Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

Our first look at the Board of Managers wannabes

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Chronicle on Friday obtained through a public records request a list of people who applied to the position through the end of March. In total, 374 people applied through the deadline last Thursday, although the agency extended the application window for an additional two weeks. The second round has already netted several dozen more applicants, said TEA deputy commissioner Steve Lecholop.

“We want to make sure all Houstonians have a second chance or more time to deliberate on whether they would be good fits to serve on the board,” Lecholop said. “We wanted to make sure we captured as many Houstonians as were interested and create as deep of a pool as possible.”

So far, the applicant pool is vastly underrepresented by Hispanic community members, raising concerns and questions among some residents. The Hispanic population makes up 10% of the applicants but nearly 62% of the HISD student body, according to the TEA.

Meanwhile, 40% of the applicants are Black, 33% white, 12% other and 5% Asian, according to the state agency. The group includes many teachers or educators, parents and district alumni, according to the TEA, in addition to some community activists and one current trustee, Bridget Wade.

[…]

Meanwhile, somoe trustees at a Thursday night board meeting expressed concerns that the applicant pool included people who had previously lost in school board elections, vendors in the district and people who say they have already been chosen for the position despite an ongoing selection process.

“If you’ve already selected three to four people, and those people are stating they’re selected, then that would be disingenuous to the community,” said trustee Myrna Guidry. “Those names are out there.”

Lecholop, the TEA representative who presented and answered questions at the board meeting, said the agency has selected no one for the board of managers or the superintendent positions.

“Not a soul in Houston or elsewhere has been notified that they will be a member of the board of managers,” he said.

Among the applicants in the first round is Lawrence Allen Jr., a third-generation educator and former member of the State Board of Education. His sister, Dr. Patricia Allen, now sits on the HISD board of trustees. Both siblings and their parents served as principals in the district, Allen said, adding that he is uniquely equipped to serve in the position due to his experience with the district and on the state level.

See here and here for some background. I guess this means they’re hoping for more Latino applicants, though that’s still my inference and not anything that the TEA has explicitly said. Par for the course, us trying to guess what the TEA has in mind to do.

Be that as it may, here are some names I recognized in the applicant list. All have been unsuccessful candidates for at least one office – you can search my archives for them or click on the Tag link below to see where they have been in the past.

Hugo Mojica
Gerry Monroe
Larry McKinzie
Karen Kossie-Chernyshev
Joshua Wallenstein
Youlette McCullough
Rasuali Bray
Georgia Provost

There are also a few names I’m not sure about, because they’re sufficiently common and/or are a variation on a known past political figure. This is how they are listed and who they might be:

Anne Garcia – There was a Dem candidate in the 2020 Senate primary named Annie Garcia.
Gregory Travis – Could possibly be the former District G Council member and failed State House candidate Greg Travis.
Sandra Moore – Possibly the former Democratic candidate for HD133. I’m Facebook friends with her and see that she has a recent post about the BoM, but didn’t say anything about being an applicant herself.
Graciela Saenz – This one seems likely to be the former At Large City Council member Gracie Saenz. I’d have thought that might have been mentioned in the story if so, but who knows.

We’ll see. As for the concern about people who had failed in past runs for the Board of Trustees being appointed as a Manager, I wouldn’t bar anyone like that from the process, but I do think it would be a fair question to ask why they should be appointed when the voting public has previously rejected them. There are a number of ways one could give a satisfactory answer to that question, and a number of ways one could give an answer that ought to brand you as not being a good candidate for any position of power ever. As for why more current Trustees did not apply for the Board, that’s a question I’ll ask those who are running for re-election this fall.

Posted in School days | Tagged Annie Garcia, Board of Managers, Bridget Wade, demography, Georgia Provost, Gerry Monroe, Gracie Saenz, Greg Travis, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Hugo Mojica, Josh Wallenstein, Judith Cruz, Karen Kossie-Chernyshev, Larry McKinzie, Lawrence Allen, Mike Morath, Patricia Allen, Rasauli Bray, Sandra Moore, schools, Texas Education Agency, Youlette McCullough | 1 Comment

The benefits of going fine-free

Posted on April 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I love this story.

Two months ago, a Houston resident walked into the city’s public library and returned three long-overdue books from the 1990s.

The trio of the returned books included “Tenth Dimension” by Jeremy Bernstein on elementary particle physics, “The New Ambidextrous Universe” by Martin Gardner about the asymmetric DNA helix, and “Archery: A Sport for Everyone” by the Athlete Institute. These books had been missing for so long, the library had removed them from its system. They didn’t have a barcode, only a checkout card stamped with the due date: Nov. 13, 1992.

The customer had apparently forgotten about the books and only recently discovered them in her attic, according to Houston Public Library Communications Director Carmen Abrego. But instead of having to pay a late fee, she was welcomed back to the library and given a renewed membership for the first time in 30 years.

In January, Houston followed in the footsteps of other major Texas cities like San Antonio, Dallas, Austin, and Fort Worth, eliminating late fees for its library system to encourage more residents, particularly younger and low-income Houstonians, to use its 40-plus locations. Since then, residents have returned a total of 23,420 books and other items valued at $468,302, Abrego said.

The library also hosted its first amnesty event since 2014, from Jan. 18 to Feb. 17, allowing residents to request the removal of all past fines. The physics and archery enthusiast was among the 3,098 customers who cleared their overdue accounts during the month-long period.

Late fines don’t necessarily motivate people to return books on time and can actually deter those owing fines from using the facility again, with communities of color and low-income residents disproportionately affected, a Syracuse University study showed. For instance, when Chicago eliminated fines in 2019, the library system saw a 240 percent surge in book returns.

See here for the background. Harris County’s library system followed suit a few weeks later. According to the story, nearly half of the long-overdue books that have been returned were children’s books. The point here is for people to use the library and then bring the books back. Looks like this new system is working great so far.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged Carmen Abrego, Houston, Houston City Council, libraries | Comments Off

SCOTUS pauses that anti-mifepristone ruling

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

A brief timeout.

The Supreme Court granted the Department of Justice’s emergency request to temporarily halt lower court rulings that would have reimposed restrictions on mifepristone that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had lifted in recent years.

The stay is in place until 11:59 p.m. ET Wednesday. The anti-abortion plaintiffs’ response to the government’s request for a stay is due by noon on Tuesday.

It’s just an administrative stay, temporarily putting the lower court orders on ice until the full Supreme Court can decide on the merits of the case. Without it, the restrictions on mifepristone would have taken effect nationwide on Saturday.

“The idea would just be to keep the ruling on hold until the Supreme Court can take a closer look at the merits and decide whether to issue a longer stay pending appeal,” Jessie Hill, associate dean and professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, told TPM.

The stay does not guarantee that the right-wing bench will ultimately reverse the lower courts.

[…]

If the Supreme Court majority ultimately prioritizes its hostility to abortion access over the standing issues, the FDA may be able to mitigate some of the damage, depending on how it uses its enforcement discretion.

So far, the White House told TPM that it wouldn’t “ignore” the lower court rulings and keep mifepristone on the market as usual, but it’s unclear whether that stance will hold if the administration is defeated at court.

See here for the previous update. This action was widely expected, and doesn’t mean anything about how SCOTUS will ultimately rule. It’s just that SCOTUS had a clear need to intervene, and we’ll know more on Wednesday. So try to put this out of your mind for a few hours and enjoy the weekend. The 19th has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, FDA, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Illinois, Joe Biden, Justice Department, lawsuit, Michigan, mifepristone, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, pharmacies, Rhode Island, SCOTUS, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Xavier Becerra | 1 Comment

TEA takeover approved by trustees

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

That was a formality and will be noted later in the post, but first there was this.

Members of the Houston ISD board of trustees peppered a Texas Education Agency representative with questions about the upcoming takeover at a public meeting Thursday that lasted late into the night.

More than four hours into the meeting, Steve Lecholop, the TEA’s deputy commissioner of governance, gave a slideshow presentation about the board of managers applications and transition process, while standing before elected trustees in the Hattie Mae White Educational Center.

The TEA has re-opened the window for board of manager applications until April 20 after receiving 374 applicants in the first round, Lecholop said.

Preliminary screening of applicants is now underway and applicants have been invited to attend one of two required Lone Star Governance training sessions, he said.

The presentation included information about the timeline of the takeover, the process and exit criteria for transitioning back to elected control, and the role of the elected trustees after their powers are suspended. Elected officials will be encouraged to remain in place as advisors to the board of managers, Lecholop said.

“It is really important that you guys stay involved,” he told trustees.

Several trustees raised questions about transparency and validity in the application and selection process for the board of managers. They asked about the reasons behind the takeover and the specifics of the conditions for ending state governance. Some board members said they would have preferred to hear from TEA Commissioner Mike Morath to address their questions about the takeover.

“We’d like to see Commissioner Morath to discuss all of the questions,” said trustee Kathy Blueford-Daniels.

Lecholop said the TEA has made no selections for any governance positions. He also said the future board of managers will be bound by the same laws as the elected school board, meaning meetings must be open to the public.

[…]

Later, trustee Patricia Allen asked the state representative about a scenario in which the new leadership fails to achieve the exit criteria and instead contributes to tanking student outcomes.

“What happens when they do a terrible job and we can’t get back in because they keep doing a terrible job?” she said.

Lecholop did not provide an answer, instead pointing to a successful track record in other Texas districts that have been governed by a board of managers.

“We have every expectation that the board will be successful,” he said.

Quite a bit here, but I want to focus in on three things.

1. Mike Morath still can’t be bothered to show up and answer questions in person. This is just plain chickenshit on his part. The biggest school district in the state, being taken over for past behavior that is no longer in operation, vastly unpopular among the stakeholders, and all we get is a string of functionaries. Just straight up cowardly and deeply disrespectful. I had a fair bit of respect for Mike Morath before this. He’s done a lot to shred that.

2. Why are they still taking applications for the Board of Managers? Perhaps to correct for the non-representative nature of the existing pile of applicants. I’m speculating, because Morath’s flunky didn’t say why they were doing it. That would be a valid reason if it’s true, but it sure would be nice to have confirmation. If that’s not the reason, then what is? Were there really not nine semi-decent candidates among the 374 that had applied? What does that tell you if true?

3. Trustee Allen asks a great question, which typically goes unanswered. Move along, nothing to see here. Fears that the Board will fail to meet the aggressive metrics set by the TEA are real and deserve a thoughtful response, which we aren’t going to get, but there’s another scenario to consider. It’s possible the Board of Managers won’t do anything that the existing Board of Trustees already had in place, and with the trajectory HISD is on after two years or so the metrics are met an the TEA can declare victory, claim all the credit despite having done nothing of substance, and get out. That would be both good and annoying as hell. I’m going to have to sit with that for a little while.

In the end, the baton was passed.

Despite pleas from speakers earlier in the meeting that the TEA action be abandoned and pointed questions from some of the board members following the address from TEA Deputy Commissioner for Governance Steve Lecholop, any but the most dedicated true believers had to know it was over.

Despite all the objections raised by board members, in the end they acquiesced in a 7-1-1 vote with trustee Sue Deigaard voting against and Bridget Wade abstaining (?). The HISD board of education gave their formal OK to the transition of the district from locally elected leadership to a board of managers and a new superintendent that will all be appointed by TEA Commissioner Mike Morath.

I said the Board vote was a formality, in that after all this it cannot possibly be the case that a Board vote against approving the takeover would have had any effect. Maybe it would have had caused some minor bit of chaos, I have no idea. But this train is leaving the station, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it at this point. Now we wait to see who the new Board is and who gets named as the new Superintendent.

Posted in School days | Tagged Board of Managers, demography, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Kathy Blueford Daniels, Mike Morath, Patricia Allen, schools, Sue Deigaard, Texas Education Agency | 1 Comment

House General Investigations Committee issues subpoenas

Posted on April 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We’ll keep an eye on this.

Rep. Bryan Slaton

The Texas House Committee on General Investigating issued four subpoenas Friday, though it did not say to whom or for what purpose.

It was this legislative session’s first meeting of the committee, which investigates wrongdoing in government including potential misconduct by members, since its inaugural housekeeping meeting at the beginning of March.

Since then, two House members have faced ethics questions, both related to their treatment of staff.

The House Committee on General Investigating, along with its counterpart in the Senate, has the power to conduct inquiries into state agencies, departments and officials. The committees also have the ability to draft articles of impeachment against lawmakers.

This week, The Texas Tribune reported that a legislative staffer submitted a complaint to the investigative committee earlier this month alleging that Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, had a potentially inappropriate relationship with an intern.

The complaint said Slaton invited the intern to his Austin condo after 10 p.m. on March 31. A source with direct knowledge of the incident told the Tribune that Slaton drank alcohol with the woman, who was under 21.

[…]

Earlier this month, three employees of Rep. Jolanda Jones, D-Houston, resigned in late March, citing an “abusive and hostile” work environment.

In a letter, the trio said Jones assigned them work unrelated to state business, regularly required them to work outside of business hours and often threatened to fire employees. They also alleged that Jones had failed to intervene in what they said was an inappropriate relationship between an office intern and the lawmaker’s son.

The former employees also filed a complaint with the House investigative committee.

See here and here for some background. We don’t know that these subpoenas have to do with Reps. Slaton and Jones, but it seems very likely that they do. I will reserve comment on those situations for now, but one thing that should be mentioned that I have not explicitly said before now is that mistreatment of legislative staff is unfortunately very common, so much so that it’s often seen as a fact of life rather than a bad thing that deserves sunlight and reform. It’s a bipartisan problem, and as such there’s very good reason for there to be a robust bipartisan solution. A number of legislators started out as staffers, and many staffers are young people who don’t have any power or resources to protect themselves. We have no excuse for this. Whatever happens with these investigations, it’s way past time for the Lege to address this issue. We can do so much better.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Bryan Slaton, HD02, HD147, Jolanda Jones, Texas, The Lege | 1 Comment

Fifth Circuit barely limits ridiculous anti-mifepristone ruling

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

In other words, the Fifth Circuit did Fifth Circuit things.

The notoriously right-wing Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling on mifepristone from late last week in an early Thursday decision that may prompt the Justice Department to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

Kacsmaryk stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 2000 approval of mifepristone last week based on both anti-abortion myths regarding the dangerousness of the drug, and on near-universally panned contortions of standing and timeliness.

The Fifth Circuit panel broke from Kacsmaryk on rejecting the 2000 FDA approval, saying that the six-year statute of limitations to challenge that agency action has passed (though without much conviction, saying that the anti-abortion plaintiffs may win on that topic at another stage of litigation). But it agreed with Kacsmaryk on nearly everything else.

