Election 2022 miscellania: Marijuana, Austin Mayor, CRT
Three items of interest for you. First up, several local initiatives to decriminalize marijuana were successful on Tuesday.
By the end of Election Day, five Texas cities have voted to decriminalize low-level marijuana possession.
After Austin voters overwhelmingly approved the proposition to decriminalize carrying small amounts of marijuana in May, Ground Game Texas — the progressive group behind that effort — successfully worked with local organizations and pushed for similar measures to appear on the ballots of Denton, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Harker Heights for the midterms cycle.
Voters in these cities have now shown strong support for the proposals at the polls.
The campaign saw the highest level of support in San Marcos — home to Texas State University — with nearly 82% of the votes. Denton, which has several university campuses, saw more than 70% of the votes backing the proposition.
In Killeen, known for its proximity to military base Fort Hood, close to 70% of voters approved the proposition. Elgin, just outside of Austin, saw almost 75% of votes in support of the reform. And on the low end, more than 60% of voters in Harker Heights in Bell County casted ballots in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.
"These meaningful reforms will keep people out of jail and save scarce public resources for more important public safety needs," said Mike Siegel, political director of Ground Game Texas and a former Democrat congressional candidate. "We're extremely happy with our results."
Like Austin's ordinance, the successful propositions establish city ordinances that end low-level enforcement, including citations and arrests for possessing less than four ounces of marijuana and related drug paraphernalia, in most cases. They also largely ban using city funds and staff to test substances for THC, the cannabis plant's chemical that gets users high.
Ultimately, Ground Game Texas hoped to use the campaign to boost turnout, especially among young voters.
"We wanted to use workers, wages and weed to engage new voters," Siegel said.
Looking ahead, Ground Game Texas will continue working with on-the-ground groups to place progressive measures on local ballots. They aim to put the measure along with several other propositions, including abortion decriminalization, in front of San Antonio voters in May 2023. And similar efforts are likely to pop up in other big cities like Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston in the 2024 elections, Siegel added.
"We're hoping that we can prove not only that these issues are popular, but they also boosted turnout in the communities that are on the ballot," he said. "And in the days following this election, we're going to be having lots of conversations with folks about the next cycle."
See here for some background. As noted there, I'm not sure what the practical effect of this will be, and I worry about legislative backlash just because that's the world we live in now. I'll be very interested to see if there is any evidence that this drove turnout, because Lord knows we could have used more of it if it did. And while I'm glad to see that there's interest in bringing this to Houston, please remember that we already have several charter amendments on the ballot next year, which means either this would have to happen then or you'll need to wait until at least 2025, since there's a mandatory two-year wait after a successful charter amendment election. Hope y'all are already engaging with folks here about this, Ground Game Texas, so there are no unpleasant surprises for anyone.
Item two: There will be a runoff for Mayor of Austin between two familiar faces.
Austin's next mayor was not decided Tuesday, as a tight race between Celia Israel and Kirk Watson will continue into a runoff in December.
To win the race outright, a candidate would have had to earn more than half of all votes as of Tuesday. Israel took 40% and Watson 35% of the vote, according to final but unofficial results. They were separated by more than 15,000 votes.
Jennifer Virden, the only other candidate who conducted a significant campaign, earned 18%.
Three other candidates received limited support. Phil Brual received 2%, and Gary Spellman and Anthony Bradshaw each received 1%.
In total, 304,000 votes were recorded.
Heading into the day, political insiders who analyzed the election said they expected the race to go to a runoff, as voters seemed split between Watson, the former Austin mayor and state senator, and Israel, a sitting state representative. Although Watson outraised Israel $1.3 million to $409,000, it was Israel who enjoyed momentum heading into Tuesday with recent endorsements from the American-Statesman and the Austin Chronicle.
I don't have a dog in this fight. I like both of them and wish the eventual winner all the best.
And finally, a small bit of good news on the school board hysteria front:
The five "anti-CRT" candidates running as a slate in that wild school board race in Round Rock are getting routed in early vote results. (These are Williamson County results, similar margins in smaller Travis County portion of the district).
— Mike Hixenbaugh (@Mike_Hixenbaugh) 7:48 PM – 08 November 2022
It's a similar story in nearby Leander ISD. Broadly speaking, based on early results, candidates who ran campaigns focused on CRT and explicit library books are trailing.
A very welcome reversal from last year, in a different political climate. Well done, Round Rock and Leander.
The book ban requests are coming from inside the house
Typical "grassroots" campaign.
Greg Abbott in the 80s
The wave of book reviews and removals that swept across Texas in the last year was driven more by politicians than parents, a Houston Chronicle analysis found, contradicting claims that recent book bans were the result of a nationwide parental rights movement to have more control over learning materials.
The findings, drawn from public information act requests sent to nearly 600 Texas school districts that teach more than 90 percent of the state's 5.4 million public school students, show there were at least 2,080 book reviews of more than 880 unique titles since the 2018-19 school year. Of those, at least 1,740 reviews occurred during the 2021-22 school year.
Nearly two thirds of those reviews — 1,057 — occurred after state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, asked districts last fall to check their shelves for books on a list he circulated. The books on Krause's list of roughly 850 titles, predominantly feature LGBTQ+ characters and people of color in main character roles, as well as mentions of racism, the Holocaust, sexual violence, sexuality and abortion.
About a dozen districts account for more than 1,500 of the book reviews, the Chronicle found. Most of the reviewed works remained on shelves, with 269 books removed entirely and 174 instances in which access to titles was made available only to older students. In some cases, districts removed books they deemed out of date but replaced them with more recent titles on similar subjects.
Most districts in the Houston region largely ignored the Krause list or did not conduct reviews because of it.
Krause did not respond to emails requesting an interview, and has refused to reveal whether he and his office created the list or if it came from a third party. In an interview with the Dallas Morning News last November, he called his letter and the list "an inquiry used for fact gathering to see if anything needs to be done," and said he did not anticipate they would be leaked to the news media.
"We could decide there's nothing here, let's move on. And nobody even knows about it. Or it could be we've got a pervasive problem," he said. "It certainly raised the consciousness of parents needing to be involved in their schools. We've had some school districts thank us and say, 'We don't want inappropriate materials for our kids.' We wanted to give schools an idea of what books they had in their library so they don't get caught off guard."
The Chronicle's findings, likely an under-count of book reviews because 292 districts did not respond, represent one of the clearest assessments to date of the extent of an escalating, national assault — mostly led by politicians, elected officials and conservative activists — on literature that explores race, LGBTQ+ issues and sexuality.
