exuberance in discussing everything from public pension portfolios to Broadway musicals, he has given generously to Democratic candidates but has never before run for elective office. A native of Corpus Christi and a Yale graduate, the first in his family to attend college, he touts his experience building Garcia Hamilton & Associates from managing $200 million in fixed-income assets to $21 billion, as well as his stint as chair of Metro from 2010-2016 under former Mayor Annise Parker.

By all accounts he pulled off a turnaround at Metro. Though he had no background in transit, he led what had been a troubled agency to triple the size of its rail system, redesign its local bus network and stabilize finances — all while insisting on transparency. He’s a numbers man frustrated with Houston’s dysfunction. Bad roads, bad garbage pickup, boil-water notices, he fumes: “You can go on and on.” He’d act as a budget hawk while making the city work efficiently for all.

Garcia’s optimism and ambition — he imagines Houston becoming a financial capital for Latin America — are refreshing. But as evidenced by his largely self-funded campaign, he hasn’t built a coalition of community support. We fear a lack of political connections and savvy would frustrate his goals.

When my wife saw the endorsement in the Sunday paper, she asked me if this was a surprise to me, and I said no, not at all. I’m a little surprised to see that the Chron only interviewed three candidates for the endorsement – you can see some video of that conversation in the piece – if only because they appear to have reached out to every candidate in all the other races, no matter how unlikely they were to win. I get it, life is short and it’s hard to justify that much effort on candidates who will struggle to get a half a percentage point in the final tally. I don’t recall them doing it this way before, and they also didn’t send their screening questionnaire to everyone (again, and for the same reasons, I get it), so I’m just a little surprised.

All that said, if you had asked me who their three finalists would have been, these were the three I would have predicted. I figured Whitmire was a strong favorite, with Gilbert Garcia having an outside chance if Whitmire blew the interview or they were in a “let’s shake things up” mood. It never occurred to me that they would endorse Sheila Jackson Lee. Whether that’s limited imagination on my part or theirs, you can decide.

However one feels about John Whitmire, there is a substantial chance that he will be the next Mayor. I have two major reservations about his candidacy. One, which I’ve touched on before, is that I think bringing DPS troopers to Houston, even on a scope-limited basis, is a bad idea. They’re not accountable to a Houston Mayor, and so unleashing something we can’t control has all kinds of downside risk. If we had a trustworthy state government – hell, if we had a state government that wasn’t bent on our destruction – I could be talked into this. But we don’t, and as we should know from decades of horror movies, letting the vampire into your house never ends well. Ask Kirk Watson about that.

Two is a broader expression of that first point. Senator John Whitmire, with his fifty years in the Capital and personal relationships with anyone who ever was anyone in Austin, is confident that that experience and those personal relationships with the various power brokers and other People Of Influence will be to Houston’s benefit as Mayor. And again, if we had a non-malevolent state government, I would not only agree with that, I’d tout it as a unique strength that Whitmire has. It should be a strength. As recently as when Mayor Turner took office, I for one would have seen it as a strength. Mayor Turner, with a similar level of experience and personal relationships, was the right person at the right time to push pension reform through, and it was a huge win for the city. I’d like to think we could have something like that for our next set of challenges going forward.

The problem is that many of those challenges are the result of the state putting its boot on our neck. Even before the “Death Star” bill, there’s been an inexorable march towards taking away the ability of cities to govern themselves. Republicans in the Legislature and their seething primary voters, including those who live in these cities, see us as a decadent force that needs to be dominated. They’re not interested in nice bipartisan solutions to thorny problems; quite the reverse. I don’t doubt that John Whitmire could get Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick and Dade Phelan and whoever else on the phone and tell them what Houston’s needs are (and aren’t) and ask them to help us out. What I do doubt is that they will see any reason or incentive to do their part.

The larger concern there is that a Mayor Whitmire would see his experience and connections and overvalue them, on the understandable but (in my view) mistaken idea that they mean something to the people on the other end of those connections. I fear that he could get strung along by his colleagues, in the way that President Obama got strung along in the first debt ceiling fight by the “moderate” Republicans in Congress, and in doing so foreclose other avenues to address issues. I fear that given the chance to improve the city’s political standing by working to vote out particular members of state government, Whitmire will value his connections above that possibility and thus contribute to leaving us in a position of subservience that much longer. Yes, of course there’s a risk in campaigning against someone who has a good chance of winning. You can’t avoid risk in politics. I’m just saying that the risk of not going for it tends to be downplayed in ways that it shouldn’t be.

