"We're not going to lose the battle and lose the war and have to pay for it."
With those words from Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole, the Austin City Council voted unanimously today to repeal our old Crisis Pregnancy Center ordinance, and then unanimously passed a revised ordinance intended to survive scrutiny in ongoing legal battles.
Back in 2010, Council unanimously passed an ordinance requiring Crisis Pregnancy Centers to post a sign on their doors stating that the businesses don't provide abortions, refer for abortions, or provide FDA-licensed birth control, and that there is no licensed medical professional on site. Since the passing of the 2010 ordinance, other cities' CPC regulation efforts have come under increased scrutiny, and many have been struck down. Here in Austin, a group of plaintiffs that operate the centers and generally oppose abortions sued the City, claiming that the ordinance -- which simply requires CPCs to state what services they do not provide -- violated their First Amendment rights.
Today, Council considered a revised ordinance, sponsored by Council Members Bill Spelman and Mike Martinez, that removed language from the original that was not likely to stand muster in the courts. (Read a preview of this issue here.) Council repealed the old ordinance--we cannot have two contradictory ordinances on the books--and then considered a new ordinance. The new ordinance requires a sign that doesn't make reference to abortions or birth control. It is strictly a disclosure that there is no licensed healthcare professional on site. That's what was determined to be most likely to stand up in court.
The absurdity of the situation is that CPC's don't have to be licensed. Taxi cabs, nail salons, food trailers, pedi-cabbers, even fishermen have to be licensed, but any anti-choice group can set up shop to intimidate and misinform women into carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. Many of them also receive tremendous amounts of funding from the state. That's right -- our tax dollars are being used to help these organizations intimidate women and provide incorrect information about abortion, pregnancy, and women's health.
Speakers were vastly in favor of the new ordinance requiring CPC signage, noting time and again that it's about informing women about what services the business provides. Genevieve van Cleve, Deputy Political Director of Annie's List, thanked the Council for supporting women, and reminded all present of the Texas Legislature's unrelenting assault on Texas women, children, and families. She emphasized the rights of consumers to know what services businesses provide, stating "not only can the government require truth in advertising for healthcare purposes, the government should do so." Gen used the nail salon analogy to remind Council that most service providers must live up to a basic level of professionalism to keep operating. Not so for the deliberately misleading CPC's.
Other speakers included a volunteer attorney with Jane's Due Process who counsels pregnant women on their legal options and helps teenagers receive judicial bypass of parental notification laws when needed. She noted the time-sensitive nature of abortion, and that the longer women wait, the more costly or limited the services may be. (This especially true in Texas, where many providers won't perform an abortion after a certain number of weeks -- we're not talking third trimester here, we're talking early- to- mid-second trimester.) CPC's confuse teenagers who want abortions, which can cost them precious time and money.
Speakers against the ordinance were almost all male (of course), and as Martinez pointed out, most don't even live here in Austin. Some claimed that it was a First Amendment issue; others simply seemed to hate abortion. Several tried to intimidate the Council with threats of exorbitant legal fees, which apparently was the main reservation our staunchly pro-choice Council had with the new ordinance. An attorney from the Liberty Institute suggested that if the City loses in the courts, they'll need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars -- possibly over $1 million -- to the anti-choice groups pursuing the lawsuits.
That's a valid concern -- if indeed our ordinance couldn't stand up in court and we lost, does Austin want to funnel large amounts of taxpayer money into anti-choice coffers? That's hardly in keeping with our community values. However, MPT Cole got to the heart of that issue during questioning of Sara Clark, the attorney for the City in this matter. Cole drove the point that if it looks like Austin won't prevail in the lawsuit, we can immediately repeal the ordinance before we lose in court.
