Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

What does Mike Miles have against libraries?

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Superintendent Mike Miles, appointed in June by the Texas Education Agency to lead Houston ISD, will eliminate librarians and media specialists from the 28 campuses under his New Education System and an additional 57 aligned schools that opted into a version of the whole-scale systemic reform plan that aims to lift student achievement and improve the quality of instruction.

Miles said the former library spaces at most NES and NES-aligned campuses will instead be converted into “Teams centers” — formerly called Zoom rooms — where students who misbehave in the classroom will be sent to watch the lesson virtually and others can work alone or in groups for differentiated instruction.

The book collections will remain on the shelves at the schools with no librarians, according to the district, with students able to take them home through an honor system or access them during before and after school hours.

The new policy marks a big departure from the priorities outlined by the previous HISD administration led by former superintendent Millard House II, who aimed to put a librarian or media specialist at every campus in the district under his five-year strategic plan and invested millions of dollars in pandemic relief funding to purchase new library books.

“There was this great surge of improvement and excitement about the libraries, so it was so discouraging to take that step backwards,” said Anne Furse, a library advocate and co-founder of a group called Friends of HISD Libraries.

[…]

Miles said the staffing model for NES and NES-aligned schools does not include a librarian because the district must prioritize resources to meet specific outcomes, including closing the achievement gap, raising student proficiency and preparing kids for their future. His administration is raising teacher salaries and providing incentive bonuses to teachers and administrators at the campuses targeted for reform.

“Right now, we are going to try to raise achievement, we’re going to try to have high-quality instruction, so the focus is on those teachers who can do that,” he said. “If you have to prioritize resources, then you want to get a teacher who can deliver the science of reading versus a librarian.”

Miles questioned whether the House administration’s plan to expand librarians to more campuses was tied to any specific outcome, noting that schools should be judged by their results rather than their “inputs.”

“Any big initiative needs to come with metrics for success,” he said. “We’re not doing things that are just popular. We’re not doing things that we’ve always done, we’re not doing things that are just fun, we’re not doing things that are just nice to have or good, unless we can measure its success.”

At the most basic of levels, I can see where Miles is coming from on this. Libraries and librarians cost money, his NES program costs a lot of money, and you can only fire a bunch of central office staffers once. Disruptive kids need a place to go, so the now-repurposed libraries can serve for that. And if there isn’t a bunch of data showing a correlation between libraries and test scores, we know what will be prioritized. I get it.

But come on. Why can’t the libraries just serve the function of being a good place for the kids? One that can at least complement the laudable effort to improve reading scores by, you know, providing books for the kids to read. Not everything has to be laser-focused on the bottom line. Quality of life matters, too.

And you can use Miles’ logic to eliminate all kinds of other things that make school more than just test preparation. Music, art, theater, gym, recess, lunch – what empirical evidence do we have that those things improve outcomes? What data are we even using to evaluate the libraries?

I keep coming back to this point, but even if what Miles is doing has the effect of maximizing student gains in the short to medium term, if people don’t like the things he did to make that happen, they’re not going to support continuing to do them when he and the Board of Managers are out of here. He and the Board need to build trust and get the buy-in from the community. Moves like this don’t help that. I’m beginning to think Mike Miles did not learn this lesson from his experience as DISD Superintendent. Which, I have to say, does not add to my confidence in him as a leader.

Posted in School days | Tagged Board of Managers, Dallas, DISD, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, libraries, Mike Miles, Mike Morath, Millard House, New Education System, reading, standardized testing, Texas Association of School Librarians, Texas Education Agency, Texas Library Association | 23 Comments

Texas blog roundup for the week of July 24

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance says “Hodwy, y’all” as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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

UH-Hobby Center poll: Whitmire 34, Jackson Lee 32

Posted on July 26, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I have plenty to say about this.

Sen. John Whitmire

State Sen. John Whitmire and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee would be neck-and-neck for first place if the Houston mayor’s race were held today, but Whitmire would sprint ahead in a potential runoff, according to the first major poll of the contest.

The poll released Tuesday confirms what many political observers long have suspected: high name recognition gives Jackson Lee and Whitmire an edge over the rest of the crowded field ahead of the Nov. 7 election.

However, Jackson Lee’s decades as a familiar face in Houston politics also could hurt her. Dragged down by the nearly half of voters who have at least a somewhat negative view of Jackson Lee, she would trail Whitmire by 18 percent in a runoff.

The poll, an online survey of 800 likely voters between July 12 and 20 by the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, offers the first glimpse at which candidates already have established themselves as potential contenders.

Its results should be interpreted with caution, however, since there are months to go before the election and few of the candidates have begun spending in earnest on ads and outreach.

Renée Cross, senior executive director of the Hobby School, said in a prepared statement that the poll shows that Whitmire and Jackson Lee essentially are household names in Houston.

“Relatively few voters say they don’t know enough to have an opinion about either Congresswoman Jackson Lee or, to a somewhat lesser extent, Senator Whitmire, while more than half say they don’t know enough about the other challengers,” she said.

[…]

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

In the mayoral race, a candidate needs a majority of votes — one more than 50 percent — to win outright and avoid a runoff election with the second-place finisher.

The University of Houston poll found that in a first round of voting, Whitmire would take about 34 percent of the vote compared to Jackson Lee’s 32 percent, within the 3.5 percent margin of error. The rest of the field drew less than 3 percent support, with 22 percent of voters undecided.

On the broader question of who voters “definitely” or “might” consider voting for, 29 percent said they would consider casting a ballot for Garcia; 27 percent said they were open to considering Gallegos. Nineteen percent said the same about Khan, while 18 percent said they were open to considering Kaplan.

In a runoff, the line dividing Whitmire and Jackson Lee would sharpen. He would take 51 percent of respondents’ votes compared to 33 percent for her.

Of the survey respondents, 40 percent had a very negative view of Jackson Lee, compared to 8 percent of Whitmire. While the race officially is nonpartisan, Jackson Lee is particularly weak among Republicans, only 2 percent of whom said they would vote for her. Whitmire, like Jackson Lee, is a Democrat, but he would take 56 percent of the GOP vote in the first round.

The poll writeup and data can be found here. I’ll get to my points in a minute but first here’s the Chron.

Whitmire’s edge over Jackson Lee in a runoff came largely from his anticipated sweep of Republican votes, with a whopping 88 percent of GOP respondents favoring him over Jackson Lee. These numbers highlight Whitmire’s bipartisan appeal, Jones said, a narrative he’s been championing since the start of his campaign.

Meanwhile, Jackson Lee is the preferred choice for Democrats in a potential runoff, albeit with a narrower margin of 55 to 28 percent.

“The reason why Whitmire is the winning candidate in the runoff is that he gets virtually all of the Republican vote, a large majority of the independent vote and at the same time is still able to win a quarter of the Democratic vote,” Jones said. “Republican votes lined up strongly behind Whitmire in large part because of his record on being tough on crime and his moderate image.”

The two candidates’ voter bases are markedly divided along demographic lines as well.

Jackson Lee commands a significant edge over Whitmire among Black likely voters in a runoff scenario, claiming 64 percent to Whitmire’s 19 percent. Whitmire, on the other hand, surpasses Jackson Lee among white and Latino likely voters, with 63 percent and 54 percent of those groups, respectively, saying they intend to vote for the state senator.

Differences also emerge along gender lines. Whitmire nudges ahead among women, with a runoff vote intention of 43 percent compared to Jackson Lee’s 38 percent. This lead significantly amplifies among men, where he garners 58 percent support, far ahead of Jackson Lee’s 27 percent.

[…]

Houston elections have a history of being unpredictable, according to Nancy Sims, a veteran political consultant and a political science lecturer at the University of Houston. With November still a few months away, the numbers in the poll should be taken with a pinch of salt, she said.

“It’s extremely early to be predicting a runoff,” Sims said. “It clearly gives Whitmire an advantage. What it doesn’t take into account, of course, are the issues and events that will occur as the campaigns heat up.”

Much of this election hinges on voter turnout, she said, and key factors will include whether Black voters — who overwhelmingly back Jackson Lee — become more engaged as the campaign evolves, whether Republicans ramp up their support for Whitmire, and whether some Democrats start to question Whitmire because of his moderate stance.

The early polling results have also painted a large target on Whitmire’s back, Sims said. As a result, both Jackson Lee and the other 12 candidates will likely focus their energy on challenging the state senator.

A Chronicle editorial that quoted Whitmire’s plan to bring in 200 Department of Public Safety troopers to Houston if he becomes mayor has stirred up some backlash from activists and others on social media. Sims said she expects more incidents like this will unfold in the coming months.

“One thing we’ve historically seen is, although mayoral elections are nonpartisan, they tend to take on a more partisan shape towards the runoffs,” Sims said. “Will the race begin to take on a bit more polarization as it moves forward? That could make all the difference.

Jeronimo Cortina, an associate professor of political science at the University of Houston, agreed with Sims’s assessment that substantial shakeups in voter sentiment could still occur.

“This is the first snapshot of the electorate in this particular point in time,” He said. “Can another candidate come up from the bottom or can someone slip from the top? Absolutely.”

All right, my thoughts:

– Election polling for city races is tricky because you just don’t know what the “likely voter” base looks like. It varies too much from cycle to cycle. We’ve only had two city elections since the change to four-year cycles in 2015. The numbers themselves in this poll are believable enough. It’s just that the error bars around them are very high, and that has nothing to do with the margin of error.

– One point I have made before is that there are a lot more registered voters now in the city of Houston than there were in 2015, the last time there was an open Mayor’s race. Over 150K new voters as of last year, probably more by the time we start voting. That means that the turnout level is higher to begin with, and the electorate will contain a significant number of people with at most one previous city election in their history. I don’t know how this poll screened for likely voters, but that is a challenge for any pollster.

– I’d have to look at the data on new voter registrations since 2015, but given the way Harris County elections have gone since then, I’m going to guess these folks lean decidedly Democratic. The two frontrunners are of course both longtime Democrats, but Whitmire’s support among Republicans could be wielded against him by the Jackson Lee campaign. That said, some of these newer voters are Republicans and independents, and some of the new Democrats are likely to be in alignment with Whitmire. At the opening jump, it’s not clear that either of these two candidates might have an edge among the newbies.

– It’s very important to remember that basically nobody is paying that much attention to the Mayor’s race right now. Outside of some yard signs, it’s not very visible yet. The non-Whitmire and SJL candidates have some money to spend but haven’t made their presence felt yet. Every poll is a snapshot in time. This one captures name ID more than anything else given where we are in the process.

– Runoffs are their own election entirely, and they have always exerted an outsized force on the Mayoral race because they tend to be concentrated in a couple of districts. What’s weird about this year is that with only three district Council races and no HISD races of interest, it’s likely that most if not all of the runoff energy will be in the other citywide races. (District H is the only Council district that looks like it will have a runoff, given the current state of the lineups.) I can’t think of a similar example from the past.

– The three potential At Large runoffs, as well as the Controller runoff, could feature a Black candidate as one of the choices. That would seem to favor SJL, given the poll’s data. On the other hand, at least one At Large race plus the Controller’s race could also feature a Republican candidate, and that would seem to favor Whitmire. District E could have a runoff if a third candidate emerges, and that would also favor Whitmire. My point here is that you can’t say anything about the Mayoral runoff without knowing what other races are also having runoffs.

– I think we are going to see more polling than usual in this race, and I think those polls are going to be all over the place. Please, whatever you do, be very careful about any narratives based on whatever poll (of whatever quality) that just got released.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged Election 2015, Election 2023, Gilbert Garcia, Harris County, Houston, Houston City Controller, John Whitmire, Lee Kaplan, Mayor, MJ Khan, polls, Robert Gallegos, runoff, Sheila Jackson Lee, turnout, voter registration | 19 Comments

San Antonio joins Houston’s “Death Star” lawsuit

Posted on July 26, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Welcome aboard, there’s plenty of room for more.

That’s no moon…

After weeks of complaints from council members who say the law’s vagueness is preventing them from doing their jobs, San Antonio leaders said Monday that the city has joined a lawsuit filed by the City of Houston earlier this month. Austin is also considering suing the state over the law.

“We are in solidarity with other Texas municipalities,” Mayor Ron Nirenberg said at a press conference Monday at City Hall. Also in attendance were City Attorney Andy Segovia, City Manager Erik Walsh and Councilwomen Teri Castillo (D5) and Melissa Cabello Havrda (D6).

“This is big government overreach, plain and simple, and it demonstrates the dangers of a radical agenda being codified session after session at the capital,” Nirenberg said.

Houston’s lawsuit claims HB 2127 is in conflict with the state constitution, which in 1912 gave cities the ability to govern themselves. The suit also suggests the new law lacks the “unmistakable clarity” required for a state to intervene in that authority.

The Texas Legislature has explored a number of bills in recent years that would restrict cities’ ability to regulate specific private employment practices, such as paid sick leave mandates, which are strongly opposed by the business community.

Rather than waiting to address those issues as they come up, proponents of HB 2127 say the law will prevent cities from venturing outside the policy areas that the state has explicitly given them authority to regulate in the first place.

The lawsuit San Antonio joined contends that HB 2127 significantly broadens the definition of “preemption,” or the legal concept used when one governing body seeks to restrict a lower government’s ability to set rules in a particular field. The idea is being deployed with increased frequency across the country to change the local governing landscape.

Segovia said the city “will be faced with litigation and continued ambiguity and vagueness” if HB 2127 takes effect.

“Ultimately city taxpayers will bear the brunt of these unanswered questions under HB 2127 through protracted litigation,” he said.

See here and here for the background. As I said, I welcome their participation and I hope they are joined by many other cities, in whatever capacity suits them best. It would be great on a number of levels if some number of smaller cities, in red areas, also sued, because this will affect them as well. I don’t know how likely that is – maybe those cities don’t think this affects them, or maybe there’s too much pressure on them to go along and get along – but it would be nice. I’ll keep an eye on it. The Current and Texas Public Radio have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Austin, Greg Abbott, Houston, lawsuit, local control, Ron Nirenberg, San Antonio, Senate, Sylvester Turner, Texas, The Lege | 1 Comment

The Lone Star Rail idea never truly dies

Posted on July 26, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I mean, it is a good idea, even if the obstacles seem to be impossible.

San Antonio and Austin, two of the fastest-growing U.S. cities, sit just 80 miles apart. That’s too close for regular flights and just far enough for a drive up Interstate 35 to be a real pain in the ass.

Among public transportation advocates, the distance between the two Texas cities is considered a sweet spot where reliable rail service isn’t just feasible but necessary.

With President Joe Biden’s signature “Build Back Better” bill allocating nearly $20 billion for rail transit, grassroots organizations — including San Antonians for Rail Transit and RESTART Lone Star Rail District — are popping up, pumping out petitions and grabbing the attention of local politicians.

“We are coalition-building right now, and our goal is to get different advocacy groups, nonprofits and even things like chambers of commerce to get on board and say, ‘Yes, we would benefit from a rail link between Austin and San Antonio,'” RESTART founder Clay Anderson said.

Indeed, a thesis published by one of Anderson’s former colleagues at Columbia University argues that a rail link connecting Austin and San Antonio would grab significant enough ridership to justify its expense.

However, the region has been down this road before. Business leaders spent decades talking about the idea, and the Lone Star Rail District, established to create such a line, crashed and burned in 2016 with little to show for the millions pumped into the entity.

Yeah, 2016, though there were a couple of mentions of a revival in 2019. I’ve been following this dream since 2009, though as noted the effort goes back much farther than that.

Again, it makes sense! Austin and San Antonio are close together. I-35 is a parking lot. The entire region is booming, with New Braunfels and San Marcos becoming regional powerhouses. There’s already a set of tracks! All that’s been missing is leadership, funding, vision, and consensus. No biggie.

Keep the dream alive, I say. It’s a good idea, and people will buy into it if they believe it’s an actual option. Maybe someday, with another federal infrastructure bill and a state government that wants to do something other than widen highways, it could happen. Hell, as long as we’re dreaming, we could extend that line farther south, too. It could happen, you never know. I wish them all well.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Austin, commuter rail, freight rail, high speed rail, I-35, Joe Biden, Lone Star Rail District, RESTART Lone Star Rail District, San Antonians for Rail Transit, San Antonio, stimulus, Texas | 4 Comments

“Parental rights” for me but not for thee

Posted on July 25, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

That’s what the anti-trans ban on gender-affirming care is all about.

Gov. Greg Abbott and state lawmakers have used variations of the phrase “parental rights” this year to push a litany of legislation, with varying degrees of success.

They’ve vowed to empower Texas parents in their fights for everything from sweeping changes to the state’s foster care system and what can be taught in schools to using tax dollars to subsidize kids’ private school tuition.

But Kari, a Georgetown mother of a transgender 17-year-old, says she feels like she has “no choices at all” as she and her family stare down a ban on puberty blockers and hormone treatments for trans minors that goes into effect Sept. 1.

“My rights as a parent have not only been infringed upon, but they’ve been stripped. I’ve been removed from making a decision about my child’s health care with my child and for my child,” said Kari, who agreed to talk to The Texas Tribune if her full name wasn’t used because she fears her family could be targeted by hate groups.

Senate Bill 14’s passage leaves families with trans kids in a myriad of challenging situations. Some are weighing the stress of uprooting their lives against the psychological damage their children could experience once access to gender-affirming care is cut off. Others are unable to leave the state and are preparing to watch their children go through what they call government-forced detransitioning. And one low-income family with a trans kid wants to move but is struggling to raise money to do so.

The law will allow trans minors already receiving transition-related care to be “weaned off” puberty blockers and hormone treatments in a “medically appropriate” manner. But parents and medical experts say the law doesn’t provide clarity on how that should happen — and that can be unsafe to wean people off of such treatment at all.

Texans whose kids are transgender say the law is an affront to the notion that Abbott and the Legislature are champions of parental rights since each of the choices it leaves them could have dire outcomes. And a new lawsuit that aims to block the ban on gender-affirming care argues that the law violates parental rights already enshrined in the state constitution.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and Lambda Legal are representing several doctors and parents of trans kids, who argue in the lawsuit that SB 14 violates those constitutional rights by stopping parents from providing medical care for their children. It also says the law discriminates against transgender kids because the ban applies only to them and allows cisgender children to access the same treatments for care that isn’t aimed at transitioning.

