Off the Kuff | Knowledge Is Good

The Ogg admonishment

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Kim Ogg

District Attorney Kim Ogg was reprimanded on Tuesday night by the Harris County Democratic Party, which passed a resolution calling for her admonishment.

By a vote of 129 to 61, precinct chairs approved the resolution accusing Ogg of not adequately representing the values of the Democratic Party.

While the resolution does not limit her legal powers, it does put Ogg at odds with her own party as she heads into next year’s March primary. She is facing a challenge from Sean Teare, a former prosecutor who raised almost $750,000 in the first six months of the year – more than 10 times what Ogg raised during the same period.

Ogg, who attended the vote in person, downplayed its significance minutes after the resolution passed.

“It’s political drama within a party,” she said. “It’s the in-fighting that our American public has grown tired of. I would tell the public that this is damaging to the political process, and it hurts public trust. Anybody who pushed this is wrong.”

Daniel Cohen, a precinct chair and one of the organizers of the resolution, said its passage was the result of a grassroots movement of people who were tired of Ogg’s tussles with major figures in the party, as well as “every day working folks trying to make things work.”

“This is the future of the Harris county Democratic Party if we want to see success in elections,” Cohen said.

The resolution, first introduced in October, was signed by over 110 of the party’s 549 precinct chairs. It contained more than a dozen accusations, among them that Ogg “abused the power of her office to pursue personal vendettas against her political opponents, sided with Republicans to advance their extremist agenda, and stood in the way of fixing the broken criminal justice system.”

[…]

The resolution was narrowly approved by two party committees – the first in late November and the second in early December – before heading to the county executive committee, which is comprised of the party’s elected precinct chairs.

[…]

Once the debate concluded, precinct chairs cast their ballots. After about half an hour of counting ballots, Mike Doyle, the party chairman, announced the results, and the crowd quickly erupted into cheers.

“We’ve acted in accordance with the rules,” Doyle said above the din. “I very much appreciate that, and I very much welcome this as a show of Democrats having an important discussion, following the rules and doing it the right way. I know not everybody’s happy, but we’ve followed the rules. We’ve done what’s required.”

I’m a precinct chair and I was there last night. I did not vote on the resolution. I believe the people who put it together and advocated for it did a lot of hard work and made a strong case for themselves, and in the end expressed the will of a majority of the precinct chairs. Ogg’s supporters made some good points in her defense, and there was a great deal of passion on both sides. The meeting was well run, the rules were followed, and the people were heard. I don’t see why anyone should have a problem with that.

I did not vote on this resolution, after a lot of thought and consideration. While there are legitimate concerns about how Ogg has aimed her power at local officials, I am by nature squeamish about engaging in what might be perceived as political influence on the criminal justice process. I also have this pseudo-journalistic role in which I’m about to do a bunch of interviews with candidates running in the Democratic primary, and I want and need them to view me as a fair broker. I do these interviews and judicial Q&As to help my fellow Dems learn more about the candidates on their primary ballot, and I take that seriously. I had the experience a few years ago of a candidate refusing to talk to me because I had written something in support of his opponent in their race. I’m obviously happy to sling my opinion around, but after all these years I’m aware of some boundaries. It can be a little weird sometimes, and I don’t claim to always be consistent about it, but there it is.

Anyway. The Democratic precinct chairs followed a well-defined small-d democratic process to express their will. Whether you like the result or not, that’s the system working as designed.

Two more things: One, in case anyone who was not there is wondering, Sean Teare was not present at this meeting. While these meetings are an excellent opportunity for candidates to meet and mingle with party stalwarts, I think it was wise of him to steer clear, as the resolution was not about him. And two, for a hot minute this morning, around 5 AM, the front page of the Chronicle’s website had a photo of Ogg accompanying this story in which she was standing right next to where I was sitting. (Honestly, I’m glad I wasn’t fiddling with my phone in the picture.) I was up front with the other SD15 precinct chairs, and Ogg, who is also an SD15 resident, was there along with some of her supporters as the resolution was taken up. As it happens, when Chair Mike Doyle divided the room, the pro-resolution ballot box was on the opposite side of the room, and the anti-resolution ballot box was right where we were. I haven’t seen that picture since they changed it to a different one, but I’m sure it’s somewhere in their directory. I mention this in case anyone else was up at 5 AM refreshing the Chron homepage to see if they had a story up.

Posted in Election 2024, Local politics | Tagged Democratic primary, District Attorney, Election 2024, Harris County, HCDP, Kim Ogg, Sean Teare | 17 Comments

Texas TiKTok ban upheld

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Sorry, professors.

A U.S. judge on Monday upheld Texas’ ban on state employees’, including public university employees, using Chinese-owned short video app TikTok on state-owned devices or networks.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed suit in July arguing that Texas’ state government TikTok ban “is preventing or seriously impeding faculty from pursuing research that relates to TikTok.”

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman rejected the suit, saying the Texas restriction was motivated by data protection concerns and calling “a reasonable restriction on access to TikTok in light of Texas’s concerns.”

“Public university faculty – and all public employees – are free to use TikTok on their personal devices (as long as such devices are not used to access state networks),” he wrote.

Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute, said the group was disappointed with the ruling, arguing the Texas ban impedes “public university faculty from studying TikTok — including from studying the very privacy concerns that supposedly motivated the ban.”

Pitman contrasted the ban to Montana that sought to ban all TikTok use in the state starting Jan. 1 but was blocked by another U.S. judge last month, whole ruled the state ban “violates the Constitution in more ways than one” and “oversteps state power.”

See here for the background, and here for more on the Montana case. I thought the plaintiffs had a reasonable First Amendment claim, but the judge decided that the ban was sufficiently limited in scope to be in bounds. The plaintiffs could appeal this but I don’t think they’ll get a more receptive audience at the Fifth Circuit. As such, I think this is more likely than not to be the end, but I’ll keep an eye on it anyway.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged ByteDance, China, Coalition for Independent Technology Research, cybersecurity, Greg Abbott, Knight First Amendment Institute, lawsuit, Montana, Texas, Texas A&M, TikTok, TSU, TxDOT, UH, University of North Texas, UT | Comments Off

Texas blog roundup for the week of December 11

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance is saving its pennies to buy a Cameo greeting from George Santos as it brings you this weeks roundup.

Continue reading →

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

More filing deadline news and notes

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I’m going to use the Erik Manning Spreadsheet, the Patrick Svitek spreadsheet, and the Secretary of State webpage to put together some notes and observations about the 2024 filing deadline and primary lineups. Note that some of this may still change, as data from county parties may still be coming in and there’s always someone who withdraws or gets disqualified at the last minute. We’ll do the best we can with what we have.

– Eight candidates are listed for the Democratic primary for US Senate, including Colin Allred, Roland Gutierrez, and Carl Sherman. Notably absent is Mark Gonzalez, former Nueces County DA who resigned his office to run for this office. I don’t see any news about him that suggests he changed his mind, and his webpage and Facebook page are both still up, so this may be a case of a delay in reporting. That said, neither his Facebook page nor his Twitter account have posted anything since November 10, so maybe that means something. I’ll keep checking on this. Delays in reporting who has filed are normal, we may not be fully certain of who has or has not filed for what until Friday.

– Lizzie Fletcher, Veronica Escobar (CD16), Sheila Jackson Lee, Jasmine Crockett (CD30), and Lloyd Doggett (CD37) have primary opponents. We’ve talked about SJL and Fletcher and their opponents (a third person named Robert Slater also filed in CD18), I know much less about the others. I don’t get the sense these are serious, but we’ll look at the January finance reports and see if there’s anything there. One person who gets to take it easy for the next couple of months is Henry Cuellar in CD28. Jessica Cisneros decided against a third challenge, and no one else appears to have filed.

– Eight people have filed for the open CD32 seat, including Julie Johnson and Brian Williams. Again, there may be some reporting delays. The two Republican open seats are CDs 12 and 26, and Dems have two filers in the former and one in the latter.

– The single biggest gap on the Democratic side as far as filings go are in the statewide judicial elections, where two of the three Supreme Court incumbents have Dem opponents but none of the Court of Criminal Appeals incumbents do. Filing for statewide judicial office is complicated because you have to collect signatures in all of the appellate districts. I’ll hold off on any conclusions until the weekend, but I am definitely watching this. (See Update below, three of the four races that didn’t have Dems listed for them originally now do. And we still may not be done.)

– There are now six candidates in the SD15 primary, as Michelle Bonton and Beto Cardenas hopped in on Monday. Bonton was a candidate for At Large #5 in 2019, and Cardenas is an attorney with some connections. I’m going to have to do so many interviews in the next two months…

– Three Democrats in the State House in Harris County drew primary opponents: Harold Dutton, Shawn Thierry, and Hubert Vo. All of the countywide executive offices have multiple candidates. Looks like a bit less than half of the judicial incumbents have primary opponents. There are three new District Criminal Court benches, all of which now have Abbott appointees on them, a new County Criminal Court and a new County Probate Court; those last two are open.

– All four Democratic Constables have primary opponents; there are two open Constable spots, in the Republican-held Precinct 5 and the Dem-held Precinct 7, and they both have multiple Dem candidates. Jo Ann Delgado in Precinct 2 is the only Dem Justice of the Peace to draw a primary challenger. Dems did not field a candidates for JP in Precinct 5 or for Constable in Precinct 8.

– HCDE At Large Position #3 incumbent Richard Cantu did file for re-election as noted yesterday, and he is opposed by Josh Wallenstein. HCDE Position 6 Precinct 1 has an incumbent whose name (John F. McGee), which says to me that Danny Norris must have resigned prior to filing against Harold Dutton. McGee also has an opponent, Richard Bonton, who was accused of being involved in the “Natasha Ruiz” incident from 2020. Looks like I need to pay a little more attention to this HCDE race.

– Though there were some rumors floating around during the filing period, HCDP Chair Mike Doyle appears to be unopposed.

I’ll have further updates when some of these filings have been clarified. The Trib, the Fort Worth Report, the San Antonio Report, and El Paso Matters have good roundups around the state.

UPDATE: This morning I see that two candidates have filed for the third Supreme Court seat, and two of the three CCA incumbents now have Democratic opponents. So much better there. Mark Gonzalez now shows up for the Senate race. Mark Veasey in CD33 now has a primary opponent listed. Still more to come, I’m sure.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged 14th Court of Appeals, Beto Cardenas, Brian Williams, Carl Sherman, CD07, CD12, CD16, CD18, CD26, CD30, CD32, CD37, CD38, Colin Allred, Congress, Constable, Court of Criminal Appeals, Danyahel Norris, Democratic primary, Election 2024, filing deadline, First Court of Appeals, Harold Dutton, Harris County, HCDE, HD131, HD139, HD142, HD149, Hubert Vo, Jarvis Johnson, Jasmine Crockett, John McGee, Josh Wallenstein, judicial races, Julie Johnson, Justice of the Peace, Karthik Soora, Lauren Ashley Simmons, Lizzie FLetcher, Lloyd Doggett, Mark Gonzalez, Michelle Bonton, Molly Cook, primaries, Richard Bonton, Richard Cantu, Roland Gutierrez, SD15, Senate, Shawn Thierry, Sheila Jackson Lee, Supreme Court, Texas, Todd Litton, Veronica Escobar | 2 Comments

Fifth Circuit does its thing with Galveston redistricting

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Death, taxes, and the Fifth Circuit being terrible.

Commissioner Stephen Holmes

The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked a new political map imposed on Galveston County by a lower court from taking effect. Plaintiffs are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene swiftly to ensure the county uses a map that complies with the Voting Rights Act.

Late Thursday, 5th Circuit issued a stay on the new map until May, when it plans to rehear the lawsuit challenging Galveston County’s 2021 redistricting plan. A district court recently imposed the map on Galveston, having earlier ruled Galveston’s 2021 redistricting plan violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bans racial gerrymandering.

“This morning, we have filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court to both vacate the stay, and we’ve also asked the (U.S.) Supreme Court to take this case on the merits,” said attorney Valencia Richardson of the Campaign Legal Center, who represents the plaintiffs in Petteway v. Galveston County. “So, the technical term for that is seeking certiorari before judgment.”

[…]

Richardson believes the Petteway plaintiffs are on solid ground with their appeal, given a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. “The court’s recent decision in Allen v. Milligan affirmed 40 years of precedent, insofar that it affirmed that the Voting Rights Act still prohibits racial discrimination against racial minorities in the voting process,” she said.

See here, here, and here for the background. Whereas Galveston had been ordered to use a least-changes map that preserved Commissioner Stephen Holmes’ minority-coalition precinct, allowing the map drawn by Galveston Commissioners Court would all but ensure Holmes’ defeat. The timetable is the critical aspect here, since the primary is in March, even if both nominees are unopposed.

You may be asking, isn’t there some legal principle that applies to election-related cases to ensure they don’t confuse voters on the cusp of an election? The answer is yes, it’s called the Purcell principle after a case in Arizona from 2006. It’s also being grossly misused here. I can’t explain it very well, but I have two things for you to read to see for yourself. Appellate lawyer Raffi Melkonian gives a brief summary of the Fifth Circuit’s ruling and why it was unusual. Law professor Steve Vladeck then goes customarily deep on the history and reasoning behind Purcell, how the Fifth Circuit applied it in this case, and why they’re completely wrong and more than a little disingenuous. You should read them both.

Bottom line: Unless SCOTUS intervenes, Galveston will get to neatly eliminate its one Commissioner of color this year, even though the map they’d use to do it with has been ruled unconstitutional. Maybe later, the courts will get back to that. This is the Fifth Circuit in action.

UPDATE: SCOTUS has spoken.

Galveston County will use an electoral map that a federal judge determined violated the Voting Rights Act after the U.S Supreme Court declined to intervene in the case Tuesday.

The decision comes after U.S. District Judge Jeffrey V. Brown found that the county’s precinct map “denies Black and Latino voters the equal opportunity to participate in the political process and the opportunity to elect a representative of their choice to the commissioners court,” in October.

Galveston County appealed the ruling and won a reprieve from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which overruled Brown and said that officials didn’t have to redraw the county’s voting map. The U.S. Supreme Court decision not to intervene means the appellate court’s ruling stands.

Three justices – Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Kentaji Brown Jackson – dissented, saying the appellate court “went far beyond its property authority” by allowing the county’s unlawful electoral map to proceed.

The Supreme Court’s decision will simply embolden politicians to use the same tactics as Galveston County, said Joaquin Gonzalez, senior supervising attorney for the Voting Rights Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project, which represented the plaintiffs who sued the county.

“We are disappointed in today’s ruling,” Gonzalez said. “The residents of Galveston have fought against this map since it was proposed and they deserve to have a resolution. This ruling emboldens more politicians to try the same tactics that the Galveston Commissioners used to create this blatantly discriminatory map.

“We will continue fighting for Galveston residents to have a fair shot to influence the decisions that shape their community,” he added.

The fix is once again in.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Commissioners Court, Election 2024, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, filing deadline, Galveston, Justice Department, lawsuit, Mark Henry, primaries, redistricting, SCOTUS, Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Stephen Holmes, Texas, Texas Civil Rights Project, Voting Rights Act | Comments Off

Amtrak gets some federal high speed rail funds

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s something.

Amtrak has been awarded a $500,000 federal grant to further study and develop a proposed high-speed railway between Houston and Dallas, a long-envisioned plan that until earlier this year had appeared to have fizzled out.

Amtrak, the national passenger railroad company of the United States, announced in August it was exploring a partnership with Texas Central, the Dallas-based company that a decade ago hatched the idea of building a 240-mile railway that could transport passengers between the state’s two largest cities in a matter of about 90 minutes.