The current ordinance is currently being litigated in Federal court. An appeal of the outcome of this first trial would land on the 5th Circuit Court, home of Chief Judge Edith Jones, the noted anti-abortion zealot who recently overturned Federal Judge Sparks' stay on the sonogram law. (Read more about Jones' extreme anti-choice views here.) The plaintiffs in the CPC case will likely revise their filings to sue the City over this new ordinance. However, speakers today were very confident that our new ordinance was carefully crafted to follow existing legal precedent from other Circuit courts, and has a very strong chance of winning if challenged.
As NARAL lobbyist Blake Rocap pointed out, we're simply asking the CPC's to post information that they themselves state is true -- there are no licensed medical professionals on site. If CPC's already admit what Council wants them to admit on their own front doors, how is that compelled speech? Ironically, the sonogram lawsuit may actually work in our favor here, since Judge Edith Jones doesn't think it's an undue burden for abortion providers to perform a mandatory sonogram and require doctors to read off a fact sheet about fetal development before performing the procedure.
Spelman made a motion that Martinez seconded to pass the revised ordinance on all three readings, which requires a supermajority. Today, that would have been a 5-1 vote, since the Mayor was off the dais on an official trip to London to study economic development in the high-tech sector. Passing on all three readings means it's a done deal -- no need to vote two more times on this issue.
So, good job Council. It's great to see them uphold our community values and provide women with accurate information. And a special thanks to Council Members Spelman and Martinez -- both men, it's worth pointing out, who refused to let this issue drop and pushed this revised ordinance through. It's really great to see two males standing up for women's health, and something we'd all like to see a lot more of. Women's health is an issue that impacts our entire community, because it impacts our mothers, wives, sisters, friends, colleagues, and neighbors.
Hopefully our ordinance stands up in court, and can soon be enforced. If CPC's refuse to post the sign, citizens can call code compliance and 311. Likely the CPC's would be given a warning, but if they still refused to post the sign, they'd start getting tickets for Class C misdemeanors, punishable by a fine of up to $450.
We will keep you posted as this issue works its way through the courts.
This week, the Austin City Council will consider amending or repealing an ordinance that requires Crisis Pregnancy Centers to disclose that they don't provide or make referrals for abortion, or provide FDA-approved birth control. While I am very confident that our council members remain staunchly pro-choice -- the ordinance passed unanimously in 2010 -- the question is how Austin's ordinance can survive repeated lawsuits from the right-wing, and what other tools are available to warn women about these insidious anti-choice "resource centers."
Crisis Pregnancy Centers are essentially anti-choice entities that attempt to mislead, intimidate, and coerce young women into keeping their unwanted pregnancies. While many claim to be "clinics," in reality there are no medically licensed staff working at the centers, and many provide no health care services at all. Instead, the focus of these CPC's is to stop women from exercising their right to an abortion, and prevent them from avoiding unplanned pregnancies in the future.
NARAL Texas has more information about these insidious organizations:
CPCs not only fail to address the range of choices available to women; they often attempt to dissuade women from seeking abortion by presenting factually inaccurate and misleading information. Women seeking services are often told abortion leads to breast cancer and psychological distress, or "post-abortion syndrome"--despite no medical evidence backing either claim. Women may also be shown intentionally upsetting images or receive false information about their own pregnancies.
In 2009, the Texas Legislature shifted $4 million in family planning funds to these unlicensed, unregulated centers. CPC's are all over Texas. Austin has a number of these centers, which claim to "minister" to women with unexpected, unplanned, or unwanted pregnancies. In reality, CPC's don't provide women with a comprehensive list of options, which includes abortion, and they don't provide scientifically accurate information about how women can prevent future unplanned pregnancies.
In 2010, Council Member Bill Spelman sponsored and passed an ordinance requiring CPCs to post signage indicating that they don't provide abortions or FDA-approved birth control. Last fall, several CPC operators sued the City, claiming that the lawsuit violated their First Amendment rights. The CPC plaintiffs -- the Roman Catholic Diocese of Austin, Catholic Charities of Central Texas, the Austin Pregnancy Resource Center, and the South Austin Pregnancy Resource Center -- say that the City's ordinance doesn't place such burdens on other providers. However, as The Austin Chronicle notes, abortion providers are required by the State of Texas to disclose that they provide abortions.