There’s an analog here to the value of then-State Rep. Sarah Davis, the mostly moderate (certainly by modern GOP standards) from HD134, whose presence in the Lege and on various committees was supposed to be a tempering factor against the majority’s baser and more troglodytic instincts. If you thought she was effective in that role, it made sense to support her re-elections even against strong Democratic opponents. If you didn’t – if you thought the real way to moderate our government was to have at least one part of it be under Democratic control – then it made sense to support her Democratic opponents, as hers was a rare swing seat. You know where I stood on that, and I maintain that I was correct.

I could be wrong about all of this. It may be that I am grossly underestimating Sen. Whitmire’s relationships, and in doing so I am undervaluing their potential for good in a Whitmire administration. Like I said, it was only a few years ago that Mayor Turner achieved a big result on the back of his relationships in Austin. I guess it comes down to how similar you think the state of politics and bipartisanship – specifically, the state and value of bipartisanship for Republicans – is in 2023 compared to 2015. My assessment of that is not the same as Sen. Whitmire’s, hence my concerns. Your mileage may vary. If Sen. Whitmire becomes Mayor Whitmire, I will very much hope that he’s right and I’m wrong. I’m just not feeling that hope right now.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

October 2023 campaign finance reports – Senate

As was the case with the July reports, we have a lot more candidates now than we had three months ago, or six months ago in April. In fact, we now have so many people running for Senate, and filing actual campaign reports, that I’ve decided for now to split the Senate reports from the Congress reports. Let’s get to it.

Colin Allred – Senate
Roland Gutierrez – Senate
Carl Sherman – Senate
Thierry Tchenko – Senate
Heli Rodriguez-Prilliman – Senate
Steve Keough – Senate
Tracy Andrus – Senate
Meri Lizet Gomez – Senate


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Allred       13,561,666  5,641,682        0  7,919,983
Sen   Gutierrez       632,359    252,482   56,432    379,877
Sen   Sherman          82,775     11,960        0     70,814
Sen   Tchenko          82,686     45,379        0     32,306
Sen   R-Prilliman      28,087     26,578   24,803      1,508
Sen   Keough           24,802     18,017    6,050      6,785
Sen   Andrus           18,260      9,038        0      8,836
Sen   Gomez            11,044     11,000        0         44

I think we need to start with this.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, raised about $630,000 in the first months of his U.S. Senate campaign, according to a campaign finance report covering July through September.

He’s one of eight Democrats running for his party’s nomination to take on U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2024, along with U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, a three-term congressman from Dallas who brought in $4.7 million in the same span.

Gutierrez reported having about $380,000 on hand as of Sept. 30, while Allred had $7.9 million.

Filing for the March 5 primary opens Nov. 11 and closes Dec. 11.

[…]

While Allred’s congressional district includes some of the wealthiest zip codes in the state, Gutierrez represents a state Senate district that encompasses some of its most economically disadvantaged parts.

Gutierrez’s allies characterize his campaign message as “more agitational than aspirational” as he seeks to highlight how the state’s Republican leadership has left rural Texas behind.

From his perspective in the state Senate, Gutierrez has blasted GOP leaders for prioritizing issues like border security and private school vouchers over access to health care and public school funding. Those decisions combined with Texas’ lax gun laws, Gutierrez says, created an environment that led to the massacre at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary.

Uvalde is in Gutierrez’s district, and he’s dedicated significant energy to hunting down answers about what happened that day, as well as probing law enforcement’s response.

“I made a decision to run for the United States Senate because I was a little angry, and I’m still a little angry,” Gutierrez told a gathering of the Bexar County Young Democrats at the Friendly Spot in August. “It might not be the right reason to run for something, but it’s why I’m running.

While the audience seemed to appreciate that sentiment, plenty of Democrats who like Gutierrez still question why he would enter a race against Allred, even before the most recent fundraising reports. Gutierrez launched his campaign on July 10, after Allred had already started campaigning and raising big money.

One audience member at the Friendly Spot asked Gutierrez what his supporters should say when they’re out door-knocking and encounter people who are already supporting Allred.