The initiative is one of seven high-speed rail projects across the country that was awarded grant funding on Friday by the Federal Railroad Administration, as part of its new Corridor Identification and Development Program using resources allocated through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed by Congress in 2021. A total of 68 other rail projects in 44 states were awarded the same grant, while 10 ready-to-construct railway projects were selected for grants through the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program.

A total of $8.2 billion was awarded for the rail initiatives, which include both high-speed and traditional rail service. The Houston-to-Dallas bullet train project is one of a few that aim to expand rail service in the Houston region.

“We are taking full advantage of the resources we have to advance world-class passenger rail services nationwide,” Amit Bose, the administrator for the Federal Railroad Administration, said in a news release from the U.S. Department of Transportation. “Today’s announcement is another step forward as we advance transformative projects that will carry Americans for decades to come and provide them with convenient, climate-friendly alternatives to congested roads and airports.”

The grant funding for the high-speed rail project between Houston and Dallas, which aims to use Shinkansen technology from Japan and utilize the former Northwest Mall site as the Houston terminal, does not mean it will come to fruition. The money will not be used for construction, but rather for further developing the project.

See here for some background. The Chron adds some details.

The money would be strictly for “preparing, completing, or documenting its service development plan,” and does not commit any funding for what is likely to be a $25 billion-to-$35 billion project.

“What we are doing is creating a pipeline for potential passenger rail projects,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in announcing 69 projects as part of the Corridor ID Program by the Federal Railroad Administration.

[…]

Texas, meanwhile, is years, if not decades, from construction, but progressing with some long-sought projects linking its major metros. In addition to the Amtrak award, federal officials also announced four other development studies, each totaling up to $500,00:

• Potential for high-speed service to add a stop in Fort Worth and continue into Dallas, Brazos Valley and Houston, sponsored by the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

• Making the Sunset Limited service by Amtrak from Los Angeles to New Orleans daily, from three times a week, which would mean daily train service for Houston to San Antonio and New Orleans.

• Creating a new daily intercity route along the Sunset Limited’s path for service between Houston and San Antonio that would include stops in Rosenberg, Flatonia and Seguin, sponsored by the Texas Department of Transportation.

• Returning conventional passenger rail service in the “Texas Triangle” by connecting Houston and Dallas, with stops between Dallas and Houston in Corsicana, Hearne, College Station and Navasota, also sponsored by TxDOT.

Proponents of more frequent passenger rail service applauded the announcements, noting the opportunity to better connect smaller cities to the metro cores.

“This is a big step forward for Texas, and if we have the full cooperation and buy-in from our state legislature, TxDOT and the Texas Transportation Commission this would give Texans a daily travel choice we do not have at present,” said Texas Rail Advocates President Peter LeCody. “This would benefit a lot of smaller Texas cities with few transportation choices and help them promote their cities for tourism, business and economic development.”

That many of the projects overlap or potentially replicate one another is by design, federal officials said.

“The range of applications we selected were based on the options we wanted Texas to have,” Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose said.

The first project is that other high speed rail line, which has been moving a lot more reliably than Texas Central has. I approve of all of this, I just hope to live long enough to see any of it.

Posted in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles | Tagged Amtrak, Commission for High-Speed Rail in Dallas/Fort Worth, Dallas, Federal High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program, Federal Railroad Administration, Fort Worth, high speed rail, Houston, North Central Texas Council of Governments, Pete Buttigieg, stimulus, Texas, Texas Central High-Speed Railway, Texas Rail Advocates, US Department of Transportation | 3 Comments

SJL files for re-election

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We have our answer.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee will run for reelection in Texas’ 18th Congressional District, shaking up a Democratic primary that’s been in limbo since her resounding defeat in the race for Houston mayor on Saturday. Harris County Democratic Party Chair Michael Doyle said he accepted her filing at 10 a.m. Monday.

[…]

Former Houston At-Large City Council member Amanda Edwards, 41, originally filed to run for mayor but dropped out of the contest after Jackson Lee entered the race. Edwards then announced in June she was running as a Democrat for Jackson Lee’s congressional seat and endorsed her candidacy for mayor.

Edwards told the Houston Chronicle Monday she would not drop out of the race if Jackson Lee entered it. She already has filed to be on the ballot for the March 5 Democratic Primary.

Isaiah Martin, 25, is a former University of Houston student body president and former intern in Jackson Lee’s office. He announced in September that he would run for Jackson Lee’s Congressional seat but has not filed to have his name appear on the ballot.

See here for the background. This isn’t a surprise, there had been chatter to this effect before the runoff, probably earlier than that. Her concession speech on Saturday didn’t sound like someone who was ready to retire. I would not have been shocked if she had chosen to retire, but this is the outcome I expected, and I daresay most other people did as well.

And I’m fine with it. She’s been a member of Congress for a long time, she’s been good at it, the voters know and like her. The conversation with voters about why she tried so hard to get another job could and should be awkward, but again, she has that longstanding relationship to fall back on. People can be remarkably forgiving about this sort of thing.

Which is not to say she will have an easy time of it, or that she should avoid critical scrutiny. If you supported her for Mayor, especially if you live in CD18, you had to be comfortable at some level with the idea of someone else representing CD18. Amanda Edwards has been campaigning for over six months, she’s raised over a million dollars for her campaign, and she will easily be the best-funded candidate against SJL since she defeated then-Rep. Craig Washington all those years ago. (I might say that Edwards would be SJL’s best-known challenger as well, but former Council member Jarvis Johnson ran against her in 2010, so let’s call it a tossup.) Isaiah Martin raised a very impressive $316K in less than three months; if he continues his campaign, he’ll contribute to the strongest one-two punch SJL has ever seen. However hard she worked on her Mayoral campaign, SJL will need to do at least that much for at least the next three months.

We’ll see how it goes. It may be SJL versus Edwards, it may be those two plus Martin, and who knows, there may be others filing as well. You never know what can happen on deadline day. The Chron has more.

(UPDATE: Isaiah Martin is suspending his campaign and endorsing SJL.)

BTW, I will have a full roundup of who filed for what tomorrow, once the dust has settled a bit. In the meantime, a few news-y bits:

– The Erik Manning Spreadsheet is live! All hail Erik Manning, the wind beneath our wings.

– State Rep. Victoria Neave Criado will challenge State Sen. Nathan Johnson in SD16. Both were trailblazers of a sort. Neave Criado flipped HD107 in 2016, a cycle ahead of the blue wave in 2018. She was the first Dem House candidate to win a seat that hadn’t flipped due to redistricting or the 2010/2014 debacles. Johnson was one of two Democratic flips in the Senate in 2018, ridding us of the pestilence that was Don Huffines, and his seat was the one left uncracked by the 2021 redistricting. I like Sen. Johnson (to be clear, I also like Rep. Neave Criado) and would probably vote for him if I lived there, but I don’t. We’ll see what the people there do.

– Current HCDE Trustee Danny Norris has filed to run against State Rep. Harold Dutton in HD142. You know who I’m rooting for. HCDE Trustee Richard Cantu, who lost in the At Large #3 runoff on Saturday, had not filed for re-election as of Monday morning, but has since filed. Josh Wallenstein, who has run for HCDE Trustee before, has filed for that seat.

– As of Monday afternoon, two incumbent Democratic Constables had not yet filed for re-election: Constable May Walker in Precinct 7, and Constable Alan Rosen in Precinct 1. Multiple people have filed in 7, and so far two have filed in 1. The Manning spreadsheet says that Constable Walker is retiring, so that’s an open seat. Constable Rosen has long been rumored to be interested in other things – his name was all over the speculation for Sheriff when Ed Gonzalez had been nominated for ICE – and I’ve been wondering if he will be a last-minute filer for some other office, including possibly Sheriff. However, checking again after the deadline, Rosen has filed for re-election. So no drama there.

– Late in the day, someone named Umeka Lewis-Piccolo has filed to run for County Attorney, so no one holding a countywide executive office is unopposed. Danielle Bess has joined the field for Tax Assessor. The list of candidates from the HCDP website is less organized than the Manning spreadsheet but it looks to be pretty comprehensive.

As noted, I will have more tomorrow.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged Alan Rosen, Amanda Edwards, CD18, Christian Menefee, Congress, Constable, Danielle Bess, Danyahel Norris, Democratic primary, District Attorney, Election 2016, Election 2018, Election 2024, Harold Dutton, Harris County, Harris County Attorney, Harris County Sheriff, Harris County Tax Assessor, HCDE, HD107, HD142, Isaiah Martin, Josh Wallenstein, judicial races, May Walker, Nathan Johnson, Richard Cantu, SD15, SD16, Senate, Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas, The Lege, Umeka Lewis-Piccolo, Victoria Neave | 5 Comments

Kate Cox leaves Texas to get her abortion

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

My heart goes out to her and her family.

After the Texas Supreme Court temporarily put a pregnant woman’s efforts to get an emergency abortion on hold, her lawyers said Monday that she had left Texas to get care in another state.

Kate Cox, the lead plaintiff in Cox v. Texas, initially received a temporary restraining order from a Travis County district judge on Dec. 7 allowing her to have the procedure. But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to reverse Judge Maya Guerra Gamble’s order later that night, saying she had abused her discretion by issuing it. Paxton also penned a letter threatening liability to any hospital or doctor who facilitates an abortion.

The Supreme Court temporarily halted the order late Friday night, but indicated that it would consider the matter before issuing a final ruling.

“While we still hope that the Court ultimately rejects the state’s request and does so quickly, in this case we fear that justice delayed will be justice denied,” Cox’s attorney Molly Duane said in a statement on Friday, following the Supreme Court’s stay. “We are talking about urgent medical care. Kate is already 20 weeks pregnant.”

Cox’s fetus was diagnosed with trisomy 18, a condition that is almost always fatal. She was warned by doctors that continuing the pregnancy to delivery could have a severe impact on her health and ability to carry future pregnancies.

On Monday, Duane filed a notice with the Texas Supreme Court saying that Cox had left Texas to receive medical care. However, she said they intended to move forward with Cox’s case as the issues included in it are “capable of repetition.”

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

“This past week of legal limbo has been hellish for Kate,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Her health is on the line … This is why judges and politicians should not be making healthcare decisions for pregnant people—they are not doctors.”

The Center for Reproductive Rights intends to continue litigating this case before the Texas Supreme Court, according to a letter sent to the court clerk Monday. The Texas Supreme Court also heard arguments in late November in Zurawski v. Texas, in which 20 women allege they were denied medical care for their complicated pregnancies as a result of the state’s abortion laws.

Cox’s lawyers declined to say where she was traveling to terminate her pregnancy, but noted in a statement that many women in Texas do not have the financial means to quickly leave the state. All but one of Texas’ neighboring states have banned the procedure, and Texans are flooding clinics in New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas, leading to delays in care. In October, the Texas Tribune documented the story of a woman who could not afford to leave the state for an abortion, and carried a non-viable pregnancy to term.

I don’t know what it means to pursue this case further – my non-lawyer brain assumed that this would moot the case. I’m happy to be wrong about that, because this deserves a legal resolution. Beyond that, I’m too goddamned angry to think. I’m going to stop here before I say something I regret. The Chron, TPM, Mother Jones, the Associated Press, MSNBC, the Dallas Observer, and the Austin Chronicle have more.

UPDATE: Jesus Christ.

The Texas Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court order allowing an abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition, hours after her lawyers said she had decided to leave Texas for the procedure in the face of the state’s abortion bans.

The court ruled that the lower court made a mistake in ruling that the woman, Kate Cox, who is more than 20 weeks pregnant, was entitled to a medical exception.

In its seven-page ruling, the Supreme Court found that Ms. Cox’s doctor, Damla Karsan, “asked a court to pre-authorize the abortion yet she could not, or at least did not, attest to the court that Ms. Cox’s condition poses the risks the exception requires.” Texas’ overlapping bans allow for abortions only when a pregnancy seriously threatens the health or life of the woman.

“These laws reflect the policy choice that the Legislature has made, and the courts must respect that choice,” the court wrote.

The ruling, which applied only to Ms. Cox’s current pregnancy, suggested that the court would not be open to readings of the law that would expand the medical exception in Texas beyond all but the most serious cases. The fact that Ms. Cox decided to leave the state rather than wait for a ruling underscored the difficulty of seeking court permission for an abortion in the midst of a pregnancy.

[…]

In its decision on Monday, the Texas Supreme Court suggested a general standard that could be applied beyond Ms. Cox’s case.

“The exception does not mandate that a doctor in a true emergency await consultation with other doctors who may not be available,” the court wrote. “The exception is predicated on a doctor’s acting within the zone of reasonable medical judgment, which is what doctors do every day.”

Sorry, but that sounds like the same “it’s totally up to you doctors, but we’re not going to define what the boundaries are and if you guess wrong you can be arrested for murder and also sued by Ken Paxton and every anti-abortion zealot in the state, so good luck with that” bullshit as before. The Chron notes that SCOTx wants the Texas Medical Board to clarify the exceptions, which sounds nice but won’t carry any weight with the Lege or the AG or the wingnuts. The government of the state of Texas as it exists now is never ever going to concede that any specific woman’s situation counts as an actual legal exception to the anti-abortion law. And you know what that means.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Amanda Zurawski, Attorney General, Center for Reproductive Rights, Damla Karsan, Election 2024, hospitals, Justin Cox, Kate Cox, Ken Paxton, lawsuit, Supreme Court, Texas, The Lege | 6 Comments

The state of healthcare for trans kids today

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s bad.

In the past three years alone, life as a young transgender person in the U.S. has changed dramatically. Before 2021, gender-affirming medical care was legal in all 50 states. None had even tried to ban it. Today, 22 states have passed restrictions on that care—and while several have been blocked in court or have yet to take effect, most are active law.

Treatment plans for trans minors are as unique as the teens themselves. But usually, if medically indicated for the patient, treatment starts with puberty blockers for young adolescents and sometimes progresses to hormone therapy (testosterone or estrogen) for older teens. Surgery is uncommon for trans youth, though some older teens with enduring gender dysphoria opt for chest surgery.

Health experts agree that gender-affirming medical care is an essential tool in treating gender dysphoria and helping trans youth live happy, healthy, well-adjusted lives. Dozens of medical groups—including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine—have issued statements recognizing the necessity of access to that evidence-based, time-tested care.

Some of the new laws ban gender-affirming care for all trans minors. Others allow youth who are already receiving care to be legacied in and continue their treatment, while banning new patients from initiating care. Many contain harsh penalties, such as felony charges, for providers who offer the treatments.

This fast-changing landscape has plunged families like Zeder’s into chaos, as parents attempt to keep track of laws, find new medical providers, and map out a future in which their trans children can thrive. News reports are filled with stories of families who have uprooted their lives and moved to friendlier states to protect their trans kids from laws that prevent them from participating in sports, using the appropriate restroom, and getting recommended medical care.

But families who move across state lines are the exception, said Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, an organization that supports LGBTQ+ people in the Southern U.S. The vast majority of families with trans kids that CSE serves have no plans to relocate. Moving requires money, finding a new home (and often a new job), and a willingness to give up what may be a cherished, generations-old community. That’s a tough ask for many parents, especially if there are other children in the picture.

Early this year, CSE launched a program to help young people living in states that have banned gender-affirming care find new providers in states where it remains legal. The Southern Trans Youth Emergency Project connects families in the South with health care facilities that are currently taking new patients—usually in the closest possible state with access, or in a state where a loved one lives—and provides $500 grants to offset expenses. So far, the program has distributed more than $300,000 to about 600 people and families. The organization has also begun offering a second round of grants to families in the program, since gender-affirming care requires regular appointments.