The state constitution says Texans can’t be “deprived of life, liberty, property, privileges or immunities, or in any manner disfranchised.” The suits argues that means Texas parents with transgender children should not be blocked from accessing the recommended treatment that doctors and medical groups say lessens trans kids’ higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicide.

“The Texas Constitution provides stronger rights for parents, stronger rights in the guarantees of equality … and much stronger rights with respect to the individual rights of autonomy,” Lambda Legal senior counsel Paul Castillo said. “Those decisions that rest with parents are at their apex when they are made in consultation with physicians who recommend this medically necessary care.”

[…]

Kari said she put in hours of research and had several discussions with her child’s therapist and doctor before deciding that testosterone treatments were the best way to avoid the “personal anguish” her son would feel as his body developed the physical characteristics of a gender with which he didn’t identify.

Lawmakers supporting the bill said children are too young to decide whether to undergo gender-affirming care, even though the treatments they will soon be banned from accessing are available to cisgender kids of the same age for other medical purposes.

“A lot of politicians throw around the term ‘informed decision,’ but that’s exactly what we’ve done,” Kari said.

Emily Witt, a spokesperson for the Texas Freedom Network, a left-leaning state watchdog organization that supports public education and religious freedom, said state leaders, in order to limit the rights of trans people, are using the term “parental rights” to tap into a groundswell of fears from Texans who think the government is going too far in determining what their kids learn.

“It’s been co-opted to tap into this cultural fear of not having control over your kids’ lives,” Witt said, “when really their agenda is erasing trans people.”

See here for more on the lawsuit, then go read the rest and try to put yourself in Kari’s shoes. I have multiple friends and one family member (that I know of at this time) who are parents of trans kids. I know how hard this enmity of the state has been for them (the family member lives in another state, one that isn’t hostile to them). I’m not an anxious person, I’m fortunate to not have to deal with pervasive negative thoughts, just normal parental worry. The thought that I could be criminalized by the state for giving my kid the love and care they need makes me hyperventilate. It also makes me very, very angry.

The people who are being targeted by this pernicious bigotry are facing some very dark times. I don’t know how long that may last or how bad it may get – Lord knows, it can very easily and very quickly get worse. I do know that our society as a whole will be the lesser for it, and in ways that are entirely predictable yet mostly invisible at this time.

At least once a day Dr. Ximena Lopez sees a parent crying in her clinic. They’re crying because Lopez just told them they need to find a new way to get transition-related care for their children — by leaving Texas or sourcing treatments outside the state — because the state outlawed these treatments for trans youth.

After a yearslong barrage by activists and lawmakers, the state has won the battle against the use of transition-related care, like puberty blockers and hormone therapies, for transgender youth. While the war over this health care remains in question — and a legal fight to block the new law begins in Texas — clinics have closed and some doctors have stopped providing this care.

“The reason why I’m leaving Texas is that it’s unbearable for me,” Lopez said. “It’s so devastating that I just can’t bear living in a state where I feel oppressed and where I’m just seeing my patients suffer.”

Lopez formerly provided gender-affirming care to trans youth as the director of the GENder Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support (GENECIS) program, which was jointly run by the Children’s Medical Center and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. By the end of July, she’ll no longer practice at the Dallas hospital and plans to move out of Texas.

In light of the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for kids, The Texas Tribune spoke with over half a dozen doctors who practice this type of medicine about the fear of losing their jobs, scaring away medical providers from working in Texas and — most importantly — revoking this critical health care for transgender children.

From state-launched investigations into the families of trans youth, to threats of actual violence, doctors are fearful to speak out against the attacks on transgender health care. Physicians raised concerns that the state is driving physicians away from Texas and inadequately training the next generation of medical professionals.

[…]

In recent months, many patients — including adults — have lost access to care as providers have left the state, a spokesperson for Texas Health Action, a nonprofit health care provider with clinics in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, told the Tribune.

Dr. Anita Vasudevan, a primary care physician from Texas who chose to continue practicing in California instead of returning to her home state because of the ban on gender-affirming care and abortion, said the loss of Lopez and the GENECIS program highlights the issue of specialized providers leaving the state. This translates to missed learning opportunities for medical professionals in training, which will result in worse care for patients, she said.

“We’re building a generation of providers that just, unfortunately, won’t receive the level of training that they need in order to take care of patients in the ways that they need to be taken care of,” Vasudevan told the Tribune. “That’s a hard pill to swallow.”

[…]

One area of particular concern, doctors said, is the worsening of an existing pediatric specialists shortage. In Texas, an estimated 17.4% of children have special health care needs that require attention from specialized pediatricians, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. These shortages mean patients have to travel longer distances and wait for weeks or months to see subspecialists, which can result in delaying or forgoing treatment.

Lauren Wilson, a pediatric hospitalist and the president of the AAP Montana chapter, partially attributes this shortage of doctors for children to the disparity in pay between adult and pediatric specialists. According to a 2023 compensation report from the healthcare-related companies Doximity and Curative, endocrinologists make nearly $60,000 more annually than their pediatric specialist peers, who undergo commensurate levels of training.

Shortages in this speciality — pediatric endocrinology — is of particular concern to Wilson because these doctors treat a wide range of children. This area of medicine deals with hormones and associated issues and mostly treats children with diabetes or growth problems. But these physicians also often specialize in gender-affirming care treatments like puberty blockers and hormone therapies for trans children (less specialized physicians can also administer gender-affirming care.)

[…]

It’s not clear how many doctors have left or will leave Texas in response to restrictions on gender-affirming treatments, but states that have enacted other health care restrictions offer some clues.

States with abortion bans saw a 10.5% decrease in applications for obstetrics and gynecology residencies in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Doctors, including Lopez, said they have already seen the effects with candidates deciding after the interview process not to accept positions in Texas “because of the politics.”

See here for previous blogging on Dr. Lopez and the GENECIS program, with a more recent update from Ginger. The “future doctor shortage” caused by our draconian anti-abortion laws is a regular beat around here. It may take awhile for these effects to be noticed, perhaps well past the time when the likes of Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick have swanned off to retirement communities. Plenty of us will still be around to feel them. Until then, the solution, or at least the mitigation, remains the same, and that’s at the ballot box. Say it with me one more time: Nothing will change until our government changes.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged abortion, ACLU of Texas, GENECIS, Greg Abbott, hospitals, Lambda Legal, lawsuit, Texas, The Lege, transgender rights, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Ximena Lopez | 2 Comments

The Harris Health System data breach

Posted on July 25, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

While a lot of the cybersecurity incidents that I’ve been tracking here could have been prevented by the entities that suffered them, this is an exception. And also a reminder.

Patient information was exposed in a cyberattack that affected the Harris Health System and other industries worldwide, officials said Friday in a news release.

The attack, which came to light last month, involved a Russian ransomware group that gained access to the file transfer software MOVEit. The compromised information at Harris Health varied by patient but may have included Social Security numbers, immigration status and information related to treatment, such as procedure information, treatment cost and diagnosis. The information did not involve Harris Health medical records or patient financial information, the release said.

The health system has started sending letters to affected patients with additional information on steps to monitor and protect their personal information. The system also offers complimentary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to patients whose Social Security numbers were compromised.

Patients are encouraged to review statements from their health insurer and healthcare providers and to contact the insurer or provider if they notice any services they did not receive.

[…]

Harris Health learned about the breach on June 2 and launched an investigation with a third party, the release said. The investigation found that the breach occurred on May 30.

The incident did not affect all Harris Health patients — only those whose information was included in the files downloaded from the MOVEit server, the release said. The Harris Health network remains fully operational and there has been no impact to patient care or services, the release said.

As the story notes, lots of companies and government entities were victimized by this attack, which was similar to the Accellion breach from 2021; indeed, the same attacker was responsible for both. MOVEit, like Accellion, is a SaaS application, so it is operated and maintained by the vendor. As the customer, you are relying on them to keep the barbarians from the gate. Sometimes you lose. That’s how it is with cybersecurity – you can do everything right on your end, but you’re still vulnerable because you’re dependent on partners, vendors, contractors, and so on. It just is what it is. Anyway, since I’ve blogged so much about this stuff I wanted to mention this one as well.

Posted in Technology, science, and math | Tagged cybersecurity, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure and Security Agency, data privacy, Harris County Public Health Authority, Houston | 1 Comment

Justice Department files that promised lawsuit over the Texas river wall

Posted on July 25, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s what happens next that really matters.

The U.S. Justice Department announced Monday it is suing Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott after the state declined to remove the floating barrier deployed earlier this month on the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass.

The lawsuit, filed in an Austin federal court, alleges the barrier was installed without necessary authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“Because Texas installed the Floating Barrier without seeking the Corps’ authorization, the Corps and other relevant federal agencies were deprived of the opportunity to evaluate risks the barrier poses to public safety and the environment, mitigate those risks as necessary through the permitting process, and otherwise evaluate whether the project is in the public interest,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit also alleges that the floating barrier obstructs navigation on the river and demands that the state remove the barrier.

[…]

Last week, the Justice Department sent a letter threatening legal action against the state if it did not respond with a commitment to remove the barrier by 1 p.m. Central time on Monday. Abbott responded with a letter to President Joe Biden on Monday morning committing to keep the barrier in place.

See here for the background. The Trib story doesn’t state what the aim of the lawsuit is, but the Associated Press indicates that the feds are asking for the river wall to be dismantled. Which is what I would have expected, but I like to be sure. The question to me is simply does the state of Texas comply if they lose in court, or do they go full Alabama and say “nah” and dare the courts or whoever to make them? And if it’s the latter, what happens then? I genuinely have no idea. I’d also rather not find out, but I fear and suspect that we will. The Chron, which notes that this is the second lawsuit Abbott is facing over this, has more.

Posted in La Migra, Legal matters | Tagged Army Corps of Engineers, border, bouy barrier, Eagle Pass, Justice Department, lawsuit, Mexico, Rio Grande, Texas | 2 Comments

July 2023 campaign finance reports: City of Houston, part 2

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Previously:
Congress
SD15
City of Houston, part 1
Harris County

January finance reports for city of Houston candidates are here. This post will look at the various At Large candidates. I’ll do the district races and the Controller’s race later. Let’s dive in.


Dist Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
=========================================================
AL1  Miles        189,366     28,313   50,000     161,052
AL1  Baker          3,795      2,725        0       1,070
AL1  Ramirez       34,301     21,079   20,000      40,892
AL1  Reyes         96,586     46,735        0      30,577
AL1  Wolfthal      57,025     31,454        0      44,892
AL1  Dolcefino

AL2  Nwabara       20,316     10,513   20,000      30,720
AL2  Hellyar      131,528     25,209        0     135,248
AL2  Vilaseca     109,182     23,792        0      89,585
AL2  Davis          9,500          0        0       9,500
AL2  Bess         146,587     26,024        0     109,525
AL2  Coryat        12,050      3,635        0       9,914

AL3  McCrutcheon    2,725      1,905        0         920
AL3  Carter       160,485     50,965    4,000     190,096
AL3  Cantu         43,623     13,586   10,000      30,038
AL3  Curry         17,812      2,148        0      15,670
AL3  Joseph        10,060     37,675  102,755      82,351
AL3  Cooper
AL3  Amadi
AL3  Nguyen
AL3  Ganz

AL4  Plummer       93,392     11,870    7,000     100,392
AL4  Morales       19,852     12,854      205      25,219
AL4  Branch         4,358      3,605        0         752

AL5  Alcorn       166,625     61,043        0     406,170
AL5  Cossey

As a reminder, the Erik Manning spreadsheet has your candidate listings. All of the files I’ve reviewed can be found in this Google folder.

We have a couple of oddball filings here. James Joseph listed $10,060 in unitemized contributions on his summary page, with $112,815 for his total raised. On his Subtotals page, which comes next, the $10,060 was listed as the total of his contributions, with $102,755 in loans. He also filed a correction report, which was signed by his treasurer instead of by him, but didn’t actually detail the correction he intended to make. I can infer what he intended, but he needs to file a correction to the correction.

Incumbent CM Letitia Plummer did something similar, listing an virtually impossible sum of $57,814 in unitemized contributions, with $93,392 as the total raised, and then put the $57,814 figure on the Subtotals page for her actual total contributions. That $93,392 plus the $7,000 loan she listed adds up to her $100,392 cash on hand total, which is also completely implausible. I looked back at the January reports to see if her cash on hand from there could be reconciled with these numbers, but it just can’t. I have no idea what her true numbers are; as of Thursday she had not filed a correction report.

Willie Davis, who has run a few times before, listed $1,272 in expenses from personal funds, which he intends to refund from contributions, which means his cash on hand number is really $8,228. I assume one does things this way because one needs to spend money before one has the ability to raise it, but all of his contributions are dated April 20 and all of his expenses came at or after that date. Go figure.

The two incumbents with challengers both look to be in good shape. CM Sallie Alcorn, who by all accounts has been a stellar member of Council, had another strong report and a well-stocked treasury against a no-name opponent who didn’t file a finance report. CM Letita Plummer has a reasonably well-known opponent in Roy Morales, who always seems to do better than I think he will. I could see him forcing this race to a runoff, but I feel confident CM Plummer will prevail in the end.

In At Large #1, going by the Manning spreadsheet, three of the six candidates are Dems and three are Republicans, but the three Dems were by far the biggest fundraisers, with Melanie Miles putting in the best numbers. Anthony Dolcefino ran in 2019 and has some name recognition thanks to his dad, but you don’t file a finance report, you don’t get any respect from me.

At Large #2 is all Dems except for the aforementioned Willie Davis, who made it to a runoff twice against outgoing incumbent David Robinson but never came close to beating him. Honestly, if I were the king of the smoke-filled back room, I’d consider moving one of Nick Hellyar, Holly Vilaseca, or Danielle Bess over to At Large #3. Only two of them can make the runoff here, so why not spread the strength around a bit?

As for At Large #3, Richard Cantu is a current HCDE Trustee, so he’s won elections before, but that’s not a high profile office and he doesn’t have much money. James Joseph has some money but it’s all loans and you really need more than $100K to get your name out there to the citywide electorate. That is the same Richard Nguyen who had previously served in District F, but without a finance report (and he wasn’t great at filing them as a Council member), what are you gonna do? I get a lot of campaign emails from Donnell Cooper, but (say it with me now), no campaign finance report, no respect. Twila Carter is the Republican candidate (well, Ericka McCrutcheon is also a Republican, but with 99% less juice) with support from the business community (her campaign contributors include Tilman Fertitta and Jim Crane) as well as endorsements from HPOU and HOME-PAC, the builders’ association. She’s the one to watch, but Houston’s a Democratic town and with a Mayoral runoff between two Democratic candidates she’s got a needle to thread in order to win. I don’t know which Dem currently in this race is best positioned to beat her.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged Anthony Dolcefino, At Large #1, At Large #2, At Large #3, At Large #4, At Large #5, campaign finance reports, Casey Curry, Conchita Reyes, Danielle Bess, Donnell Cooper, Election 2023, Ericka McCrutcheon, Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca, Houston, Houston City Council, James Joseph, John Branch, Kendall Baker, Leah Wolfthal, Letitia Plummer, Marina Coryat, Melanie Miles, Nick Hellyar, Obes Nwabara, Richard Cantu, Richard Nguyen, Roy Morales, Sallie Alcorn, Twila Carter, Willie Davis | 12 Comments

Steven Hotze enters the impeachment chat

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Wait, what?

A crook any way you look

Houston conservative activist Steve Hotze filed a lawsuit Friday challenging the gag order issued by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in Attorney General Ken Paxton’s impeachment trial, arguing the policy violates free speech protections under the Texas Constitution.

In a petition filed in Travis County District Court, Hotze also is seeking to block a rule that bars Paxton’s wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, from participating in private deliberations or voting in the trial. Both provisions are among a package of rules adopted by the Senate ahead of the trial, which is set to begin Sept. 5. The rules were approved on a 25-3 vote.

Hotze, an ultraconservative GOP donor who has long supported Patrick and Ken Paxton, argued the gag order “unreasonably restricts speech by prohibiting communication with an elected official.” The order prevents both sides from making public statements that carry the “substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the trial.” Violators face $500 fines and jail time.

“For all practical purposes, the Senate is saying we don’t want to hear from you Texans, even though we were elected to represent you,” said Jared Woodfill, Hotze’s attorney.

[…]

In the rule requiring Angela Paxton to recuse herself, Senate lawmakers cited a part of the Texas Constitution that bars members from voting on matters in which they have “a personal or private interest.” In his petition, Hotze argued the rule singles out Angela Paxton while ignoring conflicts of other senators. He noted that state Sens. Charles Schwertner and Mayes Middleton were allowed to fully participate in the trial, despite supporting Ken Paxton’s primary opponents in last year’s GOP primary.

“Every senator presiding over General Paxton’s impeachment trial has a bias or partiality for or against General Paxton,” the lawsuit reads. “Party affiliation alone raises partiality concerns. The Democrats in the Senate have worked to defeat General Paxton for years and most of the Republican senators have supported General Paxton.”

The lawsuit, which marks the first legal challenge to any part of the impeachment proceedings, names Patrick and the Texas Senate as defendants, along with the Senate sergeant-at-arms. Patrick oversees the Senate and will serve as the presiding officer, a role similar to that of a judge, during Ken Paxton’s trial.

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

Joining Hotze on the lawsuit is Allesan Paige Streeter, a Collin County resident who lives in Angela Paxton’s district and voted for her last year, according to the petition.

“By excluding Senator Paxton from the impeachment process, Ms. Paige is left without representation in a matter of state wide importance,” the petition reads.

Former state Rep. Molly White, a Republican who represented Central Texas, and talk radio host Sam Malone are also listed as plaintiffs.

I’m sitting here with my mouth hanging open, trying to formulate words. It’s harder than you might think.

Okay, first, how do any of these geniuses have standing to sue? This is a political process, and the decision to exclude Angela Paxton – which, as I have pointed out, doesn’t change the math for convicting Ken Paxton, because she will still count as being present, so the two thirds needed to convict him accounts for her as well – was handled according to Senate rules. Courts as a general matter do not get involved in that sort of thing. Maybe if you squint real hard you can see how the constituent might have some grounds for complaint, but by that logic then anyone in the state could file a similar lawsuit over the fact that the Attorney General they voted for has been suspended from office. But what the hell do the other two have to do with anything? If you look at what the lawsuit claims, it’s basically “no one will talk to them about the impeachment trial” and they’re both supporters of Ken Paxton. This is some quality Jared Woodfill lawyering right here.