What's so ironic is that CPC's are arguing against compelling speech, yet at the same time anti-choice activists are in favor of compelling unnecessary speech through their beloved sonogram law. In the lawsuit against the CPC's, anti-choice organizations are arguing that compelling speech violates their First Amendment rights, even though the signage is accurate (unlike the information provided by CPC's). In the sonogram law, the State of Texas is arguing that it's all fine and dandy to require doctors to perform mandatory sonograms of women seeking abortions, even though the speech they're compelling is medically unnecessary. Compelling speech is fine for the anti-choice movement when it serves their aim of pressuring and intimidating women into not having abortions. But when the speech actually gives women useful, important information -- Whoa, Nelly!
This week, the Austin City Council is looking for a way to amend the ordinance such that the City can successfully defend the ordinance in court. Meanwhile, the city legal department has a competing agenda item calling for the repeal of the CPC signage ordinance. Ideally, the amended ordinance -- put forward by Council Members Spelman and Martinez -- would remove specific language that has failed in other legal tests, leaving a CPC ordinance that can successfully be defended in court.
City Legal's concern may include the amount of time and money spent defending the CPC ordinance. It raises a valuable question: how much taxpayer dollars should we spend defending ordinances that uphold our community values? Similarly, council could explore whether there are other ways to accomplish the same aim of giving women warning that CPC's do not provide comprehensive services or medically accurate information, nor are they under any obligation to do so.
The right wing and anti-choice organizations have an immense amount of funding available to fight these ordinances and drag every other pro-choice or anti-anti-choice effort through the courts. It's part of their strategy to chip away at abortion rights in America. However, if the ordinance stands, Austinites have the chance to give anti-choice organizations a taste of their own medicine. While the CPC ordinance is in court, it is not being enforced. Should the City prevail and the CPC become an enforceable ordinance, CPC's could be ticketed for failing to comply. It would be a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $450 in municipal court. Should the City prevail and the CPC's refuse to post their warning signs, an orchestrated effort to call code compliance on them could result in thousands of dollars in fines levied against the centers.
NARAL has a handy one-click way to contact the entire Austin City Council in support of holding CPC's accountable. The anti-choicers are very well organized and will flood Council inboxes with blather against this effort. Make sure our side has its voice heard as well.
I'll have more coverage of the vote tomorrow.
Disclaimer: I'm on the board of NARAL Texas because I am super-duper pro-choice. If you want to support NARAL, we have a fundraiser this week. Click here for more information.
This Thursday, the Austin City Council will take up an item that will ensure that women of Central Texas are no longer taken advantage of by so-called "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" when they try to seek information and health care. Council Member Bill Spelman has sponsored an ordinance that will require these CPC's to disclose on their windows that they do not actually offer women the full range of their reproductive rights, from abortion to birth control.
Importantly, Austin will become only the second city in America to require this important disclosure, and enable our women to make informed decisions about their reproductive rights. From Council Member Spelman's Office, emphasis mine:
Limited service pregnancy centers are also known as crisis pregnancy centers. Most centers' clients are young, low-income women seeking urgent information about their unintended pregnancy or about birth control options. Limited service pregnancy centers most commonly provide free or low-cost pregnancy testing, adoptions counseling, and short-term material assistance for women with an unplanned pregnancy.
However, these facilities do not offer or refer for abortion or comprehensive birth control services and frequently fail to advise their clients of these important options.
Spelman's proposed ordinance would ensure that women are informed about the range of services offered by an Austin limited service pregnancy center by requiring the centers to post a sign disclosing that the facility does not offer or refer for abortion or comprehensive birth control services.
As proposed, the ordinance does not compel a limited service pregnancy center to say anything that its operators do not believe in or to provide services to which they object. "This is a consumer awareness measure," Spelman stated, "that helps women make safe, healthy, informed, and responsible decisions."
