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November 2009
UPDATED: Foundation hosting health care town hall in Austin tonight; Doggett aide says issue will be who can be noisiest opponent
The Americans for Prosperity Foundation is hosting a town hall on health care at 7 p.m. today in Austin, details posted here.
The foundation says participants will take up this question: “What is the best prescription for healthy reform?” It says speakers will discuss the merits of the health care proposal that passed through the U.S. House and the plan being debated in the Senate.
Among invited attendees: Dr. Donna Campbell and George Morovich, Republicans who have said they’ll be challenging U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, next year. Doggett also was invited, according to an e-mail I fielded.
UPDATE, 5:34 p.m.: Doggett spokeswoman Sarah Dohl said Doggett planned to be in Washington tonight.
“Since this group prides itself on opposition to health insurance reform, about the only debate at this forum will likely be over what is the noisiest way to say never,” Dohl said.
Campbell’s campaign site is here. Morovich has his site here and Doggett’s political site is here.
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Almost $1 billion less in state’s rainy day fund
Texas’ piggy bank will be almost $1 billion lighter than expected, according to a report released last week by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs.
Combs revised her estimate for the so-called rainy day fund to $8.2 billion, down from her January projection of $9.1 billion.
The primary culprit is falling natural gas prices, which will lead to less production and thus less tax revenue.
Every dollar in the rainy day fund matters because that money is seen as key to plugging some of the budget hole that is expected to greet legislators when they return to Austin in 2011.
Legislators kept their hands off that fund when writing the current two-year budget in anticipation of much leaner times down the road.
Federal stimulus money totaling $12 billion helped to make that restraint possible, but those dollars will most likely not be available come 2011.
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UPDATED: TYC ombudsman indicted, resigns
UPDATE: Indicted Texas Youth Commission ombudsman Catherine Evans has resigned, hours after she was indicted for allegedly smuggling a folding knife into an East Texas youth lockup.
The just-issued statement from Allison Castle, Perry’s press secretary:
“The office of the Ombudsman is an important position for the agency and the youth and it is clear that Catherine Evans’ bad judgment and the indictment have hampered her credibility and effectiveness in this role.
“The governor’s office has been in contact with Ms. Evans and she has agreed to resign. Gov. Perry has accepted her resignation and will appoint a replacement as soon as possible.”
In her own statement, Evans said she regretted the incident that has landed her in legal trouble. But she said she expects to be cleared of wrongdoing.
Evans’ statement:
“I’m surprised and dismayed by the Grand Jury’s True Bill of my case this week. At every step of my life and my career as an attorney, a juvenile court judge and as the Independent Ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission, I have upheld the spirit and the letter of the law. My professional commitment to the protection, prevention and rehabilitation of our children is also my personal passion.
“Of the many concerns that people have communicated to me in my role as the Independent Ombudsman, one of the most disturbing was the issue of security in our juvenile facilities. I passed along those concerns to the Commission’s Executive Director and a directive went out to improve oversight. I can attest that security screenings at the facilities have begun to improve. In fact, during one of my visits, security officers found a very small Swiss Army knife that I had completely forgotten was in my handbag. What should have been the simple matter of disposing of it, has now become a much more serious issue. It was a regrettable mistake. I am very sorry it happened, but I am now prepared to defend myself until this is resolved. I am confident that I did not violate the law.
“The Texas juvenile justice system is in critical need of scrutiny and reform, and I take my responsibilities for leading this effort with gravity and humility. I believe we can do better for our youth. Unfortunately, the personal circumstances that I now find my self defending have caused me to believe that I can no longer effectively lead this campaign. Therefore, I am resigning my position as Independent Ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission effective immediately. It has been my honor to serve the State of Texas.
“The most important thing is the integrity, safety and efficacy of our juvenile correctional facilities. I remain committed to improving the juvenile justice system.”
EARLIER STORY: The newly appointed ombudsman for the Texas Youth Commission has been indicted on a felony criminal charge for allegedly smuggling a weapon into an East Texas lockup for teen-aged lawbreakers, officials confirmed at midday.
Catherine S. Evans, a former Dallas state district judge, was indicted on a third-degree felony for carrying a prohibited item — a knife — into a correctional facility, according to Gina DeBottis, director of special unit that prosecutes prison crimes statewide.
If convicted, Evans faces two to 10 years in prison.
No other details were immediately available, DeBottis said. The indictment, handed up last week by a Houston County grand jury, was unsealed late this morning.
Evans could not immediately be reached for comment.
In October, Evans had been barred from touring all Youth Commission lockups amid reports that she smuggled contraband — including a weapon, a cell phone, prescription drugs and cash — past guards in a possible violation of state law.
She had denied the accusations.
In addition, Evans — who was named ombudsman in early September by Gov. Rick Perry — was the focus of a second investigation into allegations that she also smuggled contraband into the Al Price State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Beaumont.
As a result, Youth Commission Executive Director Cherie Townsend had prohibited Evans from entering Youth Commission lockups pending the completion of the investigation.
Perry aides earlier said they were awaiting the results of the investigations before determining whether Evans would remain as ombudsman.
In a preliminary official report that Evans and an assistant ombudsman reportedly filed after visiting the Beaumont lockup Sept. 22-23, Evans said that she carried in “a brown canvas bag containing a weapon, an iPhone, prescription medicine and $300” through a security checkpoint at the gatehouse.
“Ms. Evans carried her bag through the metal detector and the alarm sounded,” the report stated. “Ms. Evans opened her bag and the guard glanced in, but none of the items listed above were identified. The guard made no further effort to identify what set off the detector’s alarm.”
In a subsequent conversation with the lockup’s security director, Evans said, she was told that “dorm staff often work the gatehouse and are not trained in conducting proper searches,” the report states.
During the past year, the smuggling of contraband, particularly cell phones, into state prisons for adults has been a high-profile statewide issue.
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Abbott: Price-comparison sites are deceptive
Two groups of price-comparison Web sites were sued today by the Texas attorney general’s office for allegedly misleading online shoppers, amid allegations that some retailers paid for their higher ratings that were touted as independent.
In announcing the lawsuit late this morning, Attorney General Greg Abbott said he filed two separate lawsuits to stop merchants from using misleading price-comparisons — including one online site that “represented themselves as neutral and unbiased, online merchants paid that defendant to render higher ratings.”