"It's a malign campaign to create a moral panic around information young people want and need," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "It's resulted in really tragic consequences, not only for young people being denied access to information, but also for people who are made to understand they don't belong in their communities, at least in the eyes of the individuals who raise these claims."
The library association registered challenges or removals of 1,597 individuals books across the country in 2021, a record number since the nonprofit began keeping a tally 20 years ago.
See here, here, and here for some background. I would bet that Krause had help from one or more under-the-radar billionaire-funded right wing groups. Why do the work when it's so easily outsourced? To be fair, some of the book-banning energy does come from deeply committed bigots from the private sector. There's never an escape from those people. Sadly, it's the school librarians who are on the sharp end of the stick here. I don't know what we can do about that. Read the rest of the story and get involved with your neighborhood schools to help them deal with this crap.
DMN/UT-Tyler: Abbott 46, Beto 39
Here's the story, which I currently can't access. A very brief summary of it is in this Current article. The data is here and I'm going to riff on that, with references to the February version of this poll, for which the data can be found here. I will note that there are some primary runoff results in this sample, and I am ignoring all of them – that kind of polling is too tricky to be worth worrying about.
"In a race for Governor would you vote for Governor Abbott, Beto O'Rourke, or someone else?" I'll generally be quoting the poll questions, which thankfully are the same in each sample. In May, as noted in the post title, it's 46-39 for Abbott, basically identical to the 45-38 Abbott result from February. The shape of those numbers are a bit different. In February, possibly because both Beto and Abbott were in contested primaries, there was a considerable amount of crossover support for each, Dems were only 76-16 for Beto, while Rs were just 76-11 for Abbott. In May, those numbers were 82-9 among Dems for Beto and 85-7 for Abbott among Rs. Independents were 36-29 for Abbott in February and show as 16-6 for Abbott now, with 29% going to the Libertarian (there is a Green candidate named as well, who also gets 6%) and an astonishing 38% for "someone else". This has to be a mangling of the data – among other things, given the size of the Indy subsample, it would have put the Libertarian candidate at nearly 10% overall, but the topline result gives him just 3%. Most likely, the 38 is for Abbott and the 29 is for Beto, or possibly all of these numbers are just wrong. I will shrug and move on at this point.
For approval numbers, President Biden checks in with 39-58 approval, which is obviously not good. Greg Abbott is also underwater at 46-50, while Beto has a 42-44 approval rating, which is the only one of the three to improve since last time. It was 39-57 for Biden, 50-46 for Abbott, and 40-46 for Beto in February.
Weirdly, Dan Patrick has 50-41 approval, and Ken Paxton has 42-41. Usually, Abbott does better in approvals than any other Republican, in part because fewer people have opinions about the rest of them. A separate question about Paxton asks "do you agree or disagree that he (Paxton) has the integrity to serve as attorney general?", and it's 30 for agree, 37 disagree, and 33 unsure. He was at 34-33-33 in February, so a bit of a dip there.
For some other questions of interest, the numbers are not bad for the Dems, and usually a little better than they were in February.
"If the general election was today, would you vote for a Republican candidate or Democratic candidate for the Texas House?" That was 49-48 for Republicans in May, 52-45 for Republicans in February.
"On orders from Governor Abbott, Texas Child Protective Services recently began investigating families who provide gender-affirming care to transgender children. Was this action" needed or unnecessary, with various reasons for each? There were three sub-options for each of those choices, and if you add them up it comes to 52-48 combined for "unnecessary". Honestly, that's better than I expected. There was no February comparison for this one, as that order had not yet been given at that time.
"Should the Supreme Court overturn its Roe v. Wade decision and allow states to decide abortion policy?" This was 53-46 for "no it should not be overturned" in May, and 50-47 in February. Again, a little better than I might have thought, and a tick up from before, which is to say before the draft opinion got leaked. Put those numbers in your back pocket for the next time someone claims that Texas is a "pro-life" state.
"Do you agree or disagree that K-12 teachers should be permitted to discuss how historical examples of discrimination in our laws apply to inequalities today?" Here, 61-24 strongly or somewhat agreed in May, and it was 59-22 for Agree in February. That means that for abortion, trans kids, and book banning, the Republican position is the minority one. Obviously, one poll and all that, but there's nothing to suggest Dems should be running scared on any of this. Quite the reverse, in fact.
Now as we've said a zillion times, it's one poll, opinions on issues often don't drive voting behavior, and we're still months away from an election where many other factors will affect the outcome. I'm quite scared of another COVID wave, especially if Congress doesn't get some more funding for vaccines and treatments and whatever else passed in the very near future. But for now, and bearing in mind that it's still a 7-point lead for Abbott, the numbers ain't that bad. We'll see what other polls have to say.
A bunch of well-financed wackos won school board races in Tarrant County
All but one of the 11 Tarrant County conservative school board candidates, who were backed this year by several high-profile donors and big-money PACs, defeated their opponents during Saturday's statewide election, according to unofficial election results. The one candidate backed by the groups who didn't win outright advances to a runoff election in June.
The 10 candidates won the school board races for the Grapevine-Colleyville, Keller, Mansfield and Carroll school districts.
The candidates' sweep shows a large swath of voters across the county responded to their calls to eradicate so-called critical race theory from classrooms and remove books discussing LGBTQ issues, which concerned parents have described as "pornographic." Education experts, school administrators and teachers all say that critical race theory, a university-level concept that examines the institutional legacies of racism, is not taught in classrooms.
The victories also show that the staggering amounts of money that were poured into the once low-profile and nonpartisan local races are producing their intended effect. PACs organized by parents, as well as a newly-formed PAC from a self-proclaimed Christian cell phone company, collectively raised over half a million dollars for the local races this year. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on top political consulting firms that bolstered an anti-CRT platform with flyers saying the candidates were "saving America."
See here for some background, and here for the cumulative election results. Turnout was way up from 2018 and I'm sure the money and the hot-button issues played some role in that, but it was also the case that many of those races were uncontested four years ago, and I daresay the population of these suburbs is a lot higher now, so the turnout as a share of registered voters (we don't have that data on the 2022 report, it may be there after the official canvass) may be up by a smaller amount. I don't mean to diminish what happened, I'm just trying to give some context. Anyone who knows more about the area or those races, please feel free to chime in.