The panel — comprised of two Donald Trump appointees, and one George W. Bush appointee — would let mifepristone remain on the market with FDA approval, but would reject many of the steps to expand access and lift restrictions that the FDA has taken since 2016. That means that mifepristone would only be available under the previous, much more restrictive regime: allowed to be used only up until 50 days into a pregnancy versus 70, with patients required to have multiple in-person visits with a provider, and the pills not allowed to be mailed. (The Bush appointee said she wanted to grant an administrative stay, and to punt a decision on the stay pending appeal to the argument panel — meaning this decision comes courtesy of the two Trump judges.)

Mifepristone has always been subject to an unusually harsh set of restrictions on its use and prescription, which the medical community has soundly criticized as based in politics and not medical fact.

The Fifth Circuit panel’s ruling is shot through with similar ideological, non-scientific, anti-abortion rhetoric to that which peppers Kacsmaryk’s decision.

“As a result of FDA’s failure to regulate this potent drug, these doctors have had to devote significant time and resources to caring for women experiencing mifepristone’s harmful effects,” the panel writes, a regurgitation of anti-abortion lies about mifepristone being particularly dangerous.

At another point, the panel refers to a fetus as an “unborn child” — a term that is often shorthand for the idea of fetal personhood, the anti-abortion theory that fetuses are essentially just small children with rights under the 14th Amendment, so all abortion is murder.

But the appeals court’s cosigning of Kacsmaryk’s novel interpretations of standing alone will likely be enough for the DOJ to appeal.

See here, here, and here for the background. Some of the coverage I’ve seen has put the focus of the ruling on the injunction against the 2000 approval of mifepristone, which is the one thing the Fifth Circuit stayed. But that really isn’t the main feature of this ruling, it’s the acceptance of so much of Kacsmaryk’s bonkers interpretation of standing as well as his wingnut-infused rejection of the science.

The panel ruled that the challenge to the 2000 approval of mifepristone itself is likely time-barred, so it froze that part of the ruling. But it *didn’t* freeze Kacsmaryk’s block of the 2016 and 2021 revisions that (1) make mifepristone available up to 10 weeks; and (2) by mail.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) 6:34 AM – 13 April 2023

As for what happens next, it seems to me that the FDA and Danco Laboratories still have very good arguments to ask #SCOTUS to freeze Kacsmaryk’s order in full; the majority’s standing, merits, and irreparable harm analyses re: the 2016 and 2021 changes are … not exactly obvious.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) 6:34 AM – 13 April 2023

We’ll see what happens next. The Fifth Circuit froze the craziest, most harmful parts of Kacsmaryk’s ruling, but *its* ruling last night will still significantly *limit* access to mifepristone going forward.

That’s a big deal, but maybe *not* big enough for #SCOTUS to push back.

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) 6:34 AM – 13 April 2023

That’s the big picture. You can get more detail here, and Chris Geidner has a good thread here. Remember also, that Washington court ruling, which directly contradicts this one, and which Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern says offers the FDA the perfect opening to just follow what the Washington court ordered, as it “more explicitly obligates the agency to maintain mifepristone access in most states where abortion remains legal”.

This mess is now on SCOTUS’ doorstep, as the Justice Department is seeking emergency relief. I assume they will take action, but we saw how pusillanimous they were with SB8. Unless SCOTUS steps in by the end of the day today, access to mifepristone will be severely curtailed even as the nationwide injunction is put on hold. It’s chaos, it’s a terrible ruling for the pharmaceutical industry, and they have taken notice. We’ll see what comes of that. NBC News, NPR, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick, Daily Kos, and the Trib have more.

UPDATE: Clarification from Washington:

Judge Thomas Rice in the eastern district of Washington responded Thursday to government lawyers asking how they should comply with contradictory rulings on mifepristone that both came down Friday evening, one of which Rice wrote.

He told them that, regardless of the ruling out of Texas, the government must comply with his order to keep mifepristone available as usual in the 17 states plus Washington D.C. that are part of the case.

“That order is currently stayed and was not in effect at the time of this Court’s preliminary injunction,” he said of Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling, which had stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone. Aspects of Kacsmaryk’s ruling were stayed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday morning. “Under these circumstances, because the Court has jurisdiction over the parties before it and limited its preliminary injunction only to the Plaintiff States and the District of Columbia, this Court’s preliminary injunction was effective as of April 7, 2023 and must be followed by Defendants.”

He added that “irrespective of the Northern District of Texas Court ruling or the Fifth Circuit’s anticipated ruling,” defendants are prohibited from “altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone under the current operative January 2023 Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy under 21 U.S.C. § 355-1 in Plaintiff States and the District of Columbia.”

Okay then.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Election 2024, FDA, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Joe Biden, Justice Department, lawsuit, mifepristone, pharmacies, SCOTUS, Texas, Washington, Xavier Becerra | 1 Comment

Houston rescinds its anti-busking ordinance

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good call.

Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Houston formally abandoned an ordinance Wednesday that banned buskers throughout most of the city, four months after it was struck down by a federal judge.

For decades, Houston made busking — musicians and other artists performing on streets for cash tips — illegal throughout most of the city. In 1991, it confined the performances only to the Theater District, and required interested performers to obtain a permit.

Federal Judge Alfred H. Bennett declared that legal framework unconstitutional in December, ruling the ordinances violated the First Amendment.

Instead of appealing the ruling, City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to drop those portions of its code. The council passed the repeal measure as part of its consent agenda, meaning it was not considered individually.

The request for council action said Houston Public Works would receive “at most” one permit application a year.

See here, here, and here for the background. After the ruling, the city’s response was to amend the ordinance in question, and I suppose it took some time to arrive at the final dimensions of that amendment. May have been a bit slow, but I think they did the right thing here. Good on them for that.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged Anthony Barilla, busking, downtown, Houston, Houston City Council, lawsuit, Sylvester Turner | 2 Comments

Dispatches from Dallas, April 14 edition

Posted on April 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in Dallas-area news, we have a lot more on Harlan Crow and the Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, the Bryan Slaton scandal, various other bad bills and bad ideas coming out of the Lege and the Governor’s office, problems with beer distribution in Texas over spring break/St. Pat’s/SXSW (!), and a laugh at the expense of some Texas figures courtesy of the Barbie selfie generator. No baby animals this week, alas.

This week we’re starting with Harlan Crow once again. As I was writing this post, ProPublica came out with a new piece of the puzzle: Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Clarence Thomas. The Justice Didn’t Disclose the Deal. Makes you wonder what else is missing from Thomas’ disclosures, doesn’t it?

Another of the big stories is in the Washingtonian: Clarence Thomas’s Billionaire Benefactor Collects Hitler Artifacts. This is not local but the photos are real and they do link to a DMN report on the house. I have never been in the house; we don’t run in those circles. But danah boyd and Ethan Zuckerman have visited and have some things to say.

The DMN has some items for your reading pleasure as well. Harlan Crow, who gave lavish trips to Clarence Thomas, has donated $13M to GOP (Archive link.) Note that he does occasionally give to Democrats, like Henry Cuellar. Also there’s Inside Harlan Crow’s ‘Garden of Evil’ and his collection from Washington to Monet (Archive link), which contains the line “They’re not a celebration of repressive regimes, Crow has said.” See also: I am not a crook. Crow’s collection also inspired this meditation on collections, which poses the question: “[H]ow prestigious is owning a piece of a Supreme Court justice?”

Last, but not least, from the DMN is today’s editorial: Harlan Crow, Clarence Thomas and a diminished Supreme Court (Archive link.) I’m glad DMN’s editorial board is calling for a code of conduct. But if they really believe Crow and Thomas didn’t know what they were doing was wrong, though, I’ve got some NFTs I’d like to sell them.

I have some questions about about Thomas’ response to the ProPublica investigation: he describes the Crows as “close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court”. Specifically, I’d like to know how Thomas thinks of business before the courts. I’d also like to know whether Crow, or any person or entity involved in Crow’s holdings and investments, was involved in suits before the Supreme Court directly or indirectly, for instance by an amicus curiae brief, in the years when Crow hosted Thomas. I’m sure someone out there is doing that research, which I look forward to reading, especially after the latest revelations.

Our second DFW-area hot topic is this week’s scandal in the Lege, which our host has already covered: House Representative Bryan Slaton of Royse City getting caught having an underage female intern (archive link) over to his condo in Austin for late-night drinks. Calling a young staffer over for drinks and then pressuring her to keep her mouth shut about it is gross, even if there’s nothing more to it.

But some GOP reps have called for his resignation and between the tweets linked there and the language in the Texas Tribune story, I suspect we’re going to find out there’s quite a bit more. Personally I wish the young intern all the best and the least traumatic way out of this situation she can get. I wish Slaton all the justice a man who calls queer folks predators while grooming a minor deserves.

In other news:

Also in Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, Crowe’s real estate empire is hosting a UATX symposium this summer. UATX is the not-yet-established University of Austin started by conservatives to rival UT Austin; the Forbidden Courses summer program will be held at the Old Parkland Campus, which is one of the signature properties in the Crow Empire. No word on how much, if anything, UATX is paying Crow for the use of his property.
With Tarrant County’s congressional districts ‘carved to bits,’ who represents us? DFW is as carved up in the current round of gerrymandered redistricting as Austin, where I lived for a decade. When I lived in NW Austin, I was in CD-10 along with folks all the way down 290 to Prairie View; when I lived in SE Austin, I was in CD-35 all the way down 35 to San Antonio; when I moved to near NE Dallas, where I now live, I was in CD-5 with half of East Texas. Now I’m in CD-24 with parts of Fort Worth and a lot of the suburbs in between. I didn’t realize CD-30 (Jasmine Crockett’s district, which I think of as South Dallas because it was Eddie Bernice Johnson’s old seat) also extended into Fort Worth, but I’m not surprised.
A Good Friday funeral in Texas. Baby Halo’s parents had few choices in post-Roe Texas. Baby Halo was diagnosed with anencephaly (parts of her brain and skull never developed) at 20 weeks. In a civilized state where people have access to abortion care, her mom would have terminated the pregnancy. In Texas, she had to carry an additional three months, undergo labor and give birth to a child who survived only a few hours. And of course there’s no charitable care for her mom or assistance for Baby Halo’s funeral. This is what the Republican party wants. The cruelty may not be the point but it’s certainly not a problem.
A story I’m looking forward to is whatever comes of KXAN’s search for stories about TxTag, the central Texas toll authority (found via the Austin subreddit). When I lived in Austin, my only significant problems with TxTag were with NTTA (DFW’s toll authority) failing to read my tag on Dallas tollways. Apparently it’s gotten a lot worse in recent years. I’d rather get rid of some of the toll roads but barring that, I’d at least like my toll tag to work properly.
In North Texas legislature news: Police ID person who took Bhojani’s family Qur’an but won’t tell us who it was. That’s not even slightly weird!
In another gross story from the Lege, our only governor is poised to pardon a convicted murderer (Archive link) despite his record of “stingy clemency”. If you need more information on why our so-called law-and-order governor would do such a thing, Radley Balko has all the details.
In case you were wondering: Texas Legislature’s education savings accounts proposal won’t cover tuition at most Fort Worth private schools. I took a quick look at the tuition numbers from the article. When I sorted them by cost, it looked like the $8000 the Lege is considering would pay the cost of tuition at fewer than 20% of the schools.
In sad medical news, Shelley Luther, the woman who broke lockdown in DFW during the height of the pandemic, has apparently suffered a brain aneurysm and is on a ventilator in the ICU. I wish her well and hope she has a complete recovery and a return to private life. Also, I would like to note that a quick Google for research about brain aneurysms and COVID turns up a lot of hits, including this case report and literature review on the NIH site whose abstract concludes “COVID-19 infection could be considered as one of the possible risk factors leading to instability and rupture of intracranial aneurysm.”
News from Plano: Plano gets details of long-awaited overhaul of Shops at Willow Bend mall (Archive link). Today I learned that the Shops at Willow Bend was the last enclosed mall built in Texas. It was completed in 2001. I remember visiting it when it was fairly new and we had family living in the area; it’s already obsolete only two decades into its lifecycle.
You Had One Job — Country’s Largest Beer Distributor Doesn’t Deliver, Causing Rocky Start in Texas. Reyes Beverage Group, which bought into Texas last year, screwed up deliveries to Austin in March, which means during SXSW, St. Patrick’s, Rodeo Austin, and spring break. In North Texas they also screwed up during the Country Music Awards. I know beer distributing issues in the Lege have been a long-time interest of our host’s so perhaps he’ll have something more on this when it wends its way back to Austin at some later date.
You need a laugh! Enjoy these Texas politicians and other notable figures in the Barbie selfie generator for the upcoming movie.
Last but not least: 10 Texas Music Museums Worth the Stop on Your Next Road Trip. Austin and Houston both get a look in here so if you’re local to them, check them out.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged Dallas, guest post, linkdump, Texas | 2 Comments

Feds take steps to protect abortion health data

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good.

The Biden administration released a raft of proposals related to keeping abortion-related health information private Wednesday morning. Some of the measures are specifically targeted to shield providers from prosecution, so far the primary way red states are seeking to criminalize the procedure.

The headline announcement is that the Health and Human Services Department is issuing a notice of proposed rulemaking to strengthen privacy protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

“This rule would prohibit doctors, other health care providers, and health plans from disclosing individuals’ protected health information, including information related to reproductive health care, under certain circumstances,” per a White House fact sheet. “Specifically, the rule would prevent an individual’s information from being disclosed to investigate, sue, or prosecute an individual, a health care provider, or a loved one simply because that person sought, obtained, provided, or facilitated legal reproductive health care, including abortion.”

Idaho broke new ground in its attempt to criminalize providers last week, when Gov. Brad Little (R) signed a law making it illegal for a minor to cross state lines for an abortion without permission from her parent or guardian. The law would open up both the person helping the minor get the abortion and the doctors — even if they’re out of state — to prosecution.

The Biden administration will also release guidance reminding various entities — schools, doctors — of their obligations in safeguarding patient privacy.

This is similar in nature to the laws passed by states like Washington to protect its residents from being sued by bounty hunter states like Texas. None of those laws have been tested yet so it’s hard to say how effective this might be. It’s also a certainty that the usual suspects will go running to one of their favorite judges in Texas again to block this, on the grounds that Jupiter is in retrograde or something equally valid. It’s a good move regardless of that, but it also underscores the need to pass a federal law guaranteeing abortion access. That has to be the goal, and that’s going to take winning the House and getting the right Senate majority. And if one of those puny Trump judges finds a way to block this, then at least the stakes have once again been clarified. NBC News, Reuters, Daily Kos, and the Associated Press have more.