“Our mindset is very much like the mindset you’d have in the wake of a hurricane hitting the coast,” Beach-Ferrara said. “This is a crisis. And it’s a crisis we can respond to.”

The project bears similarities to the abortion funds and practical support networks that have helped a growing number of patients find abortion providers, cover travel costs, and pay for abortion care following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In both cases, a right-wing policy agenda has cut off access to essential, lifesaving medical care in roughly half the country, forcing patients to forgo that care or travel long distances at great expense. (Patients seeking abortions can also order medication in the mail, though that poses the risk of possible legal trouble.) Some patients in states with abortion bans have been able to get care under this system: In the year after Roe was overturned, as legal abortions all but ended in states with bans, rates increased elsewhere due to an influx of out-of-state patients and loosened restrictions that improved access in blue states. But an untold number of people have been successfully barred from terminating their pregnancies and forced to birth children against their will.

There are important differences between abortion care and gender-affirming care, however. Getting abortion medication or an in-clinic procedure does not require ongoing care; usually, patients have to make only one trip. That’s not the case for gender-affirming care, which, like most long-term medical treatments, necessitates consistent check-ins on a patient’s physical and mental health, in addition to periodic prescription refills. Even if a patient’s family is able to work out the finances and logistics for one trip out of state, they’ll need to make another trip in three to six months—and another several months later, and so on. Emergency measures are not sufficient here. Families must find a sustainable long-term solution.

As it stands, the nation’s patchwork system of laws requires trans and gender-nonconforming youth in broad swaths of the country to go to absurd lengths to fill their prescriptions. The medications they need can be prescribed in a video telehealth appointment, but at the time of the appointment, the patient must be physically located in a state where the treatment is legal, and they can get the medication only from a pharmacy in one of those states.

Zeder is a trans boy living in Austin, with whom we begin this story. The comparison with the way people in many states now have to try to get abortion care is instructive, and it makes me wonder if it’s just a matter of time before we see similar efforts to block their ability to travel out of state for any such care. The same insulting and dehumanizing language about “trafficking” would apply, if and when the same zealots get around to it. These and other related questions will be coming to SCOTUS sooner rather than later, and I have more fear than hope about it. As with an increasing number of things, it’s going to take federal action to ensure that everyone has the same rights. The scary thing is that federal action could also be taken to remove those rights for all. Elections have never had bigger consequences.

Posted in National news | Tagged abortion, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, Campaign for Southern Equality, SCOTUS, Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, Texas, transgender rights | Comments Off

Get ready for the SD15 special election

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It’s closer than you think.

Sen. John Whitmire

The candidates looking to replace Mayor-elect John Whitmire in the Texas Senate may have to win as many as five elections next year before they ever get to vote on a piece of legislation.

Whitmire, who won in a landslide over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in Houston’s mayoral runoff, will resign his seat in the Legislature before he is inaugurated in early January. He has held the District 15 seat in the state Senate since 1983, making him the chamber’s longest serving member.

His current term in the Senate lasts through 2024, and Gov. Greg Abbott will have to call a special election to fill the seat for that year – even though the Legislature does not have a scheduled session. Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth said the special election for the current term likely will be held in January.

An election was already scheduled in his district in 2024, so candidates also will have to compete in the March primary election and the November general election for a full, four-year term beginning in 2025. Candidates only have until Monday to file for office on the March primary ballot.

This means candidates could face a special election early next year to complete the rest of Whitmire’s current term, a runoff in that race if no candidate gets a majority of the vote in the first round, a March primary election for the next term, a potential runoff in the primary and finally the November general election.

Several candidates have already filed to run, including Democrats Molly Cook, an emergency room nurse and community activist who ran a spirited primary challenge against Whitmire in 2022; state Rep. Jarvis Johnson, who has served in the Texas House since 2016; Karthik Soora, a renewable energy developer and former teacher; and Todd Litton, a former congressional candidate.

We’ve discussed all this before. I will assume that all four of the candidates who have filed for the Democratic nomination will also file for the special election. The eventual winner, if they also win the nomination and then the November election, likely won’t do much beyond run for office multiple times this year, but they will get a leg up on their colleagues in the seniority department, which isn’t nothing. I’d imagine a Republican will enter, and maybe a fringe type or two, but the dynamic ought to be more or less the same as the primary.

Where it gets tricky is if the results of the special election and the primary election diverge. The special election is only for the term that ends next December 31; if that winner doesn’t also prevail in March and November, their career will be quite short. We faced a similar situation in HD147 last year, and as the story notes back in 2015 in HD139. That’s a good segue to note that if Rep. Jarvis Johnson is the special election winner, there will then need to be a special election in HD139. That would happen after the primary, though perhaps not after the primary runoff if there is one. Isn’t this fun? The bottom line is this: There will be a lot of elections this year. Be ready for it.

Posted in Election 2024 | Tagged Democratic primary, Election 2015, Election 2022, Election 2023, Election 2024, HD139, HD147, Houston, Jarvis Johnson, John Whitmire, Karthik Soora, Mayor, Molly Cook, runoff, SD15, Senate, special election, Texas, The Lege, Todd Litton | 1 Comment

So now what for SJL?

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

At least one big question about what comes next for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee after losing the Mayoral runoff should be settled today.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Following her decisive defeat in Saturday’s mayoral runoff, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee now has less than two days to decide her political future.

The longtime Democrat has two choices: seek reelection to Congress, setting up an unusually competitive primary battle against at least one of her former staffers, or retire from Congress after three decades, triggering a competitive primary for her open, safely Democratic seat.

Jackson Lee, 73, who conceded the mayoral election to state Sen. John Whitmire Saturday night, has until 6 p.m. Monday to file for reelection. She has not confirmed whether she would run for reelection but noted during her concession remarks that she planned to continue to serve communities in Houston and find her place as a public servant “in any way possible.”

After losing the mayoral runoff by a massive 35.6% to 64.4% margin, Jackson Lee could be facing “the most formidable challenge” of her decades-long political career if she opts to run for her current congressional seat, according to Michael Adams, a political science professor at Texas Southern University.

For one, she will face 41-year-old Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City council member who holds a financial edge over Jackson Lee and is perceived by many as a fresher voice in the political arena. Edwards dropped out of the mayoral race earlier this year and pivoted to Jackson Lee’s seat after the congresswoman announced her own mayoral bid.

But this time, Edwards told the Chronicle she would continue seeking the Democratic nomination in Jackson Lee’s 18th Congressional District, even if it means going up against the longtime incumbent.

“I think there is a real excitement about the prospect of having new leadership come in and have a focus on addressing challenges today, but also the challenges of tomorrow,” Edwards said. “People are wanting to look forward and realize the changes that we talk about on these campaign trails.”

[…]

“Residents may be receptive to hearing other ideas in terms of how the district can be moved,” Adams said. “It will rest with Amanda Edwards in terms of how she messages and whether she presents herself as being a new face and a fresh voice, coming up with a plan and also making appeals to draw young people to the poll.”

Jackson Lee also lacks the typical financial advantage often held by incumbents. Already a household name across much of the district, she has rarely had to pour much effort into fundraising – never spending more than $1 million on her reelection until the 2020 cycle.

Edwards, meanwhile, reported a $1 million fundraising haul over the first three and a half months of her campaign. She had about $829,000 in her campaign account at the end of September, nearly four times the cash on hand in Jackson Lee’s federal coffers.

[…]

Since announcing her bid for Jackson Lee’s seat, Edwards has garnered endorsements from local Democratic officials, including Houston City Councilmembers Tarsha Jackson and Robert Gallegos and Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones.

Former Council member Carroll Robinson, who had considered a run for the seat, recently decided against it and instead endorsed Edwards.

Another potential challenger to Jackson Lee is Gen-Z candidate Isaiah Martin, who interned for Jackson Lee before announcing his congressional candidacy in September.

A University of Houston graduate, Martin, 25, had a brief stint running for an at-large seat on Houston’s City Council this year but withdrew in March to assist Jackson Lee’s mayoral campaign. He did not respond to inquiries about whether he will stay in the race if Jackson Lee decides to seek reelection.

Overall, Jackson Lee’s incumbency and her solid voter base, particularly among older Black women, mean her potential challengers will still face a steep challenge, according to Adams. Meanwhile, he said the congresswoman must actively fundraise, a task potentially more difficult in light of her recent defeat.

“If you didn’t make a strong showing in the mayoral race, why would I put my money on you in this competitive congressional race?” Adams said. “I think it would be a hotly contested election.”

Isaiah Martin also did a good job fundraising after his entry into the race, collecting $316K with $283K on hand in his first finance report. That put his cash on hand higher than SJL’s as well, at least as of then.

I don’t know how much her financial disadvantage would matter for the primary, since I assume Jackson Lee’s name ID is universal and the voters here know her record and how they feel about her. The main point would be allowing Edwards and Martin to introduce themselves and make their case, which I imagine will start off with “she was willing to leave Congress to run for Mayor, I want to be there and work hard for you”. People may know and be mostly happy with SJL as their member of Congress, but if she was looking to do something else, that may change things. It’s a question she’ll need to engage seriously, which is something she hasn’t had to do before.

I don’t know what she’ll do. The runoff was a tough loss, a much bigger loss than I think most people expected. I can’t imagine that’s an easy thing to handle, but she doesn’t have the time to think about it. Either she’s in for more or she’s out, and if she’s in she’s going to have to convince people that even though she was clearly ready and eager to do something else, she still wants to do this thing. If she’s in I wouldn’t bet against her, but the risk of losing again, in what would surely be a much more crushing blow, is real. I don’t envy her the choice.

Posted in Election 2023, Election 2024 | Tagged Amanda Edwards, CD18, Congress, Democratic primary, Election 2023, Election 2024, fundraising, Houston, Isaiah Martin, Mayor, runoff, Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas | 3 Comments

Two Loving County 2022 elections overturned

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Wow.

State District Judge David Rogers ruled that 10 Loving County voters did not have enough connection to the area to legally vote there. As a result, two local November 2022 elections must be redone because the number of ineligible voters exceeded the winner’s margin of victory.

The ruling came after a September trial in which three losing candidates challenged their results by claiming voters who lived outside Loving County had improperly tipped the election in favor of powerful legacy families. Rogers concluded the contest for justice of the peace, which resulted in a 39-39 tie before being decided by two votes in a reelection, will have to be repeated, as will a county commissioner’s race decided by six votes. The county/district clerk, who won by 12 votes, can keep her job.

Although election challenges aren’t unheard of, tossing out race results and ordering up a new contest is very uncommon, said Eric Opiela, an Austin attorney who specializes in election law.

That is especially true for cases that turn on residency, where the answer to a seemingly simple question — “Where do you live?” — can be difficult to unravel thanks to vague state laws that permit plenty of wiggle room. Opiela said such cases might pop up once a decade in Texas — the exception being in Loving County, which alone has had three since 1996.

Lawyers for the current office holders — Clerk Mozelle Carr, Justice of the Peace Angela Medlin and Commissioner Ysidro Renteria — declined or did not respond to requests for comment. So it is unclear if they will appeal Rogers’ ruling.

Susan Hays, the attorney representing challengers Holly Jones, Amber King and James Alan Sparks, said her clients were still pondering an appeal. She called the decision mixed, noting she was disappointed in some of the judge’s determinations on individual voters, as well as his ruling the reelections would be administered by the county clerk — Mozelle Carr, whose challenged results will stand.

Still, she added, the disqualification of just under half of the voters she challenged “is a great step to cleaning up the corruption in that county.”

Unlike other election trials, which can drone on about technical election processes that may have been improper, the two-week Loving County trial at times literally aired the community’s dirty laundry.

[…]

Texas law permits people to vote in a place other than where they currently live so long as they have some physical presence, the dislocation is temporary and they intend to return at some point. But the same law also inconveniently declines to define what is a presence, how long is temporary or when the statute of limitations on intentions expires.

Home “is a state of mind, essentially,” Opiela said. “Very few election cases are brought on the question of residency, just because it’s so darn hard to prove.”

In their lawsuit, the 2022 election losers challenged just over two dozen voters as having illegally cast ballots in Loving County elections while living elsewhere. Rogers determined that 10 did not make the residency cut because of “clear and compelling” evidence.

Senaida Polanco, for example, has lived outside of Loving County for more than 40 years, in the Fort Worth area, where she lists her address on her driver’s license and takes a homestead tax exemption on her home. She testified she visited Mentone and stayed at the old family home once or twice a year, and that while she intends to return someday, her plans are vague.

“All of the documentary evidence shows Senaida lives in Fort Worth and has for years,” the judge wrote. “She is not a resident of Loving County.”

Mozelle Carr’s daughter — Judge Jones’ niece — RayChel Lowrance was born in Odessa and attended college and then settled in Lubbock, where her husband, Wesley, has a real estate business and they raised their children. Yet both claimed a doublewide owned by the family ranch in Mentone as their “permanent” residence and registered to vote in Loving County two months before the November 2022 election, court documents show.

“The documentary evidence and much of the testimony shows that the Lowrances live in Lubbock,” Judge Rogers wrote. “They are not legal residents of Loving County.”

Especially hard hit by the ruling were members of the extended Renteria clan, whose relatives first settled a farm in the Pecos River floodplain in the 1940s.

Last year, many family members were still claiming the weathered group of buildings just outside of Mentone as their permanent residence for voting purposes, even though they spent the vast majority of their time elsewhere. An energy use expert also testified that utility records indicated “it was improbable that anyone was residing on the property.” Rogers determined six Renterias who’d voted last year in Loving County were not legal residents.

See here for the most recent update. It’s been quite the year for little Loving County, between this and the adventures of cattle-rustlin’ Judge Skeet Jones, so you might want to refresh your memory on the larger story. You may wonder why anyone really cares about the political fortunes of a county with a hundred people in it; the short answer is that thanks to its oil and gas reserves, Loving County is awash in money, much of which gets into the county’s budget and thus the hands of its elected officials. For someone like me, I mean this thing is like catnip. How can you not be fascinated by it?

What happens next is complicated. There may be appeals of this ruling, which could take years to resolve. If there’s no appeal or if the ruling is allowed to stand pending appeal, there will need to be new elections for those two offices, with an amended voter roll. And, there could be a criminal investigation of any and all of the people who were declared to not be Loving County voters. As the story notes, one of the things the Lege did in 2021 was pass a law that makes it a crime to “establish residence for the purpose of influencing the outcome of a certain election.” Sure seems like that might apply here, though sustaining a criminal charge is a higher bar to clear, and I can’t imagine Ken Paxton has any interest in this since it contradicts the preferred narrative of “voter fraud”. But at this point anything is possible.

Posted in Election 2022, Legal matters | Tagged Amber King, Angela Medlin, County Judge, Election 2022, election contest, Holly Jones, James Alan Sparks, lawsuit, Loving County, Mozelle Carr, Skeet Jones, Susan Hays, Texas, The Lege, voter registration, Ysidro Renteria | Comments Off

Weekend link dump for December 10

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

“It would be nice if real life worked like this story. The world would be a better place if otherworldly spirits troubled the sleep of mercilessly exploitative men and gave to them all a vision of the celebration destined to follow their inevitable death. But it doesn’t work that way. The Spirits of Christmas aren’t coming with sweet dreams and nightmare visions to compel such men to repent. The only way to show them the inevitable misery of their Yet To Come is to show it to them now, in the waking world.”

“Confused Why Your Spotify Wrapped Sound Town Is Burlington, Vermont? So Are the People of Burlington.”

“After over 30,000 language lovers around the world got involved to help refine our shortlist of eight words, we are pleased to announce that the Oxford Word of the Year 2023 is rizz.”