It's also instructive to compare to the 2020 election, where you may recall that the May races were postponed until November of that year due to COVID. Not all of those ISDs had races in 2020, or at least races that were reported by the Tarrant County election office, but Grapevine and Mansfield did, and the turnout comparison is of interest – I've listed the races in ascending order of total voters:
Grapevine 2018 = 6,666
Grapevine 2022 = 12,001
Mansfield 2018 = 4,022
Mansfield 2022 = 11,035
The 2020 totals for Grapevine and Mansfield are exaggerated a bit, as there were 10K undervotes in Grapevine (so about 35K actual voters there) and 23K undervotes in Mansfield (51K actual voters). It's still the case that the November elections had vastly more participants, even in this charged and big-money environment. I don't know how the Grapevine and Mansfield wingnut candidates might have done in a turnout context like that, or like what this November would be, which is to say less than 2020 but still considerably more than May, but those were the closest races among those reported in this story. For sure, it was easier for those outside agitators to have a more effective channel to the voters, without a much-bigger-money top of the ticket drowning them out. Against that, it may be that the default voter in those districts would have leaned towards the wingnuts anyway, just based on what they might have absorbed by osmosis. I say this all to note once again that the right wing activists once thought that forcing school board elections to be held in November of even-numbered years would partisanize them in their favor. I don't think they think that now, and you can cite these races as evidence for it.
Some Dallas-area school board races are really crazy
We're going to see more of this, I'm afraid.
New political action committees targeting North Texas school board seats are spending big money on conservative rallying cries ahead of Saturday's elections.
Some Richardson voters, for example, received mailers decorated with baby blocks with the letters CRT. "RISD schools can't teach the basics if they're too busy teaching 'critical race theory' nonsense," the flyers read.
It's yet another sign of how local school board races are now the front lines of Republican culture war issues, such as those on race, gender, library books and parental choice.
At least 10 conservative PACs are trumpeting "taking back" school boards as they funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to influence local races.
Some are tapping the same consulting groups, including GOP heavy hitter Axiom Strategies, which worked with Sen. Ted Cruz and helped on Gov. Glenn Youngkin's strategy in Virginia.
Last month, Axiom received more than $100,000 from at least four local conservative PACs and a handful of the candidates they endorsed for school boards in Richardson, Keller, Highland Park and Southlake. Those funds largely went toward mailers, according to April 29 campaign finance filings.
"Usually those [races] would be below the radar screen for national-level political operations," said Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University (SMU supports The Education Lab). "But so many of the really hot-button contentious issues over the last couple of years have been fought out at the school board level that it's not surprising to start to see some of that."
Axiom vice president Nick Maddux said in a statement that his firm works to win tough races across the nation.
"High-intensity school board campaigns have become the new norm," he said.
Patriot Mobile Action, tied to a Texas-based cellphone company, spent more than $400,000 supporting conservative candidates in four North Texas school board races, NBC News reported. The PAC endorsed 11 candidates in Keller, Mansfield, Carroll and Grapevine Colleyville, according to its website.
It still has over $100,000 cash on hand, finance records show.
Meanwhile, several PACs are collectively spending tens of thousands of dollars with a group called Edgerton Strategies, a group with little online presence. It is registered to a lawyer in Wyoming but run by Erik Leist, a Keller father who does marketing work. He said he got involved with the different groups based on word-of-mouth.
Leist previously did communications work with a KISD parent who challenged a library book and disputed the district's process for reviewing it.
Heading into the final stretch, the KISD Family Alliance PAC got a financial bump: A $10,000 donation from Monty Bennett, CEO of Ashford Inc. The hotelier is a major Republican donor.
While trustee races are technically nonpartisan, their work has become increasingly politicized over the past two years as ideological battles raged over COVID-19 protocols and how schools should discuss race and gender.
There's more, but you get the idea. It's not just in the Dallas area that these large sums of PAC money are pouring in to support wingnut candidates – John Coby has been documenting this for CCISD races. There's been a bit of coverage on this in the Chron, but not nearly as detailed.
There was a time in the aughts during Tom Craddick's Speakership when some Republicans wanted to mandate school board elections be held in November of even-numbered years, on the theory that this would necessarily make them more partisan, and that would work in Republicans' favor. Clearly, they didn't need the races to be in November for the partisanship. I don't know what to expect today, but I won't be surprised to wake up tomorrow and find out that a lot of terrible people are now on a bunch of school boards. Unfortunately, these are the times we are now in.
It's mostly about the gay books
Color me not surprised.
While a Texas House committee chairman's inquiry into schoolbooks has often been linked to new state laws limiting how teachers address slavery and racism, most of the literature he's called into question deals with a wholly different subject: LGBTQ issues.
That has also been the focus of Gov. Greg Abbott's recent demands of the Texas Education Agency to work with other statewide agencies to set standards to prevent schoolchildren from exposure to what he's defined as "pornography or other inappropriate content" and to investigate any possible related crimes. The books that prompted such labels and backlash from parents at a handful of Texas school districts are written by LGBT authors and discuss LGBT identity and relationships.
Democrats have denounced the Republican efforts as politically motivated attacks meant to gin up support from their base that they say will ultimately result in censorship and harm students, especially those who are already marginalized.
It's part of a trend of conservative-led fights across the country over how schools can teach about issues of race, particularly systemic racism, as well as sex and gender, blurring the already faint line between local and national politics.
Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, chairman of the House General Investigating Committee, had given the districts until Friday to respond to his inquiry. Several reached by Hearst Newspapers — including Katy and Fort Bend in the Houston area and Northside and Spring Branch in the San Antonio area — said Thursday that they were still reviewing the request and/or did not expect to make the deadline.
The letter had asked districts whether they carried any books on a list of about 850 that included Pulitzer Prize winners and other acclaimed literature.
Krause, who has not responded to multiple requests for comment, has said the purpose of his request is to verify that the districts are in compliance with new laws passed this year.
Danika Ellis, who runs The Lesbrary, a blog about lesbian and bisexual books, reviewed the list of titles Krause ran by school districts. She found — as a Hearst Newspapers analysis also concluded — that more than 60 percent of the books had to do with matters related to LGBT topics. About 20 percent touched on transgender issues or featured a transgender character. At least 9 percent related to sex education.
That's compared with just about 8 percent that relate to race and racism. The rest of the books were not as easily categorized but related to topics such as teen pregnancy, abortion, contraception, sexual assault and sexually transmitted diseases.
"This house bill is supposed to prevent 'discomfort,' but what about the discomfort of kids who experience racism or who never see themselves represented in the curriculum or the books on the shelves?" Ellis wrote on her blog. "What about the discomfort of queer kids who see that even mentioning people like them is categorized as inappropriate or obscene or even 'pornography'?"
HB1525 was primarily meant to make adjustments to the major school finance bill, HB3, passed in 2019. But a last-minute amendment by Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, inserted language that required school boards to develop a policy for the adoption of human sexuality curriculum and set new guidelines for boards to follow in approving the curriculum.