Second, the invocation that this process is rife with political conflicts of interest, which is the same argument for barring three Dem Senators from serving as “jurors”, has a certain appeal. But once you open that can of worms, then the logical endpoint is that the impeachment process is itself impossible. Literally everyone is conflicted. The simple argument for why Angela Paxton is more conflicted than everyone else is that she’s literally his wife. I can see the case for not singling her out like that, once you accept the “everyone is conflicted” premise. But the Senate made its choice in the rulemaking process and then ratified it by vote. If the courts can step in and second guess that kind of thing, then again, I don’t see how any impeachment could ever happen.

Third…no, that’s enough. All of us are getting dumber by the minute as we contemplate this. It’s time to touch some grass. I’ll keep an eye on this, you go enjoy your weekend. You’re welcome.

Posted in Legal matters, Scandalized! | Tagged Angela Paxton, Dan Patrick, impeachment, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, Senate, Steven Hotze, Texas | Comments Off

Feds to sue over Abbott’s river wall

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good, but you’ll forgive me if I keep my expectations low.

The Department of Justice is ready to sue Gov. Greg Abbott over the floating buoy barrier he deployed in the Rio Grande to block migrants from crossing the river from Mexico into Texas near Eagle Pass.

The DOJ sent Abbott a letter on Thursday warning that the state’s buoy barrier is unlawful.

“The State of Texas’s actions violate federal law, raise humanitarian concerns, present serious risks to public safety and the environment, and may interfere with the federal government’s ability to carry out its official duties,” the department wrote, according to a copy obtained by Hearst Newspapers.

Assistant Attorney General Todd Kimm and Jaime Esparza, United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas, go on to write that the wall of buoys violates the Rivers and Harbors Act, which prohibits the creation of any obstruction to the navigable capacity of waters of the United States. They further point out that Texas did not seek authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deploy the barrier, which is required by the law.

“This floating barrier poses a risk to navigation, as well as public safety, in the Rio Grande River, and it presents humanitarian concerns. Thus, we intend to seek appropriate legal remedies, which may include seeking injunctive relief requiring the removal of obstructions or other structures in the Rio Grande River,” the letter states.

This is adjacent to, but not the same as, the pushing children into the river atrocity. The question I have is simply this: What enforcement mechanism will be used once the court order is in hand? Because we have Republican-controlled states already defying federal court orders, and I figure I’ll be named the next CEO of TwitterX before Greg Abbott willingly complies with this. So what happens then? Anyone want to speculate on a peaceful, law-abiding solution to this crisis? I’m not sure I can. The Trib has more.

UPDATE: On brand and as expected.

Posted in La Migra, Legal matters | Tagged Army Corps of Engineers, border, bouy barrier, Eagle Pass, Justice Department, lawsuit, Mexico, Rio Grande, Texas | 1 Comment

Weekend link dump for July 23

Posted on July 23, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

“Cult films are the lifeblood of so many cinephiles, and imagining a world without them points to a bleak and sanitized existence. Ross has a point. Streaming apps have become one of the dominant methods of consuming entertainment, effectively killing the rental market and continuing to choke out cable television. Cult classics existed before home video, and certainly before streaming, but we still have to wonder: Does the bleak future of streaming suggest a world without new cult classics?”

“America’s aging houses of worship face a stark choice: sell, redevelop, or pray for a miracle.”

“I recently spent a day at the Library of Congress, reading Goofus and Gallant strips from over the years, and found that the panels are remarkable windows into history. They chart the shifting freedoms and boundaries of childhood, and illustrate how adults’ expectations of kids have changed over the decades.”

“Anti-LGBTQ laws in the US are getting struck down for limiting free speech of drag queens and doctors”.

“It was the culmination of a bizarre shift for Rasmussen Reports. After two decades of fairly consistent right-leaning polling of elections and political issues, the firm had stopped acting like a normal pollster. Rather than simply asking Americans about their beliefs in conspiracy theories and fringe views, Rasmussen Reports has amplified those beliefs, lending them its legitimacy as a household name in politics — to the delight of right-wing politicians and influencers eager for new material.”

“To my mind, though, the anti-Semitism is almost the least interesting part of this. Kennedy is a full-of-himself conspiracy theorist and bullshit artist. The whole line of thought he’s spouting here is textbook. He makes these pretty outrageous claims. Each link in the chain of his argument comes in a factitious wrapping of bullshit.”

RIP, Jane Birkin, actor, singer, activist, namesake of the Hermès Birkin designer handbag, mother of actor Charlotte Gainesbourg.

“Alabama Republicans Are Daring the Supreme Court to Uphold Its Own Voting Rights Ruling”.

“Never make contact with a public toilet, never ever, ever cross a picket line. What was the third one? Oh yeah, never wear musk oil to the zoo.”

“Benjamin Franklin was so busy as an inventor, publisher, scientist, diplomat and U.S. founding father that it’s easy to lose track of his accomplishments. So add one more to the roster: his early work in printing colonial paper currency designed to counter a constant threat of counterfeiting.”

“The struggle to work enough to qualify for union health coverage is huge for actors, as the responses to a tweet by WGA member Caroline Renard highlight. Renard pointed out that it takes $26,000 a year in earnings on SAG-AFTRA jobs to qualify for insurance, and 87% of members don’t qualify in any given year. There were plenty of working actors ready to tell their stories.”

David Tennant is a mensch.

Boy, that story about The Dress sure took a dark turn.

“The latest Threads update adds a ‘follows’ tab, but it doesn’t do what you’d like”.

“While there is little doubt that many a Mesozoic mammal became a meal for a dinosaur, it may come as a surprise to learn that some mammals also dined on dinos.”

“Two Jupiter-like planets, known as PDS 70b and PDS 70c, are already known to orbit the star.
But astronomers also spied a cloud of debris within the orbital path of PDS 70b, which could represent the building blocks of a new planet that is actively forming or already formed. The scientists believe their direct image may be the strongest evidence to date showing that two exoplanets can share the exact same orbit.”

“The premise of the rule of law is that everyone is subject to it and no one is above it. And so, I hope that when we get through this agonizing period in American history, we will be able to say that everyone was treated fairly under the rule of law and that no one escaped criminal accountability for offenses against the United States just because of an office they once held or a certain kind of privilege.”

RIP, Kevin Mitnick, legendary hacker and author.

Netflix’s password sharing crackdown seems to be working pretty well.

A closer look at that “small town” video.

RIP, Tony Bennett, legendary singer.

“Kevin Maxen, an associate strength coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars, has become the first male coach in a major U.S.-based professional league to come out as gay.”

RIP, André Watts, award-winning pianist and one of the first Black superstars of classical music.

“In other words, I don’t think the timing of the trials or verdicts matters as much as we might think. It’s true that it would be better to have the trials and have a newly inaugurated Trump disappear them than to have them never held at all. But that’s a bit more of a moral victory than I have an appetite for. What it all comes down to is that you have a judicial and an electoral track. They may move in parallel. But a Trump victory on the electoral track will inevitably cancel a Trump defeat on the judicial one. The salient point to take from this is that Trump’s fate rests ultimately on the outcome of the election.”

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | Comments Off

A different kind of campaign finance violation

Posted on July 23, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The July reporting period sure has been eventful.

Mayoral hopefuls state Sen. John Whitmire and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee have accepted campaign donations from city contractors during prohibited periods, breaking a Houston ordinance designed to limit donors’ influence at City Hall.

The law in question bars city vendors from donating to any candidate within 30 days after a contract award. In at least 11 instances, however, Houston’s mayoral candidates accepted donations — totaling $38,000 — from representatives of these companies during blackout periods, according to their latest campaign finance reports and a log of contractors compiled by the city secretary.

Whitmire is involved in five of these cases, three of which concern contributions from Locke Lord, the law firm where he serves as counsel. Jackson Lee also received five such donations, and attorney Lee Kaplan received one. Most of the companies that made the contributions are long-term contractors, and some are frequent donors in local elections.

By law, if candidates have unknowingly violated the ordinance, they have 10 days to return the money. The ordinance defines contractors as donors who are corporate officers and directors or those with a sufficient ownership stake in the business. Out of the 11 contributions, six — totaling $22,000 — had the donors’ names explicitly listed in the city secretary’s logs of prohibited individuals.

Whitmire’s and Jackson Lee’s campaigns acknowledged their mistakes and promised to refund the money. Kaplan’s team said it is still reviewing the documents but would also give back any donation that violates the rules.

This marks the second time this week that the three campaigns have promised to return money they were not supposed to take. Before the latest revelations, they also admitted to receiving contributions that exceeded legal limits, with Jackson Lee expected to return at least $63,800 in excess donations.

[…]

Longtime political consultant Nancy Sims said that while candidates should regularly check the city secretary’s contractor list, companies are also responsible for monitoring their blackout periods. Many of these firms’ political insider status makes their infractions of ethics rules even less forgivable.

“You shouldn’t have contributions going to anyone that may be governing when your contract is up for review. The burden should be on the contractor to alert the candidates,” said Sims, now a lecturer at the University of Houston’s political science department. “These are experienced contractors that do lots of business with the city. They should know better.”

[…]

“There’s no enforcement mechanism to impose penalty. They’re just going to say, ‘Oh, we didn’t know. We’re going to refund it,’” Sims said. “Whether it’s somebody having over-donated, or it’s a question of how much money can be transferred from other accounts, or the contractor payments, there’s no enforcement mechanism to make all of these rules stick.”

“In any case, these contribution ordinances at the city of Houston need revisions,” she continued. “But they have to wait until after this election for that to happen. So maybe it’s a question voters need to be asking the candidates.”

Chris Bell, a former Houston City Council member, agreed with Sims that the city’s ethics laws need strengthening. As the former Ethics Committee chair, Bell drove a series of ethics reforms about two decades ago, including preventing those who raise money independently of a campaign — so-called soft money — from coordinating with the candidate.

As campaigns grow pricier and fundraising competition heats up, Bell said he sees an increased risk of ethical boundaries being overstepped.

“You really have to avoid a ‘pay to play’ system. If you’re not careful, that’s what you’ll end up with, where only the people who are in a position to give large sums of money are able to get anything done,” he said. “You have to have enough rules on the books so it doesn’t get completely out of control.”

See here for more on the July Mayoral finance reports. I knew about this ordinance, but as with the January non-filers, I don’t remember this being such an issue in past elections. Whitmire’s campaign suggested that part of the problem from their perspective was them juggling two different sets of finance rules between his state and city treasuries. I buy that as a reason, but it was still his choice to run this campaign, so.

I agree with Nancy Sims that much of the responsibility to know and follow this law should fall on the city contractors, who are there every year, unlike the candidates. In the spirit of what she and Chris Bell had to say, I have four points to make:

1. As with the issue of candidates, often first-timers, screwing up some fairly simple things on the finance reports, there ought to be a technical solution to this problem. By which I mean, as long as the city is maintaining a list of its contractors and knows when the blackout dates are, the software for creating and filing the reports ought to automatically check for disallowed donors, as well as for excess donations, missing or incorrect information, and so on. Obviously this has to be developed and tested first, but hey, the next city election will be in 2027. There’s plenty of time to get this project funded and off the ground, with the interim reporting periods available for testing. The main thing it would take to make it happen is a Mayor who pushes for it. Hmm, where do you think we might find such a Mayor?

2. Any review of the existing campaign finance system needs to be holistic, taking everything into account and making sure the whole thing makes sense and is as easy as possible to understand. Words like “byzantine”, “arcane”, or even “complicated” should never be used in talking about it. Avoid just bolting on new regs to the existing system, which is already all of those things. Again, this is a job for a Mayor.

3. No system, no matter how easy to grasp or use, will be effective without consequences for non-compliance. To me, the simplest path forward on that is to put some of those consequences on the donors themselves. Possibilities include banning them from making contributions for a cycle or more, or in the case of contractors ban them from doing business with the city for some period of time. I guarantee you, with the proper consequences, enforcement and compliance will be much easier.

4. That said, we have to be careful to not overreach. Neither SCOTUS nor the Texas Supreme Court are likely to be very sympathetic to regulatory overreach here, given Citizens United and the general anything-goes philosophy of campaign finance in this state. Chris Bell can testify to personal experience with that, given the elimination of the previous campaign contribution blackout in the city. Push for what will work, what will make compliance easier and simpler for everyone, and it can work. Push past that and risk a lawsuit you’re likely to lose, which will end up simplifying the rules by getting rid of most if not all of them.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged campaign finance reform, campaign finance reports, Chris Bell, Election 2023, Houston, John Whitmire, Lee Kaplan, Mayor, Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas | 1 Comment

The Brandon Cammack files

Posted on July 23, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The impeachment trial of Ken Paxton may help answer some questions about one of the more brazen (alleged) attempts by Paxton to help his buddy Nate Paul.

A crook any way you look

More than a year before Ken Paxton would be impeached by the Texas House, a state Senate committee began poking around an issue that could help determine whether the Republican attorney general remains in office or not.

At issue was Brandon Cammack, a five-year lawyer hired by the attorney general’s office in 2020 to investigate whether a Paxton friend — Austin real estate investor Nate Paul — had been mistreated in a federal investigation into Paul’s businesses.

Paxton has argued that Paul raised important questions that required investigation. But for high-ranking whistleblowers in Paxton’s office, Cammack’s hiring was one example of Paxton’s extraordinary willingness to misuse his power to help Paul.

At a February 2021 meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Joan Huffman — an influential Republican from Houston — asked Paxton how Cammack had come to be hired.

The question was an important one. In fall 2020, eight executives in Paxton’s agency met with FBI agents and state investigators to accuse Paxton of misusing his official authority to help Paul by hiring Cammack and by taking other unusual actions. Cammack, they alleged, misrepresented himself as a special prosecutor to secure 39 subpoenas intended to harass law enforcement and prosecutors investigating Paul.

Paxton referred Huffman’s question to his top aide, First Assistant Attorney General Brent Webster, even though Paxton was directly involved in hiring and supervising Cammack and Webster was working elsewhere when Cammack was hired.

Standing next to Paxton, Webster replied that the Travis County district attorney’s office had asked for help investigating Paul’s claim that search warrants for his home and businesses had been improperly doctored in 2019.

Webster said Cammack was hired by the attorney general’s office as an “outside counsel” to assist the Travis County district attorney’s office with its investigation of Paul’s claims. Cammack later became a special prosecutor when he “worked with” the district attorney’s office to get the grand jury subpoenas, Webster said.

“I’ve interviewed [assistant district attorneys] from Travis County and seen documents from Travis County that prove the fact that the Travis County DA’s office made Brandon Cammack a special prosecutor,” Webster said. “We did not make Brandon Cammack a special prosecutor, that was within the purview of the Travis County DA’s office.”

Travis County prosecutors say Webster’s portrayal was not true.

Margaret Moore, the district attorney at the time of Cammack’s hiring, said her office did not ask Cammack to investigate the case or seek any subpoenas.

“We didn’t even know him,” Moore said.

Gregg Cox, who worked in high-level positions for the Travis County district attorney’s office until 2020, said Cammack obtained the subpoenas on his own.

“There was no invitation, there was no request, there was nothing that would have authorized the use of a special prosecutor or the issuance of grand jury subpoenas,” Cox said.

“They’re trying to justify something that was done inappropriately by falsely describing it,” Cox said.

As the Texas Senate prepares for Paxton’s impeachment trial in September, Webster’s comments could come under scrutiny by some of the same senators who heard his testimony in February 2021.

This is a long story, and it boils down to whether Paxton hired this green attorney to act as a “special prosecutor” for the sole purpose of throwing sand into the gears of the FBI investigation of Nate Paul, and also whether he then lied about it to the Senate when they asked him. We first heard the name “Brandon Cammack” almost three years ago, and he and this saga were a big part of the House General Investigations Committee’s hearings, which were explosive in their own right and then led to the impeachment itself. I’m sure the feds will be watching this. Paxton minion Brent Webster may have his own legal stuff to sweat about because of this as well. I cannot wait for this trial to begin.

Posted in Scandalized!, That's our Lege | Tagged Attorney General, Brandon Cammack, Brent Webster, bribery, District Attorney, FBI, impeachment, Jeff Mateer, John Cornyn, Ken Paxton, Margaret Moore, Mitte Foundation, Nate Paul, Senate, special prosecutor, Texas, The Lege, Travis County | Comments Off

Flying cars update

Posted on July 23, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

They’re coming, part one.

Aviation startup Alef Aeronautics recently received Federal Aviation Administration approval to test its flying car.

Details: The all-electric “Model A” is designed to take off and land vertically, putting it in the emerging category of eVTOL — electric vertical takeoff and landing — aircraft.

Alef expects to sell the Model A for $300,000 a piece, and says it has received hundreds of pre-orders.

Reality check: “Flying cars” have captured the public’s imagination since one appeared in the 1974 Bond flick “The Man With the Golden Gun” — but such projects usually fizzle out.

Flying cars tend to be both bad cars and bad airplanes.

Case in point: The Alef is being designed to have 200 miles of road range or 110 miles of airborne range, and can carry a max of just two people.

Those aren’t impressive numbers. Today’s best electric cars are topping 300 miles of range, while even your basic four-seat Cessna 172 can cover over 600 nautical miles without refueling.

Plus, the Alef is limited to just 25 mph while in driving mode.

The bottom line: eVTOLS are coming, but they probably won’t be privately owned — think more “Uber for the skies” than “car I can fly.”

Hold that thought, because here’s part two.

Joby Aviation has been cleared by the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) to start flight tests on its first production prototype air taxi, the company wrote in a press release. It’s a large step in the company’s aim to start shipping the eVTOL aircraft (electric vertical takeoff and landing) to customers in 2024 and launch an air taxi service by 2025.

“The aircraft will now undergo initial flight testing before being delivered to Edwards Air Force Base, California, where it will be used to demonstrate a range of potential logistics use cases,” Joby wrote.