Posted in National news | Tagged abortion, HIPAA, Idaho, Joe Biden, lawsuit, mifepristone, Texas, Washington | Comments Off

Should the HISD Board bother doing anything right now?

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

There’s a good case for No, and if that’s their thinking then they’re already on the way.

Houston ISD board members expressed concern Thursday about making budget cuts to campuses right before the district is taken over by the Texas Education Agency.

With a state-selected board and superintendent slated to be appointed by June, the district is in a time of transition and uncertainty, board members said. Maintaining funding levels for schools would provide some level of stability, said Trustee Sue Deigaard, who represents District V.

“It doesn’t make sense to me why we are putting our principals through this,” Deigaard said. “This new administration and board are going to come in and make a whole lot of changes to this district.”

Currently, the proposed measures would save about $62 million, according to the district, but more cuts will likely be needed to balance the $2.2 billion budget.

The district’s deficit is anticipated to grow to about $280 million by the 2024-2025 school year, if cost-saving measures aren’t implemented, according to a presentation at the last budget workshop. HISD’s savings fund would drop below the required level in fiscal year 2026.

The district plans to remove the “hold harmless” policy, which allowed campuses to be fully funded even though attendance is down. The removal of the policy would create roughly $29 million in savings. The district also made plans to make about $13 million in cuts toward the high school allotment and small school subsidies.

“I’m still bothered we added $100 million to our unassigned fund balances, but we’re cutting $40 million to campuses at an incredibly volatile time for this district,” Deigaard said, “and I don’t understand when we’re doing it with this much savings in the bank.”

[…]

District officials have gotten input from principals by attending their meetings and surveying them, Superintendent Millard House II said.

“The majority of our principals have recognized the idea of where we are at with this budget,” House said. “They really understand, and the majority of them have been supportive.”

The district is in the process of working with the TEA and their budget team who will come in on a frequent basis, starting next week, according to House and TEA officials.

TEA Commissioner Mike Morath also “engaged with school leadership” at the monthly principals meeting held Tuesday, according to a statement from the district.

Although principals may be OK with the cuts, that may not be the sentiment across all campuses, trustees said.

There’s a couple of ways to look at this. One is that the Board is trying to be as responsible as it can and leave things in as stable a position as it can as it prepares to hand off power to the Board of Managers. Which could potentially include some number of current Trustees, if they applied for the positions, though I rather doubt any of them would get added. The other way is to adopt the attitude of “it’s your problem now, geniuses, you figure it out”. Not as high-minded, perhaps, but completely relatable. I don’t know what any particular Board member was thinking, but they have a lot of latitude now as far as I’m concerned.

Posted in School days | Tagged Board of Managers, budget, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Mike Morath, Millard House, Sue Deigaard, Texas Education Agency | 7 Comments

The doctors involved in the lawsuit to clarify Texas’ draconian forced birth law

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good stuff.

Last spring, Dr. Judy Levison started to give her routine answer when a patient, who was 15 weeks pregnant, asked why she should receive a blood test that picks up certain fetal defects.

Some women simply want to prepare themselves, the longtime Houston obstetrician-gynecologist explained. For others, she said, certain abnormalities may cause them to consider abortion.

“I suddenly get to the word abortion, and it was like ‘Oh, huh, I can’t really offer that in the state of Texas anymore,’” said Levison, noting that Texas already had implemented an abortion ban at six weeks. “And my patients generally didn’t have the means to go traveling to other states… I just realized I was in this quandary, and I couldn’t offer what I thought was right.”

That moment was part of what caused Levison to partially retire last year and join fellow Houston OB-GYN Dr. Damla Karsan in publicly pushing back against the state’s abortion restrictions, at a time when most doctors fear speaking out could jeopardize their livelihoods. The two doctors signed onto a lawsuit brought by five women who say they were denied abortions despite having dangerous or nonviable pregnancies. The plaintiffs are not asking to overturn the law, but rather to clarify when abortions legally can be provided.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which backed the suit, said it is the first time pregnant women have taken legal action against bans enacted by Texas and at least 12 other states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.

After working in Houston for more than two decades, Levison and Karsan see the case as a chance to fight for colleagues and patients caught between legal penalties and ethical treatment.

See here and here for some background. The rest of the story is a couple of biographical sketches of Doctors Levison and Karsan, who is a Rice grad for those of you keeping track of that sort of thing. It’s a good read, and it’s very good to know there are people willing to stand up and do their part when the need arises.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Amanda Zurawski, Center for Reproductive Rights, Damla Karsan, Judy Levison, lawsuit, SCOTUS, Texas, The Lege | Comments Off

Texas blog roundup for the week of April 10

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance has just realized that somehow it’s April already as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged blog roundup, TPA | Comments Off

Could we get an expansion of medical marijuana?

Posted on April 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Maybe, but I have my usual doubts for the usual reasons.

Rep. Stephanie Klick

Texans who suffer from chronic pain and potentially other debilitating conditions would be able to access the state’s medical marijuana program under a bill advanced by the Texas House on Tuesday.

The bipartisan legislation, sponsored by House Public Health chair Stephanie Klick, is an expansion on the state’s 2015 “Compassionate Use” law — which has, in a number of legislative changes since it was created, allowed a growing number of patients in Texas to legally use cannabis to treat debilitating symptoms of conditions such as epilepsy, autism, cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

House Bill 1805 passed the chamber Tuesday on a preliminary vote of 121-23 and is expected to get final approval on Wednesday before heading to a Senate committee.

The bill would allow doctors to prescribe 10 milligram doses of cannabis for chronic pain cases that might normally call for an opioid pain management prescription. Some conditions that could cause such pain would include Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

The bill also authorizes the Texas Department of State Health Services to further expand the list of conditions that it could be used for in the future, without needing to change state law anymore.

Klick’s bill also changes the way the legal level of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — the active psychoactive agent in cannabis — is measured, from a concentration to a set volume of 10 milligrams per dose, which supporters say allows it to be delivered more efficiently and in a wider variety of ways. The THC found in cannabis has been found by some patients and doctors to be effective against pain, depression, anxiety, appetite problems and nausea.

There was no debate on the House floor, nor any vocal opposition in a committee hearing on the bill last month.

As research has expanded in the area of low-THC medical marijuana, currently delivered to patients in mostly tincture oils and gummies, Texas lawmakers have been in favor of expanding access to the program, Klick said.

“My intent then and still is to have a truly medical program that follows the scientific data,” said Klick, R-Fort Worth, who sponsored the legislation creating the original program.

The Compassionate Use Program in Texas has registered some 45,000 patients since it first began, with about 10,000 to 12,000 active participants, said Nico Richardson, the interim chief executive officer of Austin-based Texas Original, the state’s largest medical cannabis provider. By comparison, a similar but much more inclusive program in Florida has about 485,000 people currently enrolled in the program, Richardson said.

As noted before, I’m not following the Lege very closely this session, because it’s all a shitshow and I just don’t want to. But even in this cursed session there are a few good bills that will get real support, and so we may as well take note of it. Kudos to Rep. Klick, who as noted authored the original Compassionate Use bill, for getting this one this far.

The key question, as always, is what does Dan Patrick think. The story doesn’t say, and my default assumption in these matters is that he’s opposed to any increase in the allowable use of marijuana until proven otherwise. If he doesn’t support it, then this is as good as it gets. Even if he does support it, he could threaten to tank it if the House doesn’t play ball on his favorite things, like vouchers. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe this will be on a glide path to Greg Abbott’s desk. I’ll believe it when I see it. Until then, it’s Dan Patrick’s Senate and that’s how it will be until we are finally able to vote his ass out.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, Compassionate Use Registry of Texas, Dan Patrick, marijuana, medical marijuana, Senate, Stephanie Klick, Texas, Texas Department of State Health Services, Texas Patients First, The Lege | Comments Off

This is definitely a “root for the meteor” situation

Posted on April 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Also a “pop some corn” situation.

Two state lawmakers have called for the resignation of Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, after The Texas Tribune reported that he is being investigated after allegations of an inappropriate relationship with a Capitol intern.

“The past few days in the Texas House, screams of everything that’s wrong with a small segment of its elected officials. Unfortunately calling the behavior of @BryanForHD2 ‘inappropriate’ is a gross understatement,” state Rep. Steve Toth, R-The Woodlands, wrote on social media Tuesday morning. “He needs to resign.”

Toth added in an interview Tuesday morning that Slaton’s alleged actions had humiliated his wife and said the representative needs to step down to take care of his family.

Toth, a staunch social conservative usually ideologically aligned with Slaton, is the second lawmaker to call for Slaton’s resignation. On Friday — before the allegations against Slaton were public — state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, also condemned Slaton on Twitter without naming him.

“I am absolutely furious at a [R]epublican whom I believe to be a sexual predator,” Cain wrote on social media. “I’ve never been so ticked off at another legislator.”

Cain has since confirmed he was referring to Slaton.

On Tuesday at least one Democratic House member also piled on. Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos, D-Richardson, said she agreed with the calls for Slaton to step down.

“The young adults working in the Capitol are vulnerable and predators readily target these young people. We owe it to these young professionals to set the standard and protect them from harm,” she said in a tweet.

See here for the background. As I said, Slaton is one of the bigger assholes in the Lege. That said, the short list for Even Bigger Assholes Than Bryan Slaton definitely has Briscoe Cain and Steve Toth on it. There are no winners here, only losers.

I think Rep. Ramos is correct in her sentiments. One could express similar sentiments for the now-former staffers of Rep. Jolanda Jones if one wanted to. I think the allegations against Rep. Slaton are more serious, and much more likely to be the sort of thing that can lead to a resignation, than the allegations against Rep. Jones. I think the behavior alleged about Slaton is the sort of thing that usually doesn’t happen just once, to one person. That would definitely move this into “resignation needed” territory.

We don’t know a lot right now, about either incident. Both are being investigated, and then I hope they will be clearer. In the meantime, I’m happy to see a bunch of invective hurled at Bryan Slaton, who richly deserves it. The Dallas Observer has more.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Ana-Maria Ramos, Briscoe Cain, Bryan Slaton, HD02, Jolanda Jones, Steve Toth, Texas, The Lege | Comments Off

Rerun candidate running again

Posted on April 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Oh good grief.

Orlando Sanchez, the former Harris County treasurer, City Council member and mayoral candidate, is running for city controller, his second consecutive run for the office.

Sanchez received 47.8 percent of the vote in 2019, losing to incumbent Chris Brown, who now faces term limits.

[…]

Sanchez, a Republican and fiscal conservative, served as Harris County treasurer from 2006 to 2018. He held an at-large council seat from 1995 to 2001, and made two runs for mayor, in 2001 and 2003. He qualified for runoffs in both — nearly becoming the city’s first Latino mayor — but ultimately lost to former Mayors Lee Brown and Bill White.

“I feel that my time serving this community as both treasurer and on City Council has made me uniquely qualified to oversee the controller’s office,” Sanchez said. “I have both public and private sector experience, running successful businesses, and holding public offices. I look forward to taking my service and experience and using it to improve the efficiency of the office to better serve Houstonians.”

He joins an increasingly crowded field of candidates vying to become the next controller. Former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins announced last week he was dropping his mayoral campaign to pursue the controller’s office.

Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin, a longtime accountant who chairs City Council’s budget committee, and At-Large Councilmember Michael Kubosh, a former bail bondsman, are running as well. Shannan Nobles, who works in the controller’s office, also is vying the seat.

Well, I can say with confidence that I will not be voting for Orlando Sanchez. I’m sure Dave Martin and Michael Kubosh are delighted to see him enter. Until further notice, I think this race is Chris Hollins’ to lose. And that’s all I have to say about Orlando Sanchez.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged Chris Brown, Chris Hollins, Dave Martin, Election 2023, Houston, Houston City Controller, Michael Kubosh, Orlando Sanchez, Shannan Nobles | Comments Off

Tuesday mifepristone update

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

First things first, that lawless ruling from the wingnut Texas judge has been appealed.

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday asked a federal appeals court to keep the abortion pill mifepristone on the U.S. market as litigation plays out, days after a federal judge suspended the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication nationwide.

The DOJ asked the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to block U.S. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s unprecedented decision from taking effect. The U.S. government’s lawyers said “there is no basis for extraordinary nationwide relief that would upend a decades-long status quo.”

“If allowed to take effect, that order will irreparably harm patients, healthcare systems, and businesses,” the Justice Department lawyers wrote in a court filing.

Kacsmaryk of the U.S. Northern District of Texas said Friday that his decision to suspend the FDA approval of mifepristone would not go into effect for seven days so mifepristone distributor Danco Laboratories and the Biden administration had time to appeal.

“The Court should immediately extend the administrative stay and then stay the district court’s order pending appeal,” the Justice Department lawyers told the 5th Circuit.

Danco will likely ask the Supreme Court to intervene if the 5th Circuit does not grant the request to halt Kacsmaryk’s decision from taking effect, the company’s attorney Jessica Ellsworth said.

“I anticipate that if the Fifth Circuit does not grant a stay or at least an administrative stay, which is sort of a short term stay so it has time to consider the stay request in an orderly fashion, either Danco and or the United States will ask the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay,” Ellsworth said during a call with reporters on Monday.

When asked whether Danco will stop distributing mifepristone if Kacsmaryk’s decision takes effect this Friday, Ellsworth said the company will consult with the FDA about how to proceed.

“I think there will be some difficult questions that Danco needs to address and some conversations that it will need to have with FDA around what happens next,” Ellsworth said.

See here and here for the background. In theory, there should be an answer soon on this. In the meantime, the Justice Department has also asked for a clarification from the judge who issued the other ruling.

Eastern District of Washington Judge Thomas Rice ruled Friday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has to maintain the “status quo” in keeping the drug available for the states involved in the case. A coalition of Democratic attorneys general had filed suit to lift some of the long-time restrictions that make mifepristone singularly hard to access, and which the medical community has long opposed as political and not medical in nature.

Minutes before, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk out of the northern district of Texas stayed the FDA’s approval of the drug nationwide (a ruling that will go into effect after a seven-day delay). The two decisions were forced into conflict, and the issue will likely reach the Supreme Court.

On Monday, the government lawyers involved in the Washington case — where they oppose the bid to get the FDA to lift all of mifepristone’s restrictions — asked the judge for clarification.