They now have to take into account the advice of local school health advisory councils, parent groups appointed by school boards that give recommendations. They also were already required to ensure any approved materials were "suitable for the subject and grade level for which the curriculum materials are intended" and "reviewed by academic experts."
Hughes did not respond to a request for comment.
Rep. Mary González, D-Clint, who co-authored the bill and chairs the Texas House LGBT Caucus, said it "never had the breadth" that Krause is claiming it has.
"The SHAC was put into a school finance bill to continue to target sex education when we know research tells us the opposite: that medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education is really important to holistic development," González said. "However, what Rep. Krause has been trying to do over the last few weeks is beyond sex education and beyond the SHAC's work, and he is primarily doing this not out of concern for children but out of political advantage for his own attorney general race."
See here and here for the background. As of Friday afternoon, Austin and Dallas ISDs had said they will not respond to Krause's request; it's my hope that more ISDs, including Houston, will follow suit. The Trib has two more stories about this publicity/campaign stunt by Krause, which you can read as you see fit. I hate giving the little twerp any more attention for this, but ignoring it doesn't seem right, either.
Some years ago, I was having a discussion with a friend about then-Mayor Annise Parker's victory in the 2009 election over Gene Locke. I was trying to figure out why Parker did better in the Republican City Council districts than Locke did, given that Locke had made some effort to woo Republican voters. My friend's response was "they're more racist than they are homophobic", which I still think about from time to time. From the vantage point of today, maybe that's not so clear anymore.
Runoffs will be on December 11
As is usually the case, the second Sunday in December for municipal and school board/community college runoffs.
Runoff elections will be held Dec. 11, the Harris County Elections Department announced Friday.
Four Houston ISD board seats, and individual council races for Bellaire and Missouri City, as well as a trustee race in the Houston Community College System will be decided in runoffs after none of those candidates won more than 50 percent of the votes cast.
Early voting is scheduled to begin Nov. 29 and end Dec. 7. Voters can cast ballots between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. during early voting, except for Dec. 5 when polls will be open from noon to 5 p.m.
Election day voting hours will run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and permit individuals in line by the cutoff time to vote even if their ballot is not cast until later.
Elections officials said they must wait for a Nov. 8 deadline before completing a final canvass of results and officially announcing runoff races. Four of five open HISD board seats were forced into a runoff, per unofficial returns.
The runoffs include four HISD trustee races, one Houston Community College board seat, and a single city council race in Bellaire and Missouri City.
The HISD runoffs have the potential to bring significant change to the Board of Trustees, though I think in the end the effect is likely to be fairly small.
Three incumbents — Elizabeth Santos in District 1, Sue Deigaard in District 5, Holly Flynn Vilaseca in District 6 — all were the leading vote-getters in their races, but failed to garner at least 50 percent of the ballots cast. Trustee Anne Sung in District 7 finished about 4 percentage points, or 631 votes, behind challenger Bridget Wade in unofficial returns. Neither passed the 50 percent threshold.
The only HISD race decided by voters Tuesday was for District 9, where Trustee Myrna Guidry fended off two challengers with nearly 61 percent of the vote.
The outcome of the runoffs, which will be scheduled for next month, could alter the board just as the district has reached a sense of stability with new Superintendent Millard House II preparing a multi-year strategic plan and the district considering its first bond referendum in nearly a decade.
The district still faces a potential takeover threat by the Texas Education Agency, but that effort remains tied up in litigation.
Two paths led to runoffs, said Jasmine Jenkins, executive director of education nonprofit Houstonians For Great Public Schools.
First, she said, there have been national conversations led by conservatives to encourage people to run for local office, sometimes by playing to racial divides and appealing to grievances, such as those surrounding mask mandates to fight the spread of COVID-19.
At the same time, and more locally, Jenkins said there may be voters who are happy with the district's direction and current stability but wary of any board members "steeped in the dysfunction of years past."
"I am still cautiously optimistic about what is to come no matter what the results of the runoffs are," Jenkins said. "I am hopeful not just for stability and improved governance, but I am hopeful that the bold ideas of a new superintendent will be really supported and will be given shape by the vision and direction that the board gives him."
I'm the least worried about Sue Deigaard, who came very close to getting fifty percent. Elizabeth Santos is in a similar position as she was going into the 2017 runoff, except this time she's facing a Latina instead of an Anglo opponent. I think she's a favorite to win again, but it's not a sure thing. This is the one race where the ideology of the Board member won't change that much either way, at least on the current hot button issues like masking and whatever the "critical race theory" debate is supposed to be about.
I think Holly Maria Flynn Vilaseca is also the favorite to win in District VI, mostly because her opponent is a clueless perennial candidate, but the margin in round one was a lot closer than I would have liked. She's going to need to work it to win, and I really hope she does because Kendall Baker would be a disaster on the Board. As for Anne Sung, she's clearly in trouble. Running behind a candidate who has more money than you is never a good spot to be in. This is the one race in which the Chron will have to redo their endorsement, and I'll be very interested to see if they care more about Bridget Wade's opinions on those hot button issues or the quality of Anne Sung's apology in the Saavedra/Lathan open meetings fiasco. They either overlooked or didn't notice the "critical race theory" issue with their initial endorsement, so we'll see.
As for HCC, we're stuck with Dave Wilson again sigh but at least the runoff in District 8 between incumbent Eva Loredo and challenger Jharrett Bryantt isn't a threat to the board's functioning. Please remember that these elections are as important as the November elections, and make a plan to vote if you live in one of these districts.
Here comes the library police
Hide your children, and your copies of forbidden books.
Warning: This book may warp tiny, fragile minds
A Republican state lawmaker has launched an investigation into Texas school districts over the type of books they have, particularly if they pertain to race or sexuality or "make students feel discomfort."
State Rep. Matt Krause, in his role as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating, notified the Texas Education Agency that he is "initiating an inquiry into Texas school district content," according to an Oct. 25 letter obtained by The Texas Tribune.
Krause's letter provides a 16-page list of about 850 book titles and asks the districts if they have these books, how many copies they have and how much money they spent on the books.
His list of titles includes bestsellers and award winners alike, from the 1967 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Confessions of Nat Turner" by William Styron and "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates to last year's book club favorites: "Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot" by Mikki Kendall and Isabel Wilkerson's "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents."
