Dispatches from Dallas, March 17 edition

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in North Texas, we have bad bills filed by our local legislators and follow-ups on a variety of ongoing stories in North Texas including the Dallas Zoo, the buyer of the Roe v Wade archive, and the back-and-forth in Frisco ISD about trans kids.

The deadline to file bills in the Texas legislature has passed, so it’s time for a rogue’s gallery of bad bill filers from North Texas. Take note of these names and remember to remind your pals from these parts that friends don’t let friends vote for dumbasses who put forward garbage bills.

Senator Phil King of Weatherford (west of Fort Worth) is a co-sponsor of bills designed to restrict the development of renewable energy in Texas in favor of fossil fuel power plants [Archive link].

Representative Bryan Slaton of Royse City (northeast of Dallas) wants to put a secession referendum on the ballot, which is probably illegal and unconstitutional, but who cares about that? He also filed HB 42, which would define gender-affirming care for kids as child abuse.

As mentioned in this article, Representative Nate Schatzline of Fort Worth filed HB 1266, which defines commercial enterprises that host drag shows as sexually oriented businesses. The linked article is about him harassing a constituent who responded by posting a picture of Schatzline in a dress to social media.

Representative Jared Patterson of Frisco has a number of bad bills, mentioned in this article about his Don’t Say Gay Bill. His greatest hits for the 2023 session also include abolishing the city of Austin and banning minors from social media.

Representative Matt Shaheen of Plano (of whom more later) filed a bill to make daylight savings time permanent, which is less harmful than other bills described here but is not what I’d personally consider a high priority in the 2023 session. He’s also behind HB 620, which would end the Robin Hood school tax recapture. (This local news story has some numbers for what Robin Hood does to Dallas and Plano schools.) While there’s quite a bit of room for debate around Robin Hood, I’m personally suspicious of a bill by a Republican who’s in favor of “school choice”, aka defunding public schools and subsidizing private schools. Shaheen is a little smart to be on the dumbass list and is all the more dangerous for it.

One good bill I like comes from Austin, where Representative Donna Howard filed to exempt menstrual products and a variety of pregnancy and baby needs from state sales tax.

In other stories:

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The TEA takeover has begun

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

At least the suspense is over. That’s the extent of my optimism about this.

State education leaders notified the Houston Independent School District on Wednesday that they are resuming the process of stripping all power from the district’s elected school board and giving it to a soon-to-be appointed governance group – a long-anticipated move that faces strong opposition from many Houston-area politicians, educators and families.

The announcement, which largely stems from a state law mandating sanctions against districts with chronically low-rated campuses, follows a Texas Supreme Court ruling in January that lifted a temporary injunction blocking the elected board’s ouster. It now sets the stage for the largest state takeover of a public school district in modern American history, while also throwing the future of HISD into further doubt after years of board dysfunction and leadership upheaval.

“In each of these cases, we have to look at what is in the best interest of students and what are the root causes that require state intervention in the first place,” Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said. “In this particular case, it’s about the leadership at the top. Making sure that we have a school board that is focused on ensuring that all kids in Houston, not just some kids in Houston, have access to great schools.”

The replacement governance team, known as a board of managers, will assume responsibility for setting HISD’s budget and districtwide policies, among other tasks. State leaders have not announced who will serve on the board of managers, though Morath told the Houston Landing this week that he expects to name replacements and transfer control to them no earlier than June 1.

Morath also confirmed that he plans to replace HISD Superintendent Millard House II – an authority given to him when appointing a board of managers – with a yet-to-be-named district leader once the replacement board takes power.

Boards of managers in Texas historically have held power for roughly two to five years before transferring authority back to elected trustees. Morath said he sees no reason to expect the HISD board of managers’ reign would extend beyond that range.

The state’s planned takeover is primarily tied to a state law passed in 2015 with bipartisan support. The law mandates one of two sanctions – the appointment of a board of managers or closure of low-rated campuses – in any district with a school that fails to meet state academic standards for five straight years. HISD’s Wheatley High School triggered that law in 2019 when it received its seventh consecutive failing grade.

In moving to replace HISD’s elected board, Morath has also cited the prolonged presence of a state-appointed conservator in the district and a state investigation that found multiple instances of trustee misconduct, such as violations of Texas’ open meetings laws and improper attempts to steer vendor contracts. Morath has the legal authority to install a board of managers on both fronts – though he’s not required to do so.

[…]

Morath said state officials will soon reboot their process for identifying replacement board members, an undertaking they began in late 2019 before the issuance of a court injunction. He reiterated a commitment to appointing a replacement board composed of HISD residents, and added that he would “prefer people who do not have ideological blinders, one way or the other.”

“They need to come in with wisdom and eyes wide open and make decisions in a very complex environment that are in the best interest of kids,” Morath said. “And this requires people that can think very, very clearly. That have an understanding of creating a culture of servant leadership and systems leadership. There’s not any specific agenda other than what is in the best interest of kids that we want to see pursued.”

However, hundreds of attendees at several recent protests opposing the takeover have voiced fears about Abbott’s education commissioner appointing managers who will push for charter school expansion and other policies favored by Republicans.

“Ultimately, I am really confused about what the end game is for Morath and Abbott,” state Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, said earlier this month. “If your objective is to make sure schools are run correctly, this is not the right way to do it. The takeover of school districts in the past, in my experience, have been school districts that are completely dysfunctional.”

Ultimately, the appointed board will have some incentive to implement policies that curry favor with local residents. If the board of managers defies the popular consensus in HISD on major issues, the elected board could immediately reverse those decisions upon retaking power in the coming years – a scenario that would cause even more disruption in a district craving stability. Morath said he expects the replacement board to remain engaged with HISD residents, leaders and trustees.

Elected board members will retain their seats, though they will not hold any power. Board elections will continue uninterrupted, with four races still scheduled for November.

“We don’t know who’s going to be on the board of managers, what connections they will have to the community, so I’ll be making sure they have somebody letting them know what the community wants and playing an advisory role,” HISD Board President Dani Hernandez said.

Much of this article is taken from their interview with Morath. Heck of a scoop, I guess. We did have some indications of this late on Tuesday, as there were takeover docs briefly posted on the TEA’s website; they were later removed from view as this was apparently jumping the gun.

The Chron story on those prematurely-released documents also included a link to the list of people who had applied for the Board of Managers in 2019, which was the last time we went through this exercise, before the HISD litigation put it all on hold for what turned out to be three years. Of interest, and as a reminder that there’s been quite a bit of turnover on the HISD Board since then, three of those applicants are now incumbent Trustees: Patricia Allen, Kathy Blueford-Daniels, and Judith Cruz. Current HCDE Trustee Amy Hinojosa is in there as well. I recognize some other former candidates, and a parent of some former classmates of my daughters. I wonder if Morath had any favorites from that list, if there’s anyone that the TEA will encourage to apply again. Be that as it may, I’d say anyone who’s mad about this ought to apply to be on the Board themselves. May as well make sure there are at least a few people we can trust in the process.

On a related note, here’s another story about how state takeovers of school districts usually don’t accomplish anything worthwhile, not just in Texas but around the country.

From Massachusetts to Mississippi and California to Kentucky, state officials in recent decades have increasingly responded to school districts struggling with poor academics or financial woes by usurping local control and pledging to turn around the schools.

But these state takeovers, according to a recent study, are mostly ineffective.

“The best evidence we have shows that takeovers don’t often achieve their intended results, don’t improve student achievement and don’t yield better outcomes for kids,” said Josh McGee, an economist at the University of Arkansas. “There are cases where we have seen improvement — but those are few and far between.”

McGee, associate director for the university’s education policy office, was referencing a 2021 study conducted by Beth Schueler from the University of Virginia and Joshua Bleiberg at Brown University. In the first cross-state comparison of its kind, the researchers examined all state takeovers from 2011 to 2016 and, on average, found “no evidence that takeover generates academic benefits.”

The study shows varying results among districts across the country. In general, state takeovers are far from uniform since officials making different policy choices within different contexts. Research shows that some schools appear to have benefited from takeovers while others have tanked.

The TL;dr of this is that the situations in which state takeovers tended to do best are those with school districts that are well below standards. HISD, with its overall B rating and 94 percent of schools rated C or better, does not meet that criteria. The main issues with schools that perform poorly are poverty and other socioeconomic factors, which are best dealt with via greater resources. I’m sure you can surmise what the odds of that are with HISD. Beyond that, and again stop me if you’ve heard this before, most state education departments don’t have the experience or the tools to make a difference. The best you can say is that they don’t really do any damage while they’re in charge.

We’re in uncharted territory here. I encourage you to read that Houston Landing interview with Mike Morath, and their FAQ about what it means. Whatever else I might say, he just doesn’t sound like he’s thrilled to be in this position. I don’t know if that means anything, but it was my impression. The takeover happens in June. In the meantime, apply to be on the Board, make a pledge to hold that Board’s feet to the fire, and let’s try to finally knock Harold Dutton out of the Lege next year. The Chron, Reform Austin, the Press, and the Trib have more.

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The unhinged abortion pill lawsuit hearing

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

What a shitshow.

The future of medication abortion in the United States remains up in the air after a federal judge heard arguments Wednesday in a suit challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s long-standing approval of mifepristone.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk said he would rule “as soon as possible” on the challenge brought by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative, anti-abortion law firm.

ADF is asking Kacsmaryk to suspend — and ultimately withdraw — the FDA’s approval of the medication, which would have nationwide implications, especially in states where abortion remains legal. In the hearing, a lawyer for ADF conceded that this would be unprecedented, but argued that the court had the authority to intervene to prevent harm.

Lawyers for the Department of Justice and Danco Laboratories, the pharmaceutical company that produces generic mifepristone, argued that the lawsuit is meritless.

Granting a preliminary injunction would be “depriving patients and doctors of a safe and effective drug,” argued Julie Straus Harris, with the DOJ.

Since it was initially approved in 2000, mifepristone has been found to be overwhelmingly safe and effective for terminating pregnancies. Citing that body of evidence, the FDA has recently relaxed restrictions on the medication, which is used in the majority of the abortions in the United States.

In the suit, ADF is representing anti-abortion medical organizations and doctors who argue they have been harmed by having to treat patients who have experienced adverse effects from the medications — and that they anticipate increased harm as a result of these loosened restrictions.

They also argue the drug was initially approved improperly under an FDA regulation that fast-tracks drugs that treat serious illnesses.

“Pregnancy is not an illness,” said Erik Baptist, a lawyer for ADF, in Wednesday’s hearing. “Mifepristone doesn’t treat anything.”

Kacsmaryk, appearing to give weight to that argument, listed off all the drugs that were approved under this regulation before mifepristone, most of which treat HIV and cancer. Separately, he summarized Baptist’s argument as asking the court to “deem one of these not like the others.”

The hearing, which ran more than four hours in Kacsmaryk’s Amarillo courtroom, covered a wide range of arguments. But the central question before Kacsmaryk is not as much about abortion as it is about administrative procedure — and whether the plaintiffs have any right to bring this lawsuit at all.

See here and here for the background. I can’t overstate how ridiculous this all is, and that includes the extreme restrictions on coverage of the hearing, for which you literally had to be there or at a single courthouse in Dallas, but only a handful of people were allowed at the courtroom, and cellphones were banned, so no live-tweeting. All for a hearing at which one hand-picked judge could severely curtail access to abortion for millions of women across the country, based on vibes. I really hope I’m wrong, but I don’t see anything in the coverage I’ve read to suggest this guy will do anything other than what he clearly wants to do. We’ll find out soon. Jezebel, the Associated Press, Slate, Daily Kos, and NBC News have more.

UPDATE: From Slate, “If Kacsmaryk rewrites the history of mifepristone’s approval as grounds to pull it from the market, his decision should command no respect or acquiescence from anyone—not the FDA, not abortion providers, and certainly not the public at large.”

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On the source of Houston’s greenhouse gas emissions

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

This story is a lot more complex and nuanced than the headline would lead you to believe.

It may come as no surprise to anyone who has spent time on Houston’s roads at rush hour that just over half of all the city’s reported greenhouse gas emissions come directly from traffic. This is the greatest share among the largest U.S. cities that volunteered emissions information to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

The data was collected by survey in partnership with CDP and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, and contains self-reported amounts of methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide as well as other notable greenhouse gasses and carcinogens. The data is broken out by 51 categories submitted by more than 1,100 cities, states and municipalities around the world.

Data like this is considered primarily a preparedness tool according to Katie Walsh, head of cities, states, regions and public authorities for CDP’s North America division. By compiling and submitting this data and by answering questions about climate change mitigation policies, Walsh says cities get a chance to assess where they stand and where they need to go to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In a city reporting vehicle-oriented emissions as high as Houston’s, local governments and nonprofits can use that data to design initiatives that target specific  needs. One example, Evolve Houston, which grew out of the city’s climate action plan, is working to reduce carbon emissions from personal vehicles by pushing electric vehicle adoption and infrastructure.

The 2022 CDP submission marks the 11th year Houston has reported data to the CDP.