Wait, there’s a sequel to This Is Spinal Tap in the works? How did I now know that?

Make them testify!

“Santos’s next act, of course, may very well be prison. And it’s possible that our fickle attention economy, having picked Santos up, will just as quickly put him down. But he has already exploited multiple pathologies of that attention economy, rising to Congress thanks in no small part to a deficit of timely attention, then riding the surfeit of it to celebrity; if you think he can’t leverage this into long-term relevance—who knows, maybe even a political comeback—I have some precedents to show you. If he does, it will be a feat inextricable from his current status as a media object. Selling himself as one might just be his greatest grift, perpetuated in plain sight.”

“A WIRED investigation into internet censorship in US schools found widespread use of filters to censor health, identity, and other crucial information. Students say it makes the web entirely unusable.”

Here’s a reason to skip watching the Frasier revival, if you’re looking for one.

“The case of the Zieglers, the Florida GOP traditional values power couple, caught up in a case of three-ways and alleged rape took several turns for the weird and the worse over the weekend. […] The story has a complicated, uncanny dynamic because, on the one hand, it’s that old as the hills story of a family values Republican caught up in sexual practices which, if harmless themselves for consenting adults, don’t at all square with their public personas or policy agenda. On the other, buried in that schadenfreude-y story of Republicans with their pants down is a very credible accusation of rape.”

“The reason I have so little patience for NYT’s decision to dedicate the resources of three senior reporters to warn about the dangers of a second Trump term is not that I disagree about the second term. They’re right that it would be far worse. It’s that the same reporters continue to downplay Trump’s past corruption — some of which Maggie Haberman specifically enabled — and outright ignore the ongoing effects of it.”

RIP, Norman Lear, legendary TV producer and screenwriter.

“You never know when these moments are going to sneak up on you. I kind of held it together, [but] then we were singing ‘movin’ on up to the East Side’ and I heard myself saying ‘to a deluxe apartment in the sky,’ I just lost it. Because he’s going to some deluxe apartment in the sky.”

“He is making this choice because the Committee has demonstrated time and again it uses closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public—a hearing would ensure transparency and truth in these proceedings.”

“Within hours of Tuberville’s decision, the Senate confirmed hundreds of nominations.” About damn time.

So long, Kevin.

Lock them up.

RIP, Andrea Fay Friedman, actor best known for Life Goes On.

RIP, India, Bengal tiger who made national news two years ago when he went for a stroll through the streets of west Houston.

“Elijah Wood and Other Actors Were Duped Into Making Russian-Propaganda Videos on Cameo”.

“European Union negotiators clinched a deal Friday on the world’s first comprehensive artificial intelligence rules, paving the way for legal oversight of AI technology that has promised to transform everyday life and spurred warnings of existential dangers to humanity.”

RIP, Ryan O’Neal, Oscar-nominated actor best known for Paper Moon, Love Story, and What’s Up Doc.

Posted in Blog stuff | Tagged linkdump | 2 Comments

2023 runoff results: Whitmire and Hollins win

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I’m writing this at about 11:30 PM, with 169 of 450 voting centers reporting results. One race is very much in the balance, one other could possibly swing. Keep all that in mind.

John Whitmire led 65-35 in Harris County in early voting, and there was no suspense after that. Congratulations to Mayor-elect John Whitmire. There will be a special election in SD15 to finish out his term, as well as the Democratic primary for that office.

Chris Hollins had a 59-41 lead in early voting for Controller, and there was no suspense after that. Congratulations to Controller-elect Chris Hollins.

Most of the City Council races had clear leaders after early voting. Willie Davis has a 55-45 lead in Harris County as of this writing, and he also dominated in Fort Bend. He’s pretty much a lock at this point. Twila Carter has a more modest lead in AL3, about 52-48 and 4,000 votes counting Fort Bend. Barring a surprise, she’s in. CM Letitia Plummer has a bigger lead, about 53-47 and over 7K votes, and it would be a much bigger surprise for her to fall behind. In the district Council races, CMs Carolyn Evans-Shabazz and Mary Nan Huffman had clear leads, as did Mario Castillo in H. Congratulations to all the winners.

The closest race by far is in AL1, where Melanie Miles has about a 300 vote lead, thanks to her support in Fort Bend. I don’t know how safe that is, as Julian Ramirez had a 1,500 vote advantage in Harris County as of this juncture. If the E-Day vote continues for him like this, he ought to be able to surpass her. I don’t know which results are in and which are still out, so it may be that the remainder will be more favorable to Miles. We’ll have to wait and see.

I’ll post any updates as needed in the morning. Until then, this is what we know. Oh, and kudos to commenter DR for a fairly accurate set of predictions in the previous post.

UPDATE: It looks like Julian Ramirez nosed ahead of Melanie Miles by about 400 votes. That’s in recount territory, but as we know that very rarely makes a difference. Turnout on Election Day was a bit under 67K, which was about one third of total turnout, which was about 197K. Not at all robust, to say the least.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged At Large #1, At Large #2, At Large #3, Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, Chris Hollins, Cynthia Reyes-Revilla, District D, District G, District H, Election 2023, Election Day, Houston, Houston City Controller, Houston City Council, John Whitmire, Julian Ramirez, Letitia Plummer, Mario Castillo, Mary Nan Huffman, Mayor, Melanie Miles, Nick Hellyar, Orlando Sanchez, Richard Cantu, Roy Morales, runoff, Sheila Jackson Lee, Tony Buzbee, Travis McGee, Twila Carter, Willie Davis | 13 Comments

Would you please fix that Verizon debacle, HISD?

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

It sure would be nice.

Twelve state legislators representing the Houston ISD area sent a letter to Superintendent Mike Miles on Monday asking him to reconsider a decision to end a program that provided free Verizon internet access to tens of thousands of students.

While the coalition of lawmakers has no legal authority to force HISD to change course, state Rep. Penny Morales Shaw, who authored the letter, said she wrote it in response to community frustration about the loss of a vital resource with no immediate replacement. The outcry follows the Houston Landing’s reporting of the cancellation of the Verizon program and the discontinuation of students’ internet access.

Shaw, a Democrat who represents the 148th House district in northwest Houston, said her office has fielded numerous calls from individuals and organizations sharing stories of families who lost out on their sole source of internet when the Verizon program ended. Nearly all constituent calls on the issue shared the same bottom line, she said.

“They have benefited from this (Verizon program) and they don’t understand why it’s being taken away and not being replaced, especially when it doesn’t cost the district anything,” Shaw said.

HISD Chief Technology Officer Scott Gilhousen said September data of students’ Verizon usage showed that of the thousands of students who used the program, roughly 1,000 regularly accessed the web through the laptops’ built-in internet, indicating they had no Wi-Fi at home.

Families in need of home internet may request T-Mobile hotspots from their principal, Gilhousen said, but he acknowledged that the district did not do any outreach to inform families of this option as a replacement for the Verizon program. So far, no families have requested the hotspots since Verizon internet access was discontinued.

“From my knowledge, we have not fielded a request from those parents that have lost those services,” Gilhousen said. “So I think part of that will be for us to communicate more with our campuses to inform them that there are opportunities for those parents or those students to be able to get access to broadband connectivity.”

[…]

HISD told the Landing that, while the Verizon program came at no financial cost to the district, Miles objected to the teacher training it required.

“The free technology comes with strings,” Miles said during a Nov. 9 press conference. “It’s a lot of professional development that’s required, and we’re not going to have anybody from the outside professionally develop our teachers on the quality of instruction, instructional strategies or techniques.”

[…]

HISD said it is “in discussions” with a provider to offer neighborhood-wide broadband access based from wide-reaching antennas on school campuses in high-needs parts of the city. However, the district said it could not name the vendor or offer a timeline on when those plans might materialize.

In allowing internet services to lapse, the lawmakers argued that Miles’ actions failed to match his stated goals of reducing academic inequities and preparing students for the year 2035.

“It would be an irony as thick as it is tragic to lose sight of that goal by allowing our most vulnerable students to fall behind by depriving them of the basic technology needed to succeed in 2023,” the letter said.

See here (third story) for the background. Gotta say, that’s a pretty weak excuse Mike Miles is offering. I interpret it as “this is not something I have control over so I don’t want it”, which I must say is on brand.

And because it’s on brand for me, I will point out that if we had an elected Board of Trustees who had actual oversight authority over the Superintendent, it wouldn’t be just up to him to make these decisions. This is why we can’t have nice things. The Chron has more.

Posted in School days | Tagged Board of Managers, Digital Promise, HISD, Houston, Internet, Mike Miles, New Education System, Penny Shaw, schools, The Lege, Verizon | Comments Off

Montana TikTok ban blocked

Posted on December 10, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

Montana’s first-in-the-nation law banning the video-sharing app TikTok in the state was blocked Thursday, one month before it was set to take effect, by a federal judge who called the measure unconstitutional.

The ruling delivered a temporary win for the social media company that has argued Montana’s Republican-controlled Legislature went “completely overboard” in trying to regulate the app. A final ruling will come at a later date after the legal challenge moves through the courts.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said the ban “oversteps state power and infringes on the Constitutional right of users and businesses” while singling out the state for its fixation on purported Chinese influence.

“Despite the state’s attempt to defend (the law) as a consumer protection bill, the current record leaves little doubt that Montana’s legislature and Attorney General were more interested in targeting China’s ostensible role in TikTok than with protecting Montana consumers,” Molloy wrote Thursday in granting the preliminary injunction. “This is especially apparent in that the same legislature enacted an entirely separate law that purports to broadly protect consumers’ digital data and privacy.”

Montana lawmakers in May made the state the first in the U.S. to pass a complete ban on the app based on the argument that the Chinese government could gain access to user information from TikTok, whose parent company, ByteDance, is based in Beijing.

[…]

More than half of U.S. states and the federal government have banned TikTok on official devices. The company has called the bans “political theatre” and says further restrictions are unnecessary due to the efforts it is taking to protect U.S. data by storing it on Oracle servers. The company has said it has not received any requests for U.S. user data from the Chinese government and would not provide any if it were asked.

“The extent to which China controls TikTok, and has access to its users’ data, forms the heart of this controversy,” the judge wrote.

Attorneys for TikTok and the content creators argued on Oct. 12 that the state had gone too far in trying to regulate TikTok and is essentially trying to implement its own foreign policy over unproven concerns that TikTok might share user data with the Chinese government.

TikTok has said in court filings that Montana could have limited the kinds of data TikTok could collect from its users rather than enacting a complete ban. Meanwhile, the content creators said the ban violates free speech rights and could cause economic harm for their businesses.

Christian Corrigan, the state’s solicitor general, argued Montana’s law was less a statement of foreign policy and instead addresses “serious, widespread concerns about data privacy.”

The state hasn’t offered any evidence of TikTok’s “allegedly harmful data practices,” Molloy wrote.

Molloy noted during the hearing that TikTok users consent to the company’s data collection policies and that Knudsen — whose office drafted the legislation — could air public service announcements warning people about the data TikTok collects.

The American Civil Liberties Union, its Montana chapter and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy rights advocacy group, have submitted an amicus brief in support of the challenge. Meanwhile, 18 attorneys generals from mostly Republican-led states are backing Montana and asking the judge to let the law be implemented. Even if that happens, cybersecurity experts have said it could be challenging to enforce.

See here for the background. This is relevant because of the lawsuit filed by UT professors over the ban on TikTok on the WiFi networks of multiple public universities, which were enacted after the Greg Abbott executive order banning TikTok from state-owned devices. The executive order is surely lawful, the WiFi ban is much more controversial and quite arguably an overreach. The particulars of the Texas lawsuit, for which there has been a hearing but no ruling yet, are different but the underlying question is the same. And I expect this is another case that will eventually make its way to SCOTUS.

Paxton asks SCOTx to stop the emergency abortion

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Welp.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has asked the state Supreme Court to intervene and stop a Dallas woman from having an abortion.

Paxton’s office petitioned the high court just before midnight Thursday, after a Travis County district judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing Kate Cox, 31, to terminate her nonviable pregnancy. Paxton also sent a letter to three hospitals, threatening legal action if they allowed the abortion to be performed at their facility.

This is the first time an actively pregnant woman has gone to court to get an abortion since before Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. A similar case was filed in Kentucky on Friday.

In the petition, Paxton asked the Texas Supreme Court to rule quickly, saying that “each hour [the temporary restraining order] remains in place is an hour that Plaintiffs believe themselves free to perform and procure an elective abortion.”

“Nothing can restore the unborn child’s life that will be lost as a result,” the filing said. “Post hoc enforcement is no substitute, so time is of the essence.”

The Texas Supreme Court is currently also considering a similar case, Zurawski v. Texas, in which 20 women claim they were denied medically necessary abortions for their complicated pregnancies due to the state’s new laws. The state has argued those women do not have standing to sue because, unlike Cox, they are not currently seeking abortions.

In the initial lawsuit, Cox’s attorneys with the Center for Reproductive Rights argued she cannot wait the weeks or months it might take the Texas Supreme Court to rule.

Now, the high court must consider many of the same arguments as those in Zurawski v. Texas, but on a much tighter timeline.

[…]

Separately, Cox’s lawyer, Molly Duane, sent a letter to [Travis County District Judge Maya] Guerra Gamble, asking her to bring Paxton in for a hearing on his letter threatening legal action against hospitals that allow Cox to have an abortion.

“The repeated misrepresentations of the Court’s [order], coupled with explicit threats of criminal and civil enforcement and penalties, serve only to cow the hospitals from providing Ms. Cox with the healthcare that she desperately needs,” Duane wrote. “Plaintiffs respectfully request the Court hold a hearing so Defendant Paxton can explain to Your Honor why he should not be sanctioned.”

See here and here for the background. I have no idea what happens next. One possibility is that SCOTx dodges the question completely, declining to act on Paxton’s writ, which would allow Cox to proceed but would (I think) leave her, her husband, her doctor, and anyone else involved in danger of being sued by literally anyone in the state. Whatever does happen, I assume it will happen quickly. Oh, and while it would be delightful for Paxton to be compelled to answer some questions about this in a courtroom, I cannot imagine that happening. He’d simply defy the order if it comes to it, on the belief that no one has the power to touch him. At this point, barring a federal indictment or a guilty verdict in his securities fraud case, I sadly think he’s right about that. By all means, try to convince me I’m wrong. In the meantime, we wait on SCOTx.

UPDATE: And in the time since I drafted this, SCOTx has administratively stayed the district court ruling, pending future action on their part. Which I hope like hell comes pretty damn quickly. What an absolute debacle.

Spring Branch ISD single member district lawsuit on hold as federal courts screw around with VRA

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Frustrating.

A federal lawsuit that aims to change Spring Branch ISD’s election system to bring more representation to the school board will likely be delayed for months, pending decisions in several other cases that could impact the legality of the suit altogether.

The uncertainty surrounding the lawsuit comes at a time of renewed concerns about inequity in the district as it faces budget cuts and several potential school closures that many fear disproportionately impact the district’s underserved communities.

Resident Virginia Elizondo filed the lawsuit against the district in 2021, arguing Spring Branch violates the Voting Rights Act and creates a lack of representation by holding at-large elections, a system in which each voter in the district casts their ballot for every trustee position.

Community members have long critiqued the district’s inequities, illuminated by the way Interstate 10 runs through the district and creates two contrasting sides. Currently, every board member resides in neighborhoods south of I-10, which is defined by rows of affluent subdivisions and starkly differs from the underserved neighborhoods on the north side.