But race is not the only thing on the committee chair's list. Other listed books Krause wants school districts to account for are about teen pregnancy, abortion and homosexuality, including "LGBT Families" by Leanne K. Currie-McGhee, "The Letter Q: Queer Writers' Notes to their Younger Selves" edited by Sarah Moon, and Michael J. Basso's "The Underground Guide to Teenage Sexuality: An Essential Handbook for Today's Teens and Parents."
Krause, a Fort Worth lawmaker and founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, is running for state attorney general against Ken Paxton. Krause declined to comment and no explanation was given as to how these books were chosen.
Krause sent notice of the investigation to Lily Laux, the Texas Education Agency deputy commissioner of school programs, as well as some Texas school superintendents. His letter did not specify which school districts Krause was investigating.
School officials have until Nov. 12 to respond. It is unclear what will happen to the districts that have such books.
The letter did not give a specific reason that Krause was launching the investigation, only that "the committee may initiate inquiries concerning any 'matter the committee considers necessary for the information of the legislature or for the welfare and protection of state citizens.'"
State Rep. Victoria Neave, D-Dallas, who is vice chair of the committee, said she had no idea Krause was launching the investigation but believes it's a campaign tactic. She found out about the letter after a school in her district notified her.
"His letter is reflective of the Republican Party's attempt to dilute the voice of people of color," she said.
Neave said she doesn't know what Krause is trying to do but will investigate the motive and next steps.
I mean, this is obviously one part "critical race theory" bullshit, and one part Matt Krause jumping up and down and shouting "Look at me! I'm some guy you've never heard of but I'm running for Attorney General so please please please pay attention to me!" I'm sure that the seething masses of the Republican primary electorate, the most delicate and catered-group group of snowflakes that ever demanded special treatment, will be glad to hear it, if they ever do hear of it. In the meantime, school officials can add one more task to their ever-growing list of Shit I Don't Need To Be Doing Right Now. God bless Texas.
The poisoned fruit of the anti-Critical Race Theory tree
Pass stupid, racist laws, get stupid, racist outcomes.
A top administrator with the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake advised teachers last week that if they have a book about the Holocaust in their classroom, they should also offer students access to a book from an "opposing" perspective, according to an audio recording obtained by NBC News.
Gina Peddy, the Carroll school district's executive director of curriculum and instruction, made the comment Friday afternoon during a training session on which books teachers can have in classroom libraries. The training came four days after the Carroll school board, responding to a parent's complaint, voted to reprimand a fourth grade teacher who had kept an anti-racism book in her classroom.
A Carroll staff member secretly recorded the Friday training and shared the audio with NBC News.
"Just try to remember the concepts of [House Bill] 3979," Peddy said in the recording, referring to a new Texas law that requires teachers to present multiple perspectives when discussing "widely debated and currently controversial" issues. "And make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust," Peddy continued, "that you have one that has an opposing, that has other perspectives."
"How do you oppose the Holocaust?" one teacher said in response.
"Believe me," Peddy said. "That's come up."
Another teacher wondered aloud if she would have to pull down "Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry, or other historical novels that tell the story of the Holocaust from the perspective of victims. It's not clear if Peddy heard the question in the commotion or if she answered.
Peddy did not respond to messages requesting comment. In a written response to a question about Peddy's remarks, Carroll spokeswoman Karen Fitzgerald said the district is trying to help teachers comply with the new state law and an updated version that will go into effect in December, Texas Senate Bill 3.
"Our district recognizes that all Texas teachers are in a precarious position with the latest legal requirements," Fitzgerald wrote, noting that the district's interpretation of the new Texas law requires teachers to provide balanced perspectives not just during classroom instruction, but in the books that are available to students in class during free time. "Our purpose is to support our teachers in ensuring they have all of the professional development, resources and materials needed. Our district has not and will not mandate books be removed nor will we mandate that classroom libraries be unavailable."
The debate in Southlake over which books should be allowed in schools is part of a broader national movement led by parents opposed to lessons on racism, history and LGBTQ issues that some conservatives have falsely branded as critical race theory. A group of Southlake parents has been fighting for more than a year to block new diversity and inclusion programs at Carroll, one of the top-ranked school districts in Texas.
Late last year, one of those parents complained when her daughter brought home a copy of "This Book Is Anti-Racist" by Tiffany Jewell from her fourth grade teacher's class library. The mother also complained about how the teacher responded to her concerns.
Carroll administrators investigated and decided against disciplining the teacher. But last week, on Oct. 4, the Carroll school board voted 3-2 to overturn the district's decision and formally reprimanded the teacher, setting off unease among Carroll teachers who said they fear the board won't protect them if a parent complains about a book in their class.
Teachers grew more concerned last Thursday, Oct. 7, when Carroll administrators sent an email directing them to close their classroom libraries "until they can be vetted by the teacher." Another email sent to teachers that day included a rubric that asked them to grade books based on whether they provide multiple perspectives and to set aside any that present singular, dominant narratives "in such a way that it … may be considered offensive."
You can click over to see that rubric for what books are "good" and "bad"; it's every bit as ridiculous and impenetrable as you think. It's grimly amusing to see Republican legislators defend their stupid bill, in the story and on Twitter. They're out there pleading "this isn't what the bill says", but what they really mean is "just teach what we agree with or else". That was clear from the beginning, and the backtracking now is just to deflect blame.
The Trib came in a couple of days later with more on this.
The Texas law states a teacher cannot "require or make part of a course" a series of race-related concepts, including the ideas that "one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex," or that someone is "inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive" based on their race or sex.
Since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the anti-critical race theory bill into law June 15, reports of schools struggling to comply with it have surfaced, most notably in Southlake.
After news surfaced this week about Southlake's Holocaust guidance to teachers, state Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, wrote a letter Thursday to Mike Morath, the Texas Education Agency commissioner, requesting a review of how school districts are implementing the law to "refute hateful and racist rhetoric in our Texas public schools."
"When this bill passed legislators warned that racist attacks would occur. It is our job to take every step possible to ensure an open and diverse forum, without subjecting our children to racism and hateful rhetoric," Menéndez wrote.
State Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, tweeted Thursday simply that "Southlake just got it wrong."
He added, "School administrators should know the difference between factual historical events and fiction. … No legislation is suggesting the action this administrator is promoting."
Paul Tapp, attorney with the Association of Texas Professional Educators, said his organization has received questions from teachers because they don't know what they can teach. A biology teacher asked if they should give equal time to creationism and evolution.
"These are two good examples of what the dangers of this kind of law are," Tapp said. "The point of public education is to introduce the world to students. It's not there to protect students from the world."
Following the Legislature's intent may get even more complicated for schools, teachers and parents in the coming months. This December, Senate Bill 3, authored by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, and passed in the state's second special session in August, will place more restrictions on a school's curriculum.