The court actions were filed on Cyber Monday, an expected peak day for online holiday shopping .
Defendants in the suits were Intercept LLC and Everyprice.com,, which both operate a total of at least seven several price-comparison sites.
According to Abbott, Intercept operates several price-comparison sites, including Shopcartusa.com, Diduprice.com, Flyingprices.com, Digitalsaver.com and Pricingdepot.com.
In that suit,he said the company already has agreed to “correct its unlawful practices and either pay a $300,000 civil penalty or cease doing business at the end of November.”
Neither Intercept nor Everyprice.com responded immediately to e-mails seeking comment.
A separate lawsuit alleging similar violations was filed against Everyprice.com Inc., which operates the Web sites Everyprice.com and Lowpricedigital.com, officials said.
“Although Everyprice.com held itself out as an unbiased, honest broker, its Web sites secretly steered shoppers toward certain merchants and did not disclose that the merchants were paying for favorable treatment,” reads a statement from Abbott’s office.
“Thus, online shoppers who encountered vendors with “trusted sellers,” “quality sellers” or “recommended merchants” designations were not properly informed that the favorable labels were purchased rather than earned.”
“Everyprice.com was not only paid for high ratings, but it allowed questionable merchants to create their own specialized endorsements for an additional fee,” the statement continues. “Although Intercept received numerous customer complaints about specific ‘endorsed’ merchants, the defendant continued to rate them as ‘top sellers’ that offered the ‘lowest legitimate prices’.”
According to Abbott, civil penalties of up to $20,000 per violation of the Deceptive Trade Practices Act are being sought against Everyprice.com, plus attorneys’ fees.
Abbott asked shoppers who feel they have been deceived by any of the Web sites to call his toll-free complaint line at (800) 252-8011 or file a complaint online at www.texasattorneygeneral.gov.
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UPDATED: Opiela, saying “my time was up,” resigns as executive director of Republican Party of Texas
Eric Opiela, executive director of the Republican Party of Texas, resigned last week to return to privately practicing law, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him remain involved in Capitol doings.
Opiela, who became executive director in March 2008, submitted his resignation, effective immediately, on Wednesday. And Wayne Hamilton of Austin, a former executive director of the party, has agreed to perform Opiela’s duties as a senior adviser, party spokesman Bryan Preston said.
Preston and Opiela each said Opiela’s departure stemmed from Cathie Adams of Dallas recently succeeding Houston lawyer Tina Benkiser as the party’s chairwoman.
Opiela, 31, said: “My time was up.”
He said Adams had ushered into place a couple of changes he considered unnecessary, though he declined to specify them. “She has her own direction she wants to take the party in,” Opiela said. “It’s just a different leadership style.”
Opiela, who became executive director in March 2008, stressed that he had contemplated his departure since early October, before Adams’ was tapped by the State Republican Executive Committee Oct. 24 to succeed Benkiser, who had resigned to join Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign.
Asked if other party staff changes were forthcoming, Preston said: “None pending.”
Opiela laid claim to several successes in a written statement:
When Chairman Benkiser asked be to come aboard as executive director of the Republican Party of Texas, I committed to her that I would serve the party through the end of her term. While that term ended October 5, I have stayed aboard as long as I was needed to ensure a smooth transition for Chairman Adams. We accomplished much in the last two years; a net gain of over 120 Republican elected officials despite a challenging political environment; the inauguration of a state-of-the-art headquarters to provide media and online resources to our candidates; a new integrated communications platform linking party organizations in all 254 counties; the establishment of our Local Republican Leadership Fund, which already has reinforced and grown our county party structure in ten new and 190 existing counties for the first time in more than a decade; and the beginning of a long-term engagement effort to build our trust relationship with Texas’ majority-minority communities. All of these things would not have been possible without my dedicated staff, who took these ideas and brought them into fruition. At our first meeting, I told the SREC I would strive to leave the party in an even better shape than I found it and we have done that—these efforts will ensure Texas will remain strong, free, and prosperous under our Republican leadership for a long time to come.
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Gattis confirms he won’t run but Ogden will
State Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, confirmed today that he is dropping out of the race to succeed Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan. Ogden, who announced earlier this year that he was retiring from the Legislature, has changed course and decided to seek re-election.
Gattis was the heavy favorite to succeed Ogden in a GOP-friendly district that includes all of Williamson County and all of the Bryan-College Station area.
“With a young and growing family and a tough economic climate, my focus needs to be on them,” said Gattis, whose children are ages 6, 3 and 1. “That was a decision that my wife and I reached through a lot of prayer and consideration.”
Gattis will not seek re-election to his House seat, where at least three Republicans have been running to succeed him.
Gattis said he and Ogden saw each other at a funeral a couple of weeks ago and that Gattis mentioned, half-kidding, that the race for the Senate was causing him to spend a lot of time away from work and family and that he may be willing to give up his campaign.
Ogden replied, “Dan, if you’re serious about that, we’ll talk.”
Gattis circled back with him within a couple of days, and Ogden said he only stepped out of the race because he made a promise to Gattis four years earlier that he would not run again. They also talked about the challenge of a multi-billion-dollar shortfall that the state will face in its 2011 legislative session, and Ogden, the current chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, expressed some interest in tackling it.
“I felt comfortable stepping out of the race only because I knew Steve Ogden was stepping back in,” Gattis said.
Gattis said he is uncertain about whether he will run for office again. “I’m not ruling out politics in the future,” he said.
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Ogden will seek re-election, Gattis not running
State Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, will announce Monday that he is abandoning his campaign for the Texas Senate and the person who now holds the seat he was seeking — Republican Steve Ogden of Bryan — will seek another term, a source close to the Gattis campaign said.
Gattis will not run for re-election to the House, the source said.
Gattis, who has three small children, has found that running in the Senate district has caused him to spend considerable time away from his family and his law practice. With Ogden having announced earlier this year that he would not seek re-election, Gattis has had numerous conversations with him in recent months about the Senate district, hoping to secure Ogden’s endorsement. The source said that out of those discussions grew a conversation about Gattis not running and Ogden stepping back in.
Ogden did not initiate conversations about stepping back in, the source said. But with the state facing a budget shortfall of more than $10 billion in the 2011 legislative session, there was talk that the times fit with Ogden’s skills. Ogden has chaired the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee during the last three sessions.