Stationary emitters like homes and businesses, as well as power plants, typically make up the lion’s share of emissions in cities, according to CDP city-level data. But despite a large oil and gas industry and booming housing developments, this is not true for Houston – traffic is king.

Although traffic is undoubtedly a top greenhouse gas emitter across the nation, its spot at No. 1 in Houston may have more to do with how well it’s tracked and how poorly other sources are monitored. For example, emissions from the Port of Houston – one of the largest ports in the US, mover of 55 million tons of annual cargo and representative of 20.6 percent of Texas’ total gross domestic product – are not accounted for in the city’s reporting. The city hopes to include emissions from “waterborne navigation” in future reports.

Looking at a city’s share of emissions by “sub-sectors,” which are the smallest buckets that emissions can be categorized by in the CDP data, reveals unique inventories for each city. These inventories can help city officials identify the most problematic sources of pollution as well as where they have deficiencies in emissions reporting.

There’s more, so read the rest. The main thing I took away from it is that categorizing the data can be helpful in telling cities where to prioritize efforts, but there’s a lot of subjectiveness in it, which limits the usefulness of those categories. Cities only have control over so much of the emissions in their vicinity as well. Having good data is helpful, but getting good data is easier said than done, and there’s a lot of room for improvement now. But it’s better than nothing.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of March 13

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes your internal clocks have all adjusted as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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The hearing for that unhinged abortion pill lawsuit is today

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Like I said, brace yourselves.

A federal judge in Texas will hear arguments Wednesday in a closely watched dispute that could halt distribution of a key drug used for medication abortion and disrupt access nationwide, even in states where reproductive rights are protected.

The case before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk was brought in November by a conservative legal organization on behalf of anti-abortion rights medical associations and targets the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decades-old approval of the drug mifepristone, one of two medications used to terminate an early pregnancy.

The associations have requested Kacsmaryk order the FDA to withdraw its 2000 approval of mifepristone, arguing the agency erred when it gave the green-light to the drug under a regulation that allows accelerated approval of medications for “serious or life-threatening illnesses.”

But the Biden administration has warned that such a step would harm patients who rely on abortion pills and further strain state health care systems, particularly in places with clinics already grappling with overcrowding as a result of abortion restrictions in neighboring states.

The parties will have two hours apiece to press their arguments before Kacsmaryk, and the judge laid out a host of issues for them to discuss Wednesday, including whether the associations have the legal standing to sue, whether an injunction would serve the public interest and the regulation under which mifepristone was approved.

Kacsmaryk could issue his decision on the associations’ request for a preliminary injunction any time after the hearing, though a quick appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit is expected.

[…]

In papers filed with the court, the anti-abortion rights groups claimed the FDA exceeded its regulatory authority to approve mifepristone and has over the years removed safeguards by changing the dosage and route of administration in 2016, and lifting an in-person dispensing requirement to allow the pills to be mailed in 2021.

“The FDA took these actions by running roughshod over the laws and regulations that govern the agency and, more importantly, protect the public from harmful drugs,” they argued.

The Biden administration countered that the challengers’ request for the court to withdraw approval of mifepristone is “extraordinary and unprecedented.” Administration lawyers said they have been unable to find any case where a court has “second-guessed FDA’s safety and efficacy determination and ordered a widely available FDA-approved drug to be removed from the market — much less an example that includes a two-decade delay.”

Taking aim at the associations’ claim that the FDA improperly accelerated approval of mifepristone without substantial evidence of its safety, Justice Department lawyers noted that the 2000 approval of the drug came more than four years after manufacturer Danco submitted its application.

The drug maker, too, told the court that forcing the FDA to withdraw its long standing approval of mifepristone would not only “seismically disrupt the agency’s governing authority as to whether drugs are safe and effective,” but also put Danco out of business.

“The public has no interest in a hastily cobbled together, and overtly political, attempt by private parties to wrest control of the drug approval process from the United States agency responsible for it — an agency that has acted deliberately, thoughtfully, and consistent with its authorizing statute and implementing regulations,” the company said.

See here for the background. Plenty of legal types have written at length about how specious and flimsy the plaintiffs’ arguments are, and how utterly lacking their claim of standing is, so I’ll just note that and move on. Whether any of that matters to this wingnut judge or not will only be known after his ruling. As for the coverage of this ridiculous lawsuit, TPM among others provided insight:

TPM has obtained, and is first to report, the transcript from the status conference, which was conducted over the phone.

The case centers on the Food and Drug Administration’s 20-year-old approval of mifepristone, a drug often prescribed with misoprostol to induce abortions. Anti-abortion groups are trying to get that approval revoked, which could send the drug’s availability into flux.

After some typical housekeeping, Kacsmaryk leans on the lawyers to keep the hearing quiet.

“Because of limited security resources and staffing, I will ask that the parties avoid further publicizing the date of the hearing,” he said. “This is not a gag order but just a request for courtesy given the death threats and harassing phone calls and voicemails that this division has received. We want a fluid hearing with all parties being heard. I think less advertisement of this hearing is better.”

He said that the case so far has brought “a barrage of death threats and protesters and the rest.”

“So we will have standard security protocols in place, but I’ll just ask as a courtesy that you not further advertise or Tweet any of the details of this hearing so that all parties can be heard and we don’t have any unnecessary circus-like atmosphere of what should be more of an appellate-style proceeding,” he added.

He then told the lawyers that he was going to purposefully keep the hearing off the docket until the day before the hearing, to keep it as under the radar as possible — a move that prompted questions and objections by observers when discovered. A Department of Justice lawyer on the call sought clarification about whether the hearing would be made public at some point Tuesday.

“To minimize some of the unnecessary death threats and voicemails and harassment that this division has received from the start of the case, we’re going to post that later in the day,” Kacsmaryk replied. “So it may even be after business hours, but that will be publicly filed.”

The absolute best case scenario here is that in the end this was all a massive waste of time and energy. Here’s hoping. CNN, ABC News, and CNBC have more.

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Founder of that voter roll maintenance program that election denialists hate has stepped down

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I’m sure this will calm everyone down and restore the faith everyone once had in this program. Right?

David Becker, an election law advocate who helped create the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), is vacating his position on its board as a flurry of far-right conspiracy theories about the voter roll maintenance program prompted a handful of red states to withdraw from its services.

“Today, I informed [ERIC] that I will not accept renomination as a non-voting member of the board when my term expires this week,” he announced in a tweet on Tuesday. “I remain very proud of leading the effort to create ERIC, and supporting its expansion to over half the states in a decade.”

ERIC is a non-partisan program used by over 30 states to help clean up voter rolls since there is no national voter database. It’s recently become the target of election deniers and far-right conspiracy theorists who are pushing the false narrative that it’s run and funded by liberals—including Becker and, the far-right’s favorite bogeyman billionaire philanthropist, George Soros.

Becker said these right-wing attacks are the reason he’s decided to leave the board. “Unfortunately, attacks fueled by disinformation by those who want our democracy to fail, have led to some states, all R-led, to diminish their own ability to maintain election integrity,” he wrote.

See here for the background. I’m sure you all read my opening sentence with the proper tone of voice. I note that our Secretary of State has begun an effort to find a replacement for ERIC, which I’m sure will end well. We live in truly stupid times.

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Uvalde DA joins DPS in resisting release of shooting info

Posted on March 15, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We’re still waiting.

Uvalde’s district attorney has joined the Texas Department of Public Safety in fighting the release of public records related to last year’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School, arguing that all of the families who lost children want them withheld. But attorneys for a vast majority of the families are refuting that claim, saying that the information should be made public.

“These Uvalde families fundamentally deserve the opportunity to gain the most complete factual picture possible of what happened to their children,” wrote Brent Ryan Walker, one of the attorneys who represents the parents of 16 deceased children and one who survived, in a court affidavit filed Tuesday evening.

Numerous news organizations, including The Texas Tribune and ProPublica, are suing DPS for records that could provide a more complete picture of law enforcement’s response to the shooting, which left 19 students and two teachers dead in the border community.

The state’s top police agency has refused to release records, including incident reports, internal communications, ballistic reports and body-camera footage.

Last week, Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell supported DPS’ position in a court filing. Disclosing such records could jeopardize any criminal charges Mitchell may seek in response to an investigation by the Texas Rangers, her office wrote.

[…]

In a court filing asking a judge to block the release of records, Mitchell’s office claimed that the families of every child who was killed shared her view.

“All of the families of the deceased children have stated to District Attorney Mitchell that they do not want the investigation of the Texas Rangers released until she has had ample time to review the case and present it to an Uvalde grand jury, if appropriate,” her office wrote.

At least two parents told ProPublica and the Tribune that Mitchell never asked for their input on the release of records. Separately, attorneys representing numerous families said they disagreed with Mitchell’s attempt to withhold the records related to the investigation.

“To date our attempts to gain information that these families should be entitled to receive from their government officials has been thwarted under the vague allegation of ongoing investigations. This attempt by Ms. Mitchell to intervene and prevent the release of this report is another example,” said Robert Paul Wilson, a lawyer representing the families of a teacher and a student killed in the shooting as well as children who survived.

See here, here, and here for some background. We can certainly talk about the ongoing investigations and the need to keep at least some information confidential for the time being – it would be nice to have some limits on that, and to give some general idea of how much long it might take, though that is an issue the courts may rule on. Lying about having all of the affected parents on your side, that’s pretty egregious. Why lie about something that can be so easily checked? Not a good look at all. I hope she gets held to account for that.

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The latest obsession of election denialist crackpots

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

You may want to sit down before you read this.

In virtual meetings taking place over a year, right-wing activists and Republican legislators have stoked concern over a multistate coalition that Texas and more than 30 other states use to help clean voter rolls. The majority of their grievances — that it is run by left-wing voter registration activists and funded by George Soros, among other things — were pulled straight from a far-right conspiracy website and are baseless.

Now, lawmakers who regularly attend those meetings have introduced legislation written by the group that would end Texas’s participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC.

The bills were introduced despite the efforts of Texas’s elections director, who attended a meeting and offered factual information related to their concerns last April, apparently without success.

Keith Ingram, the elections director for the secretary of state’s office, told the group the program was the only option available to ensure voters aren’t registered or voting in more than one state at the same time. Nonetheless, the activists moved forward with an effort that experts say is set to undermine one of the best election integrity tools available to Texas and other states to prevent election fraud.

“We want to be able to do something and we have a senator that’s willing to help change that or add language or improve or reform ERIC,” said Toni Anne Dashiell last August, referring to Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola. Dashiell, the Republican national committeewoman for Texas, organizes the meetings and refers to them as “TAD Talks.”

Shortly after, the group’s ERIC task force — led by Alan Vera, the current Harris County Republican Party ballot security chairman, and Dana Myers, the Texas Republican Party vice-chair — began drafting legislation. Myers declined to comment for this story. Dashiell and Vera did not respond to Votebeat’s requests for comment or to emailed questions about how the effort would improve elections in Texas.

Vera announced during a January meeting of the task force that they had submitted the draft of such a bill to Hughes’ staff for review. Hughes, who attended almost every single one of the virtual meetings, filed legislation with their suggestions as Senate Bill 1070 in February. Rep. Jacey Jetton, R-Richmond, also a regular speaker in the virtual calls, filed a companion bill in the House. Hughes and Jetton did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“Now, there is no evidence that ERIC is doing anything to Texas voter rolls, I want to be clear about that,” Hughes said during a virtual meeting in October. “But we do know, again, that the people running ERIC don’t share our worldview.”

There’s a lot more, so read the rest and also read this TPM story from earlier in the week that was about other states doing similar stuff. The very short summary here is that bad people who lie a lot about “vote fraud” are baselessly attacking a bipartisan tool that actually helps identify people who are registered in multiple states and wanting to replace it with some unknown thing that they control. Nothing good can come of this, and unfortunately like most things there’s not much we can do if Republicans are determined to pass something. More from TPM here.

(There is one thing we can do, and that’s really try to take out Rep. Jetton in 2024. HD26 was moderately competitive in 2020, though less so last year. Still, this is a purple-ish district and he should be strongly challenged for facilitating such denialist bullshit. We’re never going to get anywhere until some Republicans start losing elections as a result of the extremist things they do. Jacey Jetton and HD26 is as good a place to start with this as any.)

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The Lege still doesn’t want to pay for Paxton’s whistleblower sins

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Who can blame them?

A crook any way you look

Now midway through the legislative session, Paxton and state lawmakers are at a standstill, and taxpayers are caught in the middle.

Lawmakers have so far declined to include the settlement money in any budget bills, while Paxton argues that the agreement would ultimately save taxpayers from funding a lengthy court case that may end with a higher price tag.

The whistleblowers’ accusations have prompted an ongoing Department of Justice investigation of Paxton, who has denied any wrongdoing. Paxton’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Political experts say the Legislature’s reluctance to embrace the agreement could be a tactic to pressure Paxton to either pay for the settlement himself or answer for the corruption allegations in court.