SB 3 says that at least one teacher and one campus administrator at each school must undergo a civics training program. Also, it says teachers cannot be forced to discuss current controversial topics in the classroom, regardless of whether in a social studies class or not. If they do, they must not show any political bias, the law says.
"What I would hope most of all is that school districts will actually read the law, and apply the law as written and not go beyond what the law actually requires them to do," Tapp said. "As soon as I read the bills, I expected that this would be the result of it, and I don't think we've heard the last of it."
I agree, it's just the beginning. I would point out that bills like this were in response to things like the 1619 Project, which was all about correcting historical fictions and untruths, and yet would very much get any teacher who used it in a classroom in trouble. That's the whole reason for these laws. I guarantee we're going to see a lot more of this kind of thing, especially in wealthy and historically conservative but now changing suburbs like Southlake and Katy, and it will be every bit as stupid and alienating and racist each time. If it hasn't happened at a school near you yet, just wait. Slate has more.
"Big boy pants"
Some hot Dutton on Patrick action going on here.
Another partisan stalemate has broken out in the final days of the second special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott this year, again imperiling the jobs of 2,100 legislative staffers along with two key conservative priority bills.
On Monday night, Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, abruptly adjourned the House Public Education Committee, which he chairs, without voting on two bills prioritized by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the leader of the Senate: a bill that would limit how educators can teach social studies and talk about race at Texas public schools, referred to as the "critical race theory bill," and another that would require transgender students to participate in sports based on the gender listed on their birth certificate instead of their gender identity.
"We have gotten to the point now where the Senate has adopted certain principles and practices that I don't think bode well for this Legislature. I think that what's happened is we have allowed them to do certain things and they disrespect the House in certain fashions," Dutton said. "It has gotten worse to the point where today, what I am told, is that if we don't pass these two bills — the [critical race theory] bill and the transgender bill — the Senate is not going to consider trying to fix the funding in Article X. So, I want to see if he has his big boy pants on. This meeting is adjourned."
Article X refers to the section of the state budget that covers funding for the state Legislature and other independent agencies that support its work. Abbott vetoed legislative funding in June in retaliation for the defeat of his priority election and bail changes bills when Democrats first walked out of the House in May during the final days of the regular legislative session.
The Legislature was set to lose its funding this month, as the new fiscal calendar starts Wednesday, but Abbott and legislative leaders extended its funding through the end of September. Still, the Legislature has not passed a long-term solution for the rest of the next two-year budget cycle, putting in peril the livelihoods of the staffers funded through the Legislature. Lawmakers salaries are constitutionally protected and therefore not affected by Abbott's veto.
House Bill 5, a wide-ranging bill that includes funding for a 13th check for retired schoolteachers and the restoration of legislative funding, was set to be heard on the chamber floor Monday, but its author, Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood, suddenly postponed its consideration until Wednesday. On Tuesday, Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, asked the House to reconsider the motion by which the bill was postponed, which would allow lawmakers to take up the bill immediately. The vote failed by a vote of 74-49.
Dutton did not say who had told him that the Senate would not pass the legislative funding bill until the House passed the two bills in his committee. His office has not returned a request for comment from The Texas Tribune. Patrick's office did not immediately return a request for comment.
I'll never complain about someone spitting on Dan Patrick, but Harold Dutton is hardly a hero here. He has already shown that he doesn't care about trans kids, and it's clear that his interest here is in not getting rolled by the Senate. That said, no one with any power in the House has stood up for the restoration of Article X funding, which continues to be in jeopardy and clearly isn't anything Dan Patrick cares about. It's pathetic how little pushback Dade Phelan and the House Republicans have given to Greg Abbott on this, which leaves that task to the likes of Dutton, who does know what to do with the power he has. There's no one to cheer for in this story, and I feel confident that Dutton will give Patrick what he is demanding if Patrick plays ball, but at least for now he's standing for something worthwhile. The Chron has more.
Day 2 quorum busting omnibus post
Gonna round up a few stories here. Don't know how often I'll be this energetic, or how often there will be this many stories that I see that are worth commenting on, but it is Day Two. We're just getting started, and there's lots of people still paying attention.
The cops are almost certainly not coming for the wayward Dems. I mean, come on.
A showdown in the Texas House was locked into place Tuesday after the chamber voted overwhelmingly to send law enforcement after Democrats who left the state a day earlier in protest of a GOP priority elections legislation.
More than 50 House Democrats left Monday for Washington, D.C., to deny the chamber a quorum — the minimum number of lawmakers needed to conduct business — as it takes up voting restrictions and other Republican priorities in a special session.
That agenda, set by Gov. Greg Abbott, includes House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 1, the election legislation at hand that would make a number of changes to Texas' voting system, such as banning drive-thru and 24 hour voting options and further restricting the state's voting-by-mail rules. Over the weekend, both House and Senate committees advanced the election bills.
The impact of the House move is unclear since Texas law enforcement lacks jurisdiction in the nation's capital.
Meeting shortly after 10 a.m., the House quickly established that it lacked the two-thirds quorum required to do business, with only 80 of 150 members participating in a test vote.
Then Rep. Will Metcalf, R-Conroe, chair of the House Administration Committee, moved to issue what is known as a "call of the House" to try to regain quorum. That motion passed 76-4. Metcalf offered another motion, asking that "the sergeant at arms, or officers appointed by him, send for all absentees … under warrant of arrest if necessary." That motion also passed 76-4.
Metcalf's motions were opposed by four Democrats who were present on the House floor Tuesday morning: Reps. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City, Tracy King of Batesville, Eddie Morales Jr. of Eagle Pass and John Turner of Dallas.
Axios noted Greg Abbott on Fox News shaking his fist and threatening arrest as well. It's noise – remember, a big part of this is about the PR for both sides – and in all honesty, it's what I'd do in the Republicans' position. Let's just say I will be extremely surprised if anyone is met at the airport by police on the way back.
If 58 Dems went to DC, then there were nine who did not. We know four of them, at least, and they make sense – Guillen and Morales represent districts carried by Trump in 2020, King's district trended redder in both 2016 and 2020, and Turner is not running for re-election. I'll be interested to see who the others are. Everyone will have their reasons for their choices, and bear in mind that family responsibilities may well be among those reasons.
The Chron adds a few tidbits.
Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-Dallas, asked [Speaker Dade] Phelan on the floor Tuesday whether Democrats could be removed from committee chair positions for breaking quorum. The speaker said they could not.