The aircraft can take off and land like a helicopter, then tilt its six rotors horizontally and fly like an airplane at up to 200 MPH. It’s designed to carry a pilot and four passengers over a distance up to 100 miles on a charge — enough range for most types of air taxi operations. At the same time, Joby claims it’s nearly silent in cruise mode and 100 times quieter than conventional aircraft during takeoff and landing.

Joby’s first production prototype recently rolled off the company’s assembly line in Marina, California. The plant was built in partnership with Toyota, Joby’s largest investor with a $394 million stake. Cementing that relationship, Joby announced that it was appointing Toyota North America CEO Tetsuo (Ted) Ogawa to the board of directors.

Here’s more.

The production prototype eVTOL — Joby’s third full-scale prototype — also received a special airworthiness certificate issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and can now begin flight testing.

“This first aircraft coming off our pilot manufacturing line is a really, really big deal for the company,” JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby, told TechCrunch. “We have spent many years building the processes and procedures and capabilities as an organization to be able to deliver this level of of aircraft. We’ve been building since 2017, but to be able to build with this level of rigor is a huge step forward. It prepares us for this next stage of the certification process.”

Joby has already flown more than 30,000 miles since 2019 on pre-production prototype aircraft. This latest iteration builds on that experience and puts the company closer to achieving type certification with the FAA. Type certification means that the FAA approves of Joby’s aircraft design and component parts, and that the design is compliant with the agency’s standards for airworthiness and noise.

Joby nearly has three out of the five necessary stages of the type certification process underway, according to Bevirt. The final step after type certification would be production certification, which will allow Joby to mass produce eVTOLs under FAA-approved designs.

[…]

Bevirt wouldn’t say where Joby intends to commercialize air taxi operations first, but he did say that the company has been working closely with the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau, which Bevirt describes as “extremely forward leaning.”

“We’ll be continuing to engage with them on our path to bringing the service to Japan,” he said.

I’ve blogged a lot about flying cars, most recently two years ago. Looking back, it seems like there have been a lot of prototypes, and not much that came anywhere close to the market. These two at least look to be more realistic in the short to medium term. I can see the use case for “flying taxis” – we do already have helicopters for that purpose, almost entirely for the very rich because those things are super expensive – and if they’re electric then that at least makes them somewhat less objectionable. Safety, not just for the passengers and pilots but also for the people on the streets below since these are intended for urban areas, as a way to beat the traffic, remains a big question, and even if the price for a ride is a lot less than for a helicopter it’s still not going to be cheap. Just know that when these things do come to Texas, the only rules for them will come from the feds and from the Legislature, since the cities will be barred from putting any restrictions on them unless they can prevail in their litigation against the Death Star bill. Look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s two tons of debris about to fall on your head.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged air taxis, Alef Aeronautics, California, electric cars, eVTOL, Federal Aviation Administration, flying cars, Japan, Joby Aviation, taxis, Texas, The Lege | 2 Comments

Paxton attorneys seek to bar three Democratic Senators from the impeachment trial

Posted on July 22, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Why stop at three? Why not try to bar them all?

A crook any way you look

Lawyers for suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton are pushing to disqualify three Democratic state senators as jurors in his upcoming impeachment trial.

Paxton’s lawyers filed a motion Friday that asks Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to disqualify Sens. Nathan Johnson of Dallas, Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio and José Menéndez of San Antonio, arguing they have a proven bias against Paxton.

“Like numerous courts around the country, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held for almost a century that potential jurors with a bias or prejudice against the accused are disqualified from serving on his jury as a matter of law,” the motion said. “Jurors José Menendez, Roland Gutierrez, and Nathan Johnson have such a bias and have proclaimed it loudly, time and again.”

The motion cites a number of critical public statements that the senators have made about Paxton over the years, including some in recent weeks. For example, it points to an MSNBC interview last month in which Gutierrez, who is also a candidate for U.S. Senate next year, said the evidence the House gathered “could not be refuted.”

“No one who has publicly declared the charges against a defendant irrefutable can even play at impartiality, let alone serve in an impartial manner,” Paxton’s lawyers argued.

The motion also cites a Tuesday tweet from Johnson reacting to news that a pro-Paxton political action committee had recently given $3 million to Patrick, who is presiding over the trial. Johnson called the donation “obscene.”

The tweet not only proved Johnson’s bias but also violated a gag order Patrick had issued the day before, according to Paxton’s lawyers.

[…]

The impartiality of senators has long been a source of debate given that Paxton is a former senator himself, his wife currently serves in the chamber and they have their own relationships with senators. Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, is even referenced in the articles of impeachment as an unwitting “straw requestor” for an attorney general’s office legal opinion that helped Paul. Hughes has not been disqualified.

We have seen plenty of comparisons to the criminal justice process in the course of this impeachment. That’s understandable, since this is a trial and it kind of follows the trial process we’re all familiar with, but it’s limited in its applicability. In a real criminal trial, any potential juror who knew personally anyone on the prosecution or defense would immediately be excused. We obviously can’t do that here, there would literally be no one left to serve on the “jury”.

Does any of the facts alleged cross some kind of line? Nobody knows, but Dan Patrick gets to decide, based on whatever vibes he’s feeling. It’s not like there’s going to be an appeals process to sort it out. My best guess is that Patrick won’t want to have to deal with this, but again, who knows? We’re so far into uncharted waters we don’t even remember what the navigation tools we have are for.

Posted in Scandalized!, That's our Lege | Tagged Bryan Hughes, Dan Cogdell, Dan Patrick, impeachment, Jose Menendez, Ken Paxton, Nathan Johnson, Roland Gutierrez, Senate, Texas, Tony Buzbee | 3 Comments

This is what I mean by building trust

Posted on July 22, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Not great, HISD.

Some Houston ISD teachers at schools in Superintendent Mike Miles’ New Education System were upset Monday morning to wake up to contract offers with lower salaries than what they expected and, in some cases, lower than what they earned before.

Miles has said since he arrived June 1 that teachers at the 28 NES schools, mostly in northeast Houston, will make an average of about $85,000 per year, a statement that appears to hold true after salary tables were released over the weekend. A wide pay range, however, will see some educators, such as elementary elective teachers, make $63,000 while a third-grade reading teacher at the same school will earn at least $20,000 more.

The previous, traditional salary schedule did not differentiate teachers’ pay based on grade level or subject matter.

Jackie Anderson, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said such disparities “disenfranchise” educators, saying teachers “come to work together as a team to make students successful, and to value one more than the other is not a good way to build a cohesive unit or foster morale.”

Miles, however, says districts need to “maximize their effectiveness by aligning compensation to what they value.”

[…]

[Miles] noted that for a majority of NES teachers, the salaries will be significantly higher than what they would have received otherwise, even before taking the $10,000 stipends that teachers will also receive into account.

“That’s a pretty doggone good salary, even for experienced, veteran teachers,” Miles said.

At least one longtime teacher, however, was offered a salary lower than what she would have received under the previous salary schedule.

“If I had known I was going to take a pay cut, I wouldn’t have applied for that position,” said the 30-year veteran, an elective teacher at an NES high school who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal.

The elective teacher was set to make $80,500 next year under the old payment plan. On Monday morning, she woke up to a contract offer sent the night before for $77,000. The teacher said she likely would have retired had she known about the pay cut, but because the salary tables were posted online after the July 14 deadline to resign, she feels she has no choice but to carry on.

The $10,000 stipend offered to NES teachers does little to soften the blow, she said.

“I don’t work for a stipend — I work because I love what I do,” she said. “The paycheck looks good when you give us the stipend, but if you’re going to cut my regular pay, then that’s a problem. It’s a sign of disregard for us with experience.”

Miles has previously stated that no NES teacher would earn less than they did the year before, and when asked about the teacher’s case, he said it was likely due to a mistake in the human resources office, where 40 positions were cut earlier this month as part of a massive reorganization of the central office. He denied that the reorganization had anything to do with the error and said the teacher should raise the issue up the proper “chain of decision-making” so that the situation can be rectified.

He has said supporting teachers is critical to the success of the NES program, which, in addition to generally higher salaries and stipends, provides them with prepared lesson plans along with “teacher apprentices” and “learning coaches,” who handle noninstructional duties such as making copies and grading papers.

But some teachers say the criteria by which their salaries were decided was never made clear to them. One teacher at a different NES high school, who also requested anonymity, said he has worked in the district for six years and expected to make $85,000, as that was the average number that has been presented since Miles was appointed superintendent June 1.

Instead, he woke up to a contract offer for $83,000, $2,000 above the minimum for a teacher of government, economics and AP courses with three years of experience. He described the opaque process as “trying to fly a plane while building the plane.”

“I’m appreciative (for the higher salary), but I’m also disheartened, because how this process has played out has been piecemeal and they’re cutting corners,” the teacher said.

The teacher said educators across the district relied on a draft of a salary table for NES middle school teachers — shared at an informational meeting with administrators last month — to make an educated guess as to what their own pay would look like. When the salary table for NES middle schools was posted online over the weekend, however, those salaries were all $2,000 lower than what was presented.

Miles said he was unaware of a different salary table being distributed and that the salary tables have not changed.

Let me state up front that the non-positive experience of two employees doesn’t mean that everything is messed up. There’s not enough data to draw that conclusion, and some of the facts presented appear to be in dispute. This may all turn out to be much ado about very little.

That said, when you as a top manager make a claim that the “average salary” of your base employee is going to increase, people will interpret that to mean that all of those salaries are going to go up. That’s not how the math works, but it’s very much how the psychology works, and it’s because of the way that information was communicated. You could have said “most salaries will go up”, you could have said “many people will get pay raises”, you could have said “these positions will see salary increases” – there are any number of ways to be clear, if implicitly so, that some people will fare better than others, and some people will be worse off than before.

But that’s not what HISD did here, and the fact that people did not find out about this until after the deadline to resign suggests that they were trying to distract from, if not outright hide, this reality. Maybe these examples cited are the result of clerical error or misunderstanding, but if so the proximate cause of those issues was the speed in which HISD acted, which didn’t give people time to figure out all the changes going on around them.

Yes, I know, HISD had to act fast in order to be ready for the new school year, which starts in just a few weeks, and yes I know they want to get the Miles plan implemented right away so as not to lose time in hopefully improving student outcomes. I get that and I agree that some of this was inevitable as a result. It’s still on Mike Miles and his team, as well as the TEA, to minimize these problems and make them right as quickly as possible as well. More to the point, it’s on them to be as clear as they can be about what will happen to the people of HISD, none of whom asked for all these changes to be visited on them.

It’s about building trust. If the people of HISD feel they’re getting the short end of the stick, especially if they feel they were misinformed about getting the short end of the stick, it will do the opposite of building trust. And whatever the NES ultimately achieves in the classroom, if people feel like they were mistreated in getting there, the first thing they’re going to want to do when they regain the power to do it is to get rid of the NES. If Mike Miles want this thing to last, which was not his legacy in Dallas, he needs to pay more attention to that. Houston Landing has more.

PS: This isn’t about whether or not certain types of teachers “should” be paid more than others. I’m not taking a side in that debate, at least not here. The issue here is about how HISD’s actions were communicated. They could and should have done better.

Posted in School days | Tagged Board of Managers, HFT, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Mike Miles, Mike Morath, New Education System, Texas Education Agency | Comments Off

Farewell, ERIC

Posted on July 22, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Into the unknown…

The Texas secretary of state submitted its exit notice Thursday to a national coalition that is one of the best tools to combat voter fraud, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Votebeat.

The withdrawal from the program comes after Republican leaders pushed the effort and approved legislation to stop using the Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC, a program 27 states use to check duplicate voter registrations and clean voter rolls. The campaign to withdraw was underway among members of the Texas Republican Party and Republican lawmakers for more than a year but was rooted in misinformation and election conspiracy theories.

According to the secretary of state’s resignation letter, the state’s exit will be effective in three months, in accordance with the program’s bylaws. By then, a law approved by the Texas Legislature this session, authored by Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, will have gone into effect. That legislation directs the secretary of state to build its own version of a multistate cross-check program or to find a “private sector provider” with a cost that won’t exceed $100,000. Hughes did not respond to Votebeat’s request for comment.

Alicia Pierce, the secretary of state’s spokesperson, said the state could not stay in ERIC because it must now comply with the requirements in the Hughes legislation. She also pointed to previous exits from the coalition by eight other Republican-led states since 2022: Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Ohio, West Virginia, Missouri, Iowa and Virginia, all of which faced similar political pressure.

“As fewer states are participating, the costs are increasing and the amount of data we’re going to receive will be reduced,” Pierce said.

Nonetheless, Texas law still requires the state to participate in a multistate data-sharing program to clean its voter rolls, which is what led the state to join ERIC in 2020. When the state stops using ERIC in October, it will be in violation of that requirement unless it finds an acceptable substitute, which won’t be easy.

[…]

State Rep. John Bucy, a Democrat from Austin, said the announcement Thursday was frustrating because ERIC is an effective tool.

“The GOP push to get out of ERIC shows they’re not committed to safe and accurate elections as they claim, but instead are committed to placating extremists in their party that perpetuate the big lie,” Bucy said in a text message.

Bucy successfully added two amendments to Hughes’ bill to withdraw from ERIC in an effort to add some “guardrails” to the law. Those provisions require that a new system used by the secretary of state complies with the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and all state and federal laws relating to the protection of personal information. Private vendors must do a background check for each employee of the system.

See here for the past history. I predict that in 2025 the Secretary of State comes back to the Lege and pleads for help in figuring out what to do next, because it’s confusion and grifters from here. Good luck with that.

Posted in That's our Lege | Tagged Bryan Hughes, Election 2020, Election 2022, Election 2024, Electronic Registration Information Center, Jane Nelson, John Bucy, Secretary of State, Texas, The Lege, voter registration, voter suppression | Comments Off

July 2023 campaign finance reports: Harris County

Posted on July 21, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Previously:
Congress
SD15
City of Houston, part 1

January 2023 reports are here. Not all of these people are on the 2024 ballot. I am not including JPs and County Court candidates. Some potential opponents have already filed finance reports, others have just filed their designation of treasurer reports. I did not include the latter.

Lina Hidalgo, County Judge

Rodney Ellis, County Commissioner, Precinct 1
Adrian Garcia, County Commissioner, Precinct 2
Tom Ramsey, County Commissioner, Precinct 3
Lesley Briones, County Commissioner, Precinct 4

Kim Ogg, District Attorney
Sean Teare, District Attorney
Christian Menefee, Harris County Attorney
Ed Gonzalez, Sheriff
Joe Danna, Sheriff
Mike Knox, Sheriff
Glenn Cowan, Sheriff
Ann Harris Bennett, Tax Assessor

Alan Rosen, Constable Precinct 1
Jerry Garcia, Constable Precinct 2
Sherman Eagleton, Constable Precinct 3
Mark Herman, Constable Precinct 4
Samantha Hutchinson, Constable Precinct 4
Ted Heap, Constable Precinct 5
Don Dinh, Constable Precinct 5
Silvia Trevino, Constable Precinct 6
May Walker, Constable Precinct 7
William Wagner, Constable Precinct 7
Gary Hicks, Constable Precinct 7
Phil Sandlin, Constable Precinct 8

Teneshia Hudspeth, County Clerk
Marilyn Burgess, District Clerk

Alexandra Mealer, County Judge


Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
======================================================
Hidalgo         308,805    263,145   51,400     79,391

Ellis           842,786    192,512        0  5,088,044
Garcia, A       875,179    433,933        0    783,975
Ramsey          110,935     69,854        0    995,114
Briones         790,509    313,925        0  1,179,611

Ogg              55,695     28,571   48,489    274,748
Teare           748,317    102,192        0    608,269
Menefee         266,626     29,719        0    424,716
Gonzalez         60,230      8,162        0     63,173
Danna             3,865     32,853   30,452        240
Knox             26,300      8,872   10,000     11,035
Cowan             6,275      3,078        0      3,196
Bennett               0      3,559        0      8,420

Rosen            10,000     24,895        0  1,306,176
Garcia            5,000      2,674        0     54,069
Eagleton         85,985     62,682  119,650     82,462
Herman          201,067     89,551        0    620,869
Hutchinson            0          0        0          0
Heap             96,278     59,885    8,044    100,854
Dinh             69,661     21,533        0     48,527
Trevino           3,150      4,270        0     26,871
Walker                0          0        0          0
Wagner                0          0        0          0
Hicks             1,417        127        0      1,290
Sandlin             500      9,765        0     70,733

Hudspeth          1,800     11,829        0         19
Burgess          11,196     10,532    5,207     10,641
Wyatt             

Mealer                0    161,679        0     27,258

I fully expect Judge Hidalgo to build her treasury back up; she does have plenty of time for it. I was a little concerned about her spend rate – there were a lot of recurring expenses for consulting and campaign services, about $23K total to two law firms plus Bob Stein for legal services (almost certainly related to the ridiculous 2022 election contest), and $50K in loan repayment to Rodney Ellis’ campaign. Hopefully at least the legal fees will go away soon.

As for Alex Mealer, she paid $75K to the Republican Party of Texas, who I’m guessing is paying her lawyers in this mess, and $33K to a pollster. She made contributions to the Mike Knox and Mary Nan Huffman campaigns, and also to someone named Sean Cheben, who is running for HCC. Watch that name, he’s someone not to vote for. Oh, and her campaign subscribes to the Houston Chronicle. I’m gonna shut my mouth right here.

Commissioners Court is three-quarters of what I’d expect. Commissioners Ellis and Garcia have always been strong fundraisers. Commissioner Briones is clearly following in their path. I guess Commissioner Ramsey figured he had enough cash on hand to be able to take it easy this period. I’m assuming this is a one off, he is on the ballot next year. We’ll see what his January report looks like.

Sean Teare’s total for his primary challenge to Kim Ogg is eye-popping, easily the most interesting number in this post. Among his contributors:

– Defense attorney Dan Cogdell, currently trying to salvage Ken Paxton’s term as AG, who gave $10K. Another person who listed herself as an employee of the Buzbee law firm kicked in $1,000.
– Mike Doyle, new HCDP Chair, $50. I assume it’s that Mike Doyle, anyway.
– Zach Fertitta, 2012 Dem candidate for DA who lost in the primary, $1000.
– One person who listed their employer as the Harris County DA’s Office, and one person with the Harris County Public Defender, $500 for the first and $200 for the second. I’ll leave their names out of it.