“It’s like the Legislature is telling Paxton that this is his problem to take care of,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston. “This is as close as Paxton will come to a political sanction from his party for his actions. … The party is not going to directly say that they think that he’s done wrong, but they certainly don’t want to be on the hook to foot the bill.”

Lawmakers suggested at a budget hearing last month that Paxton should use his own campaign funds to settle the case, as the state’s election laws allow. But a Paxton staffer interjected, noting that whistleblower laws hold the office accountable, not the officeholder.

[…]

As of January, Paxton had $2.3 million in his campaign war chest and $1.3 million in outstanding loans. He would have to fundraise to pay off the rest of the settlement — a “horrific” option for the attorney general, Rottinghaus said.

The whistleblowers on Wednesday requested that the Texas Supreme Court lift its temporary pause on the case. If Paxton and the whistleblowers remain at an impasse through the end of legislative session in May, they’ll all head back to court.

Chris Hilton, the general litigation division chief and a lawyer for Paxton, accused the whistleblowers on Thursday of trying to “undo the agreement by filing a misleading brief with the Texas Supreme Court, all the while coordinating with the media to create drama.”

“We’ll continue to seek a cost-efficient resolution, even while the plaintiffs needlessly drag this process out,” Hilton said.

Turner pushed back on that claim, pointing to a court filing by the attorney general’s office in which Paxton’s attorneys agreed that “should the parties prove unable to obtain funding,” they would jointly ask the Texas Supreme Court to resume the case.

“As we negotiated the formal agreement, the attorney general backtracked and would not agree to a deadline for legislative approval,” Turner said. “Anyone reading this can easily decide for themselves who is being misleading and who is dragging this process out.”

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said Paxton is essentially giving the Legislature an ultimatum: “‘Pay to clean up my mess, or as I stall on this set of corruption charges brought against me by my former employees, that could sum up to a great deal more than $3.3 million.’”

The only reason the attorney general’s staff knows the cost could be higher, Jillson said, “is because they intend to stretch this thing out as far as possible.”

With two months left in the legislative session, there’s still plenty of time for lawmakers to change their minds, but it’s a touchy subject.

See here for the background. I remain fine with the stance that the Lege has taken so far, however doubtful I am about their resolve. Put simply, don’t bail out Ken Paxton. I recognize that this puts a burden on the whistleblowers, who did us all a favor by coming forward like this, and I regret that they are caught in the middle. I also maintain that approving the settlement and cutting the AG’s budget by an equivalent (or greater!) amount would be fine, but I have yet to see any suggestion of that in any of these stories. Changing the law to allow Paxton to pay this with his campaign funds might be OK, and there are other ideas that could work. All I care is that no one takes Paxton off the hook. If that means the taxpayers face a bigger payout down the line, so be it. The point is that he should own it all. The Trib has more.

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Metro gets some BRT money

Posted on March 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Thank you, FTA, may we please have some more?

Houston’s biggest bus rapid transit line, the planned University Corridor, is still on the drawing board, but already is drawing in federal funds.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in a Thursday announcement, said the Metropolitan Transit Authority project will receive $150 million in the upcoming budget of the Federal Transit Administration, as part of the New Starts grant program for major transit projects. The approval, subject to Congress passing the overall budget, marks the first federal funds dedicated to the line, out of a potential $939.3 million of the $1.57 billion cost that could come from Washington.

“It is going to help people get where they need to go,” Buttigieg said of the project, one of nine chosen nationally for new funding, totaling $1.3 billion.

The line, when built, will stretch more than 25 miles from the Tidwell Transit Center to the area around the University of Houston, then westward through Midtown, Greenway Plaza, south of Uptown and eventually to Westchase. Buses will have their own dedicated lanes, either by taking existing lanes from local streets such as Lockwood and Richmond, or along its own route parallel to Westpark Drive.

Officials are wrapping up their second round of public meetings on plans for the route, with construction scheduled to start in late 2024. The buses could begin carrying riders in 2028. Current timelines, and all the federal funding, are contingent on the project being completely designed and Metro and federal officials agreeing on the project’s specifics next year.

Transit agency CEO Tom Lambert called the award “great news,” and credited staff for keeping the project on pace after voters approved the long-range plan in 2019, even as Metro maneuvered through a massive drop in ridership related to the COVID pandemic.

Metro’s board is set to consider, possibly later this month, the preferred route for the dedicated lanes.

See here, here, and here for some background. I’m eager to see the official preferred route – we have a route for the Inner Katy BRT line, which if all goes as planned will open a year earlier, in 2027 – and start thinking about how to actually get around town with these things. I will reiterate what I said in that Inner Katy post, which is that to truly realize the potential of these routes, some investment will need to be made along them both in increasing and improving the sidewalks that will connect the stops to the surrounding neighborhoods. For example, if there’s a stop along the Universities BRT at Westpark and Newcastle, building in about a half-mile of sidewalk along Newcastle to the south will connect to Bellaire (where there’s already a really nice and wide walking path) and the HCC West Loop campus. There’s no reason not to make this investment in maximizing the utility of these transit lines.

Also, too, and I’ll never not be bitter about this, but this would open 25 years after the Main Street light rail line, and what, 15 years after the various extensions were built. Had it not been for John Culberson, we could have already had a Universities light rail line in place and maybe be adding on to it instead of building this from scratch so many years later. I know there’s nothing to be gained from crying over this, and all we can do is work to make what we have now better, but this is a grudge I will hold till I die.

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Chron story on Fair For Houston

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good stuff.

Local advocates have launched a petition drive aimed at increasing the city’s voice on the Houston-Galveston Area Council, a 13-county regional planning council that has been criticized by Houston leaders for what they consider unfair federal fund allocation.

Consisting of more than 100 local governments, including cities, counties and school districts, the council frequently serves as the decision maker for distributing federal funding for flood protection, workforce development and large-scale infrastructure works to member jurisdictions.

With more than 2.3 million residents, Houston represents more than 30% of the population within H-GAC’s jurisdiction, but only two city officials serve on its 37-member board.

Since mid-January, volunteers of the newly formed Houston-Galveston Area PAC have been collecting signatures from Houston voters under an initiative called “Fair for Houston,” with the aim of putting a city charter amendment on the ballot in November.

The proposed charter amendment would have Houston withdraw from any regional planning group without a proportional voting structure based on population size. The goal , organizer Michael Moritz said, is to compel H-GAC to revise its voting system.

“This organization is continuing to influence Houston in a way that has a strong human cost,” Moritz said. “Flood infrastructure not being built in Houston is going to influence how our city experiences the next major hurricane. And transportation projects are going to influence the risk of someone being injured or killed in a car crash or the rates of childhood asthma in schools near freeways.”

“Houston is the largest city in the metro area,” he said. “We have a significant amount of leverage here. The H-GAC would be in an existential crisis should they not be willing to hear Houston out and adapt the voting structure.”

Waller County Judge Trey Duhon, chairman of the H-GAC board of directors, said a proportional voting structure would give Houston and Harris County too much power and go against the spirit of regional representation.

“H-GAC is a regional planning organization and must always consider the big picture when it comes to our Gulf Coast region and the impact we can have on every county in H-GAC, large or small,” Duhon said. “What is being proposed would essentially kill the essence of a regional planning council of governments. It would allow two jurisdictions to essentially control and dominate regional decisions amongst the 13 counties. That undermines the entire purpose of the council of government.”

[…]

Moritz said that while the group’s ultimate goal is to have H-GAC change its voting structure, the city could decide to withdraw from H-GAC but still continue to receive funding under federal regulations on metropolitan planning organizations until a new regional planning group is created.

“There’s no risk that federal funding dries up,” he said. “All that we’re doing here is forcing H-GAC ‘s hand in a way. And Houston could decide to work with regional governments to constitute a new MPO in what would be sort of the last possible scenario if they continue to be obstinate toward Houston’s request.”

Danny Perez, a spokesperson for the Houston District of the Texas Department of Transportation, said the department “is committed to working with our MPO partners and will continue to do so whether as currently defined or restructured.”

See here for when I noted the existence of Fair For Houston. The story notes some previous examples of HGAC screwing us out of a fair share of funds, a situation that the likes of Trey Duhon no doubt thinks is just fine. It’s called “democracy”, Trey. Look it up sometime.

After I first posted about FFH, I started wondering about what would happen to the federal grant and appropriation process if Houston and Harris County were no longer in HGAC. My main fear was that some alternate organization would have to be created by the Legislature for the new Houston/Harris organization to participate in that process. That doesn’t appear to be the case, which is greatly reassuring, but I’d still like to see a super wonky explanation of what exactly would happen if the “take our ball and go home” threat got carried out, just so we’d all know what hoops or pitfalls there might be along the way. And if HGAC gets on board with the idea of, you know, not screwing Houston and Harris County, that would be great. Not blowing it up is usually the easier path. We just need to make sure the path we’re on is going somewhere good. If you go to the Fair For Houston website, you can see they have a number of events coming up to help collect the needed signatures. Go help them out if you can.

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The unhinged abortion pills lawsuit will take place in darkness

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Nothing about this is good.

The Texas judge who could undo government approval of a key abortion drug has scheduled the first hearing in the case for Wednesday but took unusual steps to keep it from being publicized, according to people familiar with the plans.

The hearing will be an opportunity for lawyers for the Justice Department, the company that makes the drug and the conservative group that is challenging it to argue their positions before U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. After they do, the judge could rule at any time.

Kacsmaryk scheduled the hearing during a call with attorneys Friday, said multiple people familiar with the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. Kacsmaryk said he would delay putting the hearing on the public docket until late Tuesday to try to minimize disruptions and possible protests, and asked the lawyers on the call not to share information about it before then, the people said.

Public access to federal court proceedings is a key principle of the American judicial system, and Kacsmaryk’s apparent delay in placing the hearing on the docket is highly unusual. The judge and his staff did not respond to emails requesting comment on Saturday evening.

The lawsuit seeks to revoke Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in a medication abortion. The case has garnered widespread attention and protests.

A decision by Kacsmaryk to suspend FDA approval of mifepristone would immediately prompt major changes in how many abortion clinics across the country provide care. Some are planning to immediately switch to a misoprostol-only protocol, while others are planning to offer only surgical abortions. Any decision would likely be appealed to the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, and possibly to the Supreme Court.

[…]

Kacsmaryk told the attorneys that he also wanted to delay publicizing the hearing because courthouse members have received threats in the wake of the lawsuit, according to the people familiar with the call. Several people close to Kacsmaryk say the judge and his family have faced security threats since he ascended to the federal bench in 2019, and those threats have intensified ahead of the abortion pill ruling.

Before and after the Friday phone call with lawyers, The Washington Post repeatedly called and emailed Kacsmaryk’s chambers seeking information about it, but received no response. Kacsmaryk’s chambers also did not respond to a request that reporters be allowed to join the call.

Kacsmaryk was nominated by President Donald Trump and is known for his conservative views on issues like same-sex marriage and abortion.

By waiting to publicize the time of the hearing, Kacsmaryk and his staff could make it difficult for the public, the media and others to travel to the courthouse in Amarillo. The remote, deeply conservative city has few direct flights except from Dallas or San Antonio and is at least a four-hour drive from any of the state’s major, heavily-Democratic cities. Still, over 150 abortion rights advocates gathered there on a Saturday in mid-February to voice their support for abortion pills.

I noted this lawsuit when it was filed. There’s been a metric crap-ton of analysis and punditry and increasingly dire warnings about this lawsuit and the pernicious effect of court-shopping, and I’ll leave it to you to google around for all the screaming into the void you can handle. It’s possible that this maneuver means that Kacsmaryk has at least a dim idea that his actions have the potential to cause a massive shitstorm. It also may just be that he doesn’t care to deal with the media and he has the power to make his wishes come true. Either way, brace yourselves.

UPDATE: Chris Geidner has more.

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More on spending less on court-appointed lawyers

Posted on March 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Seems like a good start.

A Houston Chronicle investigation into how some private attorneys earn enormous sums to represent thousands of indigent people accused of crimes in Harris County – at a cost of $60 million to taxpayers last year – is prompting widespread calls for reform, as well as a county audit of the program.

The 10 highest-paid private attorneys each pocketed more than $450,000 last year, with one pulling in $1 million. Dozens of attorneys – not all among the highest-paid – took on far more cases than county-employed public defenders are allowed. Their caseloads also exceeded state-recommended limits.

“Obviously, these numbers are huge,” said Jed Silverman, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association. “It’s wrong, it’s offensive to your average person off the street, and it calls into question whether or not these accused people are getting effective assistance of counsel.”

Here’s a look at what officials are doing to address the issue, and other proposed solutions.

Late last month, the Harris County Auditor told county leaders that his office “started a review of court-appointed attorneys’ fees.” Errika Perkins, who also works in the office, told the Chronicle that officials hope to examine everything from the attorneys’ billing practices to whether they’re visiting clients in jail.

“Our goal is to be able to analyze the different hours attorneys spent on different aspects of the case,” Perkins said, adding that she expects the audit will take at least a couple of months before results can be publicly released.