Morales, whose gargantuan district spans an area from Eagle Pass nearly to El Paso, said he chose to stay in Texas because he believes it was what his constituents, who tend lean more conservative even among Democrats, wanted from him.
"I felt, and I think what my constituents expected, was for me to be in the Capitol, to make sure that I'm fighting for their rights, and that I fight in opposition to this voter suppression," he said. "Everyone can fight and they can fight differently. My way of fighting is being here because that's what my constituents expect."
Morales said it is clear Democrats would be "steamrolled" when the Republican majority did not give them 24 hours after a House committee hearing this weekend to offer amendments based on the testimony they heard.
"It was just fanfare. They had no intention of actually working and actually coming to play and actually making those modifications necessary to the bill," he said. " That is why Democratic leadership decided to take the actions that they did."
Morales said he expects that Phelan will allow members who ask permission to be excused to leave the chamber on an individual basis. He'll need to do so to be at work at his day job as a city attorney on Tuesday night.
The process of asking for permission to leave the chamber will likely be repeated every day.
Troopers will now go to the missing members' homes in their districts and in Austin, and places of work and family and friends' houses, Morales said.
The Texas Senate, meanwhile, had a quorum of 22 members and was expected to debate its version of the voting bill later Tuesday.
The home visits were a part of the 2003 walkouts as well. You never know, someone might try to sneak home for some reason.
The bit about the Senate having a quorum feels a little surprising even though it obviously isn't. I don't know how much incentive Senate Dems have to do anything other than screw around and try to make trouble as they can. As for the likely death of other bills, well, that was priced into the decision to break quorum.
Bills to restrict pretrial release from jail, ban critical race theory in schools and prohibit transgender public school students from competing on teams that correspond with their gender identity were up in the air after dozens of Democratic lawmakers chartered flights to Washington, D.C. But their departure also left in jeopardy more widely-supported measures, like giving more money to retired teachers and restoring vetoed funding for more than 2,100 legislative employees who could potentially go without paychecks starting in September.
Beside bills on voting and bail, other Republican priorities that are now in danger during Abbott's 30-day session include efforts to stop social media companies from blocking users for their viewpoints, limiting pill-induced abortions and adding money for policing efforts at the Texas-Mexico border. But the governor also tagged lawmakers to tackle less partisan issues — like adding funds for foster care, property-tax relief and retired teachers. On Monday, he slammed Democrats for leaving those on the table.
One piece of legislation would provide what is known as a "13th check" to retired teachers across Texas. The bills would direct the Teacher Retirement System of Texas to distribute a one-time supplemental payment of up to $2,400 by January of next year.
Committees in the House and Senate unanimously advanced the legislation Friday in some of the earliest committee votes of the special session.
Tim Lee, executive director of the Texas Retired Teachers Association, said its members "desperately need help," especially after the economic stresses caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
"I think there are mixed feelings," Lee said of the potential demise of the 13th check proposal due to Democrats leaving the state. "I think that educators care about voting rights, educators care about the truth, they care about working together and compromising and listening — so that's what they hope both sides of this policy spectrum will ultimately yield, that people will work together."
As far as legislative employees — who earn a median salary of $52,000 per year — some staffers and a legal representative said there may be other ways to pay the employees of elected officials and those who help all lawmakers write bill drafts and provide cost estimates for legislation.
Lawmakers could potentially roll over money from the current fiscal year, if they have any, to pay their staffers. Or the Texas Supreme Court may rule in favor of the employees and House Democrats in a lawsuit arguing Abbott's veto was a gubernatorial overreach. And Abbott has used his emergency power to move money around before, as he did by directing the transfer of $250 million from Texas prisons to a border wall down payment.
For Odus Evbagharu, chief of staff to state Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, the onus to restore his and his colleagues' wages is on Abbott.
"I don't believe it's on the House Democratic Caucus to answer for that. I think that's going to be an answer that Governor Abbott's gonna have to answer himself," Evbagharu said. "My best guess is you hope he doesn't further punish staff for decisions that lawmakers are making."
Most of these bills are garbage, and their death (however fleeting) is a bonus as far as Dems are concerned. The legislative funding issue is entirely on Abbott for his temper-tantrum veto, and I hadn't even thought about him using emergency powers to override himself. That's if the Supreme Court doesn't settle this, AS THEY SHOULD. The extra paycheck for teachers is a genuine shame, but it could be handled in any subsequent special session.
Again I want to emphasize, Greg Abbott has the primary responsibility here. He pushed these divisive, red meat issues, he called the special session to try again on the ones that failed, and he broke all precedent by vetoing the legislative funding. This is his mess.
One thing, though, seems clear: this comes at a very bad time for Governor Greg Abbott, who was already having a pretty bad week. Abbott is facing, so far, three challengers to his right in the Republican primary for governor. The charge from his Republican opponents is that he's feckless and weak. The quorum break, which is designed to deny passage of one of his priority pieces of legislation, fits neatly into a narrative that he is getting outfoxed by an ostensibly powerless Democratic opposition. That the narrative is largely untrue—Democrats certainly believe they got the shaft this session—doesn't matter much.
If the crisis resolves by offering concessions to the exiled Democrats, or otherwise weakening the bill, Abbott will catch hell. The best case for him is to "break" the Democrats and win the fight, but taking a hard line could also prolong the crisis. At first, messaging from his camp was uncharacteristically soft, perhaps because it's not clear what he could say. In a statement Monday, Abbott said Democratic absences were standing in the way of "property tax relief" and other issues, a sign that the governor's office was uncomfortable centering the election bill that's the problem here. On Tuesday, he started talking tough, threatening them with arrest and "cabining" in the Capitol if they return to Texas, but both those threats reflect his underlying powerlessness. The main talking point so far, at least on social media, is that the Democrats brought beer with them.
Abbott's predicament is one he seems uniquely unfit to solve. Unlike his predecessor, Rick Perry, he has never had much in the way of personal relationships with lawmakers. He has no credibility with Democrats to coax them back. But even Republican legislators don't trust him very much. Abbott did not help the situation with his decision after Democrats walked out on the last day of the regular session to veto funding for the Legislature in retribution. He is holding Republican staffers and state employees hostage in order to coerce Democrats back to the chamber. That may make Abbott look "tough," but hurting your allies to spite your enemies isn't sensible politics.
The one thing Abbott does have going for him here is that the Dems will eventually come back, one way or another, and he will always have to call at least one more special session to deal with redistricting. He could just decide to wait and let the Dems figure out what they're doing and mostly ignore them until they return. I don't think he'll do that, but he does do best when he mostly stays out of sight.
Whatever Abbott does or doesn't do, things are happening in the Senate.