What makes it even more surprising is Ogg’s paltry total by comparison. I have to wonder if she will take this as a warning sign, or if she’ll just keep on doing what she’s doing.

I’m glad to see a strong total from Christian Menefee. I don’t expect him to face a serious challenge, but he’s done great work, he’s got a big future, and I hope to see him grow a base of support. This is a good start towards that.

As noted above, several Constables have challengers in the queue. I could not tell if Samantha Hutchinson is a Democrat or Republican – neither Google nor Facebook was of assistance. Don Dinh is a Democrat, and he’s off to a good start. I assume that Wagner and Hicks are Dems, it would be weird in Precinct 7 for them not to be. Constable May Walker didn’t file a report in January – at least, not as of when I posted about it – but as you can see, she’s not doing any fundraising. She still needs to file reports, but at least you can see why it might have gotten skipped. I have to wonder if she’s going to make a retirement announcement – she was first elected in 2004, she could be ready to hang them up. I’m just speculating here. Treasurer Carla Wyatt also did not have a report as of when I looked.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged Adrian Garcia, Alan Rosen, Alexandra Mealer, Ann Harris Bennett, campaign finance reports, Carla Wyatt, Christian Menefee, Commissioners Court, Constable, Democratic primary, District Attorney, District Clerk, Don Dinh, Ed Gonzalez, Election 2022, Election 2024, Gary Hicks, Glenn Cowan, Harris County, Harris County Attorney, Harris County Clerk, Harris County Judge, Harris County Sheriff, Harris County Tax Assessor, Harris County Treasurer, Jerry Garcia, Joe Danna, Kim Ogg, Lesley Briones, Lina Hidalgo, Marilyn Burgess, Mark Herman, May Walker, Mike Knox, Phil Sandlin, Rodney Ellis, Samantha Hutchinson, Sean Teare, Sherman Eagleton, Sylvia Trevino, Ted Heap, Teneshia Hudspeth, Tom Ramsey, William Wagner | 2 Comments

Paxton gets to fight his State Bar case after impeachment

Posted on July 21, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s just one thing after another.

A crook any way you look

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won’t have to fight an ethics lawsuit over his challenge to the 2020 presidential election results until after his impeachment trial.

Paxton’s lawyers on Tuesday asked the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas to delay oral arguments in the case, which were originally set for Sept. 13, until after his impeachment trial. They are also representing Paxton in impeachment, the lawyers argue, noting it would be difficult to handle both cases at once.

“It is the first [impeachment] of a statewide elected official in over 100 years, and it presents extraordinarily complex issues which require extensive preparation. It would therefore prove difficult for counsel to provide competent representation in this matter as well without postponing argument,” wrote matter as well without postponing argument,” wrote Judd Stone and Christopher Hilton, two lawyers on leave from Paxton’s agency in order to defend him against impeachment.

The state bar disciplinary committee that filed the lawsuit will not oppose the request to postpone, a spokesperson confirmed Thursday.

Paxton’s impeachment trial, in which senators will vote on whether to remove him from office, is scheduled to kick off Sept. 5. It is likely to take two to three weeks, according to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who will preside over the trial.

This means the state bar case is unlikely to resume until at least October.

See here for the previous update, which was about the hearing in Judge Blair’s courtroom. I missed his ruling, which came in January. This now-rescheduled hearing is Paxton’s appeal of Blair’s ruling. Note that all of this is about whether the hearing on the disciplinary charges against Paxton can proceed. The actual disciplinary hearing, if it is eventually allowed to proceed, would come many months later. It is what it is.

I don’t have a problem with this being pushed back till after the impeachment trial. Amusing as it would have been for them to overlap, this is the proper way to go, even for Ken Paxton. And it does keep the story in the news longer, so there’s that. I had originally written a post about how the hearing was going to overlap, based on a Texas Lawyer story, which is now obsolete. That original post is now beneath the fold if you’re curious.

Continue reading →

Posted in Legal matters, Scandalized! | Tagged Brynne VanHettinga, Donald Trump, Election 2020, Jim Harrington, Kaufman County, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, President, SCOTUS, Solicitor General, State Bar of Texas, Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project | 3 Comments

Dispatches from Dallas, July 21 edition

Posted on July 21, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in news from the Metroplex, a big police expose in the DMN, the seventh anniversary of the July 7 Dallas police ambush, Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas and his Cowboys connection, how Dallas is dealing with state regulation of cities’ ability to regulate, short-term rentals, Texas Monthly’s deep dive on Highland Park real estate dealings, and the candidate plans for the DMA’s expansion. Plus: the season opening of cricket, the opening of Meow Wolf in Grapevine, and some baby cranes.

If you take nothing else away from this post, please read this Dallas Morning News expose on the investigation into former DPD officer Christopher Hess, who ultimately killed a woman on the job. He was indicted for aggravated assault and DPD fired him at that time. While Hess was acquitted, the lawsuits around the killing of Genevieve Dawes continue.

This story is not about Dawes and what Hess did to her. This story is about all the times DPD could and should have stopped him for abusing citizens before he got to the point of killing one. (Accordingly, consider yourself warned for police violence and homicide in the story. I did not watch the videos; the story was enough.)

To go with the investigation, I give you a handful of law enforcement headlines in Dallas area news sources I read from the last two weeks: Dallas police officer gets 5-day suspension for making challenge coin decried as racist; Civilian driver killed during Forth Worth police chase; In Unrelated Cases, 3 People Have Died Following Arrests by Dallas Police in 2023; Cases dismissed against 3 former Tarrant County jailers charged in jail beating; Former Sanger officer indicted on excessive use of force charges (in Denton County); Fort Worth police officer shot and killed man before identifying himself, body cam footage shows; and in one piece of not-so-terrible news, Dallas police chief fires officer who was arrested on family violence assault charge. Police violence is so normalized in the Metroplex, and probably where you are too, that none of those headlines excite any notice. Yet they add up to cases like the Christopher Hess story that really shock the conscience.

I don’t have an easy answer to what we do about police violence, but something needs to be done. Probably a lot of somethings, and I need to figure out where I can put my shoulder to the wheel on this issue.

In other news:

This month was the seventh anniversary of the July 7, 2016 ambush on DPD officers. The DMN has a retrospective and the Dallas Observer has a piece on the use of “killer robots” like the one that ended the July 7 standoff. And here’s an op-ed by Brian Williams, one of the contenders for Colin Allred’s House seat, who was the trauma surgeon in charge at Parkland Hospital the night of the ambush. The juxtaposition between the July 7 anniversary and the Hess investigation is strange but they’re related in some obvious ways; the shooter in the July 7 attack was motivated by police shootings of Black men. The fact that someone got angry enough about police brutality to shoot cops doesn’t excuse police brutality any more than police brutality excuses shooting the police.
Speaking of Brian Williams and his run for Colin Allred’s seat, earlier this week Axios’ Dallas newsletter devoted some space to his race against Julie Johnston and their respective fundraising prowess.
Our host brought you the latest on Ken Paxton earlier this week. I’ll note another couple of stories for you: first Texas AG Ken Paxton reports post-impeachment $1.7M personal ‘fundraising record’, three-quarters of which came from a handful of donors (Texas Tribune coverage). Some of the same folks are also putting a lot of money in Dan Patrick’s coffers. And the Dallas County GOP has condemned the impeachment alongside its colleagues in Collin County.
One of my favorite beats, Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, has been pretty active recently. Propublica has an explainer on the tax games involved in how Crow’s yacht trips with Thomas were accounted for. And it turns out that Jerry Jones gave Thomas a Super Bowl ring in 1994. It could now be worth $100K, and he did file the proper paperwork on it. The paperwork is now lost because the Court no longer has files from before 1998. And you’ve almost certainly seen the story about how lawyers with business in front of the court were paying one of Thomas’ aides by Venmo. (For what? Unclear.) You may not have seen, because it’s not nearly as obviously corrupt, the news that Leonard Leo helped fund a PR push for Thomas in 2016, around the 25th anniversary of Thomas’ confirmation. Speaking of Leo, the expanding Judiciary Committee inquiry into let’s-not-call-them-bribes gifts to the Justices has led to letters requesting information from Leo, Paul Singer, and Robin Arkley II, who arranged the 2008 trip that Justice Alito took that’s under investigation.
Here’s a Watchdog story from the DMN: former Mayor Laura Miller’s efforts to help a man coming out of a shelter were stymied when the non-bank app he was using, Chime let someone steal $9500 from his account. Y’all, be wary of all these unregulated banks. There are reasons we have bank regulations; neo-banks or financial apps or whatever you want to call them don’t want to be bound by those regulations. When you use a non-bank financial app, even Paypal, you’re risking your money. Keep it in mind.
In the ComoFest shooting that I led with two weeks ago, two suspects have been arrested. Based on the warrant, it sounds like the shooters had a beef with someone in the crowd but they claim they didn’t intend to shoot randomly. Somewhat related, the DMN has the autopsy report for the Allen shooter. Key findings: he was shot three times and tested negative for drugs and alcohol.
Here’s a good explainer from the Guardian about the shenanigans around election administration in Tarrant County: How Texas Republicans are catering to election deniers in this county. They do a lot of good work in tying things together including context like Crystal Mason’s case.
The Dallas North Tollway continues to expand toward Oklahoma following the suburban sprawl northward in a way that will seem mighty familiar to Houston readers.
There’s going to need to be a cleanup at the Dallas Executive Airport after last November’s fatal air show crash. It’s not clear whether the Commemorative Air Force, which hosted the show, or the taxpayers will end up paying for the cleanup. (Morgan Freeman narrator’s voice: It’s going to be the taxpayers.)
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson was going to protest the DCAD appraisal of his house but decided not to at the last minute. Everybody deserves a fair appraisal on the value of their home, and I get being mad at a $33K appraisal, but a 5,000sf house near White Rock Lake is going to cost you in taxes.
Let’s you and him fight is what North Texas cities are saying about Houston’s suit to overturn HB 2127, the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act , aka the Death Star. The City of Dallas doesn’t want to talk about it with the media either. In case you thought that wasn’t enough interference in local law this session, Governor Abbott also signed SB 1017, which says you can’t ban or limit the use/sale/lease of engines based on fuel source. This is a problem for the city’s plan to get rid of gas-powered lawnmowers and landscaping equipment. We can’t do anything that might cost the oil companies money or help with climate change even though we’re in a record-breaking heat wave that’s also the coolest summer of the rest of our lives, most likely.
Atheist Group Sues Fort Worth, Claiming Free Speech Violation. Metroplex Atheists wants to hang banners from the lightposts downtown for an event in August, just like they did in 2019. They’re getting the runaround from the city this time. I wish them much success; it’s hard enough to be an atheist in North Texas without unconstitutional governmental discrimination.
Here’s an interesting news item I’ll be interested in seeing more about: Elon Musk’s X Corp. sues Dallas County entities over alleged Twitter data scraping. They’re identified only by IP. As an observer of Twitter with no dog in the hunt, I wonder whether this is a PR exercise or technical incompetence of some sort.
Dallas passed a short-term rental ban back in June and unsurprisingly, folks are big mad. Things I did not know: Marriot International lists about 160 properties in the city of Dallas as short-term rentals and they say they’ll abide by the law. Also, here’s a DMN article on the distribution of STRs. There are only 17 of them in my zip code; half of the STRs in the city are in five zip codes. It looks like 40% of the registered STRs will end up banned; it looks like there may be three times as many unregistered STRs (about 6000, per the Marriot article) as registered STRs (about 1900, per the distribution article).
How are things going with the ransomware attack on the City of Dallas, you may ask? Our library is still a shambles but they are cycling books in and out again (I have new ones). But problems continue, particularly in areas involving permits. The DMN says there were still almost 900 delayed permits as of June 30. We need to have to have a fence repaired/replaced, so I’m about to have some close personal experience with this particular problem.
Meanwhile in the other Dallas-area IT problem center, the courts, they’re still not paying everybody (DMN; Dallas Observer). I really wish they’d resolve this problem and pay all those people.
You may have seen that Rev. Jesse Jackson is stepping down from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. You may not know that Jackson’s successor, Rev. Frederick Douglass Haynes, is a minister here in Dallas. The DMN has more.
This deep dive from Texas Monthly isn’t on an important subject like the DMN police investigation, but it’s still pretty interesting: The Queen of Highland Park. It’s all about Dallas’ toniest realtor and really, also, about changes to the Dallas real estate market, some of which are Dallas-specific and some of which are national. Spend your lunch on this one; unless Dallas snobbery puts you off your feed, it should be safe to eat while reading.
Our host noted that scooters are back. Apparently we still hate them according to 311 complaints. I’ll probably have more to report when I get my hair cut in Deep Ellum in a couple of weeks. They used to be all over that part of town and were a nuisance to park around.
Speaking of Deep Ellum, it’s now on the National Register of Historic Places. Unfortunately, as mentioned in the article, this registration doesn’t protect the buildings. That’s a function of state and local laws.
If you’re interested in architecture and museums, take a look at the six finalist designs for the expansion of the Dallas Museum of Art. A winner is expected next month.
Two other items about area museums: first, the Lege has committed a million dollars for the National Juneteenth Museum in Fort Worth, which is one of the few worthwhile things to come out of the regular session. And second, a group is trying to get funds for a permanent Mexican American Museum in Dallas in next year’s bond propositions.
The DMA is one of the arts boards that the DMN reviewed this year as a follow-up on their 2016 analysis of the boards’ diversity. Click through for the graphics and to see how all of the big Dallas arts organizations are doing better.
Major League Cricket has started in DFW and the Texas Super Kings had a 69-run win against the Los Angeles Knight Riders. I’m going to have to ask my Aussie friends whether that’s as good as it sounds.
Friends of mine have been singing the praises of Meow Wolf for years, and now it’s finally open in Grapevine. I’m waiting until the first rush of visitors dies down to brave it, but if you can’t wait, here’s the Texas Monthly review and the Dallas Observer preview.
In honor of Jackson Browne’s performance here in Dallas this week, here’s a sweet story about how Browne helped Stevie Ray Vaughan make Texas Flood. We didn’t hit this Browne gig but he’s a favorite of my husband’s, so I took note of this story for him.
Presented without commentary, because what can you say?: This is what AI thinks a typical home in Dallas looks like.
Last but not least, the Dallas Zoo has hatched its first whooping crane chick. Prepare to click through and say “awww”.

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

July 2023 campaign finance reports: City of Houston, part 1

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The July finance reports for the City of Houston in an election year is when you first get a real feel for who’s actually running for what, and which of them has a campaign that might be worth watching. The filing deadline is still a month away, and even for the highest-profile races there may still be some surprises, but the vast majority of competitive candidates are now known to us. And because there are so many of them, I’m going to split this up. I’ll start with the Mayoral hopefuls.


Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
====================================================
Whitmire     371,517  1,618,255        0   9,893,611
JacksonLee 1,218,886    182,604        0   1,033,982
Kaplan       478,479    360,759  300,000   1,356,488
Garcia     3,295,664    399,845        0   2,890,818
Gallegos      60,348     43,406        0     151,794
Khan          58,750     33,714   85,000     108,308
Broze         10,827      3,104        0       6,998
Houjami          585        107        0         294
Mbala            200          8        0         326
Williams
Martinez
Caldwell
Daniel

As before, you can find all of the reports that I downloaded in this Google Drive folder. You can find all of the candidates in the Erik Manning spreadsheet; Erik Manning is a god among men for putting this together so I don’t have to.

The above is a very different list than what we saw in January, with multiple comings and a few goings. You can sort them as you see fit, but to me the MJ Khan line is the divider between “candidate that has some legitimate reason to be here” and “who is this person and why are they running for Mayor”.

It would seem that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s first foray into city campaign fundraising had a couple of glitches at first.

After U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee jumped into the race for Houston mayor in April, her campaign worked fast to neutralize the fundraising advantage held by competitors, including state Sen. John Whitmire.

It may have gone a little too fast, a campaign spokesperson acknowledged Tuesday. More than half a dozen people or companies gave contributions to Jackson Lee that exceed the city’s legal limit and one donation wrongly was attributed to a dead woman.

In response to questions from the Houston Landing, a spokesperson said Jackson Lee’s campaign had informed Houston City Secretary Pat Daniel it plans to refund the excessive contributions, but the problems put an asterisk on Jackson Lee’s highly anticipated first report since entering the race.

[…]

At least six individuals donated above the $5,000 individual limit, according to the report. Meanwhile, the campaign also disclosed receiving $20,000 from a company, C&W International Fabricators LLC, and $25,000 from the Border Health PAC, which is affiliated with McAllen businessman and Texas political megadonor Alonzo Cantu.

Texas election law sets no limit on contribution amounts for state races, but Houston’s ethics code imposes tighter rules on candidates running for city office.

Cantu, who serves as a University of Houston regent, also gave Jackson Lee $5,000 as an individual. He has become a major player on the state’s political giving scene in recent years, according to Texas Monthly.

The problems are being resolved, which is what you want. That they happened and got reported on is not what you want. Looking at SJL’s report, I still see the $25K and $20K contributions mentioned in the Houston Landing story, though the contribution originally attributed to the late Mattelia Grays now appears to be in her daughter’s name. I assume this means there will be a corrected report still to come, but it took until Wednesday for this report to be posted, so who knows. Also, without the PAC donation corrections, it seems her cash on hand looks to be a little higher than it really is. Still a lot, and as noted SJL already has a ton of name recognition, but the numbers are what they are.

There were some other examples of this from other candidates as well.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who boasted last week of a fundraising haul of over $1.2 million in three months, listed at least $63,800 in contributions that exceeded legal limits in her campaign finance report submitted Monday. Meanwhile, state Sen. John Whitmire has received $5,000 beyond the permissible limit from the Houston Police Officers’ Union.

[…]

Whitmire, who portrays himself as a law enforcement ally and often highlights endorsements from local police union groups, disclosed two contributions from the Houston Police Officers’ Union PAC — $5,000 and $10,000 respectively. His campaign spokesperson, Sue Davis, acknowledged the oversight and said the campaign would refund the excess $5,000.

[Lee] Kaplan reported a donation in which the amount went slightly above the cap at $5,162.70. His campaign manager, Jennie Johnson, said the team would refund the part of any donation that goes over the legal limits.