Elizondo and residents advocating for better representation want the district to switch to a single-member district system, which breaks a district up into sections with a similar number of residents who then vote for a singular trustee that lives in their area.

[…]

For their part, district leaders have adamantly opposed switching to a single-member district system, arguing the at-large system is most effective. No board members were made available for an interview about the case Thursday.

But now, it will likely be months before the case moves any further, an attorney representing Spring Branch said. On Wednesday, Judge Sim Lake canceled the trial that was set for Monday, Dec. 4, pending the decision of two other cases in higher courts that will likely impact the suit.

Both cases, before two separate Circuit Courts of Appeals, seek a decision on whether it’s legal for private citizens — like Elizondo — to bring forth lawsuits against governing entities under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Section 2 states that “no voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any state or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color” — which Elizondo argues the district does with its current election setup.

“The judge is waiting to see what higher courts say about the law in this area before proceeding with a trial, to ensure that we understand what the law is before we go forward,” said Lucas Henry, an attorney representing Spring Branch.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that only the Department of Justice or the Attorney General is entitled to bring such lawsuits against government entities. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals said the opposite.

Depending on the outcome of both cases, it could be several months or over a year until the district’s case can move forward, Board President Chris Earnest said in a statement. If there’s a conflict between the decisions of these cases after rehearings, it’s likely the U.S. Supreme Court would hear an appeal, Henry said. And if it’s ruled that private citizens cannot bring forth such lawsuits, the case against the district could be dismissed.

See here, here, and here for some background on the lawsuit. Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern wrote about the Eighth Circuit firebomb, for which so far the expert consensus seems to be that it’s a bridge too far even for this SCOTUS, but when they’ll get to it and what possible opportunities they’ll have to be weasels about it remain to be seen.

Also, too, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals found a different way to attack the Voting Rights Act, one that goes at the question of at large versus single member districts, which is what this case is all about. There’s not a circuit split on this yet and that decision wouldn’t apply here, but you have to think this might come up as well at some point, and that too would add delays and the risk of a dismissal. So things are going great around here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, lawsuit, SCOTUS, single member districts, Spring Branch, Texas, Virginia Elizondo, Voting Rights Act | Comments Off

On “active shooter” training and what happened at Uvalde

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

You may not want to read this story, which is part of a package that includes a TV documentary. It’s about the Uvalde massacre and how it could be that so many law enforcement officers were just standing around doing nothing as children were dying. I made it through the part I’m excerpting below, and then tapped out. Proceed at your discretion.

The children hid. They dropped to the floor, crouching under desks and countertops, far from the windows. They lined up against the walls, avoiding the elementary school doors that separated them from a mass shooter about a decade older than them. Some held up the blunted scissors that they often used to cut shapes as they prepared to fight. A few grabbed bloodied phones and dialed 911. And as students across the country have been instructed for years, they remained quiet, impossibly quiet. At times, they hushed classmates who screamed in agony from the bullets that tore through their small bodies.

Then, they waited. Waited for the adults, whom they could hear in the hallway. If they were just patient, those adults would save them.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, that day in May 2022. They, too, waited. They waited for someone, anyone, to tell them what to do. They waited for the right keys and specialized equipment to open doors. They waited out of fear that the lack of ballistic shields and flash-bangs would leave them vulnerable against the power of an AR-15-style rifle. Most astonishingly, they waited for the children’s cries to confirm that people were still alive inside the classrooms.

“I’m watching that door. No screams. No nothing. No nothing. You know. Things you would think you would hear if there had been kids in there,” Cpl. Gregory Villa, who had been with the Uvalde Police Department for 11 years, told an investigator days after the attack that left 19 children and two teachers dead.

If there were children inside, Villa said, officers would have probably heard the shooter saying, “‘Hey, everybody shut up,’ and then kids are like, ‘Oh no, I gotta, I want my mommy.’”

Villa, who received active shooter training four years earlier, was among several officers who told investigators that they didn’t believe children were in the classrooms because they were so quiet. The children’s strict adherence to remaining silent was, in fact, part of their training. Officers’ own training instructs them to confront a shooter if there is reason to believe someone is hurt.

“I just honestly thought that they were in the cafeteria because it seemed like all the lights were off and it seemed like it was really quiet. I didn’t hear any screaming, any yelling. I literally didn’t hear anything at all,” Uvalde police Staff Sgt. Eduardo Canales recalled to an investigator. “You would think kids would be yelling and screaming.”

The accounts of law enforcement’s actions during one of the worst school shootings in history are among a trove of recorded investigative interviews and body camera footage obtained by ProPublica, The Texas Tribune and FRONTLINE. Together, the hundreds of hours of audio and video offer a startling finding: The children in Uvalde were prepared, dutifully following what they had learned during active shooter drills, even as their friends and teachers were bleeding to death. Many of the officers, who had trained at least once during their careers for such a situation, were not.

Mass shootings have become a fact of American life, with at least 120 since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. Debates often erupt along partisan lines as anguished communities demand change. When children are gunned down, calls for tighter gun laws are matched with plans for arming teachers and hardening schools.

One thing that seemingly unites all sides is the notion of better training for law enforcement. But, in actuality, few laws exist requiring such instruction.

In the wake of the Columbine shooting, law enforcement agencies across the country began retooling protocols to prevent long delays like the one that kept officers there from stopping the two shooters. Key among the changes was an effort to ensure that all officers had enough training to engage a shooter without having to wait for more specialized teams.

More than two decades later, law enforcement’s chaotic response in Uvalde and officers’ subsequent explanations of their inaction show that the promise of adequate training to respond to a mass shooting has yet to be fully realized.

Officers failed to set up a clear command structure. They spread incorrect information that caused them to treat the shooter as a barricaded suspect and not an active threat even as children and teachers called 911 pleading for help. And no single officer engaged the shooter despite training that says they should do so as quickly as possible if anyone is hurt. It took 77 minutes to breach the classroom and take down the shooter.

“It’s pretty stunning that we’re 24 years after the Columbine massacre and we’re still dealing with a lack of training on how to deal with these active assailants,” said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. “I’m not sure who is to be held responsible for that, but it really is unacceptable that officers are not getting that training.”

A nationwide analysis by the news organizations shows states require far more training to prepare students and teachers for a mass shooting than they do for the police who are expected to protect them.

At least 37 states have laws mandating that schools conduct active shooter-related drills. All but four of those states require them at least annually.

In contrast, only Texas and Michigan have laws requiring training for all officers after they graduate from police academies. Texas’ law is the strongest in the country, mandating that officers train for 16 hours every two years. That requirement came about only after the Uvalde massacre.

The absence of legislation has created an uneven and inconsistent approach, which fails to ensure that officers not only receive the training they need to confront a mass shooter, but drill often enough to follow it in the adrenaline-soaked atmosphere of a real shooting, law enforcement experts said. Some also emphasize the importance of multiagency training so that officers are not responding to a crisis alongside people they’ve never worked with before. Yet few states, if any, require agencies to train together.

About 72% of the at least 116 state and local officers who arrived at Robb Elementary before the gunman was killed had received some form of active shooter training during their careers, according to an analysis of records obtained by ProPublica, the Tribune and FRONTLINE. Officers who received training before the Uvalde shooting had most commonly taken it only once, which law enforcement experts say is not enough. Only three officers would have met Texas’ new standard for training.

The news organizations reached out to each of the officers in this piece. An attorney representing officers with the Uvalde Police Department said the city has ordered them not to comment because of an ongoing internal investigation. Officers with other agencies did not return phone calls, texts and emails or declined to comment.

Across the country, officers are increasingly responding to situations with active shooters, some of whom have access to weapons originally designed for war. In the absence of gun control legislation, sales of these types of weapons have increased.

Unlike military service members who spend the majority of their time training for the possibility that they may someday see combat, police spend the bulk of their days responding to a variety of incidents, most of which do not involve violent encounters. Experts say that leaves many unprepared as the nation’s tally of mass shootings grows.

No clear consensus exists on just how much training is sufficient, though experts agree on the need for repetition. Even then, consistent training cannot guarantee that officers will do everything right, said John Curnutt, assistant director at Texas State University’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, which is rated as the national standard by the FBI. Still, Curnutt said, routine training is the best way to improve officers’ response.

“It has to be really driven into somebody to the point where it becomes instinctive, habitual,” Curnutt said. “Before you really get a chance to think about it, you’re already doing it. And it takes more than 10 or 11 times to get that good at something like this that is going to be incredibly difficult to do when you know that, ‘I’m about to die, but I’m going to do this anyway.’ Who thinks like that? Not everybody. We know that. Not everybody that’s in uniform does.”

There’s a lot more if you want to continue. The introductory story, which explains how this all was made, warns that there is some disturbing content. There is also a FRONTLINE documentary that ran on Tuesday, if you want to watch video taken from body cameras and cellphones and other sources.

I was on the board of the Travis Elementary PTA when the Sandy Hook shooting occurred. At the first meeting after that, we on the board talked through our sadness and shock and disbelief as we discussed what changes would need to be made to try to keep our kids safer. Believe it or not, a little more than a decade ago, you could just open the front door while school was in session if you had business there. You still had to check in at the front desk, but you just walked in on your own. That’s not the case anymore, obviously – now you ring a camera-enabled doorbell to get buzzed in. Do I feel like anyone is actually safer because of that? A little bit, I guess. Mostly, I try not to think about it. It’s easier and less harrowing that way. I’m lucky to be in that position.

I’m just rambling here. There’s nothing I can say that I haven’t said many times before. Maybe someday we’ll get to a point where we really try to understand mass shootings and take effective steps to reduce their frequency. Today is not that day.

Posted in Crime and Punishment | Tagged Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, DPS, gun control, guns, lawsuit, National Association of School Resource Officers, Pete Arredondo, schools, Texas, Uvalde | Comments Off

Today is Runoff Day 2023

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

You know what to do if you haven’t already.

Harris County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth reminds voters that Election Day for the Joint Runoff is tomorrow, Saturday, December 9. There will be 450 vote centers across the county open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Click here to find a voting location near you and the estimated wait times.

Houston voters will decide on half of the city’s government-elected positions, including Mayor, Controller, four at-large council members, and three single-member district council members. Voters in Houston Council Districts D, G, and H will see seven contests on their ballot. All other Houston voters will see six. In addition, District 4 voters in Baytown will elect a council member, and Bellaire voters will elect a new Mayor. Sample ballots are available at www.HarrisVotes.com.

“Voters should be aware that only citizens registered to vote within the legal boundaries of the Cities of Houston, Bellaire, and Baytown will be able to cast a ballot in this election,” said Clerk Hudspeth. A “Houston” postal address does not guarantee that a voter lives within Houston proper.”

Close to 132,000 citizens voted early in this Joint Runoff Election, about 11% of eligible registered voters. This year, the total number of early voters was higher than the 2015 and 2019 runoff elections.

“More than 453,000 people voted in the November 7 election,” added Clerk Hudspeth. “It is hard to predict what the turnout for the runoff will be, but we encourage folks to exercise their right to vote.”

Unofficial election results will be posted at www.HarrisVotes.com as they come in on election night, starting after 7 p.m. with Early Voting and Ballot-By-Mail results. The official results will be posted after the canvass is completed.

For news and updates, follow us on social media at @HarrisVotes and @HarrisCoTxClerk.

See here and here for some relevant data. Don’t forget who to vote for. I’ll post results in the morning. Happy voting!

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged Election 2023, Election Day, Houston, Houston City Controller, Houston City Council, John Whitmire, Mayor, Sheila Jackson Lee | 2 Comments

Emergency abortion approval granted

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good, with the obvious proviso that no one should ever have to go through this.

For the first time in at least 50 years, a judge has intervened to allow an adult woman to terminate her pregnancy.

When Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble handed down the temporary restraining order Thursday, Kate Cox, 31, of Dallas burst into tears. Cox and her husband desperately wanted to have this baby, but her doctors said continuing the nonviable pregnancy posed a risk to her health and future fertility, according to a historic lawsuit filed Tuesday.

The Texas Office of the Attorney General, which challenged Cox’s claims at Thursday’s hearing, may try to ask a higher court to intervene.

“The idea that Ms. Cox wants desperately to be a parent, and this law might actually cause her to lose that ability is shocking and would be a genuine miscarriage of justice,” Gamble said.

At 20 weeks pregnant, Cox learned her fetus had full trisomy 18, a chromosomal abnormality that is almost always fatal before birth or soon after. Before the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Texas law allowed doctors to terminate pregnancies due to lethal fetal anomalies at any point during the pregnancy. But now, Cox’s doctors said their hands were tied by Texas’ abortion laws, which prohibit abortion except to save the life of the pregnant patient.

A week after she first received the diagnosis, Cox and her husband, represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, filed a lawsuit asking a judge to grant a temporary restraining order, allowing them to terminate this pregnancy.

“It is not a matter of if I will have to say goodbye to my baby, but when,” Cox said in a statement. “I’m trying to do what is best for my baby and myself, but the state of Texas is making us both suffer.”

At the hearing, Jonathan Stone, a lawyer for the Texas Office of the Attorney General, argued that Cox “does not meet all of the elements” to qualify for a medical exemption from the abortion bans, at least based on what was filed by her lawyers. Granting a temporary restraining order would require “changing the medical exemption in Texas and then saying that the plaintiffs meet this changed newly rewritten standard,” Stone said.

Stone also argued that the temporary restraining order would have permanent consequences, in the form of an abortion.

“The harm to Ms. Cox’s life, health and fertility are very much also permanent and cannot be undone,” countered Molly Duane, senior counsel for the Center for Reproductive Rights. Duane said Cox’s condition was “rapidly deteriorating every day,” and since the lawsuit was filed on Tuesday, she had already made a trip to the emergency room due to medical complications from her pregnancy. She’s gone to the ER four times in the last month, Duane said.

See here for the background. I note with some grim satisfaction that my assessment of the argument the state was likely to make was accurate. You don’t get the full picture of it from this story, however. Here’s the Dallas Observer:

In the Thursday emergency hearing, the state’s attorney, Johnathan Stone, argued that Cox did not meet the strict requirements for a medical exemption simply because her future fertility might be at risk, and that this request represented an improper use of a temporary restraining order, since Cox’s abortion would be permanent. Cox’s attorney Molly Duane responded by saying the state “moves the goal post” in terms of exception eligibility and that it seemed as though the state felt that Cox wasn’t “close enough to death” for them to grant her the exception.

Emphasis mine. And to be clear what that means, she risks needing to have her uterus removed if things go badly. The state says that doesn’t amount to enough harm for her to seek relief in the courts. I have to laugh at this because the alternative is to smash things and I like all the things that are currently within my reach. But by all means, feel free to smash something yourself.

As of this writing, it is not known whether the state will pursue a writ of mandamus with the Supreme Court to pause the temporary restraining order. I wouldn’t put it past them, of course, but perhaps by then Kate Cox will have received the care she needs and mooted the issue. Well, except for the ghouls that could then sue her and her husband and her doctor and anyone else involved under SB8. So this very much isn’t over yet. TPR, the Austin Chronicle, and Mother Jones have more.

UPDATE: Deep breath, deeeeeeeep breath…

In a statement Thursday afternoon, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that the judge’s order “will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws. This includes first degree felony prosecutions.”

It also does not prohibit private citizens or a district or county attorney from enforcing Texas’ pre-Roe abortion laws against Cox’s doctor or anyone else, Paxton argued, adding that the judge’s order “will expire long before the statute of limitations for violating Texas’ abortion laws expires.”

In a letter to three Texas hospitals where Cox’s doctor has practiced, Paxton warned that the facilities could be found liable for negligently credentialing her or for failing to exercise appropriate professional judgment in allowing the doctor to perform an abortion. Two of the hospitals did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while the third said it is not involved in this lawsuit.