As Democrats fled the state to avoid voting on a GOP priority elections bill that would restrict voting rights in the state, the Texas Senate approved the bill Tuesday with a party-line vote of 18-4.
[Bill author Sen. Bryan] Hughes amended the bill to drop requirements for curbside voting that troubled advocates for people with disabilities. The original version of the bill required any person other than the voter using curbside voting to leave the car while the voter was casting their ballot.
Hughes removed that provision to "avoid confusion and not create hardship for anyone with a disability."
Another amendment by Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, was intended to bring the bill into compliance with federal laws on voter assistance. It removed provisions from the bill that required people assisting voters to specify under oath how they were providing assistance to a voter and that they were doing so because the voter had a disability.
Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, also amended the bill to allow for tents to be used as temporary polling places if a regular polling place sustained physical damage that rendered it unusable. The permission would only grant the temporary permission for one election and would have to be approved by a county commissioners court.
Another amendment by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, required poll watchers to be provided training manuals to educate them about their duties.
Note that eight Senate Democrats are also in DC, with a ninth on the way. That's not enough to break quorum in the Senate, so on they go with that wretched business.
Meanwhile, what are the Dems trying to accomplish? I'll give you a hint, it has to do with that other Senate.
At a press conference Tuesday in Washington, DC, the group of Democrats specifically called on Biden and Congress to demonstrate "the same courage" they had shown by traveling to the nation's capital during a special legislative session that had been called by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has since threatened to arrest the more than 50 Democrats who fled. As they did in a statement confirming their plans to boycott the session before hopping aboard two private planes on Monday, the group once again hailed both the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the For the People Act as examples of model legislation for protecting voting rights at the federal level and implored Congress to pass them.
"We were quite literally forced to move and leave the state of Texas," Texas Rep. Rhetta Bowers said in a press conference flanked by some of her fellow state Democrats. "We also know that we are living right now on borrowed time in Texas. And we can't stay here indefinitely, to run out the clock, to stop Republican anti-voter bills." Bowers said that although Texas Democrats would use "everything in our power to fight back," they ultimately needed Congress to act with the same urgency.
"We are not going to buckle to the 'big lie' in the state of Texas—the 'big lie' that has resulted in anti-democratic legislation throughout the United States," Rep. Rafael Anchia added.
Tuesday's press conference came hours ahead of President Biden's much-anticipated speech on voting rights in Philadelphia, where he'll make a forceful condemnation of Republican efforts to enact voter suppression laws. His message, however, is not expected to include support for ending the Senate's filibuster rules, which advocates say stand in the way of passing meaningful protections for voting rights.
They did get to meet with numerous key Senators, though not yet the two that hold this legislation in their hands. As Slate's Christina Cauterucci puts it for when and if they do, what the Dems have is an emotional appeal.
The emotional appeal may be the only route left for [Rep. Senfronia] Thompson, her colleagues, and other Democrats who see this moment as a turning point for U.S. democracy. Manchin and Sinema already have all the facts. They've shown no willingness to budge. Now, they'll have to tell a crowd of fugitive Texan legislators singing a civil-rights protest song that their extreme measures to protect the franchise will be for naught.
Like I said yesterday, that is the ultimate grand prize. I hope it has better odds than a Powerball ticket.
Finally, Houston Matters spoke to State Reps. Penny Morales Shaw, who is in DC, and Garnet Coleman, who is not because of health issues, though he is not in Austin. They also spoke to US Rep. Lizzie Fletcher about the subject, for which a YouTube clip is here. And here is the note I think we can all agree it would be best to end on:
Statement from Communications Director for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
— blaire erskine (@blaire erskine) 7:30 AM – 13 July 2021
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Here's your special session agenda
They call this "red meat", but it's really just bullshit.
Gov. Greg Abbott has announced the agenda for the special legislative session that begins Thursday, asking lawmakers to prioritize 11 issues that largely appeal to conservatives who wanted more out of the regular session.
The announcement of the agenda came just over 24 hours before lawmakers are set to reconvene in Austin.
The agenda includes Abbott's priority bills related to overhauling Texas elections and the bail system, as well as pushing back against social media "censorship" of Texans and the teaching of critical race theory in schools. Those issues were anticipated after they did not pass during the regular session and Abbott faced pressure to revive them or had already committed to bringing them back.
The special session agenda also includes funding for the legislative branch, which Abbott vetoed last month. He did so after House Democrats staged a walkout in the final hours of the regular session that killed the priority elections bill. The inclusion of the legislative funding raises the possibility that lawmakers could restore paychecks for their staff — and other staff at the Capitol — before the next fiscal year begins on Sept. 1. More than 2,000 staffers are affected by the veto of the Legislative funding, which Democrats have called an executive overreach of power.
Late last month, House Democrats and legislative staffers asked the state Supreme Court to override it. The court had not ruled in the case yet.
The Democrats' walkout prompted a flood of national attention, and now the minority members must decide how to try to derail it in the special session with their staff pay on the line. Republicans also have their work cut out for them in the special session, faced with preventing another embarrassing defeat of the elections bill and remedying two provisions they claimed after the regular session were mistakes.
The special session is set to start at 10 a.m. Thursday and could last up to 30 days, with the potential for Abbott to add more items as it proceeds. It is one of at least two special sessions expected this year, with a fall special session coming to address redistricting and the spending of billions of dollars of federal COVID-19 relief funds.
Abbott's agenda for the first special session notably does not include anything about the state's electric grid, which was exposed as deeply vulnerable during a deadly winter weather storm in February that left millions of Texans without power. Lawmakers made some progress in preventing another disaster during the regular session, but experts — as well as Patrick — have said there is more to do. Last month, calls for the Legislature to take further action to fix the power grid were renewed when grid officials asked Texans to conserve energy.
Despite Abbott's recent claim that grid is better than ever, he sent a letter Tuesday to the state's electricity regulators outlining a number of steps he would like them to take to "improve electric reliability." But it appears Abbott does not want to reopen legislative debate on the issue for now.
Just to recap, I continue to expect the Supreme Court to delay and hope the legislative budget veto issue becomes moot. I don't think there's much if anything that Democratic legislators can do to stop any of these bills if Republicans are determined to pass them – it's not out of the question that on some of them the Republicans are not sufficiently unified – so the best thing to do is to try to at least make sure everything has a real committee hearing first. Finally, I'm not surprised that Abbott has no interest in revisiting the power grid, not when he's already staked his claim on everything being just fine now. The other piece of business for the Dems is to hammer this point over and over again, until it seeps into the public consciousness. Good luck, y'all. This is going to suck. The Chron has more.