“The result of that order appears to be in significant tension with this Court’s order prohibiting FDA from ‘altering the status quo and rights as it relates to the availability of Mifepristone’ in Plaintiff States,” the lawyers write of Kacsmaryk’s decision. “The Court did not address the interaction between the two orders, presumably because they were issued less than 20 minutes apart. To ensure that Defendants comply with all court orders in these unusual circumstances, Defendants respectfully request that this Court clarify their obligations under its preliminary injunction in the event that the Alliance order takes effect and stays the approval of mifepristone.”

The technical legal term for this situation is “clusterfuck”. Don’t ask me how I know these things, I just do. As for what the administration may do if the Fifth Circuit does its usual Fifth Circuit bullshit, they say they will not ignore the wingnut ruling despite some calls for them to do so.

“I believe the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to ignore this ruling, which is why I’m again calling on President Biden and the FDA to do just that,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said Friday. “The FDA, doctors, and pharmacies can and must go about their jobs like nothing has changed and keep mifepristone accessible to women across America. If they don’t, the consequences of banning the most common method of abortion in every single state will be devastating.”

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) recently appealed to the White House to use any tools at its disposal to keep the drug available, including its enforcement discretion. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also called on the administration to “ignore” the Friday decision.

The White House told TPM Monday that it will not heed those calls.

“No,” a White House spokesperson said, when asked whether it plans to ignore Kacsmaryk’s ruling, and any future decisions upholding it, and have the FDA use its enforcement discretion to leave mifepristone on the market.

“We stand by FDA’s approval of mifepristone, and we are prepared for a long legal fight, if needed,” the spokesperson continued. “The focus of the Administration is on ensuring that we prevail in the courts. There is a process in place for appealing this decision and we will pursue that process vigorously and do everything we can to prevail in the courts.”

It’s in keeping with how members of the administration have talked publicly about the case — emphasizing the judicial procedure, though not talking about what it’ll do if its attempts to go through a series of right-wing courts to retain FDA approval are unsuccessful.

[…]

Major abortion providers made it clear that at least for the duration of Kacsmaryk’s delay, nothing has changed.

“Like we said before — we follow directives from the FDA, and not anti-abortion judges in Texas who lack any formal medical training,” Whole Woman’s Health said in a tweet. “Whole Woman’s Health will continue to dispense Mife in our clinics and our Pills by Mail Program for the next week as we monitor both decisions.”

“Nothing has changed yet: medication abortions with mifepristone are still available,” Trust Women tweeted. “Now, as ever, it’s critically important to support your local abortion funds and clinics, and contact your legislators and demand that mife remains legal health care.”

It should be noted that “not ignoring the wingnut decision” does not mean pulling mifepristone off the shelves:

If the FDA uses its enforcement discretion, what it is doing is recognizing that approval is stayed, not ignoring it. In the face of a drug with stayed approval, the FDA is saying we are assessing what drugs are unsafe and risky, and going after those, not mifepristone. /2

— David S. Cohen (@dsc250) 9:39 AM – 10 April 2023

To be clear, we may get to the point of needing to ignore the court. I’m not against that if extreme situations dictate. But Kacsmaryk did NOT order FDA or Danco to do anything. Making his order into something it isn’t gives him too much power and us, Biden, & FDA too little. /4

— David S. Cohen (@dsc250) 9:42 AM – 10 April 2023

PS. Think of it this way: which is the Biden FDA more likely to do? Ignore a court or use a long-recognized legal option supported by unanimous Supreme Court authority? Language matters here!

— David S. Cohen (@dsc250) 10:00 AM – 10 April 2023

Something to think about. Finally, while it’s highly unlikely to get anywhere, there is a legislative solution out there.

Democratic lawmakers are mobilizing in the wake of the decision in Texas that threw access to the so-called abortion pill into flux Friday, introducing legislation Monday to protect access to the most widely used form of abortion in the U.S.

Reps. Pat Ryan of New York and Lizzie Fletcher of Texas will introduce the Protecting Reproductive Freedom Act on Monday during a pro forma session of the House, seeking to reaffirm the Food and Drug Administration’s final approval authority on medication abortion and continue to allow providers to prescribe the abortion pill via telehealth, which was widely expanded during the coronavirus pandemic.

“The Texas decision has nothing to do with science or medicine and everything to do with radical groups whose only goal is a national abortion ban,” said Ryan, who credits wins in his swing district in New York state in part to his stance on abortion rights. “My priority is protecting abortion access for women in New York and across the country.”

Fletcher, who called her state, Texas, “the epicenter of attacks on the health and freedom of Americans,” said “the unprecedented district court decision, which, if enforced, would be devastating to women and families across our country and to our established drug-approval system.”

It’s yet another move from congressional Democrats to send a message about the issue of reproductive access, despite the unlikelihood that the legislation will ever pass the GOP-controlled House. Nevertheless, Democrats will continue to keep the focus on abortion access — especially after having seen its power across the country in the 2022 midterms.

There’s basically no chance that this bill will see the light of day in the Republican-controlled House. As a messaging effort, it can be effective. Everyone has to make it clear what is being voted on next year. Daily Kos and The 19th have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Arizona, Colorado, Congress, Connecticut, Delaware, Election 2024, Elizabeth Warren, FDA, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Illinois, Joe Biden, Justice Department, lawsuit, Lizzie FLetcher, Mazie Hirono, Michigan, mifepristone, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pat Ryan, pharmacies, Rhode Island, Ron Wyden, SCOTUS, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Xavier Becerra | 1 Comment

So what will we do to protect our kids from predatory youth pastors?

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Like this guy.

Rep. Bryan Slaton

An internal complaint filed against state Rep. Bryan Slaton, R-Royse City, alleges that he was engaging in a potentially “inappropriate relationship” with an intern. The complaint came after an incident in which Slaton and the staffer allegedly met up at his Austin apartment last weekend.

The complaint, obtained by The Texas Tribune, was reported to the House General Investigating Committee by a legislative staffer. The account in the complaint was also corroborated by another source who works in the Capitol who had direct knowledge of the incident.

Slaton allegedly called the intern after 10 p.m. March 31 inviting her to his Austin condo, the complaint said.

A source with direct knowledge of the incident told the Tribune that Slaton drank alcohol with the intern, who was under 21.

After the incident, Slaton allegedly showed the intern fake emails that purported to have information about the incident in what appeared to be something of a loyalty test, according to the complaint and a person with direct knowledge. After presenting her the email, Slaton allegedly told her to not speak with anyone about the incident.

Slaton, who was in the Capitol on Monday, declined to answer questions and referred to a statement put out earlier in the day by a criminal defense attorney he has retained.

A representative for the intern said she has been advised by the House committee not to comment.

[…]

House Speaker Dade Phelan said in a statement that his office would be looking into the matter.

“The Texas House does not tolerate misconduct or other inappropriate behaviors and takes all allegations related to these issues seriously. I expect this matter to be addressed in a swift and thorough manner under the rules governing our chamber for the 88th Legislature and all applicable standards of conduct,” he said.

The Capitol has been abuzz about Slaton’s whereabouts after he missed one of the most important days of the session Thursday, when the House debated the budget. It was even more eyebrow-raising because the conservative rabble-rouser had proposed 27 amendments to the budget. Slaton was the only absence when the roll call was called Thursday morning.

As speculation grew about Slaton during the budget debate Thursday, the chair of the General Investigating Committee, Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, issued a statement saying the panel does not comment “on any investigations it undertakes, including statements confirming or denying the existence of any ongoing investigation.”

Slaton has been married to his current wife since 2017, and filed for divorce in April 2022, according to court filings. They agreed to cease the divorce in November. He is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. According to his website, he’s also worked as a youth pastor at numerous Southern Baptist churches in Texas.

There was definitely some buzz on Twitter about this late last week. There was an earlier version of the story that didn’t have any details, but now we do. I’m not sure how much actual trouble Slaton is in here – serving booze to a minor is a crime, though probably a misdemeanor. The rest of it as reported is shady and scuzzy but nothing that I see as illegal. My guess is that there’s more to this than what’s been revealed so far, just based on the initial buzz. But I could be wrong, it may have just been a combination of him missing the budget debate and nothing better for anyone else to do that fueled it. If there is more, I’m sure we’ll eventually hear it.

As the story notes, Slaton is one of the bigger assholes in the Lege, which in this crowd is saying something. He’s a huge homophobe and attacker of drag shows, spewing tons of crap about the need to “protest” kids from what he calls “perverted adults”. Better look in the mirror, buddy. I am fully prepared to get drunk on schadenfreude, if it comes to that. The Chron has more.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Andrew Murr, Bryan Slaton, Dade Phelan, HD02, Texas, The Lege | 6 Comments

Hazmat routes

Posted on April 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

This story made me think about a thing I basically never think about, and now I wish I didn’t have to think about it.

Toxic inhalants, flammable gases and explosive chemicals are just some of what rolls along Dallas-Fort Worth area highways every day. A simple road accident involving an 18-wheeler carrying hazardous materials could put dozens of people, if not whole neighborhoods, at risk.

Trucks carrying volatile chemicals rumble down highways that were designated as “hazmat routes” in 1985, when the population of DFW was half the size it is now. At the time, large portions passed through sparsely populated areas.

Almost 40 years later, empty space has been replaced by businesses, residential neighborhoods — even schools and churches.

The hazmat routes are designed to minimize the chances of a mass-casualty event. They rely on truckers using them. But not all the trucks stay on those routes.

No one really knows how much hazardous materials pass through North Texas. And emergency personnel say they have virtually no way of knowing what’s being carried until an accident happens.

Trucks carrying hazardous materials are supposed to display placards that gives first responders some idea of what’s on board. But if a placard isn’t accurate — or has been obscured by fire or smoke – the threat may not be apparent.

And the threat is real. Trucks carrying hazardous materials have been involved in deadly accidents across the nation.

In 2019 a semi-truck carrying empty propane tanks crashed into multiple other cars on I-35 near Denton. The truck and vapors seeping out of the propane tanks caught on fire, as did other vehicles. Three people were killed in the crash and three others were injured, according to incident and media reports.

In 2020, a tanker truck carrying 8,500 gallons of fuel rear-ended a Volkswagen Passat that had stopped on a highway interchange in suburban Atlanta. The impact caused the tanker to rollover into four lanes of traffic and both vehicles caught fire. Both individuals died because of the crash, according to incident and media reports.

And less than six months later on Valentine’s Day 2023, a tractor-trailer carrying over 3,000 gallons of nitric acid crashed along I-10 near Tucson. Reddish-orange fumes could be seen rising from the wreckage as the area was evacuated. The driver of the truck was killed in the collision, according to Arizona Department of Public Safety. Nitric acid is toxic if inhaled.

First responders and emergency planners say that errors in labeling hazmat materials – and truckers who fail to follow hazmat rules — can lead to a catastrophe. So can a shortage of people trained to handle hazmat emergencies.

“From radioactive waste to the most toxic chemicals that you can imagine all travel by truck transport through all our cities in the metroplex,” Grand Prairie Fire Capt. John Stevenson said. “It’s an obvious concern.”

As you might imagine, my first thought upon reading this was “Huh, I wonder what the hazmat routes are in the Houston area. A little googling took me to this TxDOT page, where you can see relevant maps for Dallas and Houston, plus a list of the non-radioactive hazardous material routes in the state. Basically, if I’m reading all this right, if you’re trucking on through with a load of hazmats, you take the Loop around whateve city you’re passing by, and not the main highway that would go through the middle of town. Simple, and sensible as it goes, but you can see what the article is pointing out, which is that those approved routes are a hell of a lot more full of people and buildings and cars than they were however many years ago when they were first designated.

And look, it’s not like the urban centers don’t get hazmats brought into them:

One complication is that trucks carrying hazardous materials sometimes must make deliveries to locations throughout a city. And by necessity they have to leave the designated routes.

“It’s nearly impossible to route all those carriers, because there are so many destinations that are now within our cities,” Kessler said.

Hazardous materials are integral to everyday life and industry. Small businesses from dry cleaners to filling stations require the delivery of hazardous materials.

Stevenson says it’s not always 18-wheeler trucks that carry the most dangerous cargo. Smaller vehicles making deliveries throughout the city are also a potential risk.

“They’re in sprinter vans and it’s in box trucks with miscellaneous packaging on it,” Stevenson said.

He says that these vehicles carry multiple substances or materials that alone are not toxic but when mixed creates something volatile which the vehicles aren’t placarded for.

Kessler says the bigger challenge with hazmat transport are “internal shipments” or deliveries within the city.

He said one thing that might mitigate that risk is speed — or the lack of it. Trucks delivering hazardous materials using city streets aren’t likely to be going as fast as on the highway, nor is other traffic.

Anyway. There’s more in there about law enforcement and emergency response – not every city has a firefighting unit that can handle hazmats – and more. It may make you never want to drive again, but go check it out anyway.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Dallas, DPS, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, hazardous materials, I-35, I-610, I-635, TCEQ, Texas, trucks, TxDOT | 1 Comment

We await what’s next with mifepristone

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

“Everything is on the table”, whatever that ultimately means.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said the administration is willing to do whatever it takes to protect access to the abortion drug mifepristone, after a federal judge in Texas suspended the FDA’s approval of the medication on Friday. As my colleague Madison Pauly reported, the ruling could have “potentially explosive implications for the availability of abortion nationwide, regardless of state laws and policies.” In a conflicting ruling the same day, a federal judge in Washington state ruled that the FDA should not make any changes to access to mifepristone, though it remains unclear what the result of the dueling orders will be.

The Department of Justice filed an appeal immediately after the Texas ruling, and is seeking a stay of the judge’s decision that would allow mifepristone to stay on the market. In interviews Sunday morning with MSNBC and CNN, Becerra emphasized an aggressive legal strategy as essential to maintain access to the pill, which has been proven to be a safe and effective part of medication abortion. “We will make sure that we get that appeal and that stay, and if we can’t get that stay, we will go as far as we need to go in order to protect access to mifepristone,” Becerra told MSNBC Sunday Show host Jonathan Capehart.

[…]

Becerra also said the ruling could have dangerous implications for access to other drugs beyond mifepristone—which was approved by the same FDA process as many other essential medications. He warned that the decision could set a precedent that allows any person with an ideological objection to a medication to file a similar lawsuit. “If you can turn upside down the entire process that the FDA relies on not just for mifepristone, but insulin, vaccines, you name it…you put essentially every drug in America at some form of risk,” he told MSNBC.