Paxton added that the lawsuit and judge’s order “fail to establish that Ms. Cox qualifies for the medical exception to Texas’ abortion laws.”

In response, Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement to NBC News that “fearmongering has been Ken Paxton’s main tactic in enforcing these abortion bans” and that he “is misrepresenting the court’s order.”

In an earlier news conference, Duane said “every day of this ordeal has been agonizing” for Cox.

“I want to emphasize how unforgivable it is that Kate had to beg for health care in court. No one should have to do this,” she said. “The reality is that 99% of people cannot.”

Duane also called the state’s arguments “callous in the extreme.”

“They want Kate to suffer, to put her health at risk and to give birth to a stillborn baby or be forced to watch her child suffer for the few short moments of her life,” she said. “That is a decision that only a family should be able to make on their own.”

Notably, it does not say that the writ of mandamus is being pursued. I will hold onto that. If the cruelty is the point, then Ken Paxton has made his point.

State GOP sues the lawyer who led their sore loser election contest lawsuits

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Oh my God, this is hilarious.

The Republican Party of Texas is suing a lawyer who helped write the state’s recent election reform law and who they claim duped several former Republican candidates into believing they could prove election fraud in Harris County.

The suit, filed Friday in Mitchell County, stems from a spate of election contests filed by Harris County Republican candidates after the 2022 general election. Most of those were dismissed without going to trial, and in one case that did go to trial a judge ruled that county officials made mistakes but “not enough votes were put in doubt to justify voiding the election.”

The new complaint alleges attorney Elizabeth Alvarez lied to 17 candidates that her firm had prepared a “data model” that would have shown that “more than 40,000 voters were suppressed.”

That model “never existed and Defendants were not able to put forth even a scintilla of evidence,” the suit states. “Ultimately, Defendants’ inability to substantively respond to the no evidence motions for summary judgment resulted in each of their remaining clients’ shameful defeat.”

The complaint also alleges that she misrepresented the amount of time it would take for the case to be resolved, her level of expertise in election litigation and her commitment to finishing the case “within an agreed upon budget.” The plaintiffs are seeking to recoup at least the $350,000 that the party paid to the firm and up to $1 million in damages, according to one of their attorneys, Steven J. Mitby.

“They feel that they really got taken advantage of, and we’re trying to get that money back for the donors,” Mitby said.

Alvarez is a prominent election attorney in GOP circles and was instrumental in helping Republican state lawmakers craft a controversial election reform law in 2021 that outlawed 24-hour and drive-thru voting and spurred Democrats to flee to Washington, D.C. to try and derail its passage.

In interviews Wednesday, Alvarez and her co-counsel, Scott Gray, who was also named in the suit, denied the allegations.

They said they never offered a “data model,” but instead had explained that they planned to model their approach after the Department of Justice’s system for evaluating the impact of poll closures as it relates to the Voting Rights Act.

[…]

Alvarez and Gray represented a slate of Harris County Republican candidates after the 2022 election, including most prominently Alex Mealer who ultimately lost her challenge to unseat Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a Democrat.

Mealer, a lawyer herself, and Alvarez had feuded prior to Mealer dropping her as counsel back in August over filing deadlines and case strategy. Mealer is separately engaged in an arbitration with Alvarez over the same alleged misrepresentations as in the Republican Party suit, Mitby said. Mealer declined to comment.

Alvarez said the party stopped paying her and Gray for their work around February or March and still owes them in the ballpark of a “couple hundred thousand” dollars.

“I’m appalled that they filed suit against us,” said Gray, whose firm, Guest and Gray, is also named as a defendant in the suit. “They’ve got the gall to ask for money from us even though we’ve continued working unpaid to try to help Republican candidates. We’re doing the job the Republican Party of Texas is supposed to do. They’re interfering. For me, as a Republican, it’s sad.”

The party is represented by the lawyers who took over for Alvarez after Mealer fired her. Sartaj Bal, a former Republican judicial candidate and lawyer who also fired Alvarez, chose instead to represent himself.

See here for a bit of background, and here for a deeper cut on Elizabeth Alvarez’s history of questionable election-related lawsuits. I’d totally forgotten about her feud with A**x M****r. This is a gift that keeps on giving.

You can see a copy of the complaint here. The one thing that was not clear to me in reading this story is why the lawsuit was filed in Mitchell County, a place I had never heard of that straddles I-20 between Abilene and Midland. I thought maybe it was because Elizabeth Alvarez lived there, but she appears to live in the Metroplex. If I find out, I’ll update. Reform Austin has more.

UPDATE: An answer to my question:

Because the former executive director of Texas GOP lives there

— Taylor Goldenstein (@taygoldenstein) 5:04 PM – 7 December 2023

Still feels weird to me for it to be filed in such a remote location, but the law is like that sometimes.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged Alexandra Mealer, Election 2022, election contest, Elizabeth Alvarez, Harris County, lawsuit, Mitchell County, Republican Party, Sartaj Bal, Scott Gray, Texas | 5 Comments

The recent history of runoff early voting

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I brought this up in yesterday’s post, so let’s take that look at how much of the runoff vote has been cast early in the last few Mayoral elections.


Year    Early    E-Day    Total    EV %
=======================================
2003   77,984  138,804  216,788  35.97%
2009   67,760   87,215  154,975  43.72%
2015  116,399   93,635  210,034  55.42%
2019  118,245   85,035  203,280  58.17%

There were runoffs in other years, before the switch to four-year cycles, but none since 2001 had a Mayoral race, and we don’t have full early voting data from that year. I could have included the data from 2013 and so on but decided it wasn’t apples to apples and didn’t really add much.

There are two things I take away from these numbers. One is that if I had also considered runoff early voting patterns, I might have been a bit more conservative in my estimate of final turnout in November. The fact that early voting volume was less in 2019 for the November election than it had been in 2015 threw me off. Looking at this would have made me think maybe that was an outlier and I should expect the early voting rate to be higher. Live and learn.

And if that’s the case, then I would probably expect that early voting will make up about 60% of the total volume for this runoff, on the theory that it will nudge up a couple of points. If so, then final turnout will be a hair under 220K, a new high in absolute terms but at best a wash with 2019 in percentage of registered voters. I’m going to spare myself more math and just note that if the EV volume is a little higher then 2003 will remain the turnout champion. Given how things have gone so far, and with the likelihood of some afternoon thunderstorms on Saturday, it’s probably wise to bet the under. Whatever the case, go vote tomorrow if you haven’t already.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged absentee ballots, early voting, Election 2003, Election 2009, Election 2015, Election 2019, Election 2023, Houston, John Whitmire, Mayor, runoff, Sheila Jackson Lee, turnout | 3 Comments

Dispatches from Dallas, December 8 edition

Posted on December 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

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

This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth: Mark Cuban sells the Mavericks and a lot of filing activity in the Metroplex. Plus, the Fairfield State Park saga comes to a sorry end; scamming and ransomware against local governmental entities; Atatiana Jefferson news; a local State Representative cops a plea; Mayor Johnson on talk radio; Allen West, like the bad penny, is back; news and views on the newest Trinity River park plan; Tim Horton’s and Buc-ee’s in the news; and which Fort Worth restaurants you can find a genuine movie star eating at.

This week’s post was brought to you by the music of Trevor Horn, the legendary 80s producer.

The biggest news in Dallas this week has been the impending sale of the Mavericks to Miriam Adelson of the family that owns the Sands in Las Vegas. It’s all supposed to come together by the end of the year if the NBA approves.

The story comes with a lot of question marks. Does this deal mean that casinos are coming to Texas? (Star-Telegram and DMN) What does this mean for the Mavericks on the court? What will Mark Cuban, the Mavericks’ current owner, do with his time? (Shark Tank and his pharmaceutical company, plus he’ll still be involved with the team, looks like.) Then there are the wild speculations like whether he’ll run for president (Spoiler: almost certainly not).

The nine days of wonder associated with this story are about at their end, but Cuban has long been an advocate for casino gambling in Texas. What will happen on that front, especially with the Republicans who run our state in disarray, is worth keeping an eye on.

Also it’s filing season! We won’t know everyone who’s on the ballot until it closes on December 11 but a number of people have already put their money down. A lot of this coverage comes from The Fort Worth Report, which is doing the necessary work of writing about who’s filing for everything on that side of the Metroplex.

As an appetizer, Texas Standard has a piece analyzing the departures of three area congressional representatives: Colin Allred, Michael Burgess, and Kay Granger.
For CD 12, which Kay Granger is retiring from, we have Democrat Trey Hunt making another sally after his campaign in 2022. I wish him good luck.
Democrat Marc Veasey is running for re-election in CD 33.
For CD 26, currently held by Michael Burgess, who is stepping down, we have two Republicans: nepo baby Scott Armey, son of Dick, who formerly held the seat, and Southlake Mayor John Huffman.
For HD95, incumbent Democrat Nicole Collier is filing for re-election.
For HD97, currently held by Republican Craig Goldman, who’s vacating to run for CD 12, we have Republican Cheryl Bean.
For Tarrant County Precinct One, whose current holder, a Democrat, is retiring, we have filings from Democrat Roderick Miles and Republican Michael Barber.
And last but not least, Wendy Burgess, the incumbent Tarrant County tax asssesor-collector has filed for re-election.

And in other North Texas news:

You knew this was coming if you’ve been keeping an eye on Fairfield State Park: the state is giving up trying to buy the former park after the fair market value for eminent domain was set at $418 million instead of the $85 million the state thought it was worth. It’s a sad end to a sorry saga.
Dallas County was scammed out of $2.4 million last month. The Observer has a little list of all the county’s technical errors this year. I like our County Judge but he needs to get this under control. The DMN also has five things you should know about this case.
Also in cybersecurity news, The North Texas Municipal Water District has been hit by ransomware. They serve 13 cities, mostly north and northeast of Dallas.
Folks undoubtedly remember the 2019 shooting of Atatiana Jefferson in front of her young nephew. Fort Worth City Council has approved a $3.5 million settlement to provide for her nephew. Meanwhile, counsel for former FWPD officer Aaron Dean, who was convicted of manslaughter for killing Jefferson, made oral arguments in his appeal on the grounds that the case shouldn’t have been tried in Fort Worth.
In this week’s edition of Six Degrees of Clarence Thomas, the Senate Judiciary Committee finally managed to subpoena Harlan Crow and two of his super-rich cronies over their involvement with Thomas. The vote was marked by Republican procedural shenanigans and a walkout including Texas’ two senators. And Leonard Leo, one of the other billionaire donors subpoenaed, has already said he won’t cooperate.
Speaking of Republican shenanigans, the DMN has an explainer on how the House’s inability to get budget bills passed is affecting North Texas projects.
Here’s an op-ed in the Star-Telegram on the subject of immigration, written by the mayor of Keller, whom I could have told you was a Republican after reading this piece without googling.
State Reps Carl Sherman and Julie Johnson, both longtime Democratic members of the House, are running for other offices. The DMN analyzes how the local statehouse delegation will be affected by losing them.
Local talk radio host has an op-ed piece on whether Ken Paxton’s vendetta against House members associated with his impeachment will force out the legislators who voted against him. In a similar vein, the Dallas Observer has a piece on state legislators getting primaried with the support of Paxton, Ted Cruz, and Greg Abbott.
Here’s an area lawmaker who probably won’t draw a primary opponent but should: Frederick Frazier, freshman incumbent in HD 61. He just made a plea deal on charges of impersonating a public servant and has had to retire from DPD, where he worked when he wasn’t in the statehouse. The Texas Tribune has more.
And jumping back to talk radio, our newly Republican Dallas mayor chose to give the State of the City address on conservative talk radio WBAP. Coverage is at your choice of media: DMN; KERA; Dallas Observer; and D Magazine. The big takeaway is that Johnson likes spending on parks and does not like spending on housing. Pretty sure he’s not going to like unhoused people sleeping in the parks, but that is one possibility when you favor amenities and you have a lot of unhoused folks in your city.
Also from the desk of Mayor Johnson: he planned to miss Wednesday’s unveiling of the $1.1 billion bond proposal that will be coming before voters in May. We don’t begrudge the man having medical issues but he is absent from council a lot.
Did you wonder what Allen West was up to these days? I did not, but I should have. He’s taking on the current Chair of the Dallas County GOP. That sound you hear is my palm hitting my face as I contemplate the bananas news he’ll generate if he wins.
Keller ISD is in the news for two reasons: they have a new superintendent and they’re broke and outlining how they’ll increase class sizes and cut staff.
While we’re on the subject of local school districts, here’s a wild one: Godley ISD managed to screw up background checks so that a parent who was also a convicted prostitute volunteered on various committees for the district. One of them oversaw the district’s sex ed curriculum.
UT Dallas used to have three rocks where students would leave messages. Too many students were leaving political messages, especially about the war in Gaza, and now the rocks have been replaced by freshly planted trees.
When I first saw that the Isis Theater in downtown Fort Worth was closing, I thought it was going to be one more sad story about cultural icons unable to make bank after the pandemic changed everything. Turns out there’s a saga involving loan defaults, delinquent taxes, lawsuits, and unpaid wages.
Today I learned about General Edward H. Tarrant, the namesake of Tarrant County.
Dallas has been working on putting a park near the Trinity near downtown since 2016 and the latest plan for the park has been released. West Dallas neighbors are not pleased about another city amenity happening to them with minimal consultation. And as DMN architecture critic Mark Lamster notes, the new park’s namesake, Harold Simmons, is not necessarily the kind of guy you want to name things after. (Local blogger Mark Steger calls it in his piece on the park’s name).
Tim Horton’s, the Canadian donut and coffee chain, will be opening a store in Coppell next year.
A Dallas woman was paid to sample all the snacks at Buc-ee’s. This is the article she wrote about it.
The DMN has a 30-second time-lapse video of the changeover from hockey arena to basketball court at the American Airlines Center. Now show me how you build the stages for concerts.
Here’s a fascinating local art piece: the Nasher Sculpture Center has a new piece tracing a stream under downtown.
This week in Dallas, Dusty Hill’s memorabilia is being auctioned off. Hill was a Dallas native despite being in Houston’s favorite pre-Beyoncé band.
Last but not least, one for my fellow Gen Xers: Harrison Ford spends a lot of time in Fort Worth and loves the restaurants there.

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

2023 final runoff Early Voting totals

Posted on December 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Early voting has ended. Early takes are flowing in.

As of Tuesday night, nearly 132,000 votes – 120,155 in-person ballots and 11,732 mail ballots – had been recorded in Harris County, according to the Harris County Clerk’s Office. That compares to the 115,000 votes cast early in the county during the last runoff in a mayor’s race in 2019.

[…]

Far behind in fundraising and advertising, Jackson Lee’s chances rest heavily on boosting turnout from her supporters. According to the early voting numbers, her hopes of high turnout have yet to materialize, said Nancy Sims, a University of Houston political analyst.

“Right now, you’ve got Kingwood voting a thousand people a day, and Kashmere Gardens voting three hundred people a day. That’s just an example,” Sims said, referring to a predominantly white neighborhood and a predominantly Black neighborhood.

I’m not here to dispute the notion that SJL started out behind, or that what she really needs is to turn out more of her supporters, which is surely the hottest take you’ve ever read here. What I am here for is to take a closer look at the Kingwood versus Kashmere nugget, because my general rule is that data points are only really meaningful when they’re in context. Both the 2015 and 2019 Mayoral runoffs featured a candidate whose success depended in large part on generating turnout in the Black districts. Also, too, there are more places where lots of Republicans and lots of Black voters go to do their civic duty. So why not take a broader look at that and see what if anything we see? That’s what I’m here for.