Two of the county’s Democratic commissioners, Rodney Ellis and Leslie Briones, separately are pushing for an expansion of the public defender’s office, which employed about 130 lawyers to represent indigent clients last year.

But Silverman and others say those changes won’t be enough.

“Everybody involved has to double down” to fix the problem, said State Sen. John Whitmire, who also is running for mayor of Houston. “There’s no justice for victims, defendants, or society … the whole damn thing’s broken.”

For their part, judges and county staff say they’re trying to improve the situation by increasing attorney pay and mentorship opportunities to entice more attorneys to take cases. Harris County courts have faced so much turmoil in recent years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Harvey that many attorneys stopped taking appointments, forcing judges to overload some of the ones that remain.

See here for the background. First, I’m glad to see that there is publicly-expressed support for increasing the budget of the Harris County Public Defender Office, which makes all kinds of sense. The story suggests that the max case load the PDO could handle is about half of the indigent cases, which would require slightly more than doubling their current budget. The story mentions other things that the county is doing now, but it’s not clear to me what things that it should be doing that it isn’t or hasn’t brought up. I don’t know what the particulars are that Silverman and Whitmire – who obviously would have some skin in the game as Houston Mayor, even though this is a county matter – have in mind. Be that as it may, I believe this situation will look very different in a couple of years. That should be the goal, anyway.

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

Weekend link dump for March 12

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

“If this were any other state, Presley might arguably be an outright favorite to win this race. The problem, of course, is that he happens to be running in Mississippi, which has among the highest levels of racial polarization in the nation.”

“Japan discovered it has 7,000 more islands than previously thought thanks to advanced survey mapping technology.”

“That is because the lab leak is still missing the key element of the U.N. cholera story that made it more than just a bunch of rumors: an actual, coherent theory of the case that could be refuted or confirmed.”

“In other words, it means that the music I think of as cool is, now, officially, no longer cool. It has become so wholly and officially un-cool that it can now be played as harmless background noise in a Big Box store in the white western suburbs of Philadelphia.”

“So, this isn’t One Weird Trick to solve it, it’s a reminder to neurodivergent folks that a lot of politeness is a performance of a lie so that people, especially white people, can survive cognitive dissonance and pretend nothing is bad if we all just use our company manners.”

What the dogs of Chernobyl can teach us.

RIP, Judy Heumann, renowned disability rights activist.

“How Attacks Against Obamacare Turned Into Tools to Protect Abortion Access”.

Peak TV was awesome. Trough TV, not so much.

Is your tap water turning you gay? Spoiler alert: No, it is not.

RIP, Gary Rossington, guitarist and last surviving founding member of Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“Toblerone is no longer Swiss enough to feature the Matterhorn on its packaging”.

RIP, Barbara Everitt Bryant, first woman to lead the US Census Bureau.

Keeping track of time on the moon is trickier than you might think.

“The real lesson of the 2022 election is that the country is ready to move on from extremists and traitors. And yet they’re going right back to it because it’s who they are.”

“The World Baseball Classic, right now, is a half-measure, and most of its problems can be traced to it being played in March. You’re not getting the best players, you’re not getting the biggest audience, in March. By moving half the event into the summer, you can address those problems and start the Classic on its way to becoming what MLB wants it to be: baseball’s World Cup.”

RIP, Lee Ellis, former Houston restauranteur. I can attest that both the chicken and the donuts at Lee’s Fried Chicken and Donuts, which was in my neighborhood, were very good.

“The bewildering descent of Scott Adams and Dilbert“.

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can’t wait. I hate him passionately.”

RIP, Ian Falconer, stage designer and author/illustrator of the Olivia children’s books, which our family dearly loved.

RIP, Chaim Topol, actor best known for playing Tevye in the stage and screen versions of Fiddler on the Roof.

“Three reasons to believe that COVID evolved naturally, not in a lab”.

“Pfizer ready to launch RSV vaccines for older adults, pregnant women in US, Europe”.

RIP, Robert Blake, actor best known for the TV show Baretta and for being acquitted of the murder of his wife.

Lock him up.

A great story about Malachy McCourt – author, actor, raconteur and man-about-town – written by one of my high school classmates.

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The next frontier in forced birth litigation

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

This is truly wild, and potentially very scary.

A Texas man is suing three women under the wrongful death statute, alleging that they assisted his ex-wife in terminating her pregnancy, the first such case brought since the state’s near-total ban on abortion last summer.

Marcus Silva is represented by Jonathan Mitchell, the former Texas solicitor general and architect of the state’s prohibition on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, and state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park. The lawsuit is filed in state court in Galveston County, where Silva lives.

Silva alleges that his now ex-wife learned she was pregnant in July 2022, the month after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and conspired with two friends to illegally obtain abortion-inducing medication and terminate the pregnancy.

The friends texted with the woman, sending her information about Aid Access, an international group that provides abortion-inducing medication through the mail, the lawsuit alleges. Text messages filed as part of the complaint seem to show they instead found a way to acquire the medication in Houston, where the two women lived.

A third woman delivered the medication, the lawsuit alleges, and text messages indicate that the wife self-managed an abortion at home.

The defendants could not immediately be reached for comment. Silva’s wife filed for divorce in May 2022, court records show, two months before the alleged abortion. The divorce was finalized in February. They share two daughters, the lawsuit said.

[…]

The lawsuit alleges that assisting a self-managed abortion qualifies as murder under state law, which would allow Silva to sue under the wrongful death statute. The women have not been criminally charged. Texas’ abortion laws specifically exempt the pregnant person from prosecution; the ex-wife is not named as a defendant.

The legality of abortion in Texas in July 2022 is murky. The state’s trigger law, which makes performing abortion a crime punishable by up to life in prison, did not go into effect until August. But conservative state leaders, including Cain and Attorney General Ken Paxton, have claimed that the state’s pre-Roe abortion bans, which punish anyone who performs or “furnishes the means” for an abortion by up to five years in prison, went back into effect the day Roe v. Wade was overturned in June.

The legal status of these pre-Roe statutes remains a contentious question. In 2004, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that those laws were “repealed by implication,” which U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman reaffirmed in a recent ruling. But Cain and others have repeatedly argued that the Legislature restored those laws into effect with recent abortion legislation. This issue went before the Texas Supreme Court, but the case was dismissed before a final ruling.

In 2021, the Legislature passed a law making it a state jail felony to provide abortion-inducing medication except under extremely specific circumstances.

Joanna Grossman, a law professor at SMU Dedman School of Law, said this lawsuit is “absurd and inflammatory.” Since the pregnant patient is protected from prosecution, there is no underlying cause of action to bring a wrongful death suit in a self-managed abortion, she said.

“But this is going to cause such fear and chilling that it doesn’t matter whether [Mitchell] is right,” Grossman said. “Who is going to want to help a friend find an abortion if there is some chance that their text messages are going to end up in the news? And maybe they’re going to get sued, and maybe they’re going to get arrested, and it’s going to get dropped eventually, but in the meantime, they will have been terrified.”

But it’s possible this lawsuit could get traction, said Charles “Rocky” Rhodes, a law professor at South Texas College of Law.

“It’s scary to think that you can be sued for significant damages for helping a friend undertake acts that help her have even a self-medicated abortion,” Rhodes said. “Obviously, the allegations would have to be proven, but there is potentially merit to this suit under Texas’ abortion laws as they exist now.”

Mitchell and Cain intend to also name the manufacturer of the abortion pill as a defendant, once it is identified.

“Anyone involved in distributing or manufacturing abortion pills will be sued into oblivion,” Cain said in a statement.

At first I thought this was an SB8 lawsuit, but it’s not. This is a lawsuit under the “wrongful death” laws, which would make this a lot broader, not to mention not having a $10K cap on how much you can sue for. Among other things, if the plaintiff wins, it would legally establish that a third party can claim an injury when a woman has an abortion. If the alleged father can do that – and bear in mind, the father could be a rapist or an abuser – then who’s to say that a would-be grandparent couldn’t make a similar claim. There are free speech implications as well, if even discussing abortion with a pregnant woman could land you in legal jeopardy. There’s some existing litigation out there about the First Amendment rights of abortion funds, but nothing has been decided yet. All this may sound far-fetched and overly dramatic, but look at the lawyers leading this charge, and what Briscoe Cain – who has said before that he doesn’t just want to make abortion illegal, he wants to make it “unthinkable” – is saying. If anything, I’m not being dark and paranoid enough.

What happens from here is hard to say, but one thing for sure is that these three women are going to be facing many thousands of dollars in legal bills, which among other things may put pressure on them to settle. Again, I’m quite certain that’s all part of the plan. This needs to be much bigger news, and not just in Texas. I’d really like to see national groups and national political figures make a big deal out of this, and not just for fundraising purposes, except to assist the defendants. This is what SCOTUS has unleashed on us, and it’s what these zealots want. We can’t afford to give an inch. The Chron has more.

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Court blocks phony “defunding” claim again

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

From the inbox:

A Travis County District Court temporarily blocked Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar’s determination that Harris County defunded the Precinct 5 Constable’s office in violation of state law. The order means the Comptroller’s determination as to Harris County’s budget is currently legally ineffective; he’s prohibited from reinstating it.

“I’m glad the courts are blocking Comptroller Hegar from his misguided attacks on Harris County,” said Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee. “Comptroller Hegar violated the law. It’s clear. We’re prepared to fight this in the courts until he does the right thing by the people of Harris County and withdraws his determination. We’re seeing a pattern of state officials trying to get in the business of disrupting Harris County government to score political points. We are not going to stand for it; the five million residents of Harris County deserve better.”

Today’s ruling blocks Comptroller Hegar’s determination that Harris County violated Chapter 120. He made that determination by taking the Precinct 5 budget for the County’s 2022 short fiscal year, annualizing it, and then reasoning that because that annualized number was greater than Precinct 5’s budget for fiscal year 2023, the county violated Chapter 120. That is legally incorrect, even applying the Comptroller’s own math. Chapter 120 requires that if a county’s overall budget decreases from one budget year to the next, a prohibited funding reduction occurs only if the police agency’s share of the county’s overall budget has decreased over that same period. Harris County did not violate that standard because using the Comptroller’s math, Harris County’s overall budget decreases from his annualized version of the 2022 short fiscal year budget to the County’s fiscal year 2023 budget, while Precinct 5’s share of the County’s budget increases.

The next hearing is set for March 23, 2023. A copy of the county’s lawsuit is available here.

See here and here for the background. There’s a Chron story, but it’s mostly this press release plus some others. As was the case the last time around, it looks like this flimsy pretextual claim by the Comptroller is going to get stopped. Hopefully he’ll concede and withdraw the claim like he did the last time. And then hopefully he won’t go for a three-peat. Hopefully.

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Muskville, Texas

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

What did Bastrop do to deserve this?

Elon Musk is planning to build his own town on part of thousands of acres of newly purchased pasture and farmland outside the Texas capital, according to deeds and other land records and people familiar with the project.

In meetings with landowners and real-estate agents, Mr. Musk and employees of his companies have described his vision as a sort of Texas utopia along the Colorado River, where his employees could live and work.

Executives at the Boring Co., Mr. Musk’s tunnel operation, have discussed and researched incorporating the town in Bastrop County, about 35 miles from Austin, which would allow Mr. Musk to set some regulations in his own municipality and expedite his plans, according to people familiar with Mr. Musk’s projects.

They say Mr. Musk and his top executives want his Austin-area employees, including workers at Boring, electric-car maker Tesla Inc. and space and exploration company SpaceX, to be able to live in new homes with below-market rents.

The planned town is adjacent to Boring and SpaceX facilities now under construction. The site already includes a group of modular homes, a pool, an outdoor sports area and a gym, according to Facebook photos and people familiar with the town. Signs hanging from poles read “welcome, snailbrook, tx, est. 2021.”

Mr. Musk, his former girlfriend, who is the singer Grimes, Kanye West and Mr. West’s architectural designer discussed several times last year what a Musk town might look like, according to people familiar with the discussions. Those talks included broad ideas and some visual mock-ups, according to one of the people, but haven’t resulted in concrete plans.

Representatives for Mr. West, who goes by Ye, and Grimes, whose real name is Claire Boucher, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Under Texas law, a town needs at least 201 residents before it can apply to incorporate, then approval from a county judge. Bastrop County hasn’t received an application from Mr. Musk or any of his entities, a spokeswoman said.

Chap Ambrose, a computer programmer who lives on a hilltop overlooking the new Boring and SpaceX facilities, said he believes “they want it to be secret. They want to do things before anyone knows really what’s happening.”

Mr. Ambrose has been seeking information from Boring and the county about the company’s research and testing of its tunneling machines and how that might affect groundwater and wells in the area.

He has sent drones over the area seeking clues to other structures Boring and SpaceX are building and what they plan to produce in their factories. Drone footage and YouTube videos he posted show the construction of tunnels between the Boring and SpaceX parcels that run beneath a public road.

[…]

Last June, Robert Pugh, then Bastrop County’s director of engineering, complained in an email to Clara Beckett, the county commissioner in charge of planning, that staffers had been “regularly hounded” by employees and contractors of Boring and Starlink, a SpaceX unit. They want the county to “expedite and approve permit applications that are incomplete and not in compliance” with the county’s regulations, Mr. Pugh wrote.