Frankly, these so-called "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" are an affront to a woman's right to choose. Imagine a woman seeking honest information about her reproductive and health options--and instead being fed a bunch of erroneous, intentionally misleading information. NARAL has great research on how harmful these CPC's are to the health and reproductive freedom of women:
CPCs in Texas and nationwide have a history of misleading pregnant women and teens by using inaccurate medical information and religious literature. Because these programs are funded by taxpayer dollars, the programs are controversial at best, and at worst endanger women's health and violate the Federal Charitable Choice Act.
These CPC's tell women they'll get breast cancer if they have an abortion. The workers describe a bogus "post-abortion stress syndrome." They ask women to imagine a vacuum in their uterus and how it might feel. NARAL's compilation of details about visits to these snake-oil salesmen are horrifying. These CPC's prey on women during some of the most difficult, challenging times in their lives.
And while the City of Austin cannot shut them down, at least the city can require a full disclosure of what services are and are not offered, and help women who want to exercise their right to choose seek out a provider who recognizes the validity of not only Roe v Wade but Griswold v Connecticut.
Want to weigh in? NARAL Pro-Choice Texas has two ways for you to show support for the women of Central Texas:
Email the Austin City Council members today and let them know that you support this important ordinance which will protect Austin women. It's quick and easy. Click here to be redirected to NARAL's site.
Join NARAL in support of this ordinance at the City Council meeting being held at City Hall tomorrow, April 8, 2010 at 10:00 a.m.
Thanks to the staff in Council Member Bill Spelman's office for providing this information to Burnt Orange Report, and a hearty thank you to Council Member Spelman for introducing this ordinance that will help protect the rights of women seeking reproductive care here in Austin.
Today is the filing deadline for the Democratic Primary, and, with only 58 days until Election Day, I am proud of the progress my campaign has made so far.
I've received endorsements from six public safety associations, including the state's largest, the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas (CLEAT). I am humbled to have earned the support of CLEAT once again, as well as the Travis County Sheriffs Officers Association, Travis County Sheriffs Law Enforcement Association, Austin/Travis County EMS Employee Association, Austin Police Association, and the Travis County Firefighters Association.
I also have the support of the only three elected officials to have endorsed in this race: Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe, Austin City Councilman Bill Spelman, and Constable Richard McCain. Additionally, I have been endorsed by former Travis County Judge Bill Aleshire, former Texas Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, and former Texas Comptroller John Sharp.
After fifteen years as county commissioner, I am so proud to have the support of both the current president of University Democrats Melessa Rodriguez and the immediate past president Jimmy Talarico.
With more than three decades of Democratic activism in my hometown of Austin, I am proud to have the support of many Democratic activists, including Precinct 424 Democratic chair Walter Timberlake. To view my full supporter list, click here.
Volunteers, friends, family and I have been working hard over the past few months to spread the word to Precinct 4 voters about my record on the Commissioners Court. Our campaign has knocked on over 1800 doors throughout southeast Travis County and made countless phone calls.
There are less than two months until Election Day, and just over a month until early voting begins. The support our campaign has enjoyed has been great, and I look forward to continuing to work hard as I visit and listen to voters across Precinct 4 about how county government can better serve them.
The other day I posted in full a reply from Austin Councilmember Chris Riley on his preliminaty vote to approve a zoning case with regard to development along the southeast shore of Lady Bird Lake and Riverside. Today, I'd like to post remarks from Councilman Bill Spelman on the same issue, as he and Riley were specifically targeted as 'swing votes' on the issue. I certainly invite any of the other 4 members of the council and the Mayor to send me a similar posting if they wish to.
Last Thursday, I had a difficult decision to make on the Grayco/South Shore Planned Unit Development (PUD) request. I had to weigh the public benefit of the proposed development against its potential infringement on our treasured Lady Bird Lake waterfront. I spent hours considering campaign declarations, environmental impacts, affordable housing, and tangible positive outcomes. After that deliberation, I feel I have made the best choice for Austin.