See here for the background. I don’t have anything to add, so here’s a bit of additional reading for you.

Think about pharmaceutical companies that want to crush a competitor.

Kacsmaryk has given these companies an opening to secure a nationwide block on a competing drug’s FDA approval, thereby pulling it from the market, by suing over side effects. That is insane.

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) 11:35 AM – 8 April 2023

The Anti-Abortion Movement Will Sacrifice Anything to Control Women

The Hideous Resurrection of the Comstock Act

Hopefully things will at least be a bit clearer soon. Until then, well, at least the stakes are clearer.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, FDA, Illinois, Joe Biden, Justice Department, lawsuit, Michigan, mifepristone, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, pharmacies, Rhode Island, SCOTUS, Texas, Vermont, Washington, Xavier Becerra | 2 Comments

So many Board of Managers applicants

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I sure wonder what the process to sort through all of these will be.

More than 370 people applied for nine spots on the board that will govern Houston ISD, wrapping up the first step in the Texas Education Agency’s intervention of Texas’ largest school system.

Education Commissioner Mike Morath will oust elected trustees and appoint a new superintendent and a nine-person board of managers by June 1, according to the agency, a process that some critics say has been marred by distrust from the beginning.

“Everything that has happened so far has been done in the dark,” said Dr. Audrey Nath, an HISD parent who did not apply for the position. “They have been dodging questions or not showing up to our meetings.”

Applicants for the board of managers include 232 current or former HISD parents, 136 former students and 238 teachers, according to the state agency, which released the numbers on Friday afternoon. The racial breakdown includes 40 percent Black, 33 percent white, 10 percent Hispanic and 5 percent Asian applicants.

The agency said it will now screen applicants with background checks, community reference checks, training and interviews. Candidates must live within the school district boundaries, according to officials.

“I am looking for Houstonians with wisdom and integrity who can be laser-focused on what is best for students,” Morath said in a written statement. “It is exciting to see so many Houstonians express a willingness to help move the school system forward in service of students.”

After getting appointed, the board of managers should improve student outcomes by “representing the vision and values of the community,” according to a job description posted online by the state agency. Roles include monitoring and supporting the superintendent, engaging with community members and creating governance systems that will ensure a smooth transition back to local control, according to the state agency.

According to the TEA, the ideal board of managers will reflect the ethnic, racial and economic diversity of the school district and include some HISD parents, community leaders and people with backgrounds in public education, social work, counseling, business, finance or law. The board members will ideally live throughout the nine existing trustee districts.

In 2019, when the state agency first attempted to take over HISD, there were 243 applicants for the board of managers, including several elected trustees.

Current board members did not respond to inquiries about whether they had submitted applications this time.

Emphasis mine. Just for yuks, the actual racial and ethic demographics of HISD are 62% Hispanic, 22% Black, 10% White, and 4% Asian. Just a wee bit off in the applicant pool there. The story doesn’t mention the economic breakdown, but I’m going to step way out on a limb here and guess that the applicant pool is considerably wealthier than the average HISD parent is. As that same page notes, 78.5% of HISD students are “economically disadvantaged”. Just putting it out there. None of this means that the Board itself will necessarily be un-representative. But they’re not off to a great start.

Also not mentioned in the story: What the process is for picking those “ideal board members”, how long it will take, and what recourse if any the public will have if they find a particular Board member to be objectionable. Oh, and are these people expected to serve the entire two-to-six years of HISD’s sentence, or are there term limits? If so, what is the process for replacing a Board member? Do they just go back to the original applicant pool, or can someone new apply? So many unanswered questions.

Posted in School days | Tagged Board of Managers, demography, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Mike Morath, schools, Texas Education Agency | 2 Comments

Well, the moon could use the oxygen

Posted on April 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

If you write a story about a Houston firm proposing to build an oxygen pipeline on the moon, I will read it.

A Houston company might build an oxygen pipeline on the moon, enabling NASA to transport a key ingredient for making rocket propellant and bringing astronauts home.

It’s an obvious solution for an oil-and-gas town accustomed to underground conduits. But for NASA, it was a slap-on-the-forehead moment warranting attention from the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program.

“No one’s actually thought about how to build a pipeline on the moon,” said Mike LaPointe, program executive for NIAC.

And to up the ante, Houston-based Lunar Resources plans to build the pipeline with metals extracted from the moon’s soil. It’s receiving $175,000 from NASA to research the plausibility of this project.

The pipeline is part of a bigger NASA initiative to create a sustainable lunar presence. NASA hopes to land the first woman and person of color on the moon in 2025, and the U.S. government is funding research for 3D-printed landing pads, nuclear power systems and other infrastructure that would help astronauts live on the moon and then continue on to Mars.

For Lunar Resources, the pipeline is an extension of the company’s main focus: Developing technology that would melt the moon’s soil and extract its components — oxygen, aluminum, silicon, magnesium and iron — to build infrastructure.

Oxygen is of particular interest because it could be used to create rocket propellant. Lunar Resources has demonstrated the extraction of oxygen from artificial moon soil; NASA is exploring extracting oxygen from ice water mined at the moon’s craters.

[…]

But there are some problems Lunar Resources would need to solve before it can turn the moon’s soil into a pipeline. There needs to be a power grid on the moon to operate its system, and there needs to be a lunar lander capable of carrying the company’s 1,000 kilograms worth of mining technology to the moon. The initial lunar landers being developed for cargo can’t handle the system’s mass.

The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program isn’t concerned by these yet-to-be-solved problems. NIAC places seed investments in technologies that might enable new missions or capabilities 20 or 30 years from now, though some of its projects are getting closer to space.

For instance, NIAC funded an inflatable antenna for small satellites, called CubeSats, in 2013 and 2014. This antenna would allow the increasingly popular satellites to have faster communication speeds when sending data back and forth to Earth. It’s going to be part of a University of Arizona satellite, called CatSat, that’s scheduled to launch no sooner than September.

Gotta say, “melting the moon’s soil and extracting its resources” sounds like the business plan for a Bond villain. Fortunately, that’s not the case. I don’t have anything else to add here, I just thought this was cool.

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged Houston, Lunar Resources, moon, NASA, NIAC, oxygen | Comments Off

Weekend link dump for April 9

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

“Researchers identified a shape that was previously only theoretical: a 13-sided configuration called “the hat” that can tile a surface without repeating.”

“The New York Yankees, one of MLB’s most storied and successful franchises, have a high-end problem: They’re running out of uniform numbers to give to players.” Their proposed solution is to stop issuing numbers to coaches and the manager. I say it’s time to go to triple digits.

“BuzzFeed Is Quietly Publishing Whole AI-Generated Articles, Not Just Quizzes”.

“A plant fungus has infected a human for the first time”. I’m sure it’s fine.

“One of the more intriguing options is to place [solar panels] above artificial bodies of water, either floating or suspended on cables. While more expensive than land-based installs, this creates a win-win: the panels limit the evaporation of water, and the water cools the panels, allowing them to operate more efficiently in warm climates.”

“Protecting existing [animal] populations and restoring others to their natural habitats often improves the natural capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide within ecosystems”.

RIP, Seymour Stein, founder of Sire Records who launched the recording careers of Madonna, the Ramones, Talking Heads, and the Pretenders.

“In spring 2023, it was hard to read it as anything other than a statement of: If drag queens are brought down, the rest of us will be dragged down with them.”

“What it means is that Finland’s significant intelligence-gathering operation, designed to protect itself against Russia, is now at NATO’s disposal and will soon be plugged into the alliance’s overall intelligence machine. It took less than a year for Finland to abandon its traditional neutrality to join an alliance now clearly designed to contain Russian aggression. Great job, Vlad.”

“Fifty years ago, on April 3, 1973, Motorola engineer Martin Cooper made the first cellphone call in history.” A few minutes later, he answered a call from someone who wanted to know about his car’s extended warranty.

Poor, poor baby.

Every wedding is unique and special in its own way. This wedding will be unique and special in a uniquely special way.

More Game of Thrones TV shows will be coming your way.

There was a time when I would have been excited about a TV show based on the Harry Potter books. That time has passed. Plus, I have to agree, the idea makes no sense.

“But that’s where this goes. Election criminality is cool as long as it’s tawdry and white collar. You can’t get angry about fraudulent business expenses! Even if they were used to lie to an entire country about the character of the most powerful person in the world.”

“The idea that one of America’s premiere news shows would conduct a soft focus profile of a person like that, rather than a hard-edged investigative piece, should be way out of bounds. But this behavior is well within bounds for the mainstream media over the last 30-plus years.”

“This is a credible threat, if not a likely outcome, because it is an established Republican pattern. It amounts to the same specious argument as the one about limiting incentives for presidential coups: don’t follow the law because we’ll break the law.”

“What’s the only thing better than having your own Gulfstream jet? Why, getting to claim millions in tax deductions for it. All you have to do is make a case you’re using it for business, which turns out to be surprisingly easy.”

“Clarence Thomas Broke the Law and It Isn’t Even Close”. Read this for the details.

“I don’t think you can make an argument that private jet flights need not be included under the statute.”

RIP, Bill Butler, Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated cinematographer best known for his work on .

“This legislature is an abomination — a body of reactionary, hypocritical, culture-warring ignoramuses with nothing but contempt for the people they claim to serve.” He’s talking about Tennessee, in case you were wondering.

“These are not examples of “polarization.” They’re examples of a Republican party on an authoritarian, rightward-march, growing increasingly comfortable taking an iron fist to democratically elected lawmakers who express opinions they oppose.”

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | Comments Off

Mifepristone access banned and expanded

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

So as you might have heard, this happened on Friday.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in Texas stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of abortion drug mifepristone nationwide Friday, including in blue states with robust abortion protections.

The ruling will take seven days to go into effect; the Department of Justice immediately appealed it.

“My Administration will fight this ruling,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. “The Department of Justice has already filed an appeal and will seek an immediate stay of the decision.”

The same night, a separate judge in Washington state issued an order stating exactly the opposite: that the FDA maintain “the status quo” in terms of access to the drug in the states involved. The Department of Justice said in a statement it was reviewing the Washington decision.

The conflicting opinions make it highly likely the question will soon end up before the Supreme Court.

It’s not immediately clear what the effect of either ruling will be: The FDA has unfettered enforcement discretion, and there are plenty of drugs without approval on the market.

[…]

The Texas decision was expected by all involved — Kacsmaryk, a Donald Trump appointee, is a constant Biden administration antagonist. He presides over all cases filed in Amarillo, and right-wing litigants have learned to file there to be sure they’ll get a judge sympathetic to their cause.

His decision is peppered with anti-abortion language and sentiment. “Because mifepristone alone will not always complete the abortion, FDA mandates a two-step drug regimen: mifepristone to kill the unborn human, followed by misoprostol to induce cramping and contractions to expel the unborn human from the mother’s womb,” he writes. He also refers to providers as “abortionists” throughout.

He regurgitates the common anti-abortion lies that mifepristone is dangerous, blatantly disregarding the consensus of the medical community, and that abortions cause women overwhelming emotional distress and regret.

His handling of the case has been at times bizarre and drawn scrutiny, including an attempt to keep a key hearing in the case secret from the press and the public until the last minute.

That Kacsmaryk has the power to issue a nationwide injunction from just one case only makes the conservative goal-to-sweeping result pipeline even more of a glidepath.

Should the Texas case be appealed, there’s not much guaranteed salvation ahead for supporters of abortion access (and those who support miscarriage care, cancer care and the many other medical treatments that involve abortions). The case will next go to the famously right-wing Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, then, presumably, to the majority anti-abortion Supreme Court.

Over in Washington, a coalition of Democratic attorneys general filed suit to expand access to mifepristone, arguing that the FDA should lift its years-old restrictions that major medical organizations have long argued are rooted in politics, not science. While the Biden administration made the drug somewhat easier to obtain this January — including allowing certified pharmacies to dispense it — it maintained other restrictions.

In his opinion ordering that mifepristone be kept available, Judge Thomas Rice pointed out that “the record demonstrates potentially internally inconsistent FDA findings regarding mifepristone’s safety profile,” citing the fact that mifepristone prescribed for Cushing’s disease — rather than abortion — is not subject to those onerous restrictions.

Another countervailing lawsuit is still playing out in West Virginia, where a maker of mifepristone is suing West Virginia, arguing that its abortion ban is violating both the Supremacy and Commerce Clauses of the Constitution in overriding the FDA conclusion that the drug is safe.

See here and here for some background; the opinions are embedded in the story above. I had a draft a couple of days ago about the hearing for the mifepristone-expansion lawsuit but didn’t publish it in time; I’ve put that post beneath the fold, as the arguments made during the hearing are worth reading. There’s been a ton of commentary already – see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for so much more. I don’t have anything to add to all that, but I did find it grimly amusing that the long-awaited and feared Texas decision came down a couple of days after State Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht said this;

Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht called on state lawmakers Wednesday to increase judicial salaries and create a new court system to handle disputes between businesses.

The comments came in his biennial speech on the state of the judiciary, during which he also cautioned against the increasing politicization of the third branch of government. He cited the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election in which the winner was an outspoken liberal, and comments by former President Donald Trump and a Democratic U.S. senator characterizing court rulings as partisan.

“I grow concerned that political divisions among us threaten the judicial independence essential to the rule of law,” Hecht, a Republican, said in the Texas Supreme Court courtroom in Austin. “The left and right, and leaders in both the executive and legislative branches, are in agreement: Judges are not independent, and shouldn’t be; they should take sides — my side.”

He urged judges against partisan decisions, saying the pressure to comply with politics “destroys the rule of law essential to justice for all.”

Both the Texas Supreme Court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest court for criminal matters in the state, are made up of all Republicans.

You couldn’t find a more blatant example of this than Matthew Kacsmaryk, whose only qualification for the bench, for which he was hand-selected by the radical conservative legal movement, was his anti-abortion activism. There’s a reason why so many cases, filed by Ken Paxton and various zealots of that movement, get heard by him. Please update your references for future use, Justice Hecht.

Continue reading →

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, FDA, Illinois, Joe Biden, Justice Department, lawsuit, Michigan, mifepristone, Nathan Hecht, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, pharmacies, Rhode Island, SCOTUS, Texas, Vermont, Washington | 4 Comments

Metro approves University BRT route

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Still a lot of work to be done before any actual construction can begin.

Metro officials on Wednesday approved a path for the 25.3 mile University Corridor in a rare split vote that keeps the region’s largest bus rapid transit project on track for a 2028 opening, but also deepened concerns among some who said the public is not completely behind the planned route.