Gattis won’t rule out another run for office. Every seat in the House and Senate is up for re-election in 2012, after legislative districts are drawn. With Williamson County growing quickly, it’s possible that the Senate seat will be more compact, making it easier for Gattis to run. However, the source said Ogden and Gattis have made no deal about who will and won’t run in 2012.
Several candidates are already running for Gattis’ House seat, which he will not try to regain.
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Perry campaign launches ‘Operation Intervention’ (updated)
The high command of Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign is encouraging supporters to participate in something called Operation Intervention, which is an effort to convert supporters of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison before the filing period begins Dec. 3.
The goal of this operation seems to be convincing Hutchison not to run.
In a Saturday memo to “interested parties,” Perry consultant Dave Carney wrote, “Between now and the filing period December 3rd, I would like to ask you to engage in Operation Intervention by reaching out to Hutchison supporters and inviting them to join our effort. Just give them a little positive outreach to welcome those who had been misled early on by the conventional wisdom. It might just take an out stretched (sic) hand to get them to join our team.”
Then, in an apparent nod at Democratic candidate Farouk Shami, Carney continued, “We have a multi-millionaire running on the Democrat side and we need to unite our side sooner rather than later. Let’s try and get as many KBH backers on board before the filing period.”
Carney said Hutchison’s wavering on whether to resign her Senate seat, combined with her “face-saving” rationale to stay and fight, “has the stench of political death to it.” He also said there are more than 600 part-time field staff working for Perry around the state, and that Perry will be getting visits and support from major conservative national leaders.
“In the next six weeks we will pile on the fuel to build a massive campaign,” Carney wrote. “As they say, we have not yet begun to fight. More major Texas organizations will be endorsing Governor Perry’s re-election and joining our campaign.”
Carney also highlighted a searing criticism of Hutchison’s first ad from Texas Monthly’s Paul Burka. And “out of fairness,” he pointed to Burka’s glowing review of Perry’s first ad.
The memo was written before it became clear that Houston Mayor Bill White would enter the Democratic race. Since White says he will listen to Texans before announcing that he’s entering the race, perhaps we should look for Operation Intervention II?
UPDATE: Hutchison spokesman Joe Pounder responded, “While Kay Bailey Hutchison is talking about strengthening Texas’ schools and fighting for our children, Rick Perry’s ACORN-style campaign is talking about process and circulating memos from the operative leading Perry’s system of cronyism in Austin.”
It’s worth noting that the Statesman did not obtain this memo from the Perry campaign or the governor’s office.
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New leader tapped for aging, disability services agency
The next head of the state agency that oversees the state’s troubled institutions for people with mental disabilities will be Chris Traylor, who now leads the state’s Medicaid program, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs announced today.
Traylor, 47, will take over as commissioner of the Department of Aging and Disability Services Jan. 1. Gov. Rick Perry approved the appointment, according to Suehs’ office.
“Chris is a leader, and that’s just what we need to help improve the services we provide to some of our most vulnerable Texans,” Suehs said. “He knows how to run large programs effectively and still remain focused on handling even the smallest details with care and compassion.”
The Department, which has 18,000 employees and an annual budget of $6.8 billion, regulates nursing homes and operates state supported living centers for people with developmental disabilities.
The 13 living centers — formerly called state schools — have been under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice, which in December told Gov. Rick Perry that they fail to protect residents from harm. In March, Corpus Christi police said that employees of the institution there organized fights among residents. Texas earlier this year reached a settlement with the federal agency, and lawmakers increased requirements for oversight and security at the facilities.
Former commissioner Addie Horn retired Aug. 31.
Traylor has served as associate commissioner for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program at the Health and Human Services Commission since 2006, and before that he was the agency’s chief of staff. In 2003 and 2004, he oversaw the consolidation of the state’s health and human services agencies. He has also served as a deputy commissioner for government relations at the Texas Department of Human Services.
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New executive hired to lead data center project
The state’s Department of Information Resources has hired the high-level executive whose job it will be to herd the $863 million data center consolidation project toward completion.
Ed Swedberg, the Texas Comptroller’s assistant director of technology, will start on Dec. 7 as the deputy executive director of data center services. He also previously served as a commander in the U.S. Air Force.
The comptroller’s office is one of the few state agencies that have been exempted from the consolidation project, which has been besieged by data losses, delays and agency frustration.
The state is in the process of renegotiating its agreement with IBM Corp., which is spearheading the massive effort, in order get the project on track to completion.
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Cornyn delivering copy of Democratic health plan to Austin library
Outside the downtown branch of the Austin Public Library this morning, I came across an aide to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, poised to unload a copy of the health-care plan being shepherded through the Senate by majority Democrats.
Cornyn, who opposes the plan, plans to roll the copy of the 2,000-page measure into the library later this morning, though there won’t be speechifying (but TV/news organization photographers are welcome).
David D. James, state director in Cornyn’s Austin office, paused for this:
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Schieffer quitting governor’s race, will back Bill White (updated)
Democrat Tom Schieffer dropped out of the governor’s race today and threw his support to Houston Mayor Bill White, who is expected to announce his candidacy in the coming days.
Schieffer and his campaign co-chairman, Lyndon Olson, met with White on Sunday at White’s home in Houston. Schieffer said he initiated the meeting on Friday.
White has repeatedly said he’s not running for governor, but a Democratic source said a number of people have stepped up their efforts to persuade White to switch to that race. He has called a press conference for 4:15 p.m. but is not expected to announce then that he’s definitely getting into the race.
White has long been running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Kay Bailey Hutchison. But with Hutchison’s announcement that she is not going to resign that seat until after the primary, a number of people looking at her seat are re-evaluating their plans.
There may be movement on another front to get White into the race.
A source inside one of the Democratic gubernatorial campaigns says that state party chairman Boyd Richie called a summit of the Democratic governor candidates (and candidates only) for 2:30 p.m. today at a Dallas law firm. The stated purpose early this month was to talk out guidelines for how the party would be involved and to make sure everyone was going to be aboard to endorse the eventual nominee. But this source speculates that this is some kind of gambit for Richie to blow everyone’s minds with Bill White as the candidate in favor. Same source says every candidate is committed to coming.