Location      SRD    2015    2019    2023
=========================================
Kingwood      127   6,595   8,092   8,381
Freeman       129   4,679   4,742   5,367
Nottingham    133   4,649   6,132   8,470
Total              15,923  18,966  22,218
Pct                14.04%  16.46%  16.85%

Hiram Clarke  131   2,701   2,692   3,924
Acres Homes   139   3,687   2,657   3,143
NE MSC        141   3,991   3,058   3,424
Kashmere      142   2,236   1,855   1,973
Sunnyside     146   4,257   3,723   4,630
Various       147   4,261   3,026   2,398
Total              21,133  17,011  19,492
Pct                18.64%  14.77%  14.78%

Metro MSC     134  10,540  11,138  12,748
Bayland       137   5,420   5,157   5,897
Trini M       138   6,962   7,048   9,872
Moody     148/145   1,609   2,009   2,862
Alief ISD     149   2,668   2,872   2,179
Total              27,199  28,224  33,558
Pct                23.99%  24.50%  25.44%

The first three locations are Republican locations, starting with Kingwood. If you’re wondering where the other Republican early voting locations are, remember that most of those districts (HDs 126, 128, 130, and 132) are not in the city of Houston, and as this is (almost entirely) a city-only runoff, there are no EV locations in those places, as they’d have nothing to vote for. The next six are in Black districts; the specific location I picked for HD147 changed across all three elections, from the Palm Center to the Young Library to Wheeler Baptist Church. The last five are other places of interest, put there as sort of a control. You could argue for putting the HD138 location in with the Republican districts, but HD138 is fairly swingy and Trini Mendenhall is in a diverse area. It’s the call I made, argue with me as you see fit. Moody Park was in HD148 before the 2021 redistricting, and it is in HD145 now. Oh, and “Pct” is just the share of those votes of the EV total.

For what it’s worth, Mayor Turner needed a very high Black turnout to eke out a win over Bill King in 2015. He got less of that turnout, at least in early voting, in 2019, but had no trouble squashing Tony Buzbee. EV turnout in 2023 is more Republican and less Black than in 2015, but about the same on each (in percentage terms) as in 2019. What does that tell us for 2023? Hell if I know. My point here was to illustrate that there’s more data to look at than just Kingwood and Kashmere (to be fair, Nancy Sims did say that was just one example), and that in comparison to previous years, I’m not sure what conclusion if any I would draw. Feel free to draw your own.

And now, here are those final EV numbers, for your viewing pleasure.


Year    Mail     Early    Total
===============================
2015   27,153   86,233  113,386
2019   18,935   96,269  115,204
2023   11,732  120,155  131,887

Previously posted totals are here, the final daily EV report from 2015 is here, the final daily EV report from 2019 is here, and the final daily EV report for 2023 is here. I’ll be back tomorrow to discuss the historic trend in runoff early voting. As always, let me know what you think.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged absentee ballots, Bill King, early voting, Election 2015, Election 2019, Election 2023, Houston, John Whitmire, Mayor, runoff, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sylvester Turner, Tony Buzbee, turnout | 5 Comments

Candidate Agwan sued by former staffer for sexual harassment

Posted on December 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Not good.

Pervez Agwan

A former campaign worker has sued a progressive Democratic challenger to Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher, accusing him of making unwanted sexual advances toward her after she complained about another staffer sexually harassing female campaign workers.

The lawsuit accuses Pervez Agwan of assault, battery and false imprisonment.

Agwan, contacted Monday by the Houston Landing, issued a statement calling the lawsuit a “dishonest hit-job” and appeared to blame it on the national lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee known as AIPAC.

“We are witnessing a politically motivated lawsuit that is part of an orchestrated smear campaign. These allegations are unequivocally false. Our campaign retained an independent party to do a thorough investigation many weeks back. There is no evidence to support any allegation in the lawsuit. This is a dishonest hit-job and we will fight tooth and nail against anyone attempting to derail our grassroots, people-powered campaign.”

The statement continues: “My campaign is the only campaign in the state of Texas that is directly taking on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). I will not back down against the dirty lobbies coming after our movement.”

Asked for evidence of the alleged smear campaign, Agwan texted links to news articles about his advocacy against the Israeli invasion of Gaza, adding “we are the only pro-Palestine congressional campaign in the state.” Agwan later reiterated that his campaign believes the lawsuit is a “smear and hit job” without providing additional information.

The lawsuit was filed in a Harris County state district court on Friday by former Agwan for Congress campaign worker Maha Chishtey, who is seeking up to $2 million in damages.

Agwan is running for the newly redrawn Texas 7th Congressional District, the seat currently occupied by Fletcher.

The lawsuit details an Oct. 17 encounter in which Chishtey says Agwan summoned her to campaign headquarters, where he was waiting for her alone. Chishtey alleges that following a long conversation, Agwan put his hands on her and attempted to kiss her, according to the lawsuit.

The suit states that when Chishtey declined Agwan’s advances, he prevented her from leaving the office. After “what seemed like an eternity,” Chishtey was allowed to leave the office and resigned from the campaign shortly after, according to the lawsuit.

AIPAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit alleges the Oct. 17 incident occurred two weeks after Chishtey complained to Agwan that the campaign’s organizing director, Angelo Perlera, had made inappropriate remarks and inappropriately touched young female campaign staffers.

I’m not in a position to assess any of the claims made here as yet. These are very serious charges, and I would like to take the time to process this. What I will say for now is that I’m making my 2024 primary interview list, and I’ve had the CD07 contest on there since Agwan’s entry, so when we get there we’ll revisit the question. Until then, we’ll see what happens. The Chron has more.

Posted in Election 2024, Legal matters | Tagged Angelo Perlera, CD07, Congess, Democratic primary, Election 2024, lawsuit, Lizzie FLetcher, Maha Chishtey, Pervez Agwan, sexual harassment, Texas | Comments Off

State abandons effort to retake Fairfield Lake State Park

Posted on December 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Of interest.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has effectively thrown in the towel on a monthslong battle to buy or seize a 5,000-acre property that includes the now-closed Fairfield Lake State Park in Freestone County.

Dallas-based developer Todd Interests purchased the land in June for about $103 million from Vistra Corp., a private power company that for decades had leased the portion containing the park to the state at no cost. Soon after, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — which had turned down an opportunity to buy the entire property from Vistra — filed a petition to seize the property, located about 100 miles south of Dallas, through eminent domain.

A Freestone County judge then appointed a panel of local landowners to set a fair market value for the property as part of the eminent domain process. The state could have taken immediate possession of the property if it agreed to pay that amount, but it balked at the panel’s price — $418.3 million, about four times more than what Todd Interests paid for the land a few months ago.

The state, which had argued that the value of the property was $85 million, could have appealed that decision and triggered a civil trial but instead decided to cease efforts to take the property. The Parks and Wildlife Department also said it doesn’t intend to make future attempts to seize any portion of the property, including water rights.

“TPWD recognizes the importance of conserving our state’s natural resources and providing recreational opportunities for Texans,” TPWD Executive Director David Yoskowitz said in a statement. “However, TPWD must also responsibly manage the state’s fiscal resources in order to maximize the benefit of our parks for all Texans.”

Todd Interests plans to turn the former park into a high-end gated subdivision with multimillion-dollar homes, a golf course and restaurants. The company has already begun construction.

[…]

Texas residents who have been advocating to save the park said they were disappointed in the state’s decision. Administrators of the Save Fairfield Lake State Park Facebook group were pushing the state to appeal the local panel’s decision on the property’s value.

“Even though this is concluded, I want people to continue pushing our public officials to conserve public land,” said Misti Little, administrator of the Facebook group. “We are only going to lose more land as cities expand outward, so we need to keep the momentum moving forward.”

See here for the last update. I’m a little surprised the state folded this quickly. They certainly had the authority to use eminent domain, and while there would have been a court fight, it seems to me they would have prevailed. Maybe this was budgetary, maybe there were some other politics going on, who knows. What I do know is that while I would prefer that we still have Fairfield Lake State Park, it was the state’s screwup that led to this. One can hardly blame Todd Interests for taking advantage of the opportunity that was before them. I just hope we all learned something from this.

Posted in The great state of Texas | Tagged eminent domain, Fairfield Lake State Park, Freestone County, Luminant, Texas, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, The Lege, Todd Interests, TXU, Vistra | Comments Off

Texas blog roundup for the week of December 4

Posted on December 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

The Texas Progressive Alliance wishes Henry Kissinger a nice warm eternity in hell as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Continue reading →

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

One weird trick to make those election lawsuits go away

Posted on December 7, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Worth a shot. Maybe it’ll work.

State officials have apparently found a legal tactic to prevent a slew of election contest lawsuits from derailing the constitutional amendments that voters overwhelmingly approved in November.

The state argued in court filings Tuesday that the lawsuits were improperly served and because Gov. Greg Abbott canvassed the results a day earlier, the lawsuits are now effectively invalid. The law requires such lawsuits to be filed and served before the canvass.

Right-wing activists filed the election contests in Travis County district courts days after the November election. The lawsuits are based on false claims that the state’s voting equipment is not certified and that voting machines are connected to the internet.

The issue took on new urgency in recent days as some Republicans at the Capitol rang the alarm that the contests could jeopardize the implementation of the constitutional amendments, which include property tax cuts that were a hard-fought priority of the GOP. The Texas Senate scrambled to pass a legislative fix, but the House declined to consider it and both chambers gaveled out for the fourth special legislative session Tuesday.

[…]

In one of the Tuesday filings, the secretary of state’s office argued that the plaintiffs in the election contests “never served a citation” properly. The election code says a contestant’s petition “must be filed and service of citation on the Secretary of State must be obtained before the final official canvass is completed.”

“Since the Governor has declared the official results of the election in a proclamation, Plaintiffs’ purported effort to void the election on a constitutional amendment that is now ‘a part of th[e] Constitution’ is moot,” the filing said.

See here for the background. We are firmly in uncharted (and completely wacko) waters, so who knows. There were multiple lawsuits filed in multiple counties, so either this has to work with all of the judges or I suppose the Multidistrict Litigation Panel will have to get involved. I’ll leave it to the lawyers to advise me on that one. Republicans sure hope this can be disposed of quickly, because 1) it’s embarrassing, and more importantly 2) a whole lot of nice stuff they promised to voters will be held up, possibly for many months, until it is. And they had the chance to do something about it legislatively but didn’t, which, again, embarrassing. Hope that bed y’all made for yourselves is comfy.

Posted in Election 2023, Legal matters | Tagged Atascosa County, Bexar County, Brazoria County, Constitution, constitutional amendments, Denton County, Election 2023, election contest, electronic voting machines, Greg Abbott, Jarrett Woodward, Kerr County, lawsuit, Liberty County, Llano County, Medina County, Rains County, Secretary of State, Texas, Texas Multidistrict Litigation Panel, The Lege | Comments Off

Precinct analysis: At Large #4

Posted on December 6, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY:

Mayor’s race
Controller’s race
Harris Health bond referendum
At Large #1
At Large #2
At Large #3

After that nine-candidate pileup in AL3, At Large #4 and its four contenders is a much more sedate affair, and a lot easier to analyze.


Dist  Morales  Plummer   Branch   Pattsn
========================================
A       6,643    5,900    1,511    2,013
B       2,405    9,722    1,213    1,848
C       9,957   20,128    2,399    3,453
D       3,520   13,938    1,444    2,204
E      10,655    6,962    2,237    2,793
F       2,858    3,288      899    1,130
G      12,088    9,999    2,293    2,979
H       6,424    7,297    1,227    1,434
I       5,247    5,952      835    1,158
J       2,534    2,771      636      869
K       3,960    9,866    1,195    1,718
				
Dist  Morales  Plummer   Branch   Pattsn
========================================
A      41.35%   36.72%    9.40%   12.53%
B      15.83%   64.01%    7.99%   12.17%
C      27.71%   56.01%    6.68%    9.61%
D      16.68%   66.04%    6.84%   10.44%
E      47.05%   30.74%    9.88%   12.33%
F      34.96%   40.22%   11.00%   13.82%
G      44.18%   36.55%    8.38%   10.89%
H      39.21%   44.54%    7.49%    8.75%
I      39.77%   45.12%    6.33%    8.78%
J      37.21%   40.69%    9.34%   12.76%
K      23.66%   58.94%    7.14%   10.26%

I sometimes forget that Roy Morales has been around since 2006, when he won the Precinct 1 seat on the HCDE Board of Trustees after the Democratic incumbent decided not to file at the last minute and no one else was lined up to file in his place. He’s been running for Council and Mayor since 2007 and I think it’s fair to call him a perennial candidate by now. He’s definitely still a weirdo with terrible political ideas and the one truly redeeming thing about him was that surreal “Bikers for Roy” ad from the 2009 Mayor’s race that has sadly disappeared from the internets. Griff Griffin has lost his juice so I guess we have to settle for Roy now.

Anyway. Letitia Plummer had about 48% of the vote, so she just missed winning outright. She led in every non-Republican Council district, and did respectably well in those three. She has more money – I’ve seen a few ads for her – and a decent reputation on Council, and I see no reason why she won’t win the runoff. And then Roy will run again in 2027, lather rinse repeat.

I’ll return to the remaining races of interest (AL5 and the two City propositions) next week, after the runoff. I hope this series has been useful for you.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged At Large #4, Election 2006, Election 2009, Election 2023, HCDE, Houston, Houston City Council, Letitia Plummer, Mayor, precinct analysis, Roy Morales, runoff | Comments Off

Galveston ordered to use its current map for 2024

Posted on December 6, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Pending the Fifth Circuit, of course.

Commissioner Stephen Holmes

A federal judge ruled Galveston County must keep its old commissioner precinct map in place for the 2024 election while a federal appeals court mulls overturning its precedent and allowing new maps which do away with the county’s only minority-majority district.

Judge Jeffrey Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas early Friday ruled that, because candidates were already announcing campaigns, it was too late for the county to weigh in on what remedial maps would look like. Instead, the county should use maps that kept the existing boundaries largely in place, Brown ruled.

But hours after his ruling, the county wrote to the Fifth Circuit asking them to re-impose a stay that would put the new maps in place for the 2024 elections.

The latest flurry of legal maneuvering is part of a winding case that could change how the U.S. Voting Rights Act is interpreted and might one day end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, said Derek Muller, a professor of law and expert in election law at the University of Notre Dame.

“As personnel have changed on the courts, there’s been an increased appetite in revisiting some of the previous holdings of the circuit,” Muller said. “Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is obviously contentious. And multiple Supreme Court decisions lately have gone multiple directions, some in favor of the plaintiffs and some in favor of the states.”

The Fifth Circuit Court in November ruled commissioners violated the U.S. Voting Rights Act by eliminating the only minority-majority district in its latest redistricting process, but the judges said previous precedent essentially tied their hands. In the same ruling, they asked the full court whether it would be interested in convening an en banc hearing – in which all 17 of the circuit court judges would meet and consider the case — to revisit precedent on Voting Rights Act cases. The court later agreed to that hearing, which is tentatively set for May.

Muller called the court’s decision to revisit its own precedent rare, but not completely unusual.

[…]

Filing for the 2024 primary season has already begun. Muller said one problem with election litigation like this is that elections are always on the horizon. There’s a chance this lawsuit doesn’t end conclusively before the next election, in which case new maps won’t be in place until the following election, he said.