Wednesday’s vote, setting its preferred route for the line, allows Metropolitan Transit Authority planners and consultants for the agency to continue design of the busways along many local streets, and work with the Federal Transit Administration on necessary approvals. Under the current schedule, construction could begin as early as late next year, though riders will not hop aboard the large buses operating in their own lanes for another three or four years.

“This is an important step, but not the last step,” Metro board Chairman Sanjay Ramabhadran said.

Approval of the route came with division, uncharacteristic for the Metro board. Five members — Ramabhadran, Roberto Trevino, Diann Lewter, Bob Fry and Lex Frieden — approved the route, the minimum number needed to pass. Members Terri Morales, an East End resident; Troi Taylor and Don Elder voted against approval, citing the need for more public feedback.

“I feel we need more time for community involvement,” Morales said.

[…]

Recent concerns about the route, however, have centered on a roughly one-mile stretch of Lockwood through the East End, south of Buffalo Bayou, where residents have said the project caught them off-guard and initial plans for an overpass would have sliced a gash through the mostly residential, tree-lined neighborhood.

Following pushback, mostly from the Eastwood Civic Association, Metro scrapped plans for an overpass and promised residents in the East End that it would build a bus-only underpass with a bike and pedestrian path beneath the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Separating the buses from the tracks is crucial to avoid lengthy delays, transit officials said.

The underpass, which would include flood gates Metro can control, would not solve ongoing problems in the East End over stopped freight trains for other vehicles but would allow pedestrians to avoid having to cross the tracks.

It is not the first time Metro has promised an underpass, and the last such pledge led to hard feelings in the community as the agency finalized construction of the Green Line light rail along Harrisburg. That underpass proved too expensive and too complicated, so Metro reneged on the promise and opted for an overpass near Hughes Street, which remains a major divide in the East End.

“We had nothing but trouble the entire time and that is because of how the project was laid out,” Lewter said.

Asked earlier this week if Metro could keep its word this time, transit agency CEO Tom Lambert said it could because the conditions are different.

“There is no concern going forward,” Lambert said, admitting the Harrisburg promise was premature and environmental reviews that should have been completed were not prior to that commitment.

In this case, no environmental or utility issues are expected because the area is mostly homes and the rail line.

Avoiding an overpass was the top priority of Eastwood residents, but not the only concern, civic association president Danielle Laperriere said. As a result, the association voted Tuesday night to neither support nor oppose the revised plan.

“Opinions are too strongly divided,” she said.

After opposition to the project built in the community, many also questioned Metro’s decision to run the line along Lockwood at all. Given development in the area, many suggested Jensen, which by Metro’s own scoring is slightly behind Lockwood in terms of viability, should warrant consideration.

“It is not anti-Metro,” said Stephen Quezada, who lives along Lockwood and is chairman of the East End Management District board of directors. “I truly believe there is an opportunity to get this right.”

See here for the background. The route itself was never really in question, it was more about addressing the concerns of the neighborhoods before committing to it. If Metro can fulfill its promise about building an underpass this time, that probably clears up most of them. While approving the route was a necessary step to get more federal funds, there could still be some modifications before construction begins. I am hopeful that the remaining issues can be worked out and that construction can begin more or less on schedule.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged BRT, construction, East End Management District, Eastwood, Federal Transit Administration, Houston, Metro, overpass, Sanjay Ramabhadran, Tom Lambert, underpass, University line | Comments Off

On recycling cooking oil

Posted on April 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I’m always intrigued by stories like this.

NRG Stadium is no stranger to fried food — like the booths upon booths of deep-fried desserts that line NRG Park during the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, or the churros and corn dogs likely to be found as the men’s college basketball Final Four hits Houston this weekend.

But when the rodeo and March Madness are over, where does all that oil go?

The answer: biodiesel, makeup, pet food and sometimes, right back into the fryer.

For the past eight years, NRG Stadium has partnered with a Houston franchise of Filta, a cooking oil cleaning and recycling company that started in the U.K. Last year, Filta recycled 3,370 gallons of oil from NRG Stadium’s concessions alone.

Three Filta franchises cover the Houston area, but the one owned by Mike Powers is the largest — it covers all of the stadiums, three University of Houston campuses, more than 50 hospitals and even more hotels, restaurants and grocery stores.

The workers at Filta use a machine to suck out the cooking oil from a fryer, put it through three levels of filtration and then deep clean the fryer itself before replacing the filtered oil. Powers, who’s owned the franchise for nearly 12 years, likens it to “dialysis for your cooking oil.”

If the oil still isn’t clean enough to use after filtration, Filta removes it and hands it off to third-party companies that recycle it.

What happens to the oil when the next recycler gets it? The story doesn’t say. What would have happened to this oil if it hadn’t been recycled? The nearest landfill, I assume. I don’t have a point to make here, I just find this stuff interesting. Hope you do, too.

Posted in Food, glorious food, Technology, science, and math | Tagged biodiesel, cooking oil, Filta, Houston, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, recycling, Reliant Stadium | 1 Comment

HISD students walk out in protest of TEA takeover

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good for them.

Five minutes into her second-period class, Elizabeth Rodriguez and her classmates at Northside High School stood up and walked out to protest the Texas Education Agency’s planned intervention in Houston’s sprawling, diverse public school district.

The 18-year-old senior joined more than 100 students flooding the hallways, walking out of the large brick building and pouring into the gated courtyard by the school entrance on Quitman Street. Teenagers sporting jeans, hoodies and backpacks held handmade posters with various slogans: “My school matters,” “I am NOT just a number,” and “Estudiantes unidos! Jamas seran vencidos!”

Rodriguez, a member of a student club that helped organize the protest, stepped up on a purple platform and grabbed the microphone.

“You need to let your voices be heard,” she said to a crowd that occasionally broke out into chants. “We don’t want more STAAR. What does STAAR do? It stresses us out and gives us more anxiety.”

The walkout coincided with other demonstrations on Thursday at dozens of schools across HISD organized by Community Voices for Public Education and campus student groups. They were marching to express their displeasure with TEA’s March 15 decision to oust the board and superintendent because of one school’s repeated failure to earn an acceptable academic rating and allegations of misconduct by board members.

At elementary schools, some parents gathered with doughnuts and protest signs before sending their children into school. High school students took charge by stepping out during the school day to voice their opposition.

Thursday also marked the last day to apply for the board of managers, a governing body appointed by TEA Commissioner Mike Morath that will replace elected trustees to oversee the district.

At the Northside High School, students rallied for about 15 minutes before heading back to class.

“I was afraid that a lot of people weren’t going to care, they were just doing it to get out of class,” Rodriguez said. “But seeing them now, holding up the signs, doing the chants, I loved it. It makes me feel good about my school.”

Later in the day, as gray skies started dumping rain, roughly 50 students at Carnegie Vanguard High School walked out and took a lap around the block during their lunch break. They held wet paper signs while chanting: “T-E-A, go away!” and “Hey-hey-ho-ho, TEA has got to go!”

Some students stayed outside to listen as their peers spoke into a bullhorn about the value of diversity and an education hard-earned by immigrant parents. One student questioned the motives of the state agency intervening in a school district serving nearly 190,000 students, largely Hispanic and Black children.

“They don’t like abortion, they don’t like gay people, they don’t like minorities,” he said about the Texas GOP. “Why do we want them taking over one of the most diverse school districts in all of Texas?”

Good question. Look, this protest isn’t going to accomplish anything at this time. Mike Morath isn’t going to suddenly change his mind about the takeover – he would argue that it doesn’t matter what he thinks, he’s compelled by the law – because some number of students chanted at him. But bringing about change starts with caring enough to do something, and enduring a bunch of getting nowhere before you can get yourself into a position of influence. It’s not linear, it’s often frustrating, and there are usually a bunch of other things that have to happen before what you want to do is even possible. It still starts with caring enough to take action. Good on these kids for doing that.

Note the bit about the deadline for the Board of Managers. Barring some action from the feds in response to the complaints that have been filed, the next milestone in this saga is going to be the naming of the Board of Managers. I’m going to guess that will happen in early to mid May, to give them some time to get their feet on the ground before the official takeover in June. We’ll get some idea of where this is going when we see who the Board is.

Posted in School days | Tagged activism, Board of Managers, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Mike Morath, schools, Texas Education Agency, US Department of Education | 1 Comment

Looking ahead to the inevitable litigation over a trans sports ban

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The feds have weighed in.

The Department of Education on Thursday formally proposed a rule change to Title IX, the federal civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in schools, that would be at odds with anti-trans bills being signed into law and introduced in statehouses across the country.

The rule change would establish that categorical bans against transgender students joining sports teams that align with their gender identity violates Title IX. However, the proposed rule allows for competitive high school and college sports to restrict trans students’ participation if those schools follow guidelines laid out by the agency — particularly, to minimize harm for excluded students.

Currently, 20 states have passed legislation to ban trans students, especially transgender girls, from participating in sports that are consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks LGBTQ+ policy. Enforcement of multiple bans has been blocked in court through temporary injunctions.

The Education Department said in a news release that it expects that limiting transgender students’ participation in school sports at the high school and college level may be permitted in some cases, “when they enable the school to achieve an important educational objective, such as fairness in competition” and meet other agency requirements.

When schools create policies on trans’ students participation, they must follow certain requirements laid out by the agency: recognizing the importance of minimizing harm to excluded trans students, as well as acknowledging that sport-governing bodies have different participation criteria. School policies restricting trans’ students sports access must also take into account whether the sport is high or low competition, such as whether the team is open to students regardless of athletic ability. Students’ grade level should also be considered, since those in younger grades are often more focused on teamwork and fitness than competitive success.

The public will be able to comment on the proposed rule, which would apply to public K-12 schools and colleges that receive federal funding, for 30 days from the date of the rule’s publication in the Federal Register. A senior department official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of the release of the rule, told reporters Thursday that she expects that publication to happen within the next few weeks.

The agency has a variety of tools to enforce and investigate Title IX violations, the official said — including evaluating records and interviewing school community members. Typically, schools choose to come into compliance when they violate Title IX, she said. But, in the unlikely scenario that a school declines to come into compliance with the law, the agency is willing and able to withhold federal funds.

As a reminder, the Texas Senate has already passed a bill to ban trans athletes from participating in collegiate sports – a restriction for high school and below is already in place – with the House likely to follow. Hold that thought for a minute. Also on Thursday, this happened.

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed a 12-year-old transgender girl in West Virginia to continue competing on her middle school’s girls sports teams while a lawsuit over a state ban continues.

The justices refused to disturb an appeals court order that made it possible for the girl, Becky Pepper-Jackson, to continue playing on her school’s track and cross-country teams, where she regularly finishes near the back of the pack.

Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas would have allowed West Virginia to enforce its law against Pepper-Jackson.

Pepper-Jackson is in the middle of the outdoor track season. She had filed a lawsuit challenging the law, the Save Women’s Sports Act, which West Virginia lawmakers adopted in 2021. A federal appeals court had allowed her to compete while she appealed a lower court ruling that upheld the West Virginia law.

There are some legal technicalities about this, which I won’t get into. This particular ruling is unlikely to mean anything for SCOTUS when the case comes to them, but for now at least that law is on hold. Plenty of other states have been passing similar bans, with Texas on its way to doing so as well.

It should be noted that this new policy is seen as a step back from the Biden administration’s initial position of full support for transgender rights. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern explains what’s going on.

Thursday’s proposal marks the Biden administration’s first effort to “compromise” on the rights of student-athletes. It is clearly designed to survive a legal challenge by locating a middle ground that grants protections to transgender students that are strong but not absolute. The rule is certainly a huge improvement from the Department of Education’s bigoted position under former President Donald Trump. But LGBTQ advocates expect much more of Biden, and any apprehension about the rule’s less-than-complete support for equality is understandable.

The proposed rule itself is just a few sentences long. It states that, when a school restricts trans students’ participation in athletics, it triggers Title IX’s ban on discrimination “because of sex.” Thus, the policy must “be substantially related to the achievement of an important educational objective” and “minimize harm” to trans students. Mere hostility toward transgender people, the agency clarified, does not qualify as “an important educational objective.” But “fairness in competition” and “prevention of sports-related injury” do. The policy must also be tailored “for each sport, level of competition, and grade”—meaning the across-the-board bans passed in 20 states are impermissible. (To be clear, it still lets schools to enact more expansive protections for trans athletes, so blue jurisdictions can continue to guarantee 100 percent equal access to school sports.)

As the Department of Education acknowledges, the new standard is drawn from the Supreme Court’s equal protection jurisprudence, which applies “intermediate scrutiny” to sex-based classifications. The agency’s new rule would apply a form of intermediate scrutiny to school policies that discriminate against transgender athletes, on the grounds that anti-transgender discrimination is a form of sex discrimination. (Many courts, including the Supreme Court, have agreed with this logic.) The proposed test would, in effect, balance transgender students’ interest in playing sports against cisgender students’ interest in “fairness in competition” and avoiding injury. (The rule is aimed at K-12 education; the NCAA has adopted separate policies for college athletes that seem to satisfy the agency.)

The oddity here is that Title IX’s text does not actually incorporate this kind of balancing. It simply bars schools from discriminating “on the basis of sex.” When courts have applied this principle to transgender students, they have declined to weigh competing interests, instead just asking whether the student faced discrimination because of their identity. That’s one reason why the new rule surprised so many trans advocates: As journalist Erin Reed noted, portions of the document provoke the fear that schools will seize upon well-worn pretexts to “balance” transgender students’ rights into oblivion. Furthermore, claims that trans athletes have unfair advantages and imperil cisgender girls are conservative talking points against transgender equality. It was startling to see such ideas in a proposal from the administration of Joe Biden, who has called transgender discrimination “the civil rights issue of our time” for more than a decade.

And yet, there are good reasons to adopt a more generous view of the new policy (while acknowledging that its rollout was borderline disastrous). GLAD, a renowned LGBTQ advocacy group, issued a statement “applaud[ing]” the proposal, praising the decision to let schools “adopt reasonable policies” that “take into account differences between sports and across levels of competition.” Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, told me that the Department of Education did “a good job of setting out a proposed standard that is reasonable, protects the dignity and equality of transgender students, and permits only very limited restrictions in elite competitions,” with a “baseline presumption” of inclusion.