By law, candidates have eight days to amend their campaign finance reports.

Whitmire’s corrected report, which shows the refund of the excess contribution from the HPOU, showed up in the system late Wednesday and is in the Google folder with the others. Off the top of my head, I don’t recall this many instances of such incorrect donations in the past. I’m not sure what the underlying cause may be, I don’t think there’s that much more money being raised this year than in 2015 or even 2009. We’ll need this same level of scrutiny for the 30-day and 8-day reports as well, especially to look for donors who have already maxed out giving more.

Also, I really didn’t expect Lee Kaplan to be such a prominent player in the race, but so far he has been. I keep trying to think of something to say about Lee Kaplan, and this is all I’ve got right now.

Gilbert Garcia’s initial report did not list a cash on hand total, though he later posted an updated report that had it. He has not loaned his campaign any money, but at the bottom of his individual contributions listing, there are several entries for himself, totaling $3,030,000. That means he collected about $265K from other people.

Derek Broze is a variant on the non-filer candidates I wrote about. He filed his report on time, but all it consists of is the summary page, with the topline totals. Everything after that, from the subtotals on page 3 to the end, is blank. Do you, like I did, ask yourself what kind of person could think that giving money to Derek Broze’s Mayoral candidate is a good idea? Well too bad, his report won’t tell you. The “doesn’t know how to file a finance report” contingent is at least as big as the “non-serious candidates who never file a report” contingent. In a better world, the software for filing these reports would have built-in error checking and data validation, which would prevent any candidate from filing this kind of largely empty report. Maybe someday we’ll get there.

None of the other “who are these people” candidates filed reports, which is consistent with the type. It’s also fine by me, there are a ton of other reports to review and it’s not like these would provide much value. I’ll have more as we go.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged campaign finance reports, Chanel Mbala, Derek Broze, Election 2023, fundraising, Gilbert Garcia, Houston, John Whitmire, Lee Kaplan, Mayor, Naoufal Houjami, Robert Gallegos, Sheila Jackson Lee | 1 Comment

Hearing in the lawsuit to clarify exceptions to Texas’s harsh anti-abortion law

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Here’s hoping for some good news.

One woman could barely get words out through her tears. Another ran to the restroom as soon as she was done, wordless, wretched sobs wracking her tiny body. A third threw up on the witness stand.

These are believed to be the first women in the country since 1973 to testify in court about the impacts of a state abortion ban on their pregnancies. They almost certainly won’t be the last.

Speaking to a packed Travis County courtroom Wednesday, three women detailed devastating pregnancy losses and said medically necessary care was delayed or denied due to their doctors’ confusion over Texas’ abortion laws.

They’re challenging a clause in the state’s abortion ban that says a doctor can perform an abortion only if they believe the patient has “a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy” that puts the patient “at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”

Doctors have reported delaying necessary pregnancy care for fear of violating the law, which allows doctors to be punished by up to 99 years in prison, a $100,000 fine and the loss of their medical license. The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights, asks a judge to temporarily block the law from applying to medically necessary abortions and ultimately clarify when a medical emergency justifies an abortion.

Texas is asking District Judge Jessica Mangrum to dismiss the case, arguing these women have only their doctors to blame for any disruptions to their care.

At the end of each tearful testimony, lawyers for the state asked the women the same questions: Did Attorney General Ken Paxton tell you you couldn’t get an abortion? Did anyone, working in any capacity for the state, tell you you couldn’t get an abortion?

[…]

Over the past few decades, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the attorney general’s office have found themselves in a courtroom just like this one countless times, arguing over the legality of Texas’ abortion laws. Historically, abortion providers were named on the lawsuits and testified on the stand, in an effort to spare the women most impacted by these laws from the pain of public testimony.

But there are no more abortion clinics in Texas. These women took the stand Wednesday because there is no one else left to speak for them.

At a press conference after the hearing, Molly Duane, senior counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said it was difficult to have to walk these women through the worst moments of their lives, but “they did it to hold the state of Texas accountable.”

“As a lawyer, you generally don’t want to cry during work but it was hard not to,” Duane told The Texas Tribune afterward. “It helps people understand how abortion actually is health care. Because I can say it, and doctors can say it, but when these women say it, people can see themselves.”

For the women who took the stand, reliving their experiences for the sake of a courtroom full of people was deeply painful. They stood together after the hearing, comforting each other and rubbing each others’ backs, leaning on their partners and each other for support.

“I was horrified by how willing the cross examination was to ask over and over again about the most horrific thing that’s ever happened to me, seemingly with nothing but callousness,” Zurawski said after the hearing. “I survived sepsis, and I don’t think that today was much less traumatic.”

During the most recent regular legislative session, Texas passed a law that provided some additional protections for doctors who perform abortions in cases of ectopic pregnancies and previable premature rupture of membranes, both of which can be fatal if left untreated. The law goes into effect Sept. 1.

Assistant Attorney General Amy Pletscher said while these women’s stories are “indisputably tragic,” they do not warrant a judge taking steps to modify the laws.

“Any future harm is purely hypothetical and therefore does not warrant injunctive relief,” Pletscher told the judge. “Given the nature of plaintiffs’ past experiences, it is understandable that they are seeking to place blame, but the blame directed at defendants is misplaced. Rather, plaintiffs sustained their alleged injuries as a direct result of their own medical providers failing them.”

Standing before the judge Wednesday, Duane said the state has long argued that clinics do not have standing to challenge abortion law and claimed it is unlawful to challenge abortion laws before they go into effect. But now that the Center for Reproductive Rights has brought a suit with plaintiffs who are directly harmed as a result of the trigger law, the state still says there are no grounds for a suit.

“It begs the question: Does the state think that the only person who would have standing to challenge an abortion law is a woman who comes to court with amniotic fluid or blood dripping down her leg?”

See here for the previous update on the lawsuit, and here for more on that one little “loosening” law, which wouldn’t have helped any of these women had it been in effect. This suit isn’t about blocking the full extent of the new abortion restrictions, just to clarify what the exceptions for the life of the mother mean. And of course the state’s entire defense is basically “sucks to be you, get a better doctor”. I do think the plaintiffs will get their injunction, but once it goes to appeals then it’s anyone’s guess. CBS News, ABC News, the Chron and Daily Kos have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Amanda Zurawski, Center for Reproductive Rights, EMTALA, hospitals, lawsuit, SCOTUS, Texas, Texas Medical Association, The Lege | 1 Comment

San Antonio likely to sue over “Death Star” law

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We welcome your participation.

That’s no moon…

San Antonio likely will sue the Texas over the so-called “Death Star bill,” recently passed state legislation limiting municipalities’ ability to exercise their right to home rule, City Attorney Andy Segovia told the Express-News.

Segovia told the daily his office is exploring legal options and is in talks with its counterparts in Houston, El Paso, Dallas and Austin. Staff is weighing whether San Antonio should file its own lawsuit or join Houston in a complaint filed earlier this month.

Under House Bill 2127, municipalities are barred from passing local ordinances that exceed current state laws that govern business, agriculture and other areas. For example, Dallas mandates that contractors schedule 10-minute water breaks for construction workers. However, under the bill, the city would be forced to scrap the law since it exceeds state regulations, according to a KXAN report.

San Antonio City Council was considering a similar water-break ordinance. However, that proposal has been amended only to include contractors directly hired by the city to avoid a conflict with HB 2127, which goes into effect Sept. 1, the Express-News reports.

The state argues the law makes doing business in Texas easier by streamlining the number of ordinances companies must keep up with.

However, in its lawsuit, Houston argues that HB 2127 violates the Texas Constitution, which states that cities have the right to home rule. Critics also maintain that the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed the bill to punish large municipalities such as San Antonio and Houston, which tend to be under Democrats’ control.

“This notion that 2127 is going to create consistency is way off the mark,” Segovia told the Express-News. “If anything, it’s going to add confusion and chaos statewide.”

See here for more on the Houston lawsuit. I don’t know if there’s a technical advantage to joining the Houston lawsuit or filing their own, but I trust they’ll figure out what works best for them. San Antonio says they don’t plan to roll back their existing ordinances that may be blocked by the Death Star law, which may wind up generating litigation from those who would want the existing ordinances tossed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, a lot of lawyers are going to make a lot of money as a result of this legislative session. News 4 San Antonio and the San Antonio Report have more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Greg Abbott, Houston, lawsuit, local control, Ron Nirenberg, San Antonio, Senate, Sylvester Turner, Texas, The Lege | 1 Comment

Texas blog roundup for the week of July 17

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance is too heat-addled to say anything clever as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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

July 2023 campaign finance reports – State races

Posted on July 19, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

At this point, the only state race I’m watching is SD15. This is partly because of the Mayor’s race connection, partly because there are two active challengers to the possibly outgoing/possibly staying incumbent, and partly because I don’t have enough information to follow other races yet. Unlike other systems, the TEC doesn’t have an easy way to search by position, or to list all filings for a particular cycle. Because of that – or at least because I haven’t figured it out – I’m only able to look for candidates by name, which doesn’t help me at all if I’m looking for potential primary challengers in HD 142 or 146. If you know better let me know, otherwise I’ll come back to this in January when we have all of the primary filings in hand.

Anyway. As I said, there’s one race I’m watching closely and that’s SD15. Here’s what we have:

John Whitmire, SD15
Molly Cook, SD15
Karthik Soora, SD15


Candidate     Raised       Spent       Loan     On Hand
=======================================================
Whitmire      371,517  1,618,255          0   9,893,611
Cook           59,786     13,489          0      51,039
Soora         180,949     52,950          0     127,393

I haven’t posted any City of Houston reports yet – I’m still working on them, with the Mayoral reports up next once they’re all available – but I can say that John Whitmire posted identical totals, and what look to me to be identical reports, for both his Senate and Mayoral campaigns. It’s all the same money, so I presume this is okay under state law. I briefly scrolled through the reports and didn’t see any individual contribution over $5,000, which is the city’s contribution limit. I assume that as long as he’s keeping track of what’s being used for what it’s all kosher.

(UPDATE: The Chron found at least one example of a contribution that exceeded city contribution limits. I’ll have more on this in the Mayoral finance report post.)

Karthik Soora had a nice haul. I saw a lot of small-dollar donations, and also quite a few from outside Houston and from other states. Many of his donors had South Asian names, which is probably one part personal network and one part good usage of mailing lists. He also collected about $80K from people with the surname Soora, including $10K from himself. There was another $1500 or so in in-kind donations from himself. Sometimes that sort of thing is one-time only, so we’ll see what his January report looks like. His cash on hand is paltry compared to Whitmire’s, but Whitmire is about to spend a bunch of that cash on the Mayor’s race, and who knows what his total might look like if he comes out on the losing end of a runoff and has to decide whether to run for his old seat again.

Molly Cook raised a bit more than $100K through the eight-day report for the 2022 primary. Her July 2022 repot showed another $55K raised, but some of that was before the primary and some was after. I didn’t go through it all to try to suss it out. She had about $11K on hand in her January 2023 report but didn’t show any money raised during that period. I assume she’ll have a name recognition advantage over Soora in March, but it’s hard to say how much of one and it’s hard to say how much it would matter if Whitmire is running again. It would also not surprise me if one or more new candidates jump in if it looks like we’re about to get Mayor Whitmire, and let’s not forget that in that instance there will also be a special election. There may be a lot of opportunity to raise cash for this seat.

As I said, this is the only state race for now that I’m focusing on, in part because it’s the only one whose players are all known to me at this time. There’s action in the Harris County races already, and we also get to marvel at how a handful of billionaires are keeping Ken Paxton afloat, and there’s so much more there that we don’t know. We’ll at least know who’s running for what state office when the January reports get published. I’ll be back then for those, and of course I’ll keep the other reports coming in the meantime.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged campaign finance reports, Democratic primary, Election 2022, Election 2023, Election 2024, fundraising, HD142, HD146, Houston, John Whitmire, Karthik Soora, Ken Paxton, Mayor, Molly Cook, SD15, Senate, Texas | 1 Comment

Pushing children back into the river

Posted on July 19, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Does the ICC at the Hague have a 911 line?

Officers working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security initiative have been ordered to push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande, and have been told not to give water to asylum seekers even in extreme heat, according to an email from a Department of Public Safety trooper who described the actions as “inhumane.”

The July 3 account, reviewed by Hearst Newspapers, discloses several previously unreported incidents the trooper witnessed in Eagle Pass, where the state of Texas has strung miles of razor wire and deployed a wall of buoys in the Rio Grande.

According to the email, a pregnant woman having a miscarriage was found late last month caught in the wire, doubled over in pain. A four-year-old girl passed out from heat exhaustion after she tried to go through it and was pushed back by Texas National Guard soldiers. A teenager broke his leg trying to navigate the water around the wire and had to be carried by his father.

The email, which the trooper sent to a superior, suggests that Texas has set “traps” of razor wire-wrapped barrels in parts of the river with high water and low visibility. And it says the wire has increased the risk of drownings by forcing migrants into deeper stretches of the river.

The trooper called for a series of rigorous policy changes to improve safety for migrants, including removing the barrels and revoking the directive on withholding water.

“Due to the extreme heat, the order to not give people water needs to be immediately reversed as well,” the trooper wrote, later adding: “I believe we have stepped over a line into the inhumane.”

I think we crossed that line awhile ago. I don’t want to share a planet with people who would do this. I’m too numb to say anything else right now. My God, we need to vote some people out of office.

Posted in La Migra | Tagged border, DPS, Greg Abbott, immigration, Rio Grande, Steve McCraw, Texas, Texas National Guard | 8 Comments

Patrick issues gag order in impeachment trial

Posted on July 19, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

My, my, my.

A crook any way you look

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Monday issued a wide-ranging gag order ahead of the impeachment trial of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton, saying “out-of-court statements” by both sides could jeopardize the trial in the Texas Senate.

The order, which went into immediate effect, cites what Patrick called “particularly egregious” statements that “pose a serious and imminent threat” to the impartiality of Paxton’s trial, which begins Sept. 5.

Violators can be found in contempt of court and punished with up to six months in a county jail and a fine of up to $500, the gag order said.

The order prohibits parties — including members of the Senate and House and their staffs, witnesses and attorneys — from making statements that they “reasonably should know” will have a “substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing the trial.”

That includes, among other statements, those “concerning the expected testimony” or “character, reputation or credibility” of witnesses, parties or attorneys involved in the trial, and “any opinion” as to whether the articles of impeachment should be dismissed or sustained, the gag order said.

The order also bars statements about the “identity or nature” of evidence that may be presented at the trial, statements about subpoenas issued in the matter, or statements about “any information” that could “create a substantial risk of prejudicing” the trial.

Patrick said the sweeping order was justified because, unlike in civil or criminal trials, the jury — 30 of the 31 senators — cannot be replaced if there is evidence that their impartiality is tainted. Senate trial rules barred one potential juror — Paxton’s wife, Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney — from participating in deliberations or decisions in the impeachment trial, citing a conflict of interest.

The order cites comments made by attorneys for both Paxton and the House impeachment managers, including Paxton lead attorney Tony Buzbee’s claims that the House investigation was an “evil, illegal and unprecedented weaponization of state power,” and a claim by one of the House’s lead prosecutors, Rusty Hardin, that his team had uncovered allegations that “will blow your mind.”

Patrick, who is acting as judge in the impeachment trial, was required to issue a gag order under impeachment rules that were approved by the Texas Senate last month. Paxton, who was suspended from office upon a 121-23 impeachment vote by the House, would be permanently removed from office if two-thirds of senators agree.

On the one hand, that’s going to make this a whole lot less fun, since let’s face it the sniping was pure political joy. Who doesn’t want to see all these fancy lawyers tearing into each other? On the other hand, and I hate to say this, but that’s basically Dan Patrick’s point, and I can see where he’s coming from. This is a circus, gag order or no, but it’s supposed to ultimately deliver a verdict we’re meant to accept as legitimate. A little decorum will make that a tad bit easier to achieve. So we all get too cool our jets until September. Boring, but there you have it. The Statesman has more.

UPDATE: I’m sure this is nothing.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is presiding over the impeachment trial of suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton, received $3 million in campaign support last month from a top group campaigning against Paxton’s impeachment.

In a campaign-finance report published Tuesday, Patrick — who is not up for reelection until 2026 — reported a $1 million contribution and a $2 million loan from Defend Texas Liberty PAC. The political action committee was by far his biggest benefactor on the report, which covered Patrick’s fundraising from June 19-30. It was the first opportunity state officials had to fundraise since the House impeached Paxton in late May.

Patrick’s Senate has scheduled a trial to begin Sept. 5 to determine whether to permanently remove Paxton from office. Patrick has been acting as presiding officer of the trial — effectively the judge — and the fundraising period partially overlapped with the Senate’s deliberations over the trial rules.

[…]

The PAC’s stance on Paxton’s impeachment is well-known. Shortly after the House impeached Paxton, Defend Texas Liberty PAC sent text messages to GOP voters asking them to call their state senators and tell them to “stop this madness and end this witch hunt.” It has also made clear it will politically target House Republicans who voted for impeachment.

“Defend Texas Liberty will ensure that every Republican voter in Texas knows just what a sham the Texas House has been this session and just how absurd this last minute Democrat led impeachment effort is,” the group said in a May 26 tweet.

Who among us could possibly think that Dan Patrick is anything but fair, impartial, and impervious to the whims of billionaires?