See here, here, and here for the background. Anyone who wants to talk about how long this litigation might drag on, pull up a chair and let me tell you about the last few decades of Congressional redistricting litigation in Texas. As far as the federal district and appellate courts screwing around with what the Voting Rights Act means, there’s a lot of that going around right now; I’ll address that further in another post. For once, time may be on our side, given that candidate filings have been going on for three weeks and the primary isn’t going to move. But it ain’t over till the Fifth Circuit runs out of gas, so hang tight.

Texas woman seeks emergency abortion approval

Posted on December 6, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Boy howdy is this a big ol’ can of worms.

A Texas woman is asking a judge to allow her to get an emergency abortion after learning that her baby has a rare and typically fatal condition.

The first-of-its-kind lawsuit, filed Tuesday, is significant because it comes a week after state lawyers suggested before the Texas Supreme Court that only pregnant women in immediate distress could bring claims against the state’s abortion ban.

The plaintiff, Kate Cox, 31, of Dallas, and her husband, Justin, are asking for permission to receive an abortion from their physician in Texas without fear of legal repercussions.

Abortion is banned in Texas other than to save the life of the mother or prevent “substantial impairment of a major bodily function.” Medical professionals have described the exception as vague and note that violations carry possible penalties of life in prison, steep fines and a loss of their medical licenses.

Cox is 20 weeks pregnant and received test results last week showing that her fetus has trisomy 18, a chromosomal disorder that carries a low likelihood of survival, according to the suit.

Because she has previously delivered her two children via cesarean surgery, Cox is at higher risk of complications that threaten her life and future fertility if she continues the pregnancy, the lawsuit said. She believes abortion is her safest option, but her Houston physician, Dr. Damla Karsan, is unable to perform the procedure because she fears violating the state’s strict abortion ban, according to the lawsuit.

Cox’s husband is also listed as a plaintiff because he wants to help his wife without fear of penalties under Senate Bill 8, which empowers anyone to sue someone who “aids and abets” an abortion.

“It is not a matter of if I will have to say goodbye to my baby, but when. I’m trying to do what is best for my baby and myself, but the state of Texas is making us both suffer,” Cox said in a statement. “I need to end my pregnancy now so that I have the best chance for my health and a future pregnancy.”

If you’re wondering what this may have to do with the current case before the State Supreme Court, the answer is “everything”.

The high court heard arguments in [Zurawski v Texas] Nov. 28, including the state’s claim that the plaintiffs do not have the legal right to sue, since none of the 20 are currently seeking abortions.

Texas Supreme Court Justice Jeff Boyd asked Assistant Attorney General Beth Klusmann if there was ever a circumstance in which a woman would be able to bring a lawsuit seeking to clarify the law. Klusmann replied that a woman actively seeking an abortion for a lethal fetal anomaly would arguably have standing to sue the attorney general for her specific case.

“And then the defense would be whether or not they intended to enforce it in that circumstance or not, so through the ultra vires, sovereign immunity process, we’d probably hash out some of the merits,” she said. While Klusmann acknowledged that it was likely “impractical” for a woman to file a lawsuit while dealing with a complicated pregnancy, “we don’t bend the rules of standing for practicality.”

As those arguments were happening in Austin, Cox was in the Dallas area, learning her much-wanted pregnancy was unlikely to result in a live baby. In researching her options, she learned about the lawsuit and reached out the Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed both suits. Tuesday’s lawsuit follows the model Klusmann laid out before the justices last week, bringing an ultra vires challenge to the state’s abortion law as it applies to her specific lethal fetal diagnosis.

The lawsuit says that Cox cannot wait for the Supreme Court to rule and asks the judge to grant a temporary restraining order, prohibiting enforcement of Texas’ abortion bans against Cox and her husband, as well as Dr. Damla Karsan, an OB/GYN who has agreed to perform the abortion, and her employees. Karsan is a plaintiff in Zurawski v. Texas as well. Cox’s lawsuit also asks for a declaratory judgement that finds the state’s abortion bans do not apply to patients with emergent medical conditions.

Molly Duane, senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, agreed with Klusmann that most people experiencing a pregnancy complication won’t be able to file a lawsuit. And with such a novel litigation strategy, she said it was unclear whether the courts would act quickly enough to actually get Cox the relief she seeks in a timely manner.

“This is not a normal or reasonable or feasible way for health care to be practiced in this country,” Duane said.

If a judge grants a temporary restraining order, the Office of the Attorney General cannot directly appeal or block that order, as it has with the injunction in the Zurawski case. But the state could ask a higher court to intervene through a writ of mandamus filing, which would delay and possibly deny Cox’s request for an abortion. And a temporary restraining order would not likely extend beyond Cox’s case, meaning other patient seeking an abortion on similar grounds would need to go to court themselves.

“It would be persuasive, but it’s not a binding precedent,” said Charles “Rocky” Rhodes, a law professor at South Texas College of Law.

One outstanding question would be whether Cox’s husband and doctor might be vulnerable to lawsuits if any injunction was later overturned on appeal. Texas’ novel ban on abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, which is enforced entirely through private lawsuits, contains a provision that indicates people could face lawsuits for aiding or abetting abortions that occurred while an injunction was in place, if that injunction was later overturned. That provision has never been tested in court, and Rhodes said it’s unclear whether it would hold up.

“There’s a lot of novel stuff colliding in this case,” he said. “We knew these questions were coming, just maybe not so soon.”

Those chickens, they do like to roost. My best guess here is that the state will file a response that says something to the effect of “sure, SOME woman under these circumstances MIGHT have standing to sue for the right to an abortion without legal harassment, but not THIS woman at THIS time, for these legal argle-bargle reasons”. I say this on the assumptions that 1) the Attorney General will absolutely feel compelled to oppose this, since their goal is zero abortions ever; 2) the Zurawski plaintiffs (who, remember, are being repped by the same attorneys as the Coxes) will absolutely file a brief with SCOTx if the AG contradicts what it just testified to on this question; and 3) SCOTx will take it seriously if the AG does in fact contradict themselves.

I suspect this will move quickly through the courts, since any delay will moot the issue, so we will find out soon enough how accurate my musings are. Even if the Coxes prevail, it will still be infuriating that anyone would have to go through this to get the medical care they need and deserve, but this is where we are. Have I mentioned that we really ought to make this a much bigger campaign issue next year? The Associated Press has more.

Posted in Legal matters | Tagged abortion, Amanda Zurawski, Attorney General, Center for Reproductive Rights, Damla Karsan, Election 2024, hospitals, Justin Cox, Kate Cox, lawsuit, Supreme Court, Texas, The Lege | 5 Comments

Precinct analysis: At Large #3

Posted on December 5, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY:

Mayor’s race
Controller’s race
Harris Health bond referendum
At Large #1
At Large #2

At Large #3 had the largest non-Mayoral field on the ballot, with nine candidates. Five candidates finished with at least ten percent of the vote, with a sixth falling just short. That left the leaders with 22 and 20 percent, and a muddled picture at the precinct level.


Dist Cantu  Joseph   Curry  Carter  Cooper    EMcC  Nguyen  Amadi   Ganz
========================================================================
A    3,396     843   1,707   3,747   1,367   2,088   1,933    380    607
B    1,709   2,094   1,294   2,187   3,834   2,113     939    275    245
C   10,652   1,569   3,488   6,859   4,085   3,619   3,539    541  1,707
D    2,863   1,849   1,697   3,533   5,194   2,713   1,652    397    610
E    3,761   1,085   1,989   6,967   1,942   4,507   2,063    334    551
F    1,360     528     753   1,549     887     990   1,798    308    217
G    5,825   1,208   2,325   8,178   1,587   4,680   2,607    419    683
H    6,044     790   1,369   2,245   1,853   1,308   1,549    470    673
I    4,077     861   1,072   1,608   1,732   1,165   1,449    448    458
J    1,422     421     664   1,150     788     742   1,162    282    209
K    3,052   1,135   1,486   3,022   3,239   2,050   1,592    380    478
									
Dist Cantu  Joseph   Curry  Carter  Cooper    EMcC  Nguyen  Amadi   Ganz
========================================================================
A   21.14%   5.25%  10.62%  23.32%   8.51%  12.99%  12.03%  2.36%  3.78%
B   11.63%  14.25%   8.81%  14.89%  26.10%  14.38%   6.39%  1.87%  1.67%
C   29.54%   4.35%   9.67%  19.02%  11.33%  10.04%   9.81%  1.50%  4.73%
D   13.96%   9.02%   8.27%  17.23%  25.33%  13.23%   8.06%  1.94%  2.97%
E   16.21%   4.68%   8.57%  30.03%   8.37%  19.43%   8.89%  1.44%  2.38%
F   16.21%   6.29%   8.97%  18.46%  10.57%  11.80%  21.43%  3.67%  2.59%
G   21.17%   4.39%   8.45%  29.73%   5.77%  17.01%   9.48%  1.52%  2.48%
H   37.08%   4.85%   8.40%  13.77%  11.37%   8.02%   9.50%  2.88%  4.13%
I   31.68%   6.69%   8.33%  12.49%  13.46%   9.05%  11.26%  3.48%  3.56%
J   20.79%   6.15%   9.71%  16.81%  11.52%  10.85%  16.99%  4.12%  3.06%
K   18.57%   6.91%   9.04%  18.39%  19.71%  12.47%   9.69%  2.31%  2.91%

Richard Cantu, who finished first in this extravaganza, had the plurality of the vote in four districts: C, H, I, and J. His strong showings in the first three of those are his best feature going forward. Runnerup Twila Carter carried Districts A, E, and G, which she’ll certainly need in Round Two. Third place finisher Donnell Cooper led the way in B, D, and K, three districts where Cantu will need to step up, and former Council member (and fifth-place finisher) Richard Nguyen was the top votegetter in his old stomping grounds, District F. Like I said, a muddle.

As all but three Council districts are Democratic, there are multiple paths to victory in a runoff for a Democrat. Running up the totals in the Black districts is one common path, while killing it in C while holding your own in the Republican districts is another. Cantu’s November numbers suggest he’s closer to the second path, with a side order of strong numbers in the Latino districts, but he’ll need something from Column A to win as well. The good news for him is that he ran quite competitively with Carter in Districts A and G; the bad news is that he trailed her in Districts B and D. As the identified and endorsed Democrat in the runoff, I’d expect Cantu to pick up much of the vote that Donnell Cooper got in Round One. I don’t know how much of that he’ll need, but he’ll need some of it.

Carter, as noted before, has some ads running on Facebook. I have no idea how effective those are, but we know the electorate is old, and that at least suggests the possibility that she’s actually getting her ads in front of the people she’d like to see them. The Republican path to victory is more or less the inverse of Democratic Path A, which is dominate the Republican districts and mitigate the damage elsewhere. She has a plausible shot at it.

I can’t let this go without noting Casey Curry’s performance. In every district except A, her vote percentage ranged from 8.27% to 9.71%, which may be the tightest spread outside of a one-percent finisher I’ve ever seen. Even adding in District A and her 10.62% finish there, the range of her showing (2.35 percentage points) is narrower than it was for the guys who got 2.12 and 3.22 percent of the total. I haven’t looked back through my archives to see if this really is an outlier, but it’s close enough. I love nothing more than a statistical oddity in my precinct numbers.

Posted in Election 2023 | Tagged At Large #3, Casey Curry, Donnell Cooper, Election 2023, Ericka McCrutcheon, Houston, Houston City Council, James Joseph, precinct analysis, Richard Cantu, Richard Nguyen, runoff, Twila Carter | 1 Comment

Mayor proposes his water bill fix ordinance

Posted on December 5, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

This sure got a lot of late momentum.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is adding water bill reform to his to-do list as he approaches the end of his eight years in office.

Turner announced at a Monday news conference nine separate ordinance changes that will go before city council Wednesday to help water customers.

City residents have struggled in the past with being charged for estimated use of their water instead of their actual use. Some customers have seen water bills as high as $1,000. Houston Public Works typically estimates water usage and back charges after reading residents’ meters, but that process usually takes time.

Among the nine ordinance changes proposed by Turner are removals on the number of times residents can seek the city’s assistance for water leaks, incentives to residents who fix their private leaks themselves and incentives to residents who sign up for online instead of paper billing.

Another proposed change will allow customers who don’t want to use their city water meter to lock it for $150. Customers can have it unlocked for free if they decide they want to use it again. Houston’s water meters automatically transmit household usage to the city’s server, but issues such as aging meters and slow replacements have doubled the number of malfunctioning devices.

Houston Public Works Director Carol Haddock said Monday that 125,000 of the city’s 550,000 accounts have to be read manually every month.

“We hear you and we know that we’re going to continue to hear ways to improve as we move forward,” Haddock said. “And we look forward to continuing to hear that, but also know that we know it’s a good day when we can present a plan to the community to help provide relief to everybody, including our most vulnerable Houstonians and our senior citizens.”

See here for the background. The Mayor’s package of ordinances includes the one initially put forward by CMs Amy Peck, Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, and Mary Nan Huffman under the new charter amendment that allows three Council members to add an item to the agenda.

Houston Landing adds some details.

Since 2019, officials say, Houston’s aging devices for remotely reading water meters have been failing at a rising rate. The number of accounts requiring a manual reading has increased from 40,000 in 2019 to 125,000 this year, leading the city to resort to estimated readings much more often.

When those estimates turn out to be far off-base, city code often restricts customer service agents from providing residents with relief.

“Quite frankly, these ordinances are outdated and they were written for a different time,” Turner said. “They were created with the assumption that all of the equipment worked properly and we received accurate readings of customers’ water usage. Today’s reality is quite different.”

Existing city ordinance prevents customers from requesting more than two water bill adjustments per year for water leaks. Turner is proposing to do away with that limit.

A second change would offer bigger incentives to fix the “private leaks” that are considered the customer’s fault. Customers would receive 100 percent relief on excess charges for fixing leaks within 30 days, 75 percent relief for repairs within 60 days, and 50 percent relief for repairs after that.

Customers also would receive a 100 percent credit on the wastewater charges associated with leaks, because that water rarely returns to the city’s sanitary sewage system.

Residential customers still stuck with high bills after the other adjustments can seek what is known as a leak balance remaining adjustment, which is designed to address the remaining excess charges. Turner said another reform will lower the cutoff for that adjustment from $2,000 in excess charges to $1,000 for most customers.

Another change: Customers seeking an unusually large bill adjustment will be on the hook for 125 percent of their average water usage as opposed to the existing 150 percent.

Public Works would be able to reduce customers’ bills for an “exceptional circumstances” adjustment, by up to $10,000 instead of the current $4,000 maximum reduction.

Rounding out the proposed changes are a 50-cent discount for customers who use electronic billing; an option for customers who do not take water to have their meters locked instead of seeking out expensive private plumbers to cap a line; and a prohibition on customers receiving higher, corrected bills after three months.

I switched to electronic billing for my water a few months ago, so yay for me. It all sounds good, and both Sheila Jackson Lee and John Whitmire have said they will pursue further improvements. Why it wasn’t addressed sooner is a question we likely won’t get an answer to before Mayor Turner’s term ends. The Monday episode of the CityCast Houston podcast addressed this as well.

Posted in Local politics | Tagged Amy Peck, Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, Department of Public Works and Engineering, Election 2023, Houston, Houston City Council, John Whitmire, Mary Nan Huffman, Sheila Jackson Lee, Sylvester Turner, water | 8 Comments

Calendar

Categories

Archives

My linkage

Polling Texas 2020

Polling Texas 2018

Polling Texas 2016

Polling Texas 2014

Polling Texas 2012

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Tags

Blogroll

Utilities

Categories

Archives

Polling Texas 2016

Polling Texas 2014

Polling Texas 2012

My Linkage

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Tags

Blogroll

Utilities