As for the Title IX rule, it’s way too early to say how it might play out. The only thing I feel confident saying is that there will be litigation once it is in effect. Just put a pin in all this and we’ll see where we are in six months or a year. The Trib and the Chron have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Joe Biden, lawsuit, Movement Advancement Project, NCAA, SCOTUS, Senate, Texas, The Lege, Title IX, transgender rights, US Department of Education, West Virginia | Comments Off

Meet your new astronauts

Posted on April 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Very cool.

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency announced the four astronauts who will be onboard the Artemis II mission around the moon yesterday at an event at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The 10-day mission is slated to put the first woman and the first person of color on the moon.

“For the first time in more than 50 years, these individuals – the Artemis II crew – will be the first humans to fly to the vicinity of the Moon. Among the crew are the first woman, first person of color, and first Canadian on a lunar mission, and all four astronauts will represent the best of humanity as they explore for the benefit of all,” says JSC Director Vanessa Wyche. “This mission paves the way for the expansion of human deep space exploration and presents new opportunities for scientific discoveries, commercial, industry and academic partnerships and the Artemis Generation.”

The crew assignments include:

Commander Reid Wiseman, who has logged more than 165 days in space in two trips. He previously served as a flight engineer aboard the International Station and most recently served as chief of the Astronaut Office from December 2020 until November 2022.

Pilot Victor Glover, who served as pilot on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission in 2021. This will be his second trip to space.

Mission Specialist 1 Christina Hammock Koch, who set the record for longest single spaceflight by a woman with a total of 328 days in space and participated in the first all-female spacewalks. This will be her second flight into space.

Mission Specialist 2 Jeremy Hansen, representing Canada. Hansen is a colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces and former fighter pilot and has served as Capcom in NASA’s Mission Control Center at Johnson Space Center. He was the first Canadian to lead a NASA astronaut class. This will be his first flight into space.

“NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Hammock Koch, and CSA astronaut Jeremy Hansen, each has their own story, but, together, they represent our creed: E pluribus unum – out of many, one,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said. “Together, we are ushering in a new era of exploration for a new generation of star sailors and dreamers–the Artemis Generation.”

Artemis II is slated to build upon the uncrewed Artemis I mission that was completed in December. The crew will be NASA’s first to aboard the agency’s deep space rocket, the Space Launch System, and Orion spacecraft. They will test the spacecrafts’ systems to ensure they operate as planned for humans in deep space before setting course for the moon.

You can see more about Artemis II here. The launch date is set for November 2024. Let’s just say I hope that the launch will be the most interesting and exciting thing to happen that month. From there, if all goes well, the next stop will be Mars. I hope I live long enough to see that. Godspeed and good luck to them all.

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged Artemis II, Canadian Space Agency, Christina Hammock Koch, Houston, Jeremy Hansen, Mars, moon, NASA, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover | Comments Off

Hollins moves to the Controller’s race

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I have some thoughts.

Chris Hollins

Chris Hollins, the former Harris County clerk, said Thursday he is dropping his campaign for mayor and will seek the controller’s office instead, roughly one week after Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced she would enter the race.

Hollins had postponed a fundraiser scheduled for the day after news broke of Jackson Lee’s entry, and his campaign stopped sending fundraising emails and updates to supporters. That fueled speculation he would bow out. On Thursday, he made it official.

“You may know that we’re facing some real financial challenges in this city. It’s been projected that the next budget that we will have to pass, in the first term of the new mayor and the new controller, will be one where we have a $200 million-or-more structural deficit,” Hollins said of pursuing the controller’s office. “It’s going to take real smarts, real ability, real commitment to thread that needle, and that’s not even talking about having to pay our firefighters.”

[…]

Hollins, who also serves on the Metro board, sought out young and progressive voters, regularly criticizing the state’s Republican leadership and one of the mayoral race’s front-runners, state Sen. John Whitmire, a moderate Democrat.

He had raised $1.67 million for his campaign as of Dec. 31, slightly more than competitors Amanda Edwards, a former City Council member, and attorney Lee Kaplan. His campaign consultant, Grant Martin, was part of winning campaigns for Mayors Sylvester Turner and Annise Parker.

Like many of the mayoral contenders, though, Hollins has relatively low name recognition with city voters. His campaign needed to separate him from that pack to make a runoff, a task made much taller by Jackson Lee’s entry. The congresswoman’s base of voters includes many of the folks Hollins was hoping to attract.

Jackson Lee made her entry official earlier Thursday morning, designating a campaign treasurer for her mayoral run in the city secretary’s office.

[…]

The controller’s race has three other declared candidates; Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin, a longtime accountant who represents District E on City Council and chairs the council’s budget committee; At-Large Councilmember Michael Kubosh, a former bail bondsman; and Shannan Nobles, who works in the controller’s office now.

Nobles, who filed a treasurer form in January, announced her candidacy Thursday.

“With over 20 years of public service experience and a background in finance, I am excited to bring my expertise to the table to help shape Houston’s future,” Nobles said in a release Thursday morning. “As Chief Deputy City Controller, I have worked tirelessly to safeguard the city’s assets and bring financial literacy to our communities.”

Hollins starts with a steep financial advantage in that race, thanks to the $1 million he had amassed for his mayoral bid as of Dec. 31. Controller races are much less expensive than mayoral contests.

Martin had $162,000 on hand as of December, with Kubosh further behind at $54,000. Nobles has not had to file a campaign finance report yet.

My thoughts:

– As I said when SJL stepped into the Mayor’s race, the field was awfully big and full of credible candidates, and that at some point it might be difficult for one or more of the current candidates to stay in the race. I said the same thing in 2015 and was wrong then, but this time I was right. Good to know I’m no worse than a coin flip on these matters.

– I also suggested that the Controller’s race would be a potentially enticing option for whoever might consider it as an alternative. I specifically had Chris Hollins and Amanda Edwards in mind when I wrote that, in part because they’d be prominent Democrats in a field that at the time only contained Republicans, and in part because they’d already raised more money than Controller candidates normally dream about. I’m on a roll here, I should buy a lottery ticket.

– On the subject of Hollins’ fundraising, Campos wonders if “he will give back the dough folks gave him to run for mayor”. My guess is that if someone asks for their contribution back he will do so, but he’s not going to go ask everyone who gave to him about it. I suspect his bottom line will not change much at all.

– Could other current candidates switch from the Mayor’s race to the Controller’s? Eh maybe, but I kind of doubt it. I feel like it’s a great decision for the first person, and much murkier for the second. But who knows?

– As for Shannan Nobles, I got an email announcement of her candidacy, which she also posted on Facebook, yesterday. The email arrived a couple of hours after the text I received from the Hollins campaign announcing his switch. I’m going to guess she’s not too happy about the way events transpired.

– If he gets elected Controller, Hollins would be well positioned to run for Mayor again at the next good opportunity. Normally that would be in eight years, which is to say the year 2031, which I swear is a real year and not a made-up date from an Arthur C. Clarke novel. The thing is, as I have noted before, both John Whitmire and Sheila Jackson Lee will be in their eighties in the year 2031. That doesn’t mean they couldn’t still be serving as Mayor at that time, but as I have wondered on more than one occasion, they might not want to still be Mayor at that time. It’s a hard job, and one might like to enjoy a retirement while one can. This is a longwinded way of saying that he would be as well-situated to run in 2027 as he would be in 2031, if the circumstances are there.

– I will once again remind everyone that nothing is set in stone until the filing deadline, all polls should be taken with large amounts of salt, and no one knows how these races will play out. There are just too damn many variables.

– Because my brain hates me, it occurred to me while writing this that Hollins’ departure makes a Tony Buzbee candidacy slightly more likely, on the grounds that at least some Hollins-for-Mayor supporters will migrate over to SJL’s camp now. As penance for bringing this up, I will say three Hail Marys and go sit quietly in a corner for an hour to contemplate my life choices.

That’s all I got. Let’s root for a quiet weekend. The Trib, the Texas Signal, and the Press have more.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged Amanda Edwards, Chris Brown, Chris Hollins, Dave Martin, Election 2023, Election 2027, Election 2031, fundraising, Gilbert Garcia, Houston, Houston City Controller, John Whitmire, Lee Kaplan, Mayor, Michael Kubosh, Robert Gallegos, Shannan Nobles, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sylvester Turner, Tony Buzbee | 3 Comments

CD15 is the target for 2024

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We’ll see if it remains the only one.

Democrats want South Texas back.

The U.S. House Democratic campaign arm plans to dump funds into Texas’ 15th congressional district this election cycle in a bid to reclaim the most competitive seat in the state, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will announce Monday. The seat had long been a Democratic stronghold until U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, won the district in last year’s midterm election. The race saw a Republican spending frenzy and was a critical win for the party, which has been eager to make inroads with the district’s majority Latino population.

The strategy is a shift from last year, when national party groups essentially abandoned the district to the fury of local and state Democrats. Groups like the DCCC asserted they needed to prioritize limited resources to defend incumbents also in competitive races, including Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, who switched districts out of the 15th to the neighboring 34th last year.

The district snakes from the eastern exurbs of San Antonio down to McAllen on the Mexican border.

The loss of the 15th district was a bitter pill for Democrats to swallow. It was the first time in the district’s history a Republican won the seat and lent ballast to Republican claims that their message resonated with the culturally conservative Hispanic voters of the region.

Democrats were still able to hold off Republicans from netting any new seats in South Texas, and Democrats asserted they only lost the 15th district because its boundaries were redrawn in the 2021 redistricting to include more conservative areas north of its population core in McAllen. But Republicans managed to close margins in the traditionally Democratic areas of Hidalgo County, indicating the days of Democrats sitting pretty in the region might be over.

The optimistic take on how Republicans did in that part of the state last year is that it was an overall mediocre-at-best turnout year for Dems, which despite the overperformance of Dems in some critical races was the case nationwide as well. The test for that hypothesis will be the next election. We know that there are very few real opportunities for flips in this map, at least at this time. It’s still weird to not see CD23 on such a list. Could always be added later, if Republicans take out their incumbent in a nasty primary. For now, at least we haven’t been written off altogether. NBC News has more.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged CD15, CD23, CD34, Congress, DCCC, Election 2022, Election 2024, Monica de la Cruz-Hernandez, redistricting, Texas, Vicente Gonzalez | Comments Off

Rep. Jones responds to her former staffers’ complaint

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

Rep. Jolanda Jones

Houston state Rep. Jolanda Jones criticized her former staffers in a new statement Wednesday for publicizing the name of an intern who they alleged was having an inappropriate relationship with Jones’ son and for making assumptions about his mental health.

Jones’ chief of staff Kory Haywood, legislative director Catherine “Cat” Mouer and district director Yesenia Wences, in a four-page resignation letter leaked to the media last week, accused Jones of covering up the relationship and using public resources for personal reasons, among other allegations.

[…]

The House General Investigating Committee is looking into the allegations, Jones said in her latest statement.

“I welcome that investigation and look forward to being vindicated of any wrong doing,” she said, adding she would not speak directly to the allegations so as not to impede the committee’s work.

Jones last week had not responded to the letter other than to say that the staffers must have “decided this job is not for them” and to wish them luck in future endeavors.

But in her statement Wednesday, which she said would be her last on the matter, Jones said she has since spoken to the intern and learned the intern “categorically denies any wrongdoing or participation in any inappropriate relationship with my son.”

“I cannot sit quietly and allow members of my staff to be wrongfully publicly identified, denigrated and demeaned at the hands of former employees,” Jones said. “Regardless of any political capital that I may lose through this matter, I will not allow this young promising professional to be given a scarlet letter.”

Jones added that the intern, who is 26, permitted Jones to share that she is a survivor of sexual assault and understands what constitutes harassment and abuse “all too well.”

“The inclusion of her name in these allegations have caused a revictimization and retraumatization of her,” Jones said.

Despite the staffers’ allegation about a problematic age gap, Jones added her son is five years older than the intern, who has a graduate degree and is working on her doctorate.

Jones said her son, who did not respond to requests for comment by Hearst Newspapers, also denies having an inappropriate relationship. She said she was “outraged” the staffers would make assumptions about her son’s mental health “without any documentation to substantiate this claim.”

See here for the background. As before, all I know is what’s in these stories. That said, this was a pretty strong response from Rep. Jones. Perhaps there will be more information to come out, either from the former staffers or as a result of that House General Investigating Committee review. If not, I’m inclined to agree with her that there’s nothing more to be said.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged HD147, Jolanda Jones, Texas, The Lege | Comments Off

Dispatches from Dallas, April 7 edition

Posted on April 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in Dallas news: Who is the Dallasite at the center of the Clarence Thomas scandal? Plus ACLU support for some area protestors; Fairfield State Park plans; Democrats fighting in Dallas County; and the music scene in Denton.

The biggest story about North Texas right now is, of course, the ProPublica story about Clarence Thomas’ relationship with Dallas real estate magnate and GOP activist megadonor Harlan Crow. The gist of it is that Crow has been taking Thomas to his private vacation estates, hosting Thomas on his yacht for international trips, and flying Thomas around the country on his private jets for two decades and more. Thomas hasn’t reported any of this travel on any of his annual financial disclosures, in violation of federal law.

It’s no surprise that Thomas’ ethics are lacking. Perhaps it’s surprising that he didn’t bother to cover his tracks better, but perhaps Thomas thinks he has transcended the realms of the little people to whom ethics rules and laws apply since he joined the Supreme Court. But we’re not focused on Thomas’ problems. We’re here for the Dallas angle of this story: Harlan Crow.

Trammell Crow, Harlan Crow’s father, founded a namesake commercial real estate development and management firms. Trammell Crow went public and is now an independent subsidiary of the holding firm that owns Coldwell Banker. Harlan Crow manages Crow Holdings, which invests both Crow family money and outside investory assets to the collective tune of $29 billion. Crow Holdings invests in and develops commercial and multifamily residential properties; its best known local project is the redevelopment of Old Parkland. Crow Holding also owns one of the biggest apartment builders in north Texas. The difference between Trammell Crow and Crow Holdings is confusing; it took the DMN article to make it clear to me which parts were which.

Harlan Crow lives in Highland Park and has been involved in a number of Dallas institutions. He once owned D Magazine, which I regularly read and cite in these posts. He’s also on the boards of a number of right-wing groups including the AEI, the George W. Bush Foundation, and the Hoover Institute per this local news explainer. Some additional details about his finances appear in this MarketWatch story (Archive link) but the gist is nobody knows how much money Crow has and if he’s not a billionaire, he’s close. The MarketWatch story also mentions Crow’s donations to Greg Abbott and Mitt Romney, which is to say: what we know about. The Dallas Observer article about the story notes Crow’s friendship with the Bushes and Crow’s gift to Virginia Thomas’ political advocacy nonprofit.