“A lot of the attention right now is on your opponent,” the woman said. “If [we’re] trying to flip them, what can they say?”

Gutierrez replied that a competitive primary is good for Democrats, to sharpen the candidates and raise awareness about their priorities. He advised the woman that he’s the “more progressive candidate” in the race, but added that he had no plans to attack Allred, a former NFL player and Baylor football standout who ousted a Republican incumbent to win his seat in 2018.

“He’s a nice fella. He’s spent a lot of money, a lot more money than we did. … I know he’s getting more media than I am, and we do our fair share,” Gutierrez said of Allred. “… But I’m not going to start a fight with him.”

I will admit, I’d have thought Sen. Gutierrez would have raised more than this. Whoever the nominee is will be able to count on both a better statewide network for fundraising as well as some national money, though maybe not from the DSCC. You still want to get off to a running start, and I’d call this more of a modest trot. Gutierrez has fire in his belly, a signature issue, and plenty of news coverage, all of which will help. I’d still like to see him hit seven figures for the January report.

There are two names of interest missing here. One is now-former Nueces County DA Mark Gonzalez, who resigned in September to enter this race. He would have had about three weeks to fundraise, and it’s possible he decided to wait till October to start with that so as not to post a relatively tiny sum for this report. Or maybe he’s just a late filer. I don’t know. I don’t see anything in the news to suggest that he changed his mind about running, so I assume we’ll see his numbers in January. The other is former Midland City Council member and 2020 Senate candidate John Love, who was in the race before Colin Allred was. It appears he has taken his talents to CD06, which his campaing website now reflects. I’ll report on him when I look at the Congressional candidates.

The other recent entrant into the race is State Rep. Carl Sherman, who did post numbers for this period even as he had slightly less time than Mark Gonzalez to collect cash. As an incumbent legislator, he may have been better prepared to ramp it up, but even so you can see what two and a half weeks of that can get you. As with Gonzalez, we’ll see what he has to show in January.

Not much to say about Colin Allred, is there? He’s knocking it out of the park. Keep doing what you’re doing, dude.

Finally, I had the opportunity to meet and talk to Thierry Tchenko the other day. Good guy, running for good reasons and with a high level of energy. I enjoyed meeting him. He’s still going to have all of the challenges that someone running statewide with that balance sheet will have, but he was clear-eyed about it. That’s all I can ask.

I’ll report on the Congressional candidates next. Let me know what you think.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

DeBakey students finally get an AP Physics teacher

Better late than never and all that, but sheesh.

AP Physics students at the DeBakey High School for Health Professions had a new teacher Wednesday after Houston ISD lifted a hiring freeze that had kept the position vacant since the start of the school year, forcing students to teach themselves college-level science.

The new teacher was hired on Friday, a day after Superintendent Mike Miles said the district was nearly finished with a staffing audit that led them to ask schools to limit hiring, according to an HISD spokesman. Students said they learned about the appointment Wednesday morning and had their first class with the teacher that same day.

“She seems super nice and (like) a very good teacher,” said senior Zain Kundi, who led a student petition to fill the vacancy, via text message. “She was able to teach us more in 40 minutes than the last eight weeks of us (teaching ourselves).”

An HISD spokesman confirmed Wednesday that the district has completed its staffing audit at 85 schools in or “aligned” with Miles’ New Education System, where enrollment was lower than projected to start the school year. The district had asked the rest of its schools to limit hiring while it conducted the audit, to give teachers whose positions were eliminated the first chance to apply for open positions.

The district did not reveal Wednesday exactly how many teachers were placed in its “excess pool” following the audit. Miles said that those teachers will carry out their contracts and may be asked to fill vacancies throughout the year, but a new measure passed by the district’s appointed Board of Managers last month will allow HISD to terminate contracts for teachers in the excess pool at the end of the year.

See here for the background. I get that the audit was important, and I’m sure Mike Miles would say it was key to his process and we all just don’t understand and blah blah blah. What I’m saying is that the situation at DeBakey was a complete fiasco and an unforced error. The purpose of a school district is to provide teachers for the classes, and HISD utterly failed in this instance. How could they not make this a priority? Any kid who later fails to get a sufficient score on their AP test to get college credit for the class has every right to blame HISD and Mike Miles for this. What a mess.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments