Overview of Mayoral Races-so far

by: Aboubacar Ndiaye

Fri Mar 15, 2013 at 08:50 AM CDT

Houston

Shaping up to be the most expensive and possibly most divisive of the city races, Houston's mayoral race pits incumbent Annise Parker against former City Attorney and current superlawyer Ben Hall. First elected in 2009 in a runoff victory against Gene Locke, Parker narrowly avoided another runoff in her reelection campaign in 2011, winning 50.4 percent of the vote against a slew of unknown candidates. Because of Ben Hall's ability to fundraise and large personal resources, the race is likely to be much more competitive this time around. The unaccounted variable in the race is potential entry of a Republican candidate in the race.

San Antonio

Golden Boy, Future Presidential Nominee, and Great Brown Hope of the Texas Democratic Party Julian Castro still has to win re-election as Mayor of San Antonio this year before he can fulfill the wish of every democrat in Texas. He is facing an array of newbie and perennial candidates with little name ID or campaign funds. As of this writing, unless something crazy happens between now and Election Day, he will cruise to re-election without having to stop his current national speaking schedule.

El Paso  

Current Mayor John Cook is term-limited and a large field of candidates are vying to replace him Among the eight declared candidates are current City Representative Steven Ortega, local businessmen Oscar Leeser and Robert Cormell, and substitute teacher Jorge Artalejo. Even in such a crowd, Cormell and Ortega, by virtue of their early fundraising prowess, are beginning to separate themselves from the pack.

Fort Worth

After handily winning her election to a first-term as Mayor of Fort Worth, Republican Betsy Price is running unopposed in her re-election campaign.

Aboubacar "Asn" Ndiaye was a Field Organizer on the Harris County Democratic Party's 2012 Coordinated Campaign. Follow him at twitter.com/thehardask

Tuesday's Vote on National Instruments

by: Sarah_Eckhardt

Tue Mar 12, 2013 at 04:38 PM CDT

In a perfect world, government would attract and support businesses of any size by keeping taxes low, services high and infrastructure maintained. Government would not put its thumb on the scales of the market by offering tax rebates except in the rare circumstances that the incentive would advance a clear social goal that would not advance without the tax intervention. But, the world is not perfect and the use of tax rebates to lure or retain companies has become too common.

To manage these increasingly common requests for tax rebates, I have developed along with my colleagues on the Court a policy inviting companies to participate in social goals in exchange for tax rebates above a basic level.  If expanding the tax base is all the company offers, the basic rebate is comparatively low.

But, if the company does more - if it brings jobs for Travis County residents, pays wages of at least $11 an hour, locates in a preferred area, hires from economically disadvantaged residents, builds environmentally sustainable facilities, or mentors and educates young people in the field in which the company excels - the rebate is higher and we as a Court are more likely to support it.

Under these criteria, I support National Instruments' application for a tax rebate. The tax rebate is comparatively low at 40% over ten years.  The company agrees to pay at least $11 an hour to its own employees as well as contract workers. It seeks to expand in an already existing population center and is considering building to LEED Silver standard. And, it has a long track record of mentoring and educating young people in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.  Additionally, it is a homegrown company that has been here since 1974 without previously asking for a tax rebate.

We cannot know whether National Instruments would have expanded in Malaysia instead of Travis County if we did not rebate some of its taxes. But, in adhering to our new Economic Development policy, we know that National Instruments' business practices are in harmony with Travis County's social goals.

Texas College Democrats Rally Against Guns on Campus

by: TexasCollegeDemocrats

Mon Mar 04, 2013 at 06:59 PM CST

Public opinion polls at Texas A&M and SHSU have shown that a majority of students would not favor legally permitting guns on their respective campuses. The student governments of UH, UTA, UT Austin, UTEP and UTSA have expressly rejected the idea. SB 182, HB 706, HB 1078, HB 1313 and other similar bills are policies that go against the will of the students.

Universities and colleges have always fundamentally been institutions of higher education. By permitting lethal weapons onto campuses around the state, the Texas Legislature is encouraging an environment of fear rather than the cultivation of learning.

Texas College Democrats is releasing an online petition encouraging students from all over the Lone Star State to voice their opinion on this crucial issue. TCD wholeheartedly believes that policies without constituents in mind make for bad politics. That is why Texas College Democrats is encouraging the Texas Legislature to listen to the views of the vast majority of students who will be affected by this legislation.

Students, regardless of their political views, can follow the link below to sign TCD's petition to keep concealed carry off campus:

https://docs.google.com/forms/...

Texas College Democrats is the official collegiate arm of the Texas Democratic Party. As a member of College Democrats of America, TCD believes in Democratic ideals and seeks to educate and provide resources for students around the Lone Star State. For more information please contact TCD Communications Director Danny Khalil by email at dkhalil@txcollegedems.org

Equality Roundup from Texas and the Nation

by: Nick Hudson

Sat Jul 28, 2012 at 02:55 PM CDT

There are 21 openly gay and lesbian athletes competing in the London Olympics.  

Sally Ride, the first American Woman to fly into space, passed away on Monday. She came out posthumously in her obituary, announcing she had a female partner for 27 years.    

The AIDS Quilt - in its entirety- is now viewable online in a zoomable "map" format. A handful of institutions, including Microsoft Research, the University of Southern California, and the NAMES Project Foundation, put the map online. They have also created an interactive timeline of the history of AIDS.  

Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos donated $2.5 million to Washington United for Marriage, a campaign organized to defend Washington's law allowing same-sex marriage.    

Florida Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carrol apologized on Thursday for a hateful anti-gay comment she made on on a Tampa television station earlier in the month.

Local Air Quality and the Bigger Picture

by: Sarah_Eckhardt

Tue Jul 24, 2012 at 11:09 AM CDT

Cross-posted from SarahEckhardt.com. You can follow Commissioner Eckhardt on twitter @Sarah_Eckhardt or facebook.com/SarahEckhardtAustin.

As previously addressed on my blog, our region’s air pollution has improved from a high of 89 ppb in 2000 to 75 ppb in 2011 due in large part to local efforts such as the Early Action Compact and the 8-Hour Ozone Flex Program. Although we have made great strides in reducing locally produced tailpipe emissions (from cars, trucks, lawnmowers, and industrial and agricultural equipment), more than two-thirds of our bad air is blown in from outside Central Texas. We have little local control over the carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) blown in from oil and gas production and refineries, power plants and other larger cities.

We must do more to address statewide, national and even international air-pollution migration. We need more resources to:

• monitor the size, shape, and source of the problem;
• plan a coordinated global, national, state and local response to the challenge; and
• implement the plan.

Local governments have contributed considerable resources, mostly funded from property taxes. The State also has grant funding and dedicated fees specified for these efforts, but state funds are being restricted, withheld, and even being considered for elimination.

Several factors are contributing to the Legislature’s ineffective response to the challenge. Some industries would prefer the migration of their emissions remain undocumented. For example, local recipients of Rider 8 grant funds from the State are barred from monitoring the in-migration of pollution. Some state officials would prefer to withhold dedicated pollution mitigation funds as a means of exploiting an accounting loophole that masks structural imbalance in the State’s budget. By remaining unallocated, the accumulated funds give the illusion of more revenue than is actually available for other budgeted programs. Some state officials would prefer to make a popular reduction to state fees from which these revenues derive (such as vehicle registration and inspection fees), thus forcing unpopular increases onto local officials and local property taxes. Whatever the cause of the State’s feckless behavior, the likely result will be unhealthy air quality and a federally mandated leveling of the playing field in Central Texas.

Irrespective of inequity, inaction or lack of collaboration at the federal and state level, we locals must continue our efforts to protect community and environmental health. First, we can choose to locally fund our efforts. Although reliance on regressive local property taxes is not ideal for addressing this statewide issue, withheld and diminishing state funding leaves few other choices.

Second, we can reduce local tailpipe emissions by altering our behavior. Here are some options to consider:

• Avoid excessive idling by parking instead when picking up the kids, cashing a check, buying food, etc.
• Carpool 
• Take transit (Capital Metro or CARTS)
• Walk or bike
  
• Get an electric lawnmower
  

Third, we can reduce transported emissions by reducing our electricity and water consumption. Some suggestions:

• Turn off lights when not needed.
• Turn our thermostats up. Austin residents can get a free programmable thermostat from Austin Energy.
  
• Use less water. Treating and moving water uses a lot of energy. Both LCRA and the Austin Water Utility provide guidance. Conversely, producing electricity uses a lot of water. Each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated requires an industry average of 25 gallons of water to produce (coal requires 36 gallons, natural gas requires 14 gallons and nuclear energy requires 47 gallons to produce).
  

Equality Roundup from Texas and the Nation

by: Nick Hudson

Sat Jul 21, 2012 at 02:00 PM CDT

Source: Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Changing Attitudes on Gay Marriage

Equality Texas met with Kerrville religious leaders last week.

A family delivered 300,000 signatures to the Boy Scouts of America headquarters petitioning the organization to admit openly gay members. The Boy Scouts of America reaffirmed its discriminatory policy in response.

Homophobe and former Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee suggested on his radio show last week that the Boy Scouts of America policy of discriminating against gay scouts and leaders is "right" because it protects boys from abuse.

A homophobic Colorado cakeshop owner refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple yesterday. The cake shop's once-stellar five-star yelp rating has been downgraded to one and one half stars.

A school district in Ohio has agreed to pay up to $35,000 and improve its anti-bullying policies in a settlement with a gay high school student whose videotaped beating went viral on the internet.

It was twenty years ago today

by: Robin Cravey

Mon Jun 25, 2012 at 10:20 AM CDT

I smoked my last joint on my birthday in 1992, watching the sun go down from the primitive campground at Pedernales Falls State Park.  I was planning to start law school in the fall, and I decided that as a lawyer, I would obey the law.  Our marijuana prohibition is one of our most benighted laws, but I intended to obey that, too.  And I have.

Did Texas Execute an Innocent Man?

by: Kristin Houle

Tue May 15, 2012 at 04:12 PM CDT

One of the most thorough investigations of a criminal case in U.S. history, the article "Los Tocayos Carlos: An Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution" uncovers evidence that Carlos DeLuna was likely innocent of the 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez in Corpus Christi.  The article also provides compelling evidence of the identity of the real killer - Carlos Hernandez - a violent and dangerous man who was well-known to law enforcement yet was ridiculed by prosecutors as a "phantom" of DeLuna's imagination during his trial.

Everything that could go wrong in a death penalty case did so for Carlos DeLuna, a poor Hispanic man with childlike intelligence who maintained his innocence from the time of his arrest to his execution just six years later.  Among the many issues calling into question the reliability of DeLuna's conviction are:

• A single cross-ethnic eyewitness identification conducted at night, at the crime scene, while the suspect was in the back seat of a police squad car;
  
  
• No corroborating forensics and a sloppy crime scene investigation;
  
  
• Grossly inadequate representation at the trial and appellate levels, including failure of his court-appointed attorneys - one of whom had never tried a criminal case in court, let alone a capital murder case - to present any witnesses or mitigating evidence during the sentencing phase; and
  
  
• Prosecutorial failure to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense.

Carlos Hernandez boasted for years around Corpus Christi that he committed the murder for which DeLuna, who he called his tocayo (twin or namesake), had taken the fall.  Indeed, the two Carloses looked so similar that their families mistook photos of the men for each other.

The execution of an innocent person represents the ultimate failure of our criminal justice system. That mistake is compounded when the real perpetrator remains free to commit more violent crimes. While DeLuna was on death row, Hernandez's violence against women continued and he eventually was sent back to prison, where he died in 1999.

Carlos DeLuna's wrongful conviction and execution highlight many of the flaws that persist in the broken death penalty system.  Since 1973, 140 people - including 12 in Texas - have been exonerated from death rows nationwide due to evidence of their wrongful conviction.  For most, it took decades to secure their exonerations.  

All of the factors that sent DeLuna to the execution chamber - faulty eyewitness testimony, shoddy legal representation, and prosecutorial misconduct - continue to put innocent people on death row today. Cameron Willingham, Ruben Cantu, Gary Graham, and Troy Davis, to name only a few, were executed despite doubts about their guilt.  

Los Tocayos Carlos is based on an 18-month investigation by Columbia Law School Professor James Liebman and a team of students.

To judge DeLuna's case for yourself, visit http://thewrongcarlos.net.  

The Affordable Care Act is Working in Texas

by: Phillip Martin

Wed Mar 21, 2012 at 11:00 AM CDT

Ed. note: Phillip Martin, a long-time writer here at BOR, is now the Research and Policy Director for Progress Texas. He is also a contributing writer to our site. The following post contains material originally published at Progress Texas. 

If you need any further proof that the Affordable Care Act is working in Texas, here's a simple compare and contrast between the policies of Texas Governor Rick Perry and those of President Barack Obama. Be sure to check back all week for more on how the Affordable Care Act is working in Texas, and sign our Progress Texas pledge defending the Affordable Care Act.

The key policies contrasted above are:

• Current - This is our status quo.
• Governor Perry's Plan - If Texas opts out of Medicaid, like Perry wants, 2.55 million more Texans will lose their health care coverage. (Source - Dallas Morning News)
• President Obama's Plan - If the policies of the Affordable Care Act are allowed to be set in place, then 91% of the state of Texas is expected to have health care coverage in the coming years.  (Source - Houston Chronicle) 

November Election Makes Sense

by: npinnock

Tue Mar 20, 2012 at 03:10 PM CDT

Most suburban political subdivisions in Texas (city councils, school boards, etc.) are often plagued with low voter turn out while incurring higher costs for conducting Special Elections in May. Additionally, a majority of these political subdivisions do not have term limits. So coupled with low voter turnout and unexpired terms, many of these political subdivisions have incumbents that have been in his/her respective chairs for more than three (3) decades. Yes, that is 30 years.

VIEW THE DEBATE (Cooy & Paste URL in a web browser):

http://youtu.be/MLIu321Dl1k

I. THE STATS:

The City of Stafford (TX) mayor has been in office since the city was incorporated and chartered back in the late 1900s. The City of Missouri City (TX) has only had two (2) mayors - count it with me...1, 2...in over 40 years...the current mayor has been in office for more than 25 of those years.

The 82nd Texas Legislature (regular) session passed Senate Bill (SB) 100 and Governor Rick Perry signed it into law on June 17, 2011 and SB 100 was deemed effective on September 1, 2011. SB 100, by original intent, was to provide our fine men and women military (civilian/non-civilian) operations overseas an opportunity to cast their votes for national, state, and local elections. Many of the cities were not in compliance with this federal mandate (MOVE Act). Therefore, the opportunity to ensure political subdivisions to comply was presented in this legislation because it allowed cities, school boards, etc. the unique opportunity to change their special election cycle from a May Special Election to a November Uniform Election.

II. REALITY CHECK-UP:

Many of the incumbents who learned of this legislation provision killed the pulse of this law before it had a chance to breathe. Many opponents of this legislation are the very people that have held their offices for more than two (2) decades and rely on complacency and comfort as a basis to justify their disdain for SB 100, when in fact, they could have realized tangible benefits in relatively short order.

CHECK IT OUT:

http://www.statesman.com/news/...

As an graduate school professor at Springfield College - www.springfieldcollege.edu - (ranked 60 among the top 100 Colleges & Universities - USA Today, 2011), I assigned my graduate students a project to explore and analyze the varying perspectives of three suburban Texas cities where the SB100 legislation was given tacit attention. It was shocking to learn that many of the elected officials simply rubbed my students off as though they were a virus or leper. Not one of the cities could provide any real reasons why they were not going to have a broader discussion with the electorate.