Vince Leibowitz, who works for Democratic candidate Hank Gilbert, said, “There is a meeting among the gubernatorial candidates. We have no idea of the purpose. It’s been organized for two to three weeks.”
Gilbert’s campaign wrote on Twitter this afternoon that he’s not getting out of the governor’s race. But other Democratic candidates could drop out of the race by day’s end.
Democrats have long believed they have a better chance of beating Gov. Rick Perry than his rival for the GOP nomination, Hutchison. With Perry having established himself as the frontrunner in the GOP race, many Democrats believe, with the right candidate, they can get back the governor’s office for the first time since Ann Richards lost it to George W. Bush in 1994.
Schieffer has been running for the better part of a year but has struggled mightily to raise money and overcome his close friendship with former President George W. Bush.
Schieffer said his main problem was raising money. “I just couldn’t convince enough people that I could win,” Schieffer said.
He said he thought the other Democrats seeking the nomination would drop out and defer to White.
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Retirees will not get $500 extra payment from state
Retired state workers and teachers will not be getting a $500 check from the state after the Texas Attorney General ruled on Monday that such a payment could be unconstitutional.
This spring, the Legislature set aside $155 million to provide a one-time payment to retired members of the Employees Retirement System of Texas and the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.
But questions surfaced in the waning days of the budget-writing process about whether such a move would run afoul of a constitutional provision that prohibits extra compensation. Given the lingering question, legislators made the payment contingent upon approval from the attorney general.
After mulling the question for six months, the Attorney General Greg Abbott determined the “short answer is yes.”
But the Legislature created an “unusual and virtually insurmountable legal standard for making the proposed payment by requireing that this office issue a ‘conclusive opinion’ that such one-time payments are constitutionally and statutorily permissible.”
That made it impossible to find in favor of making the payments, the opinion says.
That money will now be distributed to the respective trust funds, effectively increasing the state’s contribution to the retirement systems. The additional money will not be enough to bring either fund to the level where they are able to cover their current and projected obligations within a 31-year period. That is threshold required before the funds may increase benefit payments.
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Marc Katz warms up Web site, announces fund-raiser and runs a little long in Fort Worth
Last time I saw Marc Katz, the Austin restauranteur who says he’ll be seeking the 2010 Democratic nod for lieutenant governor, he hinted that he’d be putting big bucks of his own into the race; that was in September.
Now word comes that his campaign site, click here is up. And, he says, he’ll be throwing an opening campaign event after Thanksgiving, specifically from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Dec. 1 at Key Bar, 617 W Sixth St., in Austin; donations of $10 at the door will be welcomed, an e-notice states.
“I haven’t spoke’ for just one minute in a long time,” Katz said at his Wednesday stop in Fort Worth, viewable below. I don’t think he was trying to ape the Republican long-talker he could be facing in November, Lt Gov. David Dewhurst, who Katz says will spend $20 million to fend him off.
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Investment firm ousted over SBOE gift dislosures
The real estate investment firm entangled in a dispute with State Board of Education members Rick Agosto and Rene Nunez over gift disclosures got the heave-ho from the board on Friday.
AEW Capital Management LP had qualified as one of the 68 firms that could be tapped for making future real estate investments for the $22 billion Permanent School Fund.
But on Friday, the board plucked AEW from the list and approved only 67 eligible firms.
“As a public fund, we needed someone who could be a little bit more accurate,” said Board Member David Bradley, chairman of the Permanent School Fund committee.
“At a minimum, it was sloppy,” Bradley said. “At the worst, it was intentional.”
Disclosure forms submitted as part of AEW’s application indicated the firm had given gifts to Agosto and Nunez gifts, including football tickets, golf games and meals. Agosto and Nunez disputed that they had received the gifts; AEW subsequently amended its gift report.
Several board members abstained from the AEW vote, including Geraldine Miller. Her family’s company, Henry S. Miller Realty Services LLC, has a direct business relationship with AEW, according to a document submitted to the Texas Education Agency.
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UPDATED: Shapiro to file for (state) Senate
UPDATED: In the latest fallout from U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s decision not to resign any time soon, state Sen. Florence Shapiro said Friday she will file for re-election to the Texas Senate post she has held since 1993.
Shapiro, R-Plano, had announced her campaign for U.S. Senate 16 months ago.
“I will adjust my U.S. Senate campaign based on the future resignation decision of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison,” Shapiro said in a statement. “On July 15, 2008, I became the first candidate in Texas to announce for the U.S. Senate. I knew it would be a long road.
“Sixteen months later, I am very pleased with the statewide team of supporters we have assembled and to have raised over a million dollars. We are excited and ready for 2012 or sooner.”
Hutchison has announced she will not seek reelection in 2012, should she not resign first to run in the GOP gubernatorial primary against incumbent Rick Perry.
Earlier, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst — who had expressed an interest in running for U.S. Senate, announced he will also seek reelection to his current job. With Dewhurst staying put, at least for now, Attorney General Greg Abbott has put on hold his plans to run for lieutenant governor.
Before being elected to the Texas Senate in 1992, Shapiro was a public school teacher and owner of a small advertising company.
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Farouk Shami’s (Quaker) faith
Recent news reports have questioned whether Democrat Farouk Shami will face anti-Muslim discrimination in his quest to become governor.
But as we reported in today’s paper, he’s not Muslim — he’s Quaker.
Here’s some more information on his religious background, according to campaign spokesman Jason Stanford: Shami had a Muslim mother and father, a Catholic stepmother and a Jewish step-grandmother.
“He went to American Quaker schools in Palestine and identifies now as a Quaker,” Stanford said.
When asked whether he ever identified with another faith, Stanford said: “It’s not a big issue with him. I really think his religion is the American Dream.”
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The scene at Shami’s campaign launch
HOUSTON — At the official launch of businessman Democrat Farouk Shami’s gubernatorial campaign earlier today, attendees picked up T-shirts, shook hands with the candidate and viewed his TV ad that debuts Friday.
Maria Arredondo was among the attendees who is also one of Shami’s employees. Arredondo, a production supervisor, said it was optional for employees to attend and that she wanted to go to support her boss.
Houston resident Doris Cleveland said she’d heard about Shami through a friend who is helping with the campaign. And Anne Gillis, a member of the advisory committee for the Montgomery County Democratic Party (that’s the county where Shami, a resident of The Woodlands, lives), said she was familiar with Shami in part because she uses one of his products: a BioSilk hair de-frizzer.