The Dallas Morning News (Archive link) also has an explainer that covers all this information plus a couple of items about his involvement in local politics. In addition to fighting against a publicly owned convention hotel, he had to get his Highland Park estate rezoned so it could also serve as a historical collection. He also has an underground parking garage for his parties and the collection/library, so folks won’t have to park on the neighborhood streets.

The ProPublica article leaves me with the sense that Crow thinks the “we all go out to the ranch and do a little huntin’ and shootin’ and such” excuse will fly. That story has never acknowledged how much business and politicking gets done between people like Crow and Thomas and whoever else was involved. In Texas that story has (officially, superficially) passed muster for a long time. But when the ranch is an upstate New York estate founded by the same woman who built Mar-a-Lago or a fancy yacht, that line becomes a little harder to sell, and the broader US public isn’t as sympathetic as (some) Texans have been. Having said that, there aren’t any teeth in the ethics laws that Thomas violated, so it may not matter.

I’m not a big fan of Jonathan Chait but his piece in the New Yorker is a good summary of the whole business. It’s also a reminder to vote against every one of the people who hold Thomas up as a moral exemplar.

In other news:

Another reminder that May municipal elections are coming up. Your 2023 municipal elections voter guide for North Texas from KERA and the Fort Worth Report will catch you up if you’re not ready.
Related, here’s an explainer about residency requirements and some links to stories about controversies about Fort Worth candidates who may not meet them.
A free speech case is about to come out of North Texas as the ACLU appeals the conviction of three protestors based on an August 2020 protest in Gainesville. (Denton Record-Chronicle; Archive link; Axios; Dallas Observer). The cops told them everything had gone well and then arrested them, and instead of pre-trial diversion they went to a jury. Apparently there was also some hinky stuff with evidence as well. Protesting George Floyd and Confederate monuments in suburban-rural North Texas is risky business.
Op-ed from the DMN: City planning is for boomers, but millennials and Gen Z drive the market (Archive link). Food for thought on how urban planning serves monied (older) interests at the expense of less monied (younger) interests.
The latest on plans for Fairfield State Park from the Star-Telegram. (Archive link). The developer is mad that the paper got the plans so you know it’s worth reading. It doesn’t look good for the park or public access.
Aurora to run driverless trucks from Dallas to Houston by the end of 2024 (Archive link). Get ready, I-45 drivers. The future is here.
I’m posting this article about parking lots in downtown areas of US cities for the map of downtown Arlington. Apparently 42% of downtown Arlington is parking places. This is the map page where you can fill in the names of some major cities. In Texas, Lubbock is at 35%; Fort Worth is at 27%; Dallas is at 24%; Houston is at 26%; and Austin is at 17%.
Here’s a story that I’m noting for future purposes because I don’t quite know what to make of it yet: Dallas County forces Price out of 20-year seat on juvenile board following public spat (Archive link). Price is a force to be reckoned with in Black South Dallas; the spat was with County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins. I liked Lewis Jenkins’ handling of the pandemic and thought he might do well statewide. A serious split between Price and Lewis Jenkins might kneecap him. That’s all without getting into the problems with the county juvenile system, which the numbers cited in the article suggest are real and serious. I’m not sure how booting Price off the board solves them, though.
In lighter news: Dallas’ first alcohol-free bottle shop to open in MCM space in Richardson. I don’t get to drink much for medical reasons so I’m excited to get some grown-up mocktail options.
And in music news, from Denton, two stories: How to listen: Denton music scene gets the spotlight on NPR’s World Cafe (Archive link) and Denton Label Sawyer Editions Unearths the Future of Contemporary Classical. Denton has a thriving music scene, including a classical scene fostered by UNT’s music department, that I haven’t had as much of a chance to explore as I’d like. It’s only an hour away from me and I need to get up there for some performances.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged Dallas, guest post, linkdump, Texas | Comments Off

No one asked you, Tony

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Oh good Lord.

Tony Buzbee, the millionaire businessman and trial attorney who unsuccessfully challenged Mayor Sylvester Turner in 2019, is considering another run for City Hall’s top job.

Buzbee on Wednesday said supporters are urging him to run again, and he believes he is the only candidate who can defeat U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who told church parishioners last week that she would run. He emphasized, though, that he has not made a decision yet.

“I’m most concerned about the safety and well-being of the people who live in Houston. We have decisions to make to ensure that Houston leads,” Buzbee told the Chronicle, a comment he also posted on social media. “I can spend $15 to $50 million to win, if I think there is a path to victory. I’m a moderate. I’m not affiliated with any party, but I do lean a bit left. Houston deserves a motivated independent. That’s me. Not sure I would do it, but people are pushing me to do so.”

He predicted he would “step into a runoff” if he decides to run. The only question, he said, is whom he would face. Runoffs are necessary when no candidate garners a majority in the first round of voting, often the case in crowded city elections; the top two candidates then go to a runoff.

“I haven’t decided yet if I want to do that,” Buzbee said. “Our firm is working on too many cases at the moment across the country.”

[…]

“Buzbee is not a true Republican in the sense that we associate Republicans today, but he’s definitely seen as more conservative than all the other major contenders,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston. “(If) you’ve got a more bona fide conservative in the race, it takes some of the fuel away from Whitmire’s fire.”

Whitmire, a Democrat, is positioning himself as a moderate voice who would be tough on crime, according to Rottinghaus. If Buzbee gets in, some of the more conservative voters to whom Whitmire could appeal may look elsewhere.

There also is the matter of money. Whitmire’s $10 million war chest, amassed over decades in the Texas Legislature, has loomed over the mayoral race since late 2021. It is dramatically more than any other declared candidate has, but Buzbee’s personal wealth likely will allow him to outspend any candidate.

The $12 million he spent on his bout with Turner was second only to Bill White’s $9.7 million in 2003, which when adjusted for inflation would have equaled $13.5 million in 2019. On Wednesday, Buzbee raised the specter of spending four times that sum, up to $50 million.

“The only way to beat the front-runners currently running for mayor is with a lot of money, and Buzbee has a lot of money,” Rottinghaus said. “He has, to some extent, endless pockets to keep going back to the well.”

I swore in December of 2019 that I would not devote any more brain space to Tony Buzbee, but here we are. So let’s get to the point.

– Buzbee lost that runoff by a 56-44 margin, in case anyone has forgotten that. Twelve million bucks can only buy you so much.

– As I said when SJL announced her intent to run (has she said anything more about this yet, by the way?), the field is far too big and the situation is far too chaotic to make any reasonable predictions about how it might go. Buzbee, if he does run, could perhaps take some support from Whitmire. He could maybe bring in some Republican voters who had otherwise felt there was no one for them to vote for. Whether that is enough for him to finish in the top two or not, I have no idea.

– As far as those Republicans who may currently feel like they have no one to vote for in this race, I have been saying for some time now that I think a “real” Republican is likely to enter for precisely that reason. The potential effect of such a hypothetical candidate on the not-yet-a-thing candidacy of Tony Buzbee is left as an exercise for those with way more time on their hands than I have.

– The thing about the 2019 race is that Buzbee was able to run as the “not Sylvester Turner” candidate. Which was enough in Round One to put him ahead of Bill King, who was an even less appealing candidate than he had been in 2015, which believe you me is no mean feat. He seems to want to pitch himself as the “not Sheila Jackson Lee” candidate, which makes some sense in a vacuum, but there are a whole lot of other people running as their own selves, and they will draw some amount of support based on that. With that many choices, it’s not at all clear that he’d be the top preference of those who aren’t voting for SJL. The candidates who will be making a positive case for themselves rather than a negative case against one particular opponent will have their own advantages in a race like this.

– Certainly, repeat candidates can win on subsequent attempts. Mayor Turner famously ran for Mayor and lost twice before winning in 2015, and plenty of City Council members had to run more than once before they broke through. It’s a combination of learning from past mistakes, maturing as a candidate, raising more money, finding a winning issue, having a better environment, and more. I’m honestly not sure what of these would apply to Tony Buzbee in 2023. I admit, I don’t like the guy and am judging him in part on that, but do you see anything in this story that says to you that he’s learned from his 2019 experience? I know, it’s one short story, I’m sure he’ll have (oh so very much) more to say if he does run, but my point stands. Right now, his plan is to run the same playbook but spend more money. It could work – politics is weird – but this is a different election, with different candidates and different circumstances. There’s no reason to think it won’t lead to worse results this time, not better results.

Okay, that’s all I can stand. Please, Tony, I beg you, don’t make me have to do more of this.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged Amanda Edwards, Bill King, Chris Hollins, Election 2019, Election 2023, Gilbert Garcia, Houston, John Whitmire, Lee Kaplan, Mayor, Robert Gallegos, runoff, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sylvester Turner, Tony Buzbee | 5 Comments

A brief but dismal legislative update

Posted on April 6, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Just a few recent news stories, to give you an idea of what’s happening in the Legislative session, and why I have been avoiding it.

Item 1:

Republican Texas senators on Monday reversed themselves and voted against allowing transgender kids currently being treated with puberty blockers and hormone therapy to continue receiving such care.

That reversal essentially expanded Senate Bill 14’s proposed ban on transition-related care to include all transgender children — as outlined in the legislation’s original version. The chamber voted 19-12 along party lines Tuesday to give final approval to the broader version of the bill, which is priority legislation for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. SB 14 will now advance to the House.

Monday’s vote to expand the restrictions and advance the legislation came days after the GOP-controlled Senate agreed to allow kids already on puberty blockers and hormone therapy by early June to keep their access to those treatments. Major medical groups approve of such care and say it lessens higher rates of depression and suicide for trans youth.

Item 2:

The Texas Senate on Wednesday approved two bills aimed at restricting drag performances that children attend or see. One of them, Senate Bill 1601, would defund public libraries where drag queens are allowed to read to children. The other, Senate Bill 12, bars kids from drag shows if the performances are overly lewd and lascivious.

SB 1601 was approved in a 19-10 vote. SB 12, which is a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick this session, was approved in a 20-11 vote. Both bills now head to the House.

Item 3:

A bill intended to rein in district attorneys who decline to pursue certain cases passed the Senate on Wednesday. The bill, a priority for Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, is part of a larger effort to limit the power of elected prosecutors, especially in Texas’ largest, left-leaning counties.

Some district and county attorneys in Texas have said they will not prosecute people accused of violating the state’s near-total abortion bans. There’s also conflict over whether prosecutors will pursue allegations of election fraud, as well as cases involving first-time drug offenders or low-level theft.

Prosecutors have wide latitude to decide what cases their office will pursue. But conservative lawmakers have filed more than 30 bills intending to limit this “prosecutorial discretion.”

“Unfortunately, certain Texas prosecutors have joined a trend of adopting internal policies refusing to prosecute particular laws,” Sen. Joan Huffman, a Republican from Houston who authored the bill, said Tuesday. “These actions set a dangerous precedent and severely undermine the authority of the Legislature.”

Senate Bill 20, which passed the Senate in a 20-11 vote on Wednesday, is the first such bill to pass either chamber. Huffman and Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound, authored the legislation.

SB 20 would prohibit prosecutors from adopting or enforcing a policy “under which the prosecuting attorney refuses to prosecute a class or type of criminal offense.” Such a policy would qualify as “official misconduct”; if a jury finds a prosecutor guilty of misconduct, a district judge can order them removed from office.

Currently, only a county resident can bring an allegation of misconduct against an elected prosecutor. But both chambers are considering separate legislation that would allow residents and prosecutors in neighboring counties, and the attorney general, to file charges of official misconduct.

Other bills would enable the attorney general to take on any cases rejected by a county prosecutor — or sue for tens of thousands of dollars for every day a prosecutor has a policy against pursuing certain cases.

The Texas District and County Attorneys Association has raised concerns about these bills, noting on their website that there is already a system in place for residents of a county to raise issues with their prosecutor — either through bringing misconduct claims or by voting them out at the next election.

State lawmakers trying to override prosecutorial discretion is “another attempt to exert statewide control over a traditionally local function,” Sandra Guerra Thompson, a professor of criminal law at the University of Houston Law Center, told The Texas Tribune. “We’re seeing a lot of that these days.”

Any or all of these bills could fail in the House, or get amended to be less awful. I wouldn’t count on it, but it could happen. Just note that these are among the top priorities of Dan Patrick.

And finally, speaking of Dan Patrick, Item 4:

During a Senate floor debate Tuesday supposedly about “protecting children,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick rebuked Sen. Roland Gutierrez for repeatedly mentioning gun violence. Sen. Gutierrez thought gun violence might be relevant to “protecting children,” especially since his Uvalde district is still recovering from the trauma of the school massacre that took the lives of 19 children and two adults.

The reason for the public rebuke? This debate about “protecting children” wasn’t about guns or violent crime. It was about the dangers of – drag shows. Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, has proposed legislation that would bar minors from attending drag shows.

When Hughes argued that his law, Senate Bill 12, would help “protect children,” Gutierrez countered: “Man, I’ll tell you, I’ve been all about this session about protecting children, my friend, and we haven’t done a whole lot of protecting children when it comes to guns and ammunition,” said Gutierrez.

The Senate gallery, which is open to the public, could be heard cheering, according to KVUE

Sen. Hughes looked “rattled” during the exchange, according to the Quorum Report.

But Lt. Gov. Patrick was quick to offer protection from the volley of words and came to Hughes’ rescue. Patrick scolded Gutierrez and announced that he would not be recognized to speak on the floor going forward if he could not limit his queries to the topic of protecting children (from drag shows).

“I appreciate your interest in protecting kids,” Sen. Gutierrez responded. “I sure would, could, use your support in protecting kids that are killed by gun violence in this state.”

As the Senate gallery cheered again, Lt. Gov. Patrick banged his gavel and warned that he would order the gallery cleared if there were another outburst.

“Sen. Gutierrez, I’m going to give you one more warning. That’s the last time,” Lt. Gov. Patrick said. “Stick to the topic, to the issues you’re asking questions on, or you will not be recognized in the future.”

Yes, how dare the Senator that represents Uvalde talk about guns in the context of protecting children? What was he thinking?

That’s your dismal legislative update for today. I hope to not have to provide more of these on other days.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Bryan Hughes, censorship, Dan Patrick, District Attorney, Drag Queen Story Time, drag shows, gay rights, gun control, guns, Joan Huffman, libraries, local control, Roland Gutierrez, Senate, Tan Parker, TDCAA, Texas, The Lege, transgender rights, voter suppression | 3 Comments

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