Posted in Scandalized!, That's our Lege | Tagged Dan Cogdell, Dan Patrick, Dick DeGuerin, impeachment, Ken Paxton, Rusty Hardin, Senate, Texas, The Lege, Tony Buzbee | 3 Comments

July 2023 campaign finance reports – Congress

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

What a difference three months has made. Back in April you could have counted the races and candidates of interest on your fingers. Now with the larger Senate race, the openings in CDs 18 and 32, and a few other candidates of interest, there’re more to keep track of. We’re a long way from approaching 2018/2020 energy, but there are some positive signs. Here are the names and numbers of interest at this time:

Colin Allred – Senate
Roland Gutierrez – Senate
Heli Rodriguez-Prilliman – Senate
John Love – Senate
Thierry Tchenko – Senate

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Pervez Agwan – CD07
Michelle Vallejo – CD15
Sheila Jackson Lee – CD18
Amanda Edwards – CD18
Francine Ly – CD24
Sam Eppler – CD24
Sandeep Srivastava – CD24
Henry Cuellar – CD28
Julie Johnson – CD32
Brian Williams – CD32
Alex Cornwallis – CD32
Justin Moore – CD32
Melissa McDonough – CD38


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Allred        8,822,896   3,090,934       0  5,731,962
Sen   Gutierrez
Sen   R-Prilliman      23,062     22,153   35,063        908
Sen   Love             43,675     43,926    6,015      1,004
Sen   Tchenko          57,160      6,633        0     50,526

07    Fletcher        583,726    284,404        0  1,621,028
07    Agwan           221,855    144,619        0     77,236
15    Vallejo         171,019     42,195  100,000    140,541
18    Jackson Lee      40,519    146,874        0    239,166
18    Edwards         600,213     30,972        0    569,240
24    Ly               25,571     16,335    4,843      9,235
24    Eppler          137,701      8,990        0    128,710
24    Srivastava      216,945      6,946  493,233    213,591
28    Cuellar         512,858    166,829        0    393,772
32    Johnson         411,636     24,908        0    386,727 
32    Williams        363,452     41,273        0    322,178
32    Cornwallis      104,434      4,903  104,350    101,164
32    Moore            77,013     11,024        0     65,970
38    McDonough        25,854     24,255   23,851      1,599

As noted before, Colin Allred got off to a fast fundraising start, outpacing Ted Cruz by quite a bit. He also spent a lot of money – I hope that’s mostly startup costs and not what his normal burn rate will look like for the next couple of quarters. It’s still pretty damn impressive, though he and Cruz are close together in cash on hand thanks to the large outlays by Allred. It’s good to see and I hope it continues, but do remember that Beto outraised Cruz in 2018. Money helps but it ain’t determinative.

Sen. Gutierrez officially entered the race in July so he doesn’t even have an FEC account link yet. His January TEC report, which was the most recent one I found for him, showed him with $309K on hand. I’m sure he’ll make an announcement about his fundraising sometime before the next deadline.

Both John Love, who also has a Q2 report for CD06, and Heli Rodriguez-Prilliman reported nearly identical amounts raised as in April. In his case, perhaps this is a sign that he’s switching races; in hers, perhaps it’s a sign she’s dropping out. I’ll let you know what I think after I see the Q3 reports.

There are a couple of other names with Senate accounts, and one that drew my eye: Thierry Tchenko is a Houston person, whose personal Facebook page is here. I don’t know him at all and was surprised to see his name because I just hadn’t encountered it anywhere before I went looking for the finance reports. I’m hardly the be-all and end-all of anything, but I know a lot of people, I go to all of the quarterly HCDP CEC meetings, I attend plenty of other events at which People Who Are Running For Things like to come to, I see and hear a lot of news, and I’d never heard of him before now. He seems like a good person and I’d love to hear more about his candidacy for City Council or the State House, but the Senate is several degrees more difficult and it’s extremely difficult to see how someone like him can hope to make it to the runoff of the 2024 primary for this race. Thierry, if you or someone you know reads this, you can reach me at kuff-at-offthekuff-dot-com, drop me a note I’ll be happy to talk to you.

There are two new names for CD07 who are listed as candidates but have not filed any reports yet, Lakeisha Simon and Noor Mobeen. I couldn’t find anything about Simon on Facebook or via Google other than her statement of organization as a candidate. Noor Mobeen is a doctor who immigrated to the US as a child. As with Thierry Tchenko, I know nothing of either of these people.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, now running for Mayor of Houston, had $30K in contribution refunds on her report, presumably for people who didn’t want to contribute to her Mayoral campaign. I did not see anything in her disbursements that looked like a transfer to her Mayoral campaign. Maybe that means she’s hedging her bets a teensy bit? Just a thought.

Amanda Edwards sent out a press release touting her $600K haul since dropping out of the Mayor’s race. While Rep. Jackson Lee still has a foothold in the district with her campaign account remaining full, Edwards’ decision to hop over the fence looks like a genius move right now, as that’s not only a huge total for her but there’s no one else out there. I did see one more name associated with CD18, Daryl Barnes, who has no report yet and had no presence on the web I could find. So like I said, Edwards has the CD18 field to herself, pending whatever decision Sheila Jackson Lee ultimately makes.

There are two new names in CD24. One is Sam Eppler, a math teacher from Dallas who appears to have his act together more than the others so far. Sandeep Srivastava was the Democratic candidate in CD03 in 2022, who raised a bit of money but didn’t overperform the Dem baseline in that district. He originally threw his hat into CD32, but changed course after that. $200K of what he reported as having been raised is listed as a loan; the rest of that loan total is from his previous candidacy.

Three of the four names for CD32 have appeared in previous posts; the fourth is Alex Cornwallis, who ran for SBOE12 in 2022 and appears to be entirely self-funded out of the gate. We’ll see how that goes from here. State Rep. Julie Johnson raised her total in a small window between special sessions, so it’s even more impressive for that. Which doesn’t diminish Dr. Brian Williams’ total, but he did have more time to collect it. Again, we’ll see how they do in Q3. There were three other listings without filings for CD32, I don’t feel like noting them at this time.

I met Melissa McDonough at an event, I think it was the Q2 CEC meeting, and got a business card from her. Just had a quick chat, we each wanted to talk to lots of people, but I met her and she met me. She hadn’t really raised any money yet, her website is a placeholder, and CD38 is unproven as even a fringe pickup opportunity at this time, but I’m noting her here partly because I want CD38 to draw some interest, and partly to note that it’s very much possible for these unknown-to-me candidates to have interacted with me in some form. Let’s see if that has happened with any of them by the time the Q3 reports have been filed.

I’ll have other reports soon. Let me know what you think.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged Alex Cornwallis, Amanda Edwards, Beto O'Rourke, Brian Williams, campaign finance reports, CD06, CD07, CD15, CD18, CD23, CD24, CD28, CD32, CD38, Colin Allred, Congress, Daryl Barnes, Democratic primary, Election 2018, Election 2022, Election 2024, Francine Ly, fundraising, Heli Rodriguez-Prilliman, Henry Cuellar, John Love, Julie Johnson, Justin Moore, Lakeisha Simon, Lizzie FLetcher, Melissa McDonough, Michelle Vallejo, Noor Mobeen, Pervez Agwan, Roland Gutierrez, Sam Eppler, Sandeep Srivastava, Senate, Sheila Jackson Lee, Ted Cruz, Texas, Thierry Tchenko | 4 Comments

An HISD threefer

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

How much is discretion worth to a school principal?

To Jessica Campos, Pugh Elementary School used to feel like a family.

The 350-student school that her 10-year-old daughter attends had a tight-knit community with near-constant communication between staff and families, Campos said. One teacher, who had a knack for turning lessons into sing-along songs, even became a family friend.

But that feeling quickly evaporated when new Houston ISD Superintendent Mike Miles named the Denver Harbor school as one of 28 campuses targeted for immediate overhaul. Miles, appointed as the district’s superintendent in June, replaced Pugh’s principal, required all teachers to reapply for their jobs and ordered several changes to campus operations.

“We know what we had was good,” Campos said. “(Central office staff) are not in our school. They’re not experiencing what our children are experiencing. They’re not in the classroom watching how our teachers are interacting and how they’re delivering the curriculum to our kids.”

For two-plus decades, HISD has embraced an organizational model commonly known as “decentralization,” a system that gave principals at schools like Pugh lots of authority over spending, staffing and operations at their campus. The model rested on the idea that principals — not central office administrators — best understood what their students needed in a district as diverse as HISD.

But that approach is changing at dozens of campuses under Miles, who Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath chose to lead HISD as part of state sanctions against the district.

[…]

Forest Brook Middle School Principal Alicia Lewis said she often had to make “very tough decisions” about resources at her campus on the district’s northeast side. Now, she’s only responsible for spending $100 per student on instruction-related costs.

Giving up some power is a welcome give-and-take for Lewis considering what she says she’s receiving in return: new projectors, new whiteboards, computers for every student and reduced class sizes.

“When you’re making budgeting decisions on your own, there are times where you have to say, ‘I want this, but I can’t have this,’” Lewis said. “Now we’re saying, ‘We’re in heaven,’ where we are getting some of the things that we could not get before.”

But for Campos, any future benefits to Pugh families remain hypothetical, while the downsides are clear to her. She said campus-level decision-making was key to forging a school culture that fit her community, which is mostly made up of Spanish-speaking families.

The previous principal regularly hosted coffee chats with parents where Spanish was the default language, Campos said. Bilingual teachers helped her daughter, who has dyslexia, make more than a grade level’s worth of progress in reading last year, she said.

Now, she’s concerned about the new principal’s lack of Spanish fluency and worries the district may not rehire many of the teachers who she feels have served her daughter well.

HISD leaders instituted a decentralized model in the 1990s, arguing that the approach would raise student achievement and bring more equity to the district.

The cornerstone of the plan involved allocating millions of dollars to campuses — with schools serving higher-need students getting more funds — and generally allowing principals to spend the money as they saw fit after consulting with teachers and families.

In theory, a school system structure that gives principals final say over staffing, class schedules and other decisions can be equitable, researchers say. The model allows campuses to cater to students’ specific needs and gives extra funding for higher-needs children, such as those with disabilities or who are learning English.

In reality, though, outcomes have been inconsistent across the state’s largest district. And, as far as researchers can tell, the model has not translated into benefits for Houston’s students.

“If we look at trends before and after decentralization came into effect in the way they enacted it here in HISD, we did not see increases in student pass rates or test scores,” said Erin Baumgartner, director of Rice University’s Houston Education Research Consortium, or HERC. The organization conducted extensive research into HISD’s decentralization effort in the late 2010s.

I’ve noted this tradeoff for principals before, and one can certainly make a case for them giving up some local control for financial and other benefits. Indeed, the research shows that the decentralized model did not deliver on its promises, so that’s another argument for trying it a different way. This doesn’t mean that the opposite, top-down approach will be better – surely it could be, if the plan and the structure are sound – but it may also be that in the grand scheme of things both approaches are roughly the same from an outcomes perspective, and the real key to doing better lies elsewhere.

We’ll get some evidence on that soon enough. I’m highlighting this in part because it again speaks to my concerns about how sustainable the Miles Plan is. Nothing succeeds like success, and if test scores shoot up that will go a long way. But in the end, when we have our district back, people are going to have to want to continue this. If they don’t like the school experience under this scheme, or still feel scarred from how we got there, then they may want to go back to what they had before even if the outcomes weren’t as great. The community has to buy into the plan, and it’s on Mike Miles and the Board of Managers to sell it. Results only go so far. Trust matters, and they have to build it.

Which is why stories like this are troubling.

Since the Texas Education Agency appointed Miles to lead the school district, he has faced community protests by citizens opposed to the state agency’s takeover. But he has maintained that schools are embracing his changes.

But interviews, email correspondence, and audio recordings of campus meetings that the Texas Observer obtained contradict Miles’ public relations message that there is widespread teacher support for his program. Teachers, parents, and community members from nine of the 57 schools we spoke to said they had no opportunity to weigh in; teachers were threatened with losing their jobs if their campus did not join the program.

“Our hours will change. Our schedules will change. Our curriculum will change. But we have no input in it,” said Michelle Collins, a teacher at DeZavala Elementary School. “Neither do parents.”

According to the state education law, a Shared Decision Making Committee (SDMC) composed of parents, community representatives, teachers, other campus personnel, and a business representative is required to be “involved in decisions in the areas of planning, budgeting, curriculum, staffing patterns, staff development, and school organization.”

While Miles has publicly asked principals to obtain school input, SDMC committee members from five schools in the program confirmed with the Observer that they never met to discuss the issue. SDMC members and teachers from other schools reported that even when they did meet, they did not have a vote in the decision. One teacher said their staff voted not to opt in, but then later saw their school’s name included in the list of 57 schools in the news.

See here, here, and here for the background, and read on for their evidence. This may have been more of a communication failure than anything else, but it’s still a problem. Again, at some point the people will get the opportunity to vote on all this. They will remember their experiences, good and bad.

Finally, let’s bring it back to the nuts and bolts of what Miles has in mind.

At least one-third of Houston ISD campuses will use a new curriculum based on the “science of reading” when school resumes in August, following a national trend that has seen more districts embrace phonics-based instructional methods that teach students how to break down and understand words.

HISD will distribute a reading curriculum, acquired and modified by the Texas Education Agency to align with state education standards, by the New York-based company Amplify to the 85 schools in or aligned with Superintendent Mike Miles’ New Education System. The curriculum was already piloted in six HISD schools last school year, and former Superintendent Millard House II already planned on expanding it to 64 more.

After district materials initially suggested that only NES or NES-aligned schools would receive the curriculum from the district, Miles said that HISD will make the curriculum available to any school that requests it.

Amplify says its Core Knowledge Language Arts curriculum, the basis for the Texas-specific version used at over 100 districts across the state, is “grounded in the science of reading.”

While there is no universal definition for that broad expression, according to Jorge Gonzalez, a psychology professor at the University of Houston’s College of Education, the phrase “represents five decades of research on reading, reading development and best practices for reading instruction” that has led to a better understanding of the way children best learn to read.

The science of reading, however, is different than its instruction, Gonzalez said, which “is where the controversy begins because how the science of reading translates into the science of instruction is still being developed in many ways.”

I learned to read via phonics and I’m biased in its favor. If HISD is moving towards the current best practices for reading education, that’s all to the good. Again, the outcomes will tell us if we’re doing this right or not. It’s a bit more complicated than that and you should read the rest, but given the strong need to improve reading capability in HISD, I’m encouraged by this.

Posted in School days | Tagged Amplify, Board of Managers, HISD, HISD Board of Trustees, Houston, Houston Education Research Consortium, Mike Miles, Mike Morath, Millard House, New Education System, phonics, reading, standardized testing, Texas Education Agency | 1 Comment

Some data points in the “future doctor shortage” story

Posted on July 18, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

From The 19th:

The landscape of American health care has undergone an extraordinary transformation in the past several years, with the end of federal abortion protections allowing states to end access to the procedure, and the concurrent rise in bans on gender-affirming care. States that pass one such restriction are more likely to pass the other: Since last June, 13 states have begun enforcing near-total bans on abortion; the procedure is outlawed at six weeks in Georgia, and more bans are on the horizon. And so far, 20 states have passed laws targeting gender-affirming care, largely focusing on minors. Seventeen of those laws passed in this year.

Increasingly, the availability of often vital medical care depends on where you live. The barrage of bans has created a conundrum for medical professionals: Is it worth staying somewhere — no matter how much it feels like home — without the legal freedom to provide health care as they were trained or to receive care themselves? And if health care workers do leave, what do they owe to the people they leave behind?

In few places is the tension more pronounced than Texas, the second-largest state in the nation. Since last summer, the state has enforced a near-total abortion ban. More recently, the state passed a law banning gender-affirming care for minors, which will take effect this fall. Already, Texas leadership has been taking action against hospitals that offer gender-affirming care for minors. Most recently, the attorney general initiated an investigation into Austin-based Dell Children’s Medical Center. Doctors who previously staffed the center have left their jobs as a result.

Physicians who provide adolescent medicine — a field that involves treating minors for conditions as varied as irregular periods and eating disorders — are making plans to leave Texas. Doctors like Shamshirsaz, a hospital-based physician whose job focuses on complex pregnancies, are realizing they cannot continue to practice in Texas.

As a result, many medical professionals worry, comprehensive health care in Texas — home to world-renowned health care institutions but also a place already lacking in nurses, family physicians and mental health specialists — could become incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to come by. Similar patterns, they said, will emerge in other states where lawmakers have worked to restrict access to reproductive health care despite the objections of most medical providers.

“You’re seeing a lot of doctors who don’t want to practice in states like Texas and Idaho. They feel like they can’t,” said Sam Dickson, a physician who moved from Texas to Montana largely so he could continue providing abortions after Roe was overturned. “If you just have a brain drain … to states where doctors are able to practice in a way that’s consistent with their training, that’s going to result in disparities in health outcomes down the line.”

[…]

Already, medical schools are collecting data showing just that. Across the board, 2023 figures show a decrease in medical students applying to residencies — the multi-year training program for newly graduated doctors — in states with abortion bans. In Texas, the drop is particularly sizable.

Starting in 2022, months after the state’s six-week abortion ban took effect, the number of medical students applying to Texas-based OBGYN residencies fell by 10.4 percent, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges — while across the country, the number of applicants increased. The share of medical students applying to Texas-based residencies of any kind fell by half a percent that year.

The trend has continued: In 2023, Texas saw a 5.4-percent decrease in applicants to its medical residency programs, with a 6.4-percent decrease for OBGYN, specifically. Both of those are significantly larger decreases than the national average.

[…]

There is early evidence indicating the impact the state’s policies have had, said Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale University who has tracked access to adolescent medicine in different states. She’s spoken to colleagues in Texas who are preparing to leave the state because of its restrictions on gender-affirming care. That sort of exodus is hardly unusual. The exact same thing has happened, she pointed out, in other states that passed restrictions on care for minors, or where the state government has specifically targeted trans health care.

She pointed as well to data from the American Board of Pediatrics showing that already, in states where the legislature has seriously considered a ban on gender-affirming care, the ratio of adolescent medicine providers to patients is far lower. Currently, Texas has only .5 providers per every 100,000 potential pediatric patients in the entire state. For contrast, Massachusetts has 3.2 such providers per 100,000 patients. Despite having less than a third the number of people as Texas, Massachusetts is home to more adolescent medicine clinicians.

As bans take effect and hostility increases, McNamara noted, the inequality between states will only grow, affecting access not only to reproductive health care, but to the other medical services.

“The thing that’s really heartbreaking is that families are so comforted when they get this care — not just gender-affirming care, but adolescent medicine and the full spectrum of what we provide. We are not afraid of complexity or suffering, and we don’t really buy into this stigma of a lot of things adolescents deal with,” she said. “It is just really sad and totally unnecessary that access to that care would be harmed.”

The impact will likely be more severe in parts of Texas where health care was already more difficult to come by: rural areas, places with higher rates of uninsurance, and places where fewer doctors already practice.