Cleveland was among several attendees who said that if a candidate with a name like Barack Obama can be elected president, a candidate with the name Farouk Shami has a shot at being governor of Texas.
The video below shows the scene and features supporter Naser Alzer talking about how Shami might overcome his challenges.
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Farouk Shami launches gubernatorial campaign
HOUSTON — With hundreds of supporters watching, Democrat Farouk Shami this afternoon officially launched his gubernatorial bid outside CHI USA, part of his hair care business. It’s the same facility GOP Gov. Rick Perry visited earlier this year to celebrate Shami’s work bringing manufacturing jobs from Asia to Texas.
In a red-carpeted white tent where his employees and friends were served popcorn and cotton candy, Shami said he’s an example of the American dream and that he is inspired by President Barack Obama.
Obama “did not let his strange name or unconventional upbringing stand in his way,” said Shami, who was interrupted at times with chants of “Farouk! Farouk! Farouk!”
Shami said that as governor, he would bring jobs to Texas, encourage organic farming and ranching, improve public schools, and help more Texans have access to health insurance.
Shami told the ethnically diverse crowd his life story: The immigrant born in what was then Palestine arrived in the United States with $71 and went on to become a U.S. citizen and the founder of a company that he said is now worth more than $1 billion. His company, Farouk Systems, makes CHI flat irons and hair dryers and BioSilk shampoos and conditioners.
He has said he’ll spend $10 million of his own money in the Democratic primary.
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Perry refuses commutation, stop execution
Gov. Rick Perry just a few minutes ago refused to commute the death sentence of a convict condemned to die for his part in the 1996 fatal shooting of a Houston convenience store clerk.
Robert Lee Thompson was set to die at 6 p.m. Prison officials said final preparations were underway.
The decision came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused Thompson’s final appeals, and a day after the state Board of Parsons of Paroles voted 5-2 to recommend that Perry commute Thompson’s sentence to life.
In a statement, Perry rejected that advice:
“After reviewing all of the facts in the case of … Thompson, who had a murderous history and participated in the killing of Mansoor Bhai Rahim Mohammed, I have decided to uphold the jury’s capital murder conviction and capital punishment for this heinous crime.
“There is no reason to set aside the capital murder conviction handed down by a Texas jury and upheld by numerous state and federal courts,” Perry said.
The case had marked the second time in two years that the parole board had recommended a commutation for a murderer who was convicted under Texas’ controversial law of parties, which allows accomplices to face the death penalty even if they did not actually kill.
Thompson, 34, was convicted of being an accomplice when the store clerk, 29, was gunned down. Thompson’s partner in crime, Sammy Butler, was sentenced to life in prison.
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Hutchison to hit TV on Friday (updated)
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison will start running television spots statewide on Friday, campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Baker said.
UPDATE: Baker said Hutchison will use the ad to discuss “how she’s fighting for Texas now in her efforts to defeat the goernment takeover of health care.”
These will be the first spots of the 2010 Republican primary for governor.
In the wake of her announcement that she will not resign her Senate seat before the March primary, Hutchison has placed robocalls to primary voters this week and launched a radio advertising campaign.
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Heritage Society of Austin: Thumbs down on mansion expansion
The Heritage Society of Austin, a leading proponent for rebuilding the fire-gutted Texas Governor’s Mansion, will not support recently revealed plans for a two-story addition to the 153-year-old building.
“How we as Texans treat the mansion sets a standard and sends a signal across our state regarding the inherent value of historic landmarks and preservation of our history,” said Mandy Dealey, society president. “The proposed addition would negatively impact the iconic and symbolic frontal view of the mansion.”
Dealey Herndon, project manager for the mansion restoration, called the group’s opposition regrettable but said she could not comment further until she sees an expected letter outlining the society’s position.
The addition is envisioned for the north side of the mansion, adding about 2,000 square feet of living space largely devoted to private quarters for the first family. Though final designs have not been completed, an enclosed walkway would connect the addition to the mansion.
The addition is sorely needed to address a shortage of living, office and storage space, Herndon said. A private fundraising campaign, which by last month had taken in more than $3.5 million, would pay for the addition.
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Podcast: Texas Political Parlor
Podcast
Fun with Dick and Kay … Where is Eliot Shapleigh? … The politics of beer sales and hair care products.
Join the Statesman’s Gardner Selby and Jason Embry, and KUT 90.5 FM’s Ian Crawford in the Texas Political Parlor this week.
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Listen to Hutchison’s radio ad
Here it is, the first radio ad in the Republican primary for governor:
Perry’s campaign was quick to find fault.
The ad says, “She wrote the Texas sales tax deduction saving families $500 a year.” The sales-tax deduction (an effort to help states that don’t have state income taxes and thus can’t deduct those from their federal income taxes) was something that Hutchison worked on and advocated for years. She wrote a bill in 2003 to deduct sales taxes and worked on the issue with Texas Republicans in the U.S. House, who got it into legislation that was signed into law in 2004.
Perry spokesman Mark Miner notes that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid authored an amendment earlier this year to make the deduction permanent. Hutchison had a similar plan but put it aside to support Reid’s.
The legislation that Miner references has not made it into law. But the exemption that Hutchison pushed for has been law for several years.
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Shami hires Stanford, Coon
Farouk Shami, who will formally announce in Houston today that he’s seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, has signed up some experienced hands to help him.
The always-clever Jason Stanford will be handling press for Shami. Stanford managed Chris Bell’s campaign for governor in 2006 — a campaign that gave us lines such as, “Rick Perry couldn’t lead a silent prayer” and the “Bell on Wheels” bus tour.
Joel Coon will be Shami’s campaign manager. Coon managed the 2008 campaign of U.S. Rep. Travis Childers, who won a Mississippi seat in the U.S. House that was previously held by Republicans.
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Jerry Jeff Walker singing in Austin to help Democrat Bill White’s Senate campaign
Jerry Jeff Walker is putting on an exclusive $500-a-head-and-up show in his Austin home Friday night to raise money for Houston Mayor Bill White’s U.S. Senate campaign after two no-cost opportunities to hear White (but not Walker) during the day.