During my campaign, I wrote in one of the candidate questionnaires that I would vote against any request that would supersede the Waterfront Overlay because of my desire to uphold the spirit of the Waterfront Overlay. By offering my tentative support to a project that can protect and enhance the natural values offered by this portion of the waterfront, I believe I retained my commitment to the spirit of the Waterfront Overlay. While the project does pose an infringement on the Waterfront Overlay’s height limits, I felt it was necessary to consider more than that one metric to guide me to a decision which best protects the interests of Austin.
The PUD developers own the land and have entitlements to develop the property. Consequently, the decision before us was not a vote to allow development or not to allow development; it was a vote on whether to develop the land with community benefits, for which the developer was requesting additional height, or to develop the property without any community benefits and without the additional height. With that in mind, I examined the community benefits to determine whether they were a good deal for the City, compared to what we might be giving up.
In exchange for the additional height, the PUD developers have offered to provide the following considerable public benefits, plus others:
Affordable Housing. My strongest single concern was for affordable housing. I pushed hard for the developers to help mitigate the loss of affordable housing stock, and they proposed to provide a significant amount of money to the City to buy affordable housing or provide it onsite, as well as a program to help relocate the existing tenants to other appropriate units nearby.
Water Quality. The developers are providing a drainage pond that will not only be a great environmental benefit to clean currently untreated runoff from neighboring properties, but which will also be an attractive natural-looking area as well. The runoff from the developers’ site will also all be treated before it is returned into Lady Bird Lake.
Community Benefits. There will be onsite space for a daycare and a police substation, and the development will preserve many important trees. The trail and Lady Bird Lake will be preserved through a significant setback from the Lake and tree cover, which will make it nearly impossible to see the development when enjoying the trail or the Lake.
In sum, these community benefits are significant. I anticipate that the impact of this development on the Waterfront can be managed and minimized, and I believe that this version of development compares much more favorably to having a development with no community benefits. I am still committed to the Waterfront Overlay and to our crown jewelLady Bird Lake, and I believe that this development will not impinge upon that treasure. I do appreciate your feedback, and look forward to our on-going conversation about these issues and others.
Seeing Chris Bradford's piece today on the new makeup of some of the key City of Austin Board and Commission memberships, I'd thought I'd expand a bit in laying out the membership of two of them which he was referring to. In either case, his original post is still worth reading in it's entirety though I do quote from it here.
It is well known that the City of Austin Planning Commission is a pipeline for higher office and whose appointed membership greatly effects the direction and design of the city. This May's race between Chris Riley and Perla Cavazos, both former Planning Commission members being case in point. But with the current retirements, expirations of terms, replacements, and upcoming term expirations, it's clear that the Planning Commission as a whole has drifted towards a heavier influence by the Austin Neighborhoods Council.
Here is the new make-up of the Planning Commission with the year in which their terms expire (so most recent appointments are at the top).
The bolded names are brand new to the board and both are very closely aligned with the ANC. Councilman Spelman's appointment Danette Chimenti was Morrison's successor to the ANC. Morrion's appointment Kathie Tovo, former Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association President, was almost a candidate this spring in the Place 1 race and is thought to still have council aspirations. Commission member Dealey ran previously in 2005 for Council, losing in a 4 way race to Jennifer Kim.
With the Planning Commission having in the last year lost Chris Ewen (not reappointed) this indicates a shift on the board. A close eye should be given to Martinez's next appointment as Castillo's partial term expires this Friday. Beyond that, Mayor Leffingwell will get to replace all 3 of Mayor Wynn's appointments next summer so given his close relationship with Martinez, will make or break the direction and diversity of the Planning Commisison in its next iteration.
Also of note from Bradford's piece was the Board of Adjustment which is the funnel through which variance requests are routed (for instance, business designations for noise requests). Another 9-member board like the Planning Commission, two "nay" votes can kill a variance request.