Mr. Pugh left his job that same month and didn’t respond to requests for comment. Ms. Beckett didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The planned town would sit in Bastrop County. An entity called Gapped Bass LLC, of which state records show Boring’s Mr. Davis serving as president, now owns more than 200 acres there, all purchased within the past two years. SpaceX has purchased about 60 more acres. The land was previously owned by longtime ranchers and other Texas families.

As of last year, Boring employees could apply for a home with rents starting at about $800 a month for a two- or three-bedroom, according to an advertisement for employees viewed by the Journal and people familiar with the plans. If an employee leaves or is fired, he or she would have to vacate the house within 30 days, those people said.

The median rent in Bastrop, Texas, is about $2,200 a month, according to real-estate listing company Zillow Group Inc.

Executives have discussed opening the houses to all employees of Mr. Musk’s companies.

Gapped Bass has filed paperwork with Bastrop County to build 110 more homes in the planned town, which it calls “Project Amazing.”

Bastrop County officials approved street names such as “Boring Boulevard,” “Waterjet Way” and “Cutterhead Crossing,” according to county meeting documents.

Boring plans to convert a home on the property into a Montessori school for as many as 15 students, according to correspondence between a Boring company official and a county government employee.

See here for some background. Believe it or not, there’s a lot more in this story. WSJ articles are usually paywalled but the link I got for this let me right in, so if you can go read the rest. The Austin Chronicle has a summary, and contains this bit of interest, some of which is farther down in the story:

In meetings with landowners, Musk and his employees describe his vision as a utopia along the Colorado River where Musk’s employees can live and work.

Of course a “utopia” or “paradise” centered on the Colorado probably doesn’t bring to mind images of hundreds of thousands of gallons of wastewater being poured into said river, but that is evidently what Musk and his people envision. Musk-owned tunneling company the Boring Co. has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for permission to discharge up to 140,000 gallons of industrial treated wastewater into the Colorado every day.

That’s how Bastrop local Chap Ambrose, whose house overlooks Musk’s property, found out about this utopian vision – a letter from TCEQ informing him of his neighbor’s wastewater request and of his own ability to publicly comment on the request. Led by Ambrose, a grassroots coalition of Musk’s neighbors called Keep Bastrop Boring hosted a meeting March 8 at the Bastrop Public Library to share their research, and their plans to show up at the TCEQ’s public meeting to discuss the Boring permit 7pm, March 21 at the Hampton Inn in Bastrop. (Anyone can comment.)

This is just the latest in not-helpful ideas Musk has presented in Central Texas. In April last year, we reported that ten Austin city employees flew out to Las Vegas to meet with representatives of the Boring Co. in relation to potential tunnels needed for Project Connect, although Boring Co. has no experience with public transit systems. That communication seemed to fizzle out, as have the many projects Boring Co. has attempted with cities nationwide.

Putting aside whatever animus I may have for Elon Musk, I don’t want anyone dumping 140,000 gallons of industrial treated wastewater into the Colorado River every day. I hope that request gets denied. And all respect to Chap Ambrose for Keep Bastrop Boring. May he succeed in his quest, at least as far as this goes. Daily Kos has more.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Chron story on the anti-Open Beaches bill

Posted on March 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Glad to see it.

A bill that would reshape future legal battles over Texas’ public beach boundaries is stirring backlash from advocates and former state leaders, who claim the proposal would give beachfront property owners the green light to vacuum up pieces of the state’s public beaches.

Senate Bill 434, filed last month by state Sen. Mayes Middleton of Galveston, would give private property owners the upper hand in legal disputes over public beach access between their residences and the Gulf of Mexico.

Such disputes are governed by Texas’ Open Beaches Act, which has long established the public’s right to use privately owned beach area extending from the vegetation line — the beach’s inland boundary, where sand gives way to foliage — to what’s known as the “mean high tide line” along the water.

Under current law, property owners can only scrap a public easement in front of their property — thus blocking the public from passing through it — if they offer legal proof that the area shouldn’t be covered by the easement.

Middleton’s bill would upend the law, shifting the legal “burden of proof” to the state or anyone looking to establish that a public easement exists on someone’s beachfront property. Critics say the change would embolden property owners to fence off beach area long accessed by the public — access that could only be regained through legal action.

Middleton did not respond to a request for comment. He defended his legislation in a statement to the Galveston County Daily News last month, arguing it would “not in any way take away our open beaches or limit them.”

“Right now, all over the state of Texas, if the state claims your land as theirs — then they have to prove it. But, sadly, on beachfront property, if Texas claims the property as theirs, it’s presumed to be the state’s — unless the landowner is able to refute the rebuttable presumption,” Middleton said. “My bill is a beachfront private property rights bill that makes beachfront land treated like land in the rest of the state and changes the presumption so that the state must prove it is state lands and the landowner no longer has the burden of proof.”

See here for the argument against, as presented by former Land Commissioners Dewhurst, Patterson, and Mauro. I have no reason to trust Sen. Middleton on this, and that’s even without me already being a steadfast Open Beaches Act supporter. I don’t know what the odds are of this bill passing, but I would take it seriously, as it’s the kind of thing that may get by because no one gives it all that much thought. To that end, the sunshine may help. Reform Austin has more.

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Gilbert Garcia is in for Mayor

Posted on March 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Widely expected.

Gilbert Garcia

Gilbert Garcia, the bond investor and former Metro chairman, is running for mayor, he told the Chronicle Friday.

Garcia’s candidacy has been an open secret in Houston politics for months, if not years. His name has appeared on most early polls of the field, and he has participated in candidate endorsement screenings even before launching his bid. Garcia said he plans to file a form appointing a campaign treasurer with the city secretary’s office before 5 p.m. Friday.

He joins an increasingly crowded field that includes state Sen. John Whitmire, former Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, former City Councilmember Amanda Edwards, attorney Lee Kaplan and Councilmember Robert Gallegos. Rumors have intensified in recent months that U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee may enter the race, as well. The election is Nov. 8.

Garcia, 59, is managing partner at Garcia Hamilton & Associates, a wealth management firm specializing in bonds. The Corpus Christi native went to Yale University and then staked out a career in finance, joining his current firm in 2002. It since has grown from managing about $350 million in assets to more than $20 billion, he said.

Then-Mayor Annise Parker appointed Garcia, who was her campaign chair in 2009, as chairman of the Metropolitan Transit Authority, an agency beset by ethics scandals and shaky finances at the time. Garcia said he knew nothing about transit at the time, but that was the point: Parker was appointing him to “shake up” the organization.

Along with CEO George Greanias, Garcia branded the agency a “new Metro,” stabilizing its fiscal outlook, reorganizing its pension system and increasing transparency by posting its check register online.  He helped oversee a redesign of the agency’s local bus routes and the opening of three light rail segments, though the latter did not come without challenges.

There were long delays in work on the rail lines, and he angered many East End residents when the agency had to go back on its promise to build an underpass where the Green Line intersects with Harrisburg. That dispute included sparring with Gallegos, who represents the East End and now is one of his mayoral opponents.

Garcia’s pitch to mayoral voters is that City Hall now is in need of a similar shake-up. He cites separate federal investigations into the city Health Department and a mayoral aide, the public accusation of corruption by the former housing director, a lingering pay dispute with firefighters and a shaky financial outlook.

“I read the news like everyone else, and I have seen so many challenges that are challenges, frankly, of our own making,” Garcia said. “Those are all things that I think can be solved or done better, because those are not things that are part of the economic environment… I would do a Metro re-do for the city.”

[…]

Renée Cross, senior executive director at the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, said Garcia will make a credible candidate, but he will have to overcome his lack of electoral experience, which will include building name recognition among voters who do not closely follow city politics.

“He’s well-liked on both sides of the aisle,” Cross said. “Now, whether he can go up against experienced candidates like John Whitmire, we’ll have to see, because he’s never run for office.”

Like Gallegos, who announced last month, Garcia is seeking to be Houston’s first Latino mayor. Cross said she thinks the two will pull from different bases, and she would not be surprised if Garcia tries to pull in more conservative voters.

As the story notes, Garcia was a candidate in all but official announcement well before this. I’ll say that I thought he was an excellent Metro board chair – I interviewed him twice, along with then-Board member Christof Spieler, back in the day – and I like him personally. He has some fundraising ground to make up, and as with everyone else in this large field he’s going to have to differentiate himself and get voters’ attention. This is going to be a very busy year.

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Oklahoma rejects recreational marijuana

Posted on March 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Oh, well. At least you can still gamble there.

Oklahoma voters rejected a state question Tuesday to allow for the recreational use of marijuana, following a late blitz of opposition from faith leaders, law enforcement and prosecutors.

Oklahoma would have become the 22nd state to legalize adult use of cannabis and join conservative states like Montana and Missouri that have approved similar proposals in recent years. Many conservative states have also rejected the idea, including Arkansas, North Dakota and South Dakota last year.

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and many of the state’s GOP legislators, including nearly every Republican senator, opposed the idea. Former Republican Gov. Frank Keating, an ex-FBI agent, and Terri White, the former head of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, led the “no” campaign.

“We’re pleased the voters have spoken,” said Pat McFerron, a Republican political strategist who ran the opposition campaign. “We think this sends a clear signal that voters are not happy with the recreational nature of our medicinal system. We also think it shows voters recognize the criminal aspects, as well as the need for addressing mental health needs of the state.”

The “no” side was outspent more than 20-to-1, with supporters of the initiative spending more than $4.9 million, compared to about $219,000 against, last-minute campaign finance reports show.

State Question 820, the result of a signature gathering drive last year, was the only item on the statewide ballot, and early results showed heavy opposition in rural areas.

“We don’t want a stoned society,” Keating said Monday, flanked by district attorneys and law enforcement officers from across the state.

The proposal, if passed, would have allowed anyone over the age of 21 to purchase and possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana, plus concentrates and marijuana-infused products. Recreational sales would have been subjected to a 15% excise tax on top of the standard sales tax. The excise tax would be used to help fund local municipalities, the court system, public schools, substance abuse treatment and the state’s general revenue fund.

As the story notes, Oklahoma allows medical marijuana and has had a pretty good experience with it, which was one of the catalysts for this effort. I saw an AP story on Monday that had hyped this vote, but obviously it didn’t turn out as supporters wanted it to. That’s unfortunate for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that it would make Texas even more of an outlier in its resistance to reforming its punitive old pot laws. Guess we’ll have to find some other motivation for that. Anyway, sorry Sooners. At least it’s a shorter drive from where you are to Colorado. CNN and the Dallas Observer have more.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, had this measure passed I had planned to title the post about it “Toke-lahoma”. It is everybody’s loss that I am not able to do this.)

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

HISD ends lawsuit against TEA

Posted on March 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

A formality at this point.

The Houston Independent School District board voted on Thursday night to end its lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency, effectively ending the district’s legal fight against an attempted state takeover. 

The motion passed with support of eight of the nine trustees following a brief closed session. Trustee Kathy Blueford-Daniels, who represents District II which includes Wheatley High, voted against the measure.

Superintendent Millard House II said he does not know what the board’s decision will mean for the state’s takeover effort because that agency has made no announcement or decision.

“That was a board decision in an effort to get to the table to have conversations with TEA,” he said in an interview following the meeting. “There hasn’t been conversation.”

Dani Hernandez, board president, said the board remains committed to students and student outcomes.

“We are now at the point where it is time for us to move forward,” she said during the meeting. “It is in our students’ and our employees’ best interest for us to end this lawsuit between HISD and TEA and navigate and build relationships between all the parties. … We look forward to bringing both organizations to the table soon for the best interest of children.”

The district is withdrawing from the lawsuit to “end further expenditure of district resources, as there is no further legal recourse,” according to the motion.

[…]

In theory the district could file for a rehearing and continue the legal battle. HISD did request more time to file a motion for a rehearing in late January, but never ended up following through on it.

Given the Texas Supreme Court decision, the board’s decision to stop putting resources toward the lawsuit makes sense, said attorney Christopher L. Tritico, who has represented three Houston-area districts — North Forest, Beaumont and La Marque — in takeover hearings.

“A rehearing is one in a million, and it’s just not worth it. I think they are making a prudent decision in public funds at this point in recognizing the decision is over,” Tritico said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t conceding that they think the commissioner is right, they just don’t have any legal maneuvering.”

I agree with the Board’s actions here. The one trustee who voted against was Kathy Blueford-Daniels, whose district contains Wheatley. I can’t blame her for that.

We have reached the weekend and still no word from the TEA. According to Campos, “there was supposed to be a meeting in Austin yesterday that had to be postponed”. No rush, y’all, take all the time you need. The Press has more.

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The whistleblowers’ un-settlement

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Plot twist!

A crook any way you look

The whistleblowers who sued Attorney General Ken Paxton say they’re headed back to court unless he agrees that the Legislature must approve their proposed $3.3 million settlement before the current legislative session ends in May.