Walker said through White’s campaign that his wife, Susan, “and I have been long-time Democrats. Whenever we feel there is a chance to elect someone who shares our values we lend our support.”
Walker continued:
We met Bill White in Washington D.C. during Obama’s inauguration. We talked on various topics and decided that if he ran we would help. Texas needs good, honorable people in Congress. We also need good Democrats. Bill White is both.
Walker fans should forget about swaggering in on the concert because the gathering was limited to 50 people, White spokeswoman Katy Bacon said. An invitation posted here states that it costs $500, at minimum, to attend. The show’s hosts include Roy Spence, one of the founders of advertising giant GSD&M.
Kelly Fero, an adviser to Democratic U.S. Senate aspirant John Sharp, doesn’t sound like he’ll be eavesdropping. Fero said: “Jerry Jeff is an interesting choice for a campaign that keeps trying to persuade folks that their candidate represents the future.”
Otherwise Friday, White plans to attend a coffee at IBM in Austin before doing a noon interview with Evan Smith, ceo and editor in chief of The Texas Tribune, on the University of Texas campus; fetch details here.
White also plans to attend a 3 p.m meet-and-greet open to the public hosted by state Rep. Dawnna Dukes, D-Austin, at the Nuevo Leon restaurant on East Sixth Street.
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Frustration over dearth of Latinos in social studies standards
State Rep. Norma Chavez, D-El Paso, ticked off the number of Latino historical figures who will be required learning under the new social studies curriculum standards.
In kindergarten: none. In grade 1: none. In U.S. government: none.
“You are truly not looking at the entire history of this state and accurately reflecting individuals who should be included,” Chavez told the State Board of Education. “Your government section has none, as if we don’t exist.”
In total, there are only 16 Latinos among the more than 160 historical figures who must be taught, she said, yet Latinos represent over 40 percent of the state’s population.
“This is no longer just about Cesar Chavez. This is about an entire community,” Norma Chavez said.
But Board Member Pat Hardy, a former social studies teacher herself, said aiming for a certain number of Latinos in the standards to mirror the size of the population would be arbitrary and not necessarily historically accurate.
“I contend that that is revisionist,” Hardy said.
Chavez retorted that the historical revisionism is on the other side by “neglecting the true reflection of our great state.”
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Hutchison uses robo-call to explain decision
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is using automated calls to explain to voters why she decided not to resign her Senate post until after her March primary challenge to Gov. Rick Perry.
Take a listen here:
Hutchison spokesman Joe Pounder said the call was sent to Republican primary voters.
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Bradley calls SBOE gift reports “grossly inaccurate”
The sting of the criticism has yet to subside for two State Board of Education members who say they were unfairly slapped by media reports in October that they received gifts from a firm vying for Permanent School Fund work.
The lingering effects were evident Tuesday when the committee that oversees the school fund approved a pool of 68 qualified real estate investment managers, including the firm that claimed it provided gifts of meals, football tickets, golf games and more to Rick Agosto, D-San Antonio, and Rene Nunez, D-El Paso.
Committee Chairman David Bradley, R-Beaumont, said the gift reports from AEW Capital Management were “grossly inaccurate” and he offered an apology to Agosto and Nunez because the disclosure had cast them in a bad light.
“We can’t fix stupid,” Bradley said.
But AEW was kept in the pool of potential investment managers because the firm met the minimum qualifications. The board’s real estate consultant, Courtland Partners, will draw from the pool of qualified firms based on the real estate investment opportunities they provide.
Agosto and Nunez have both denied getting any gifts from AEW, which reported the gifts on disclosure forms required to apply for the investment job. Agosto has compiled credit card statements showing that he paid for many of the items himself.
AEW has submitted a revised disclosure form, but the Texas Education Agency says the form cannot be released until Friday when the board is scheduled to vote.
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Lottery commission eyes approving Powerball in Texas
The Texas Lottery Commission today voted unanimously to publish rules for the Powerball game, taking a large step in expanding the state’s gambling options, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Previously, states had to choose between participating in Powerball or Mega Millions, which Texans have been able to play since 2003. But the games recently reached an agreement that would allow states to participate in both.
According to the Chronicle:
If the panel gives final approval to the rules early next year, the first Powerball ticket could be sold in Texas on Jan. 31.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot has been $370 million, while the largest Powerball jackpot has been $365 million.
Powerball could bring to Texas another $35 million a year in revenue toward public education.
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Hutchison will appear with Cheney, but later than scheduled
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s appearance in Houston today with former Vice President Dick Cheney will take place a couple of hours later than expected.
There was some question about whether Hutchison’s Senate schedule would let her be there, but she is going to be able to attend.
Why the delay? Today the Senate is voting on a spending bill for military construction and veterans’ programs. Hutchison is the leading Republican on the subcommittee working on that bill, so she has to be there to help manage it on the floor, a campaign spokeswoman said.
There were earlier concerns that a procedural vote on health care would cause her to miss the event, but that vote isn’t happening today.
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Americans see country headed in wrong direction, poll says, but closer look shows strong partisan divide on nation’s direction
Results from a recent University of Texas poll released today suggest a majority of U.S. adults believes the country is on the wrong track, though a closer look shows it’s primarily Republicans and self-identified Independents who have worries.
Broadly, 51 percent of the respondents to the survey taken Oct. 13-22 said the country is off on the wrong track with 31 percent saying it’s headed in the right direction and 18 percent answering they don’t know or otherwise.
But it looks like party alignment explains the results.
Specifically, 61 percent of self-identified Democrats participating in the online poll said the country is headed in the right direction with 23 percent saying it’s off track. In contrast, 82 percent of Republicans and 55 percent of Independents said the country is on the wrong track.
Daron Shaw, a University of Texas government professor who helped helm the poll, reacted: “The Republicans are (basically) more pessimistic than the Democrats are optimistic.”
A separate wrinkle: Respondents widely rated jobs and unemployment as an extremely important issue with education and schools also widely rated highly.
Gay marriage ranked least important, on average, among 13 issues participants were asked to gauge. Some 26 percent of respondents rated gay marriage as not important at all with 14 percent saying gay marriage is extremely important.
Shaw noted that the 26-percent “not important” subgroup represented the largest not-important subgroup for any of the issues. “It’s something of a political statement (for anyone) to say gay marriage is not important at all,” Shaw said.