Councilwoman Morrison has appointed quintessential neighborhood activist, and once again, former ANC President Jeff Jack to the Board of Adjustment where he will join former ANC President Bryan King who Bradford notes as "a reliable nay vote". The other appointments from last week include former ANC South Central Representative Clarke Hammond (Leffingwell) and the reappointment of Nora Salinas (Martinez).
And then there's Morrison's choice of Mary Arnold for the Waterfront Planning Advisory Board which guides the development debate along Lady Bird Lake. That one's already stirred up controversy beyond Bradford with the Austin Chronicle critiquing the choice as not following the Waterfront Overlay ordinance's commands for a diverse professional board with specific categories of representation which Arnold may or may not particularly fit.
In sum, none of this is to say that appointments to city boards and commissions will behave or vote in similar patterns just because they have similar backgrounds in their activism and interaction with the City. But Bradford's closing statement in his article is all to true, and is reflective of what happens under our current system of local government.
Someone should just draw up a list of the dozen or so neighborhood representatives who seem to serve on every board and commission. When one is appointed, we can cross her off the list and move to the next name. When we get to the end of the list, we can simply return to the top of the list.
I thought Austin had a deeper pool of neighborhood activists.
I've commented on this before. So long as Austin is captivated by low turnout and lack of interest from the broader electorate, we will be captivated by a limited pool of dedicated activists whose ranks are not growing in proportion to the city's population. While some of those long time activists are revered institutions and others reviled (it often just depends on which side of a local skirmish you are on), the question might be would Austin's citizen-government be improved by having more activists on top of just long time activists?
On a personal note- it is easy to offer a critique in Austin and I think that's healthy to the larger debate we as a community are having on the nature and structure of our government (single member districts, campaign finance, public financing, etc). But in addition to words, there is action. And along those lines, I'm now serving with the newly created Austin Bike Theft Task Force which is making some real progress, and am in discussions to help restart my own inactive neighborhood association, Kealing, in Central East Austin.
Thank you to everyone who supported our campaign. It's been a great experience, and I look forward to serving you in City Hall.
Now it's time to celebrate! You're invited to our election night party at Joe's Bar & Grill. We'll have local live music featuring Brent Adair, so I hope you can celebrate with us this Saturday evening.
Election Night Party Free Appetizers
Live Music Featuring Brent Adair Saturday, May 9th
7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
Joe's Bar & Grill 506 West Avenue
Austin, TX 78703
(next door to Frank & Angie's Pizza) RSVP on Facebook
Please join us tomorrow morning for a community town hall meeting to discuss affordability, the social safety net and how that affects the long-term sustainability of our community.
Austin faces some tough challenges ahead, but by working together, we can leverage our city resources to get the most bang for our taxpayer buck. If you can't make the event, then please share your ideas online.
COMMUNITY TOWN HALL "Affordability, Sustainability & Social Services" Saturday, May 2
10:00 a.m. - Noon
Victory Grill
1104 East 11th Street
Austin, TX 78702
RSVP on Facebook
Thanks for your support. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow morning.
We recognize there is little need for us to issue an endorsement in an uncontested race, but Bill Spelman is a candidate who deserves endorsing.
A former councilman and current University of Texas professor, Spelman will bring to the city council an intelligent, balanced perspective having both served inside and outside city government in the past decade. Rather than coming to the table with a preconceived bias or opinion, we feel that Spelman will draw on a wide ranging store of personal knowledge and experience to guide his reasoning.
No one has to teach Bill Spelman how to dig into the background data that should guide decision making on the council. What he does not know, he will find out. This is evident in his campaign's continuing efforts to host forums and work sessions to garner feedback and information from a wide variety of regional groups and interests. Spelman needs only to vote for himself to get elected, but it is refreshing to see a candidate who is already living the job we are going to elect him to do.
We enthusiastically endorse Bill Spelman for Place 5.
Members of the Burnt Orange Report staff employed by campaigns abstain from voting on those races. Endorsements are made based on a weighted consensus of the staff, which guides the type and tone of endorsement.