They are the four former aides to Paxton who allege he fired them in retaliation for reporting him to federal authorities for bribery and abuse of office. Paxton has denied all wrongdoing. Their lawyers said Wednesday they were “forced” to file a motion in an Austin appellate court Wednesday asking for the case to resume.

In a joint statement, the lawyers said a deadline of the end of session for payment was the “fundamental premise upon which they asked us to negotiate in the first place.”

“So we’ll go back to court, where the taxpayers will end up paying more to defend (the Office of the Attorney General) than they would to settle this case,” the lawyers said. “We would still settle the case if the Legislature approved the payment this session, but we cannot and did not agree to give OAG the benefit of a settlement while the whistleblowers wait in perpetuity for legislative approval.”

The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some members of the Legislature, including Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, have expressed opposition to approving the settlement. Earlier this month, Phelan said in an interview with CBS DFW that he did not think it was a “proper use of taxpayer dollars.” Taxpayers are already on the hook for $600,000 in legal fees for Paxton’s defense.

[…]

The case now returns to the Texas Supreme Court, where it landed after Paxton appealed in December 2021 a decision by the 3rd Court of Appeals that upheld a lower court’s finding that the state’s whistleblower protection law should have prevented the employees from being fired.

The all-Republican court had not yet decided whether it would grant the case when the whistleblowers and Paxton asked them to hold off on any decisions while the parties finalized their settlement agreement. The court could decide to grant or deny at any time; it is not subject to a deadline.

In addition to the $3.3 million payment, the settlement, which the parties announced last month, would have required Paxton to remove a news release from his website that is critical of the employees. He also would have had to state in the agreement that he “accepts that plaintiffs acted in a manner that they thought was right and apologizes for referring to them as ‘rogue employees.'”

See here, here, and here for some background. The Trib adds some details.

The multimillion-dollar settlement, announced last month, would give back pay to the four former employees and would include an apology from Paxton as well as other concessions. But the agreement needs to be approved by state lawmakers, who have expressed an unwillingness to use taxpayer dollars to settle Paxton’s case. At the request of the parties in January, the Texas Supreme Court put the whistleblower case on pause while the two sides looked to finalize the deal. But without a deadline, the case could be on pause indefinitely, attorneys for the former employees said on Wednesday.

“Sadly, we have not been able to reach a final settlement because [the Office of the Attorney General] will not agree to include in the formal agreement a deadline for the legislature to approve funding this session, even though that was the fundamental premise upon which they asked us to negotiate in the first place,” the attorneys said in a statement. “So we’ll go back to court, where the taxpayers will end up paying more to defend OAG than they would to settle this case.”

Paxton’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has denied wrongdoing.

Attorneys for the former employees said they would still settle the case if lawmakers approved the $3.3 million settlement this session.

“But we cannot and did not agree to give [the Office of the Attorney General] the benefit of a settlement while the whistleblowers wait in perpetuity for legislative approval,” they wrote.

The fired employees’ attorneys have urged lawmakers to approve the settlement, but its funding looks bleak after top legislators, including House Speaker Dade Phelan, came out against the use of state funds to settle the case. The Legislature’s top budget writers did not include the settlement in their first draft of bills to resolve miscellaneous legal claims.

In a filing to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, attorneys for the former employees said the attorney general’s office has told them verbally that they have put the whistleblowers in a “gotcha position.” If lawmakers do not approve funding for the settlement by the end of this legislative session on May 29, the attorney general’s office has said the whistleblower case should remain on pause until the next legislative session in 2025. If it is not approved again, the filing reads, the attorney general’s office has said the case should remain on pause until the following session in 2027.

“And so on in perpetuity. [The Office of Attorney General] tells Respondents the case will never resume; they have given up their claims forever, even if legislative approval is not forthcoming,” the filing reads. “[The Office of Attorney General] thus reaps all benefits of a settlement, and [the former employees] achieve none.”

In written communications, the fired employees’ attorneys say Paxton’s office has been “craftier,” arguing that it is still researching what would happen if the Legislature refuses to approve the settlement and will not address that potential outcome until it happens.

The fired employees’ attorneys blasted both positions as “preposterous,” arguing that they would have never agreed to put the case on pause indefinitely or for a lengthy time period.

The motion to pause the case — which was requested, drafted and filed by the attorney general’s office with agreement by the fired employees — was “intended to briefly postpone” any potential ruling while the two sides sought legislative approval for the $3.3 million settlement. But attorneys for the fired employees say Paxton’s refusal to set a deadline is preventing the two sides from completing the settlement agreement while at the same time not letting their case against him move forward.

Couple things. First, let’s remember that SCOTx was going to rule on the question of whether Paxton could be sued at all under the Texas Whistleblower Act. Paxton had argued that he could not be sued under that law because he’s not public employee, because elected officials don’t count under that law. By asking SCOTx to resume their deliberation on that question, the four plaintiffs are risking that their answer will be to rule in Paxton’s favor and toss the lawsuit altogether. And even if they win on that question, it just means that the lawsuit can go back to a district court and be heard on its merits. Which, again, they could lose, or they could get a lesser amount awarded to them. And the whole thing will then have to go through the appeals process, because of course Paxton will fight it for as long as he’s in office, and the verdict could get overturned or the award could be reduced, and the whole thing could take years. Whatever else you may think about their case and the initial settlement, these guys are taking a substantial risk by doing this.

But you can see why they’re willing to take that risk. Paxton, who has always been able to turn a bad situation of his own making into an advantage, is using the Lege’s understandable unwillingness to pay for his sins as an indefinite stalling tactic. As things stand now, he has zero incentive to take any action. The case is frozen in amber. And even if SCOTx ultimately rules that the lawsuit can proceed, if there’s one other thing (besides criming) that Paxton is good at, it’s delaying legal reckonings. Who knows how long he could draw this out, assuming he remains in office?

All of which suggests a fairly easy way out for SCOTx, if they want to take it. They can rule that the Lege doesn’t have to apportion any money to pay the settlement, and let Paxton pay for it out of whatever budget the Lege sees fit to give him. This is of course what I have been arguing they should do, as it is the most fair and just solution at this point, so I’m a little biased. But, you know, it really is a good solution – it allows the whistleblowers to get their back pay and their apology, it guards against a much larger potential verdict while also not putting the public on the hook, and it makes Paxton bear the brunt of the financial penalty. It might damage the AG office’s ability to do its job, but that’s just too bad. This is what happens when you put a crook in charge of law enforcement. I hope SCOTx comes to the proper conclusion and saves us all a multi-year saga.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Wheatley’s fate

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We may learn today of the TEA’s intentions with HISD. Whatever does happen, let’s remember that in the end this will affect a lot of people, and some of them are not happy with the position they’ve been put in.

Samuel Ollison, a junior at Phillis Wheatley High School, already has started working on his back-up plan.

He spends his free time looking into schools he should attend senior year because Houston ISD may be taken over by the Texas Education Agency at any moment, and he has heard rumors his school may close.

“I’m nervous, honestly,” Ollison said. “They say my school is the No. 1 factor in why TEA is taking over HISD …We just need to do better at this school because I really don’t want Wheatley to get shut down, or for the TEA to take over.”

It’s an uncertain time for students at Wheatley High School, as the 96-year-old Fifth Ward campus continues to be thrust in the spotlight for its multiple failing accountability grades that puts the district at risk of losing its superintendent and elected board. Meanwhile, rumors are circulating about what will come of a possible state intervention, leaving parents and students alike in fear of the school’s closure.

Ollison grew more concerned when read an article in which Mayor Sylvester Turner said Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath told him he has two options — appoint a board of managers or close Wheatley high school. Other public figures since have made similar comments.

State code indicates that closing a school is an option, but the TEA never has stated that it plans to. Morath has spent years pursuing the other option — appointing a board of managers, which temporarily was blocked by an injunction. However, the TEA declined to comment on the mayor’s remarks or if intends to close Wheatley.

[…]

Throughout the years, the school’s enrollment began to drop, and subsequently the dollars tied to that enrollment. By 1976, the school was in the bottom 12% for reading scores, according to a 1978 Texas Monthly article. In 1995, the Fifth Ward school had the highest dropout rate and lowest math score of the high schools in the Houston ISD.

From 2014 to 2017, it earned an “improvement required” rating from the state, and in 2019, under a revamped accountability system, the school earned an ‘F.’ Ratings were paused in 2018 for Hurricane Harvey and in 2020 and 2021 for COVID.

In 2022, the school earned a ‘C,’ but some argue that the standards were lowered.

Either way, the previous streak of failing ratings, in part, triggered a takeover battle that has been slowly making its way through the courts.

Joseph Williams took the helm of the school as principal in 2018, not long after the district was put on alert for a potential takeover. When Williams first took the job — he knew “time was of the essence.” His first priority was to improve the school’s culture and the morale.

“In some cases, there was apathy with some of the scholars,” Williams said. “We just wanted to revive the spirit. When you just keep hearing your name and its associated with this negative thing, it can kind of wear on you.”

He tightened up the attendance policy, restructured the classroom layout to make sure grades were grouped together, allowing administrators to better monitor students.

They implemented an online merit system, where teachers could award students points for good attendance or high scores. They could cash in the points they earned for snacks or a free hoodie. The school saw some modest improvements on test scores and earned a C for its most recent accountability rating. This is a point many education advocates, lawmakers, and critics of state intervention make when talking about the potential takeover.

There’s more in the story from current students and their parents, who are trying to figure out what their options would be if Wheatley is closed. I don’t think that will accomplish anything positive, especially with the school on a better path now. You know my feelings on this, so I’ll just leave this here. And I hope that tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that, I don’t have to write about what happens next in a post-takeover world.

Posted in School days | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Ashby Highrise 2.0 gets a permit

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s happening!

Did you miss me?

For years a controversial proposal to build a high rise in the wealthy enclave of Boulevard Oaks appeared to be dead — a lesson in how land-use battles can erupt even in a city with virtually no zoning.

But after six years of sitting on the proposal — and the vacant, proposed site at Ashby and Bisonnet sitting dormant — the owners, Hunt Cos. of El Paso, last spring resurrected efforts to build the tower. They brought on a new development team, Dallas-based Street Lights Residential, to create a scaled-down version of the high-rise, now called The Langley, that they hope would win over neighbors who had fiercely opposed the earlier project dubbed The Ashby.

Almost a year after StreetLights filed updated plans with the city, the developer says it is weeks from breaking ground on the 20-story apartment building. The city of Houston granted StreetLights Residential a permit for site work and foundation work Monday, though it still is waiting approval to start vertical construction.

Stephen Meek, developer at Street Lights Residential, said the approved work could begin in early April.

“(The site now) is a brown field that looks like a black eye right at the entry of beautiful neighborhood,” Meek said. “What we’re proposing is bringing something beautiful and something as architecturally significant.”

The spacious units and high-end design of The Langley are aimed at attracting well-heeled empty-nesters, and Meek believes some neighborhood residents would want to live in The Langley if they decide to downsize but want to stay in the area.

Many of the neighbors, however, remain opposed. Several houses around the project site are adorned with bright yellow signs with a menacing carton caricature of a high-rise and the phrase “Tower of Traffic” and “Protect Our Neighborhood” — a nod to past protests against the previous high-rise proposal.

A small group of concerned neighbors have been quietly working to pressure city officials and Street Lights Residential to abide by a 2012 agreement reached between the city of Houston and the site’s owners that set certain parameters for size, traffic, noise and other concerns. (StreetLights rejects, saying it is following the 2012 deal to the letter.)

Neighbors also argue StreetLights should be required to follow updated city ordinances — rather than being built according to laws that were in place at the time Hunt Cos. and Buckhead Investment Partners first applied for building permits in 2007.

As of Tuesday evening, it wasn’t immediately clear if the city’s legal department had determined whether The Langley could be grandfathered.

See here for the background. As the story notes, some residents and neighborhood groups aren’t trying to stop The Langley – I will try to use the new name, but in my heart it will always be the Ashby highrise – but just want it to abide by the new 2012 rules. Which, hey, more power to them. The original 20-story concept never made much sense, but that doesn’t mean that some multi-story building there wouldn’t be a good fit. Could this story finally have a happy ending, or at least a tolerable one, for all? Maybe! Hopefully it won’t take as long to find out.

Posted in Elsewhere in Houston | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Dispatches from Dallas, March 10 edition

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week in Dallas news: The DPD evidence scandal grows, more about Marvin Lowe, water cremations, winter weather, Star Wars, and finally some good news at the Dallas Zoo.

I complain a lot about the Dallas Morning News, but they’ve done a good job covering the Dallas PD evidence scandal. Here are the two most recent stories about what the investigation into missing evidence is finding: Murder cases could be in jeopardy as Dallas police review 450 cases for missing evidence [Archive link] and What we know about Dallas police search for missing video evidence in murder cases [Archive link]. 13 homicide convictions are in jeopardy and now they’re going through violent crime cases. One does wonder whether this is a problem with DPD or whether review of other law enforcement agencies would show the same kinds of negligence in evidence handling. Meanwhile, I hope the last line of this DMN story about official reactions to the missing evidence [Archive link is correct and someone is going to be held responsible for these screwups.