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Only 1 in 5 U.S. adults correctly name chief justice of U.S. Supreme Court in poll
As part of a recent national poll being chewed over at a University of Texas conference today, only one in five adult respondents correctly named John Roberts as the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
But 71 percent correctly named Joe Biden when asked to specify the vice president.
Eighty-five percent of the 2,100 respondents described themselves as registered to vote. Thirty-three percent said they were Democrats, 24 percent identified themselves as Republicans. All of the respondents were reached over the Internet. The poll — partly fetchable by clicking here — had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
Only 49 percent named Nancy Pelosi as the current U.S. House speaker (though 83 percent correctly said Democrats hold majority control of the Senate).
Daron Shaw, the UT government professor who helped oversee the poll, suggested the big punch line is that people lean in favor of limiting the roles of corporations, unions and special-interest groups in elections, though they’re not inclined to favor limits on individual donors.
Sixty-seven percent of the respondents believe corruption is most widespread at the national level of government; 12 percent said it’s most widespread at the state level.
A similar 67 percent of the adults said the average member of Congress has ethics that are not so good or poor, though that beef was less prevalent when respondents rated their own House representative; 33 percent said their own member had ethics that aren’t so good or poor.
Asked where they get their political information, 61 percent said they get information from the Internet every day or a few times a week. Twenty-two percent said they got such information from a mainstream newspaper every day or a few times a week. On the partial results I saw, there was no attempt to break out how much of that Internet information originated with newspapers.
More poll results are to be rolled out later today. There are plenty of seats available at the conference, which is free and open to the public; its agenda appears here.
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Clearing up what Hutchison decision means
There has been a lot of confusion today — some of it created in this space — about what the Hutchison resignation means. After talking to numerous folks about what the election code says, let me try to clarify.
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has said she will resign her seat after the March primary. Her campaign says she will resign regardless of whether she wins or loses the primary. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is running for re-election.
But if Gov. Rick Perry appoints Dewhurst to replace Hutchison, or if he wins a special election before November 2010, the state Republican Executive Committee can choose another GOP nominee for lieutenant governor. And that could trigger other openings on the statewide Republican ballot.
The question is: Will Perry be less likely to appoint Dewhurst because he does not want to disrupt the rest of the GOP ticket and kick the task of nominating to the SREC? Perhaps he will find it easier to just appoint someone who isn’t currently in office or who isn’t up for re-election to a high-profile spot in 2010.
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Hutchison unsure whether she’ll make Cheney event
U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison said in Galveston today that she hasn’t yet determined whether she’ll be able to make a Tuesday appearance and fundraiser in Houston with former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The full Senate’s first major procedural vote on health-care legislation could come Tuesday.
Hutchison has made the fight against health care the main rationale behind her decision not to resign from the Senate before her March primary against Gov. Rick Perry. At the same time, the Cheney appearance is one of the most important events of her campaign.
“We’re working on it,” Hutchison said this morning in her first interview since her campaign announced she would not resign the Senate seat before the primary. “That’s going to be a tough situation. But again, I’ll make the judgment call.”
If Hutchison cannot make it to Houston on Tuesday, Cheney will appear at the events without her, a campaign spokesman said.
Hutchison said she knows she will miss some votes in Washington leading up to the primary.
“I’m not going to miss important votes,” she said. “I’m not going to miss votes where it can make a difference. But clearly I cannot be there 100 percent every single time.”
In a speech to the Texas Federation of Republican Women, Hutchison stressed her Senate record, saying she protected Texas military bases, fought for a sales-tax deduction so Texas is not penalized for not having a state income tax and pushed for women who stay home to have the same retirement-savings options as those who work.
“You elected me to the Senate to fight for Texas,” she said. “And that fight has meant billions in tax relief, more money in your pocket, more investments in our economy and more jobs in our communities.”
She also aired some of her familiar criticisms at Perry, calling the Texas Department of Transportation arrogant and reminding the audience that he sought to vaccinate school girls from the human papillomavirus.
Perry spoke to the group on Friday. He did not mention Hutchison, but focused much of his speech on criticizing Washington — a word that he has at times used as a substitute for Hutchison’s name.
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Hutchison will stay in Senate until after primary
GOP gubernatorial candidate Kay Bailey Hutchison will announce tomorrow she will not resign from the U.S. Senate “until the fight against Obama Care and Cap and Trade are over,” campaign spokesman Joe Pounder said today.
“She, like every Texan, can fight on two fronts at one time,” Pounder said.
Resigning from the Senate isn’t a requirement to run for governor. Since the filing period ends in early January, this means that a long line of politicians will not have a chance to file for her open seat and other openings. The State Republican Executive Committee could pick nominees for statewide offices if its nominees resign to run for the Senate or angle for another spot on the November ballot.
Mark Miner, a spokesman for the campaign of Hutchison’s GOP primary opponent Gov. Rick Perry, said: “We appreciate that Senator Hutchison has taken the governor’s advice and finally decided to make a decision to stay in Washington. Hopefully this will allow her to be a full-time senator for the people of Texas.”
Earlier today, Perry reiterated his belief that Hutchison needs to stay in Washington to block Democrats who are “trying force a health care plan on us that is absolutely devastating to the bottom line in Texas.”
“All hands on deck, 24-7 is what we need,” Perry said. “We’ve got a senator that’s A-W-O-L in places and we’ve got votes that are being missed.”
To that, Pounder responded that Hutchison is a “tireless fighter for Texas who delivers results each and every day.”
(Additional information from staff writer W. Gardner Selby)
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Consultant: IBM data center contract unsustainable
A consultant hired to diagnose the ills that have plagued Texas’ $863 million data center consolidation project with IBM Corp. says in a report released Friday that the current deal is dysfunctional and unsustainable.
“If IBM isn’t making money and (the Department of Information Resources) and the state agencies aren’t getting good service, it is not going to be successful,” said Glenn Davidson of the consulting firm EquaTerra.
But this landmark project can — and should — be salvaged because the idea of streamlining the data center operations still makes sense, said Karen Robinson, the newly appointed head of the Department of Information Resources.
Robinson added that IBM has “promised me that they are on board.”
To make this project work, however, the terms of the contract will have to be revised to better reflect the goals of the project and the realities on the ground, Robinson said. And the state agencies involved will have more control over the process.