See here, here, and here for previous entries in this series. I’d focused on the abortion ban before, but the ban on gender affirming care is also a factor. Even with the promise and now reality of litigation and the decent chances for a favorable ruling, that effect will just get bigger over time.

I actually think the rural parts of the state won’t be affected all that badly because they’re already in crisis mode and have been there for years, due in large part to the refusal to expand Medicaid. There’s only so much worse it can get, only so much lower the doctors-to-population ratio can go. It’s precisely in the urban and suburban parts of the state, where the growth is, that people will begin noticing how much harder it is to find a doctor and get on their schedule. The key thing is that someone is going to have to point this out and then point the finger of blame at the Republicans who have made it happen. Put this in the folder of what a pro-abortion rights campaign could look like.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged abortion, American Board of Pediatrics, Association of American Medical Colleges, lawsuit, Medicaid, SCOTUS, Texas, The Lege, transgender rights | 2 Comments

Another Paxton roundup

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We’ll start with this big Chron story about yet another allegation of unethical legal conduct by Ken Paxton.

A crook any way you look

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is suspended from duty as he awaits his impeachment trial, jeopardized his office’s prosecution of a GOP activist when he took a private meeting with him, court documents and other records obtained by the Houston Chronicle show.

A week before the 2022 Republican primary, Paxton met privately with Matthew Ocker, whom Paxton’s office had been prosecuting on charges the activist kicked and choked his disabled teenage daughter, court records show.

Paxton’s office acknowledged the meeting happened at a Gulf Coast hotel but said the attorney general didn’t know at the time that Ocker, 46, was facing criminal charges, according to an internal memo obtained by the Chronicle.

But other documents show that Ocker communicated for at least a month with one of Paxton’s closest advisers about his child abuse case before his face-to-face meeting with the state’s top lawyer. Ocker has pleaded not guilty in the case, which is now pending under a different prosecutor.

It’s not clear what the men discussed at the meeting, which Ocker attended without legal representation. But when his defense lawyer, Daniel Palmitier, learned about the extent of the meeting, he asked a judge to remove the child abuse case from Paxton’s jurisdiction, according to court documents. The judge indicated the private meeting with Paxton also concerned him.

Palmitier declined to discuss the details of the case. A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

The 2022 meeting raises concerns for Amanda Peters, a former prosecutor and professor at South Texas College of Law Houston, who reviewed documents referencing the meeting at the request of the Chronicle.

“The rules of ethics are clear. As soon as you know an opposing side has a lawyer, you are not to talk to him,” Peters said. “If it were me, as a prosecutor, I would walk out of the room.”

Law professor Geoffrey Corn agrees Paxton’s behavior was problematic if he knew Ocker had a lawyer.

“It’s just bad lawyering,” said Corn, who teaches at Texas Tech University. He added he believes Paxton’s conduct with Ocker mirrors his willingness to “skirt the rules” in acts outlined in the impeachment charges.

Both law professors said the hotel meet-up may have violated Texas disciplinary rules for attorneys, which prohibit lawyers from talking to other lawyers’ clients, unless the excluded attorney has explicitly consented. The records do not indicate if Paxton knew that Ocker had a lawyer, but both law professors said it would be unlikely for a criminal defendant to be unrepresented, and either way, Paxton should have asked.

Palmitier declined to say whether he submitted a misconduct complaint to the State Bar about Paxton.

A lawyer from the AG’s office said in court that Paxton often meets with voters, so he didn’t think the Ocker meeting should be viewed as a hindrance in his child abuse case.

[…]

The Hays County District Attorney recused himself from the child abuse case, saying Ocker believed he had unjustly targeted him, and asked the AG’s office to take over.

Ocker then began complaining to a top AG official raising similar concerns about Paxton’s prosecutors, according to copies of Facebook messages referenced in court, which the Chronicle obtained through an open records request.

In June 2021, he wrote to Michelle Smith, identified in court records as a senior adviser to Paxton, that “the AG’s office is totally out of control” and “Ken has lost my support.”

Smith, who worked as a campaign manager for Paxton and his wife, Angela, during her run for state senate, responded swiftly.

“Let me help,” she said.

Days later, she followed up saying she had asked people to “look into” Ocker’s situation.

Weeks of messaging ensued during which Ocker continued to disparage Paxton’s office.

Smith wrote back saying she had spoken with Brent Webster, Paxton’s first assistant, to answer a question about his case.

Ocker wrote at one point, “He (Paxton) can talk to me. He’s not prosecuting the case,” according to a court transcript.

Smith later helped coordinate Paxton’s Port Aransas schedule so that Ocker could meet with him between events, records show.

She texted Paxton’s executive assistant, Tommy Tran, and asked him to find a “quiet spot” for Ocker and Paxton to meet amid a day of campaigning at the Plantation Suites and Conference Center. She did not mention in the text that Ocker had a pending criminal case.

Smith told the Chronicle she had no knowledge of Ocker’s case or the meeting between Paxton and Ocker.

Apart from his Texas grassroots activism, Smith said she did not know Ocker well. However, Facebook posts show Smith and Ocker commented back and forth, discussing politics, dog names and, in one case, she expressed interest in buying a pecan cutting board handcrafted by Ocker.

There’s a lot more, so read the rest, though be aware that the story contains a description of the abuse allegations against Ocker, and they’re pretty upsetting. The basic gist is that Ocker sought to undermine the prosecution against him by engaging in this bit of ex parrte communication with Paxton, who seemingly didn’t know the story behind the guy’s request but also didn’t have anyone check the guy out first. In the end, the AG’s office withdrew from the case, which is now back in Hays County where there’s a new District Attorney. In the end, this may have been much ado about not much, at least from a practical perspective. But it still says something about Ken Paxton.

So does this.

The House impeachment team is looking into several financial deals that Paxton has made over the course of his long political career.

The Dallas Morning News reports that Paxton’s stake in a company called WatchGuard Video is currently the subject of impeachment investigators. WatchGuard (now owned by Motorola) provides bodycam technology for law enforcement and has $33 million in sales since 2014. Paxton was an early investor in the company back when he was just a state representative.

When the company landed a contract with the Texas Department of Public Safety in 2006, it jumpstarted their business. Investigators are looking into whether Paxton helped WatchGuard get the contract, though the former CEO Robert Vanman of the company denies Paxton did so. Paxton failed to disclose his investment on his ethics form, though he did amend it in 2008 when his investment became public.

Vanman has contributed $5,500 to Paxton and his wife’s political campaigns since 2009. In 2016, WatchGuard began building a $44 million campus in Allen, the district where Paxton was a representative and his wife, Angela, is currently a state senator.

Paxton’s holdings with WatchGuard were put in a blind trust when Paxton became attorney general in 2015.

That blind trust is also under investigation. Between July 2021 to April 2022, the Paxton’s went on a real estate spending spree totaling $3.5 million. The properties they bought include a huge ranch in Oklahoma, plots in resort towns in Utah and Hawaii, and townhouses.

See here for more on that spending spree. I don’t have anything to add to this, I just like collecting stories that validate my view of this asshole.

And finally, on a more prosaic note.

Harriet O’Neill, a Republican former justice on the Texas Supreme Court, has joined the team of lawyers who will be prosecuting suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton during his Senate impeachment trial.

O’Neill, who served 12 years on the state’s highest civil court before stepping down in 2010, is an accomplished attorney who also served as a state district judge and as a justice on the Houston-based 14th Court of Appeals. In 2002 and 2006, she was named the appellate justice of the year by the Texas Association of Civil Trial and Appellate Specialists.

O’Neill said she was proud to join the legal team, which also includes prominent Houston lawyers Dick DeGuerin and Rusty Hardin, assembled by House impeachment managers to present the legal case for impeachment in a trial before the Texas Senate to begin Sept. 5.

“The facts in this case are clear, compelling and decisive, and I look forward to presenting them before the members of the Texas Senate,” she said in a statement.

[…]

In a separate development in the impeachment case, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — who presides over the Senate and is serving the role of judge in the impeachment trial — issued a discovery order Wednesday requiring House impeachment managers to share relevant information and documents with Paxton’s legal team.

The order was requested by Paxton’s lead defense lawyer, Tony Buzbee, who had accused the impeachment team of withholding information vital to the defense.

The discovery order requires impeachment lawyers to turn over documents, including business records and law enforcement reports, that are relevant to the impeachment proceedings. It also ordered impeachment lawyers to turn over physical evidence, photographs, and government and business records that will be used in the trial.

Impeachment lawyers will also have to disclose to Paxton’s defense team any known convictions of people they plan to call as witnesses and the names and addresses of expert witnesses.

After receiving Patrick’s order, House impeachment lawyers said they had already planned on submitting the information to Buzbee.

“Paxton’s lawyers ignored our efforts to cooperate, instead filing their unauthorized demands and trying to create a spectacle in the media,” DeGuerin and Hardin wrote in a statement. “The Lieutenant Governor has ordered us to produce exactly what we intended to produce from the beginning and we are happy to comply.”

No matter what happens in this trial, we will always have the acrimony between Team Hardin/DeGuerin and Team Buzbee/Cogdell. Though really it’s the Tony Buzbee Show all the way. I hope someone is regularly buying Dan Cogdell a nice stiff drink.

Posted in Crime and Punishment, Scandalized! | Tagged Dan Patrick, Dick DeGuerin, DPS, Harriet O'Neill, impeachment, Ken Paxton, Matthew Ocker, Nate Paul, Rusty Hardin, Senate, Texas, The Lege, Tony Buzbee, WatchGuard | 1 Comment

The non-filers

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I of course have some thoughts about this.

Nearly a quarter of candidates running for Houston City Hall positions still have not reported how much money they raised and spent for their campaigns last year, missing the January deadline by six months.

About 70 people have filed paperwork that allows them to raise money for mayoral or City Council campaigns, including 41 who filed the form in 2022.

Once candidates file that form, they are required to report campaign finance details every January and July, showing how much money they have raised from supporters, how much they have spent on their campaigns and how much they have in the bank. The candidate’s signature on the form acknowledges that they know about the reporting requirements.

The candidates have until Monday to file their July reports, but 10 of the 41 who filed to run last year still have not filed their January reports. Those reports show financial activity for the last six months of 2022.

They are Koffey El-Bey, who is running in District B; Lloyd Ford Jr., District D; Mark McGee, District H; Ralph Garcia, District I; Melanie Miles, At-Large 1; Obes Nwabara, At-Large 2; James Joseph, At-Large 3; John Branch Jr., At-Large 4; Charles Onwuche, undeclared; and Rickey Tezino, mayor.

“I’ve never experienced that many that were untimely,” said former City Attorney David Feldman, who enforced the reporting laws under former Mayor Annise Parker. “That’s disregarding the process. The whole idea is to have full disclosure.”

Feldman said the city used to send letters to candidates who failed to file reports, and that usually led to compliance. If it did not, Feldman said, city attorneys would forward the matter to the city’s ethics commission, which could pursue enforcement. The violation is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine up to $500.

It is not clear if the city still sends those notifications or enforces the reporting requirements.

[…]

Miles, from the At-Large 1 race, and McGee, in District H, said they would file the reports showing they raised and spent $0 now that they knew they were required.

“This is my first time running for office, so this is my first time filing a campaign finance report,” McGee said. “That was just an oversight.”

Miles said she checked with the Texas Ethics Commission, the state body that regulates campaign finance, and a representative told her the agency is more lenient with local officials because they do not get reminders and alerts about the reports, like state candidates.

The treasurer for Branch said he tried to file the report in person in January. The secretary’s office said it has no record of a submission.

Ford said he did not think he had to file one because he had just started the campaign, but he filed his treasurer declaration last August and was required to show his activity for the following six months.

Nwabara could not recall why he did not file the report, and he said he had no additional comment. Tezino said he dropped out of the mayoral race once U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee announced her bid, though that was four months after the report was due. He said he plans to run for Jackson Lee’s congressional seat now.

First, let me say that I think the percentage of candidates who either don’t file reports or screw up how they do their reports will be largely no different this cycle than it has ever been. What I believe is different about this cycle, what David Feldman is noticing, is that there are more people who filed their designation of Treasurer report before January 1, which means they had a requirement to produce a January finance report. What has increased is the number of people filing before January, probably because in years past you couldn’t raise any money before then because of the now-illegal blackout period. I’m willing to bet that the number of people who failed to file July reports and 30-day reports has been more or less consistent over time, and the number of people who fail to file those reports this year will also be in line with that. But nobody other than the incumbents and some past candidates who still had money in their accounts ever had to file January reports before, and now they do if they make their candidacies official earlier. Check this total again in 2027 and see how it compares then and we’ll see.

Anyway. In my observation, the people who fail to file campaign finance reports, at whatever juncture in the cycle, fall broadly into three categories. The first, and I believe largest, group, is the unserious candidates. They never have any real presence in the campaign – you’ll rarely if ever see them at candidate events or other civic-type meetings that attract candidates, they don’t have websites or Facebook pages or if they do they never get updated, no one really knows who they are. Some of them are the perennial types who always file for elections for reasons that no one who isn’t them could articulate. They’re basically flotsam.

Some of them are like Melanie Miles and Mark McGee (who the article says is running in H but who is listed as “undeclared” on the Erik Manning spreadsheet; I live in H but have not seen any campaign presence from him), who didn’t raise or spend any money in their first reporting period as candidates and thus didn’t file an all-zeroes finance report. They were obligated to and should have known they needed to but they didn’t. Usually these people file the next report and so it’s basically no harm no foul.

The third group are candidates who are active and serious and appear to have their act together and yet for some reason I cannot fathom are unable to file a report on time, and sometimes they don’t file at all. It’s like there’s some level of dysfunction there, and I find it very disappointing. Every election there’s at least one candidate like this, and I have no idea why. It just is.

I don’t claim this covers every case. One-time screwups happen, and sometimes there are reasons we just don’t know about. Be all that as it may, we’re about to be up to our eyeballs in campaign finance reports. I’ll be doing my thing with them over the next week or two.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged campaign finance reports, David Feldman, District H, Election 2015, Election 2023, Houston, Houston City Council, James Joseph, lawsuit, Mark McGee, Mayor, Melanie Miles, Obes Nwabara, Rickey Tezino, Texas Ethics Commission | 1 Comment

HCA Healthcare hacked

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

A national breach with Houston connections.

HCA Healthcare, which operates more than a dozen hospitals in the Houston area, announced that personal information from as many as 11 million patients nationwide has been stolen in a data breach and could be sold online.

The company did not say how many patients in the Houston area could be affected by the theft, but the list of affected hospitals includes 11 HCA Houston Healthcare locations, Woman’s Hospital of Texas and Texas Orthopedic Hospital.

The list of stolen personal information was posted in an online forum on July 5. It includes patients’ names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and information about their appointments, the company said in an online statement about the data breach.

The theft does not appear to involve any credit card or bank account numbers, any clinical information such as medical records or any sensitive information such as passwords, Social Security numbers or driver’s license numbers, the company said.

HCA Healthcare said it is working to identify exactly which patients are affected. The company said it will notify those patients by mail in the coming weeks and will offer them complementary credit monitoring and identity protection services.

The theft appears to be from an external storage location that HCA Healthcare uses to automate the formatting of emails. The company said it has not detected any malicious activity on its own networks.

[…]

Based in Nashville, Tennessee, HCA Healthcare operates 180 hospitals across the United States, including 48 in Texas. It also operates approximately 2,300 medical clinics, emergency rooms, surgery centers and urgent care clinics nationwide.

Its HCA Houston Healthcare network includes the Clear Lake, Conroe, Kingwood, Mainland, Medical Center, North Cypress, Northwest, Pearland, Southeast, Tomball and West hospitals, as well as the Woman’s Hospital of Texas and the Texas Orthopedic Center.

It didn’t interrupt daily operations, so probably not some kind of malware/ransomware, and it appears that the data in question is not the most sensitive or personal data, which is good. My best guess would be some kind of cracked password or credential stuffing situation, or possibly a vulnerable or misconfigured system that allowed the attacker to gain entry. Whatever the case, it seems like the attackers perhaps weren’t interested in anything beyond the data they grabbed. Could have been worse, I guess, but there’s clearly room for improvement here. As the story notes, hospital systems have been a frequent target of attackers lately, and you can see from this story how extensive the reach can be.

I’ve been following these stories in large part because I worry about an attack on the city of Houston or Harris County or HISD. As such, I noted this with a great deal of interest.

Houston City Hall is weighing measures to bolster security at the facility after an audit identified lapses in procedures and an elected official said a belligerent man with a criminal past berated city workers last week.

Controller Chris Brown’s office released a June 27 audit that recommended the city improve its processes to remove badge access from ex-city workers, monitor training for its third-party security vendor and complete daily logs. Those fixes would be relatively inexpensive, Brown said.

As council discussed the audit Wednesday, Mayor Pro Tem Dave Martin said an angry man berated staff on two different floors last week.

[…]

In the controller’s audit, investigators said one lapse they found was that 1,507 former city workers were still on the city’s “active” badging list, more than half of whom had left the city more than six months earlier. The General Services Department now has implemented a process to allow monthly reviews of separated employees, the audit said.

Auditors with the controller’s office also found a door where the magnet was not working properly and had been left unsecured. The city said it replaced the door.

“In my mind, you put those two together — you have a disgruntled former employee, and you have very easy access with no gate, it gives the opportunity,” Brown said.

At-Large Councilmember Sallie Alcorn said she thinks the city should act now to correct the lapses, instead of waiting to do so after something worse.

I skipped the details of the angry dude – I feel confident that Council will take action on that since it affected them directly – but the audit has my interest. Badge access shouldn’t have much effect on cyber security, unless those badges are also smartcards that are used as a second factor for network access. Regardless, my concern is that if account management is this lax for badge access, what is it like for network logons? Having a bunch of idle accounts is a risk. I’m totally speculating here, these two functions may be separate, or maybe network logons are maintained better, but I wanted to bring it up. I hope all of the Mayoral candidates have cybersecurity for the city high on their priority list. It’s strictly a defensive posture, but we’ve had plenty of examples of what the downside risk is.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston, Technology, science, and math | Tagged Chris Brown, cybersecurity, Dave Martin, Harris County, HCA Healthcare, hospitals, Houston, Houston City Council, ransomware, Sallie Alcorn, Texas | Comments Off

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