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“Shall” versus “may”

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Houston Landing touches on a subject I’ve mentioned before.

As concerns grow about the Texas Education Agency ousting the Houston Independent School District’s elected board, a question with major practical and political implications has emerged: Are state officials legally mandated to take over Texas’ largest school district?

Despite multiple years of legal and legislative battles, there’s still no definitive answer to this fundamental query – setting the stage for even more litigation that could delay or derail any state efforts to strip power from the district’s school board.

A strange confluence of recent events has left it unclear whether TEA officials must, or merely may, take drastic action against the state’s largest school district due to persistently poor academic performance at Wheatley High School, according to a Houston Landing review of state law and court rulings. While the uncertainty has lingered for the past several weeks, it’s taken on greater importance as the state nears a decision on whether to punish HISD for past failings.

The murkiness stems from state appellate rulings and legislative actions in the past several months that were supposed to clarify the state’s responsibility for punishing HISD, yet failed to plainly answer one key question: Did Wheatley trigger a state law requiring sanctions against the district when it received a seventh consecutive failing grade in 2019?

[…]

HISD finds itself in legal limbo largely due to a peculiar disconnect between Texas’ legislative and judicial branches.

The saga began in 2015, when Texas legislators passed a law that said the TEA must replace a district’s school board or close chronically low-performing campuses in any district with a single school that failed to meet state academic accountability standards for five consecutive years. The bill, championed by state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., a Houston Democrat whose legislative district includes Wheatley, aimed to punish school boards for neglecting long-struggling campuses.

However, the law spelled out specific years – including 2018 – for which schools must fail to meet state standards to trigger sanctions. And as a result of Hurricane Harvey, Wheatley received a “not rated” designation in 2018, which didn’t count as a failing grade.

Still, state officials moved to oust HISD’s school board after Wheatley fell short of state standards in 2019, its seventh consecutive failing grade without a passing mark. (TEA leaders have said closing Wheatley would not remedy the root causes of the school’s poor results.)

Wheatley’s “not rated” mark in 2018 set off a legal skirmish over whether the school technically triggered the law with its seventh straight failing grade the following year.

A Travis County judge issued a temporary injunction in HISD’s favor in early 2020, halting the takeover, but she did not elaborate on the rationale for her decision. Then, in late 2020, the Texas Third Court of Appeals ruled that Wheatley did not violate the accountability law because the “plain language of the statute” required a failing grade in 2018. TEA officials subsequently appealed the decision to the Texas Supreme Court.

While the case was pending before the Texas Supreme Court, state legislators passed a bill in mid-2021 clarifying that a “not rated” grade doesn’t count as a passing score for the purposes of calculating whether a school scored five consecutive failing grades. If a school receives four straight failing grades, followed by a “not rated” mark, it must meet state standards the next school year to avoid triggering a state takeover or campus closure. Texas legislators, however, did not make the law retroactive to the Wheatley situation.

“It was our legislative intent not to include any language that would have done that,” Dan Huberty, a Republican former state representative who helped usher the bill to passage, said in an email last week. Huberty added that lawmakers wanted to leave Wheatley’s fate to the courts – a point echoed this week in a statement by another key figure in the law’s passage, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston.

Yet the Texas Supreme Court, when given the chance, didn’t clearly address the unanswered question about Wheatley.

In an October 2022 written opinion, the justices unanimously overturned the temporary injunction, finding the TEA has the legal right to install a replacement board on two unrelated matters: the lengthy presence of a state-appointed conservator in the district; and multiple findings of misconduct by some board members, including violations of the state’s open meetings laws and attempts to steer vendor contracts, following a TEA investigation in 2019. On both fronts, state law says Morath can appoint a new board, but he’s not required to.

But for reasons never made clear, the justices didn’t explicitly rule on whether Wheatley triggered mandatory sanctions. The justices seemed to defer in their opinion to the Texas Legislature’s new law, which could bolster the state’s case for mandatory sanctions, but they never issued an unequivocal directive.

I’ve noted the “shall” versus “may” distinction before. I see two ways of looking at this weaseling by the Lege and the courts. One is that this is all a very thin technical reed on which to hang an argument that the TEA doesn’t have to intervene. I wouldn’t want to have to defend that in court. The other is that despite it being very clear that the Lege wanted SCOTx to be the decider, they declined to say one way or the other if the TEA was required to act. Thin it may be, it’s an easy to grasp reason for the TEA to take more limited action, which is at least what the locals want, and probably what they would prefer given the scope of the issue.

Will they do it? Like I said, it can’t hurt to have people talking to Mike Morath to try to persuade him to back off. Maybe the bills filed to prevent the takeover, along with such lobbying efforts, are enough to push him to that way of thinking. Or maybe not. Campos is “hearing the HISD takeover will be announced on Friday”. Which, I guess, still comes down to the meaning of “takeover”. But if you phrase it that way, I know where my mind is going. We’ll maybe find out tomorrow.

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The forced-birth zealots target the Internet

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I hate to be an alarmist, but we live in a time and a place where stuff like this has to be taken seriously.

A proposed state law in Texas would force Internet service providers to block websites containing information on how to obtain an abortion or abortion pill. Republican lawmaker Steve Toth, a member of the state House of Representatives, introduced the bill last week.

Texas already has several laws that heavily restrict access to abortion, but the new proposal is notable for its attempt to control how ISPs provide access to the Web. “Each Internet service provider that provides Internet services in this state shall make every reasonable and technologically feasible effort to block Internet access to information or material intended to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug,” the bill says.

The bill lists six websites that would have to be blocked: aidaccess.org, heyjane.co, plancpills.org, mychoix.co, justthepill.com, and carafem.org. ISPs would also have to block any website or online platform “operated by or on behalf of an abortion provider or abortion fund” and any website or platform used to download software “that is designed to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug.”

Finally, the bill would force ISPs to block any website or platform “that allows or enables those who provide or aid or abet elective abortions, or those who manufacture, mail, distribute, transport, or provide abortion-inducing drugs, to collect money, digital currency, resources, or any other thing of value.”

People who become aware of websites containing prohibited abortion information may notify an ISP “and request that the provider block access to the information or material in accordance with that section,” the bill says.

Toth’s proposal isn’t just aimed at ISPs. Individuals in Texas would be prohibited from making or hosting a website or platform “that assists or facilitates a person’s effort in obtaining an abortion-inducing drug,” for example.

More broadly, the bill would establish “civil liability for distribution of abortion-inducing drugs.” It attempts to extend the law’s reach outside the Texas borders, saying “the law of this state applies to the use of an abortion-inducing drug by a resident of this state, regardless of where the use of the drug occurs.” Women who get abortions would not be held liable, as the bill targets distribution instead.

The bill would create a private civil right of action that would let individuals sue people or organizations that violate the proposed law. The private right of action would include letting Texans sue any interactive computer service that provides “information or material that assists or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortions or abortion-inducing drugs.”

While the bill would make it a criminal offense to pay for the costs of an elective abortion or to destroy evidence of an elective abortion, it mostly limits enforcement to civil lawsuits in other circumstances. It specifies that no state or municipal official can take action against ISPs, interactive computer services, or others who violate specific sections of the law.

It’s hard to know even where to begin with this kind of malevolence, but one must note the vigilante bounty hunter aspect of it, which thanks to the cowardly SCOTUS blessing of SB8 means it will be used as a get-out-of-being-sued card for this kind of legislation for the foreseeable future. As I said, I don’t want to be an alarmist, and at this time I don’t think this bill has any real chance of becoming law. That’s not the same as having zero chance, and if we’ve learned one thing over the past 20 or so years with the Legislature, it’s that what is now fringy whackjob stuff may tomorrow be one of Dan Patrick’s legislative priorities. The mark of a true zealot is that they never give up, and Steve Toth is a true zealot. The answer to this is the same answer I’ve been giving for every other piece of crap that has been thrown at us lately, which is that we need to elect more Democrats. I wish there were an easier way, but there isn’t. Add this to the ever-increasing list of reasons why.

And because I feel the need to clear some tabs, here’s some further reading on related matters, if you want to ruin your weekend:

One Florida Case Shows How the U.S. Became a Rogue State on Abortion

Abortion funds in Texas are unsure if they will resume supporting people after court ruling

Walgreens won’t distribute abortion pills in some states where they remain legal

We know that support for abortion rights is on the rise, but that only matters if people vote on it. It’s all of our job to make sure everyone knows how out of touch with public opinion he Republicans are and what they are trying to do. They’re not going to stop, so they have to be stopped.

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One small gun loophole may get closed

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Take your wins where you can find them.

Texas lawmakers are working to plug a gap in a 2009 law that was meant to keep people with a history of serious mental health issues from legally acquiring firearms.

Bipartisan legislation has been filed in the state House and Senate that would explicitly require courts to report information on involuntary mental health hospitalizations of juveniles age 16 and older after a ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation revealed that they were being excluded from the national firearms background check system.

Under the current law, county and district clerks across the state are required to send information on court-ordered mental health hospitalizations to the Department of Public Safety. The state’s top law enforcement agency is charged with forwarding those records to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System, known as NICS. Federally licensed dealers are required to check the system before they sell someone a firearm.

Elliott Naishtat, a former state lawmaker from Austin who authored the 2009 law, told the news organizations that he intended for it to apply to all Texans no matter their age. But following the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, the outlets discovered that local court clerks were not sharing that information for juveniles, either as a matter of policy or because they didn’t believe that they had to.

A bill by state Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston-area Republican, passed unanimously out of committee last week with bipartisan support.

The legislation aligns Texas with new federal reporting requirements and is “meant to make the background check more thorough and hence make our communities and schools safer,” Huffman at the committee hearing.

Congress passed gun reform legislation in June that includes a requirement that federal investigators check state databases for juvenile mental health records. But such checks would fail to reveal many court-ordered juvenile commitments in Texas because they are not currently being reported.

See here for the background. This is a small thing and it will have a small effect. It’s still better than not doing it, and as a proponent of the idea that effective gun control involves a lot of small, overlapping protections in order to be effective, I’m happy to see these small steps take place even as we pointedly ignore the larger ones. It’s still one piece we won’t have to fit in later, and it will do some good in the meantime. The story notes that Naishtat had been making some calls to his former colleagues urging them to close this loophole, and to whatever extent he had an effect I salute him, and Sen. Huffman as well.

UPDATE: The bill has now passed the Senate, the first bill to do so. It heads to the House next.

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Texas blog roundup for the week of March 6

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready to spring forward as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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Five women harmed by Texas’ anti-abortion law file a lawsuit over it

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Well, this ought to be interesting.

Five women who say they were denied abortions despite grave risks to their lives or their fetuses sued the state of Texas on Monday, apparently the first time that pregnant women themselves have taken legal action against the bans that have shut down access to abortion across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wademe.

The women — two visibly pregnant — plan to tell their stories on the steps of the Texas Capitol on Tuesday. Their often harrowing experiences will put faces to what their 91-page complaint calls “catastrophic harms” to women since the court’s decision in June, which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion after five decades.

Their accounts may resonate with public opinion, which generally supports legalized abortion and does so overwhelmingly when a pregnancy endangers the woman’s life. The lawsuit, backed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, comes as the country grapples with the fallout from overturning Roe, with abortion banned in at least 13 states.

Texas, like most states with bans, allows exceptions when a physician determines there is risk of “substantial” harm to the mother, or in cases of rape or incest, or if the fetus has a fatal diagnosis. Yet the potential for prison sentences of up to 99 years, $100,000 fines and the loss of medical licenses has scared doctors into not providing abortions even in cases where the law would seem to allow them.

The suit asks the court to affirm that physicians can make exceptions, and to clarify under what conditions. But its greater power may be in appealing to public opinion on abortion. Similar lawsuits over exceptions, focusing public attention on stories of women who were denied abortions despite medical dangers, helped build momentum for legalized abortion in heavily Catholic Ireland and in South America.

The women bringing the suit contradict stereotypes about who receives abortions and why. Married, and some with children already, the women rejoiced at their pregnancies, only to discover that their fetuses had no chance of survival — two had no skulls, and two others were threatening the lives of their twins.

Though they faced the risk of hemorrhage or life-threatening infection from carrying those fetuses, the women were told they could not have abortions, the suit says. Some doctors refused even to suggest the option, or to forward medical records to another provider.

The women found themselves furtively crossing state borders to seek medical treatment outside Texas, worried that family and neighbors might report them to state authorities. In some cases, the women became so ill that they were hospitalized. One plaintiff, Amanda Zurawski, was told she was not yet sick enough to receive an abortion, then twice became septic, and was left with so much scar tissue that one of her fallopian tubes is permanently closed.

“You don’t think you’re somebody who’s going to need an abortion, let alone an abortion to save my life,” Zurawski, 35, said. “If anybody reads my story, I don’t care where they are on the political spectrum, very few people would agree there is anything pro-life about this.”

[…]

Unlike other suits from abortion rights groups, the Texas suit does not seek to overturn the state bans on abortion. Instead, it asks the court to confirm that Texas law allows physicians to offer abortion if, in their good-faith judgment, the procedure is necessary because the woman has a “physical emergent medical condition” that cannot be treated during pregnancy or that makes continuing the pregnancy unsafe, or the fetus has a condition “where the pregnancy is unlikely to result in the birth of a living child with sustained life.”

The women are not suing the medical providers who denied abortions, and the providers are not named in the suit; in most cases, the women say the providers were doing the best they could, but had their hands tied.

The Texas Medical Association has appealed to state authorities to offer more clarity on what exceptions are allowed. The author of one of the bans wrote to the state medical board in August, concerned that hospitals “may be wrongfully prohibiting or seriously delaying physicians from providing medically appropriate and possibly lifesaving services to patients who have various pregnancy complications.” He underscored that under the exceptions, hospitals had to protect the “mother’s life and major bodily function.”

The lawsuit says the five plaintiffs “represent only the tip of the iceberg,” and that “millions” of people across the country have been “denied dignified treatment as equal human beings.”

As the story notes, it is a reprint of a New York Times article. I don’t know who has what stereotypes about who gets abortions, but none of this surprises me. I’ve been saying all along that it’s just a matter of time before some nice white married lady, like one of these plaintiffs, dies from being unable to get timely medical care as a result of Texas’ anti-abortion law. One of these plaintiffs spent three days in intensive care with sepsis because abortion care was denied to her. No one should have to go through that.

I’m wondering what the state’s defense will be. My best guess is that they will claim that the law is clear as written and that if these women were unlucky enough to have incompetent doctors that’s their problem. The Republicans really don’t want there to be any clear lines about when an abortion is allowed, because the lack of clarity serves their purpose of forcing women to give birth.

Also, these women are going to get smeared, doxxed, threatened, harassed, and so on. Can’t be having them speaking out about their experiences, that’s just not allowed.

I’m not going to be foolish enough to make any predictions here. I will say that if these plaintiffs win, it will have only a marginal effect, in that their situations are relatively rare. The total number of abortions that would be allowed if they win will be minimal – basically, this is a “life/health of the mother” exception. Rape and incest are still not acceptable reasons for an abortion, and of course elective abortions are still criminalized. It would be significant in that the risk of death or serious health consequences would be mitigated, and that’s a big deal, but it will be limited. For now, that’s the best we can do. Axios, NPR, the Trib, Daily Kos, The 19th, the Current, and Slate have more.

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Bills filed to stop the TEA takeover of HISD

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Feels too late to me, but it can’t hurt to try.

State senators have filed the first bill to soften the law that triggers school district takeovers.

State Sens. Carol Alvarado, Borris Miles and John Whitmire filed Senate Bill 1662 in response to the threat of a possible takeover of Houston Independent School District by the Texas Education Agency. State Rep/ Alma Allen has filed companion legislation in the Texas House.

The bill modifies the current state law to provide TEA additional tools to address low performance ratings such as hearings before the commissioner, academic achievement plans, appointing agency to monitor, but not replace trustees, among other items. Under SB 1662, the TEA commissioner will have broader discretion to choose an alternative that does not require a school closure or the appointment of a board of managers.

Given Phyllis Wheatley High School improvement to a C and the district’s overall B rating, the TEA’s reason for initiating a takeover bid in 2019 is no longer valid, Alvarado said.

“It is unjust and unwarranted for TEA to move forward with a takeover,” Alvarado said in a statement. “S.B. 1662 offers the agency options to work collaboratively with HISD to address any current deficiencies instead of subjecting nearly 200,000 students and 27,000 teachers and employees to a takeover.”

Other leaders also made promises to get answers. NAACP president Bishop James Dixon said he plans to call a meeting with TEA commissioner Mike Morath. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said she intends to bring the issue to the Biden administration and the U.S. Department of Education.

HISD Trustee Patricia Allen said the trustees, administrators and other HISD representatives will let their grievances be known when they go to the legislator March 20.

“We have been in this fight before we even came in office,” Trustee Patricia Allen said at a community meeting at North Main Church of God in Christ in the Heights. “The board has been working since we were elected. We have a lone star governors coach, a TEA program — we have tried our best, hired the best superintendent.”

See here for the previous update, and here for my discussion of things that could be done to stave this off. As I said then, even if these bills have the support to pass and are allowed to come to the floor, it would be at least weeks and more likely months before they would take effect. Thus, unless Mike Morath is agreeable to wait it out, the legislative process is just too damn slow. I appreciate the effort, but let’s not put our hope in something that can’t work unless Morath and the TEA are willing to let it work.

Now having said that, it’s Tuesday afternoon and the TEA hasn’t taken over HISD yet, so maybe Morath is waiting until something happens to take him off the hook. Stranger things and all that. I would encourage Trustee Allen and Bishop Dixon and whoever else can get a meeting with Morath to ask him nicely if he’d at least talk to these legislators before he does anything. As with the bills themselves, it can’t hurt. Getting the feds involved has a chance of achieving something, and it could be done quickly, but it would also be super antagonistic, so let’s try the “ask very nicely for a delay” option first, since it surely won’t work if we do it the other way around. Throw everything at the wall, but do so in the proper order.

Oh, and why wasn’t a bill like this filed in the last Lege? Well, maybe there was one – I’d have to look, I don’t know offhand. That would have solved the timing issue, but only if it was allowed to pass, as with this one, and we didn’t know we’d need it because of the then-ongoing litigation. I think it’s at best a tossup whether these bills get even a committee hearing now, and I’d say that was never in the cards in 2021. That’s easy to say, and if we give credit for trying now we do have to ask what we tried then. We’re in this situation now regardless, so let’s not waste too much energy on what could have been. What it is now is what matters.

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I-45 project is back on

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Though it will still be several years before there is any real construction.

Nearly two years to the day that federal officials paused TxDOT’s plans for rebuilding Interstate 45 and downtown Houston’s freeway system, national and state highway leaders have come to an agreement that will let the rebuild proceed, but with several concessions aimed at addressing the project’s impacts on low-income and minority neighborhoods.

The Federal Highway Administration and Texas Department of Transportation announced Tuesday they had reached an agreement, similar to those TxDOT reached with Harris County and Houston in December, outlining commitments related to the planned $9.7 billion rebuild of I-45 from downtown Houston north to Beltway 8.

The agreement immediately lifts the federal pause placed on the project on March 8, 2021, and resolves the audit conducted by federal officials related to TxDOT’s adherence to federal environmental rules.

“This agreement moves forward an important project, responds to community concerns, and improves (I-45) in ways that will make a real difference in people’s lives. Through this agreement the community will have a greater voice in the design and throughout the project’s life cycle,” said Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt, in a statement.

[…]

Unlike the agreements with the city and county, the deal reached with federal officials holds TxDOT to both oversight and enforcement of many of the specifics. As part of the agreement, TxDOT will:

  • conduct twice-annual public meetings during development and construction, expected to take more than a decade, to update the community on the progress and plans for detours during construction.
  • add another $3 million to the $27 million TxDOT already committed to help the Houston Housing Authority develop new affordable housing opportunities, mirroring the promise TxDOT previously made to the city.
  • commit $1.5 million to create parks and trails, in particular to replace park space near the Kelly Village public housing complex.
  • support the creation of the Emancipation National Historic Trail, a proposed federally-sponsored historical route chronicling the journey of freed slaves from Galveston to Houston, including trail links and planning for historical displays along the footprint of I-45.
  • coordinate detours near two Houston Independent School District schools to take students’ bicycle and pedestrian routes into account during construction

Longtime skeptics of the project, however, said they fear the promises of partnership will erode as TxDOT proceeds.

“They are doing what federal agencies do, using the term enforcement when historically we have seen no follow-through,” said Joetta Stevenson, president of Houston’s Super-neighborhood 55 and one of those who had accused TxDOT of skirting federal civil rights laws, prompting the review by FHWA. “Trust has been broken for generations, and by signing off on the choices of the state, only enforcing after harm has been done, they continue a painful legacy. So far, I see no tangible changes that don’t rely on TxDOT’s good faith participation.”

In a statement the group formed to oppose the project, Stop TxDOT I-45, said “Houston deserves a project that prioritizes safety, centers the lived experience of those most impacted by the project, actually relieves traffic, and moves us toward a more equitable future. We will not stop fighting for our city and our lives.”

Air Alliance Houston and LINKHouston, which have advocated for sweeping changes to the plans, said they were reviewing the details but initially indicated the details alone leave the project short of expectations.

“While we hoped the federal government would maximize its leverage over TxDOT to push for a more equitable project, we are encouraged to see that the Federal Highway Administration will hold TxDOT accountable in ways that the City of Houston and Harris County memorandums of understanding could not,” LINKHouston Executive Director Gabe Cazares said.

Parts of the agreement commit TxDOT to elements that are less specific, for now, but eventually could have sweeping effects on the communities impacted by the freeway. TxDOT has agreed to re-evaluate drainage studies for the freeway rebuild to reflect ATLAS-14, the national rainfall analysis released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2018 that places more of Houston in areas at flood risk.  TxDOT already had agreed to do this as part of its agreements with the city and county. The change potentially could mean more flood control, such as detention ponds or channels for neighborhoods near the freeway.

See here and here for the background on the city/county deal with TxDOT. If the skeptics and opponents remain unconvinced, then there continues to be reason to not want this to happen. If it mostly comes down to how close the federal oversight and enforcement of the deal will be, then at least we know where to concentrate future efforts. A statement from County Attorney Christian Menefee is beneath the fold, a statement from Commissioner Adrian Garcia is here, a Chron story recapping the saga so far is here, and the Trib and Campos have more.

Continue reading →

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The past history of TEA takeovers

Posted on March 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

As of Monday afternoon there’s still no word from the TEA about the fate of HISD, so while we wait we ponder what history can teach us. Assuming that history doesn’t contain anything gay or CRT-related so we’re allowed to learn from it, of course.

As rumors of a looming state takeover of the Houston Independent School District cause uncertainty and anxiety for educators and families, many are looking to previous examples of the Texas Education Agency imposing control of local school systems.

There are 15 such instances over the course of three decades, according to state records. None likely offer a case study that would compare to a takeover of HISD, the largest school district in the state and the eighth largest in the nation. Still, some have likened the potential takeover of diverse HISD to that of the other school systems, all of which served predominantly Black and Hispanic student bodies or children from families considered to be “economically disadvantaged.

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from HISD teachers asking me for advice,” said Jennifer Jermany, a former North Forest ISD teacher who was laid off when the district was absorbed into HISD. “Our cases are similar, but not exact. My heart really goes out to those teachers because we really don’t know what is going to happen.”

[…]

Of the 15 previous state takeovers, four — Kendleton, Wilmer-Hutchins, North Forest and La Marque ISDs — closed entirely after regaining local control. El Paso, Beaumont, Edgewood and Southside ISDs remain open after local control was restored.

Progreso, Pearsall, Hearn, Harlandale and Snyder ISDs each came to a settlement or did not proceed with a board of managers.

Two districts — Marlin ISD and Shepherd ISD — still have a state-appointed board of managers in place.

Seven of those districts were predominantly Black, including multiple districts with schools significant to Texas’ African American history. Another seven of the districts taught mostly Hispanic student bodies. Only one district — Shepherd ISD — was predominantly white. Around 66 percent of students in that district are economically disadvantaged.

Of HISD’s 187,000 students, 62 percent are Hispanic and 22 percent are Black. Nearly 80 percent of its students are economically disadvantaged.

None of the districts previously taken over by TEA come close to comparing in size to HISD. The smallest of those districts, Kendleton ISD, had less than 100 students and the largest, Beaumont ISD, currently has around 17,000.

In the previous takeovers, TEA gave reasons such as financial issues, administrators violating the law, fraudulent test score data, inability of school boards to properly govern, loss of accreditation status and poor academic ratings, among other causes.

See here, here, and here for the background. Beaumont ISD was taken over because of fiscal mismanagement. That at least would be an understandable reason, with clear goals for being returned to local control. Most of the rest of the story is about the takeover of North Forest, which followed a few years later by North Forest being absorbed into HISD. They had serious, long-term issues with their board of trustees, which again is a different issue than what HISD faces. It’s also a reminder that we didn’t have any real mechanism in place at the time to track the former NFISD students as they made their way through HISD. That was long enough ago that I’d expect none of those original students are still in HISD schools. Sure would have been nice to know what their outcomes were, or how those who followed them into HISD have been doing.

Anyway. The one reason why I think HISD might maybe avoid a full takeover is that the TEA cannot possibly be prepared to handle the responsibility of running HISD, even if they outsource it to a board of managers. I don’t think they want it, and I think they will look for an exit ramp. I agree with Mayor Turner and Judge Hidalgo and many others that politics is at play, and I freely admit I am thinking wishfully when I say stuff like this. It’s what I’ve got, and until the TEA tells us what they’re doing we can at least hope for the best.

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