While the price tag of the seven-year project won’t change, the responsibilities of IBM and its deadlines will, Robinson said.
Previous story: Who’s at fault for state, IBM rift?
The specifics will be negotiated in a new agreement with IBM that is expected to be worked out by February.
Right now, no one is happy with the effort to merge the data center operations of 27 state agencies into two updated and streamlined facilities.
The agencies have been frustrated with equipment failures, poor service and higher costs.
Meanwhile, IBM has endured a public flogging for many problems it attributes to poor conditions inherited from the state.
Morale is low. Turnover is high. And the relationship was dysfunctional from the start, the consultant found.
“State agencies, DIR and IBM team members involved in using, managing and delivering the services are exhausted and highly stressed,” according to the consultant’s report released Friday.
“…This combination of low morale and intractable issues…has resulted in the emergence of hostile and sometime aggressive behaviors by team members from all sides.”
IBM has been under the gun for over a year to fix the problems.
Last year, Gov. Rick Perry temporarily halted work on the project after a significant loss of data at the Office of the Attorney General. IBM was warned at the time that its contract could be in jeopardy if the issues were not remedied.
The problems persisted and August’s 13-day outage at the Secretary of State prompted officials to pull the elections system out of the contract due to fears that a similar outage could compromise an election.
These kinds of problems are not uncommon for big information technology projects. About two-thirds of such projects fail to meet the stated objectives, bust the budget or miss the deadline, according to oft-cited industry research by The Standish Group called the Chaos Report.
That is true for public and private projects alike, but public sector stumbles tend to happen in the glare of the spotlight and often with an audience full of critics.
Because the Texas project was among the most ambitious consolidation efforts in the country, that audience has been nationwide.
Davidson, whose firm vied for the job of negotiating Texas’ contract with IBM, was among the critics. He told Governing magazine earlier this year that “IBM really got squeezed on pricing, the solution and the time frame.”
“They were all too aggressive,” Davidson said in the magazine, adding that IBM might have been willing to accept those terms to get a toe in the door.
Davidson said in an interview on Thursday that “the relationship is unbalanced.” “It needs to be good, fair, safe and sustainable,” Davidson said.
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Two wise guys/columnists warm up taxpayers group
Austin American-Statesman editorial writer and columnist Ken Herman joined Wayne Slater, chief political writer for The Dallas Morning News, on a pundits’ panel at today’s meeting of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, meeting in Austin. They’re the guys on the right below.
Before the pair settled down to talk about the 2010 elections, Slater asked Herman if his paper was still in business. “What time is it?” Herman replied.
They were joined by moderator George Christian, GOP pollster Mike Baselice and Democratic consultant Kelly Fero, who appears on the far left of the photo below.
Baselice opened: “We’re tracking the end of democracy” under the leadership of the Obama administration.
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UPDATED: Dewhurst suggests spending slowdown for state agencies; Straus not so sure
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst told the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association this morning that he’s going to recommend to House Speaker Joe Straus that the two talk to “state agencies about identifying funding that they can slow down out of their appropriated funds.”
Straus, speaking after Dewhurst at the Austin meeting, said nothing in his remarks indicating he’s poised to join any call on agencies to throttle back.
UPDATE, 10:43 a.m.: Speaking with reporters, Straus said he’d welcome efficiencies, but isn’t ready to fire off a letter to agencies suggesting slowdowns — though he’d be happy to visit with Dewhurst about it.
“I don’t think we’re in a crisis situation,” Straus said.
The fact that that Dewhurst’s statement — not unusual in advance of a potentially tight budget year and 13 months out from the next legislative session — was the highlight of his remarks suggests Dewhurst wasn’t hunting for headlines.
Conceding that sales-tax collections aren’t matching up with Comptroller Susan Combs’ projections, Dewhurst said it’s too early to panic. “We’re going to balance our budget” in the 2011 session, Dewhurst said.
On a political front, Dewhurst made a veiled jab at former State Comptroller John Sharp, albeit while pretending not to remember his name. The jab had to do with Dewhurst’s contention that it’s Sharp’s fault that the state’s franchise tax overhauled in 2006 hasn’t generated originally forecasted revenues. This is where any observer should note that Dewhurst went along with the plan at the time.
I mention this jab only because it’s possible that Dewhurst, who’s said he’ll seek a third term next year, will leap instead into the field of U.S. Senate candidates already including Sharp, the Democrat who Dewhurst beat for lieutenant governor in 2002.
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Comptroller Combs: State finances seem steady for now
In Austin, State Comptroller Susan Combs told the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association this morning that Texas still seems to be in much better shape economically than many other states.
Afterward, she told reporters she doesn’t expert her estimate of future state revenues to change when it’s updated in a couple of weeks.
“We are so much better off than other places, it’s pretty nice,” Combs said, stressing greater consumer confidence in the state compared to confidence levels reported from others states.
Combs also told reporters that — unlike Gov. Rick Perry — she’s not applied the Socialist label to characterize the direction of the Obama administration, though she thinks the Democratic president’s pushes on health care and energy/climate legislation pose threats to Texas employers “in this time of recession.”
Lighter note (I think): Combs described two chiefs of TTARA — Dale Craymer and Bill Allaway — as “Bullock-ians,” referring to each man’s background having worked for the late Bob Bullock at one time.
“It makes them both (protective) asbestos-underwear wearers,” Combs said.
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New poll: Perry leads Hutchison by 11 points
A new Rasmussen Reports poll says Gov. Rick Perry is ahead of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, 46 percent to 35 percent, among voters who plan to take part in the March Republican primary.
The poll is significant because, two months ago, Rasmussen showed Hutchison leading Perry by two points.
Wharton businesswoman Debra Medina draws 4 percent in the poll, and 14 percent of respondents did not know who they plan to support.
From Rasmussen: “Perry has a 52 percent to 30 percent advantage over Hutchison among those who identify themselves as conservatives, while Hutchison attracts a majority of party moderates and liberals. In all primary elections, turnout is the key, and it is very difficult to project turnout this far in advance. However, it appears that Perry has a clear advantage if only the conservative Republican base shows up in a low-turnout election. Hutchison will do better if she expands the number of people who participate.”
Rasmussen uses automated phone dialing in its polls.
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Morley Safer acquires Ivins’ biography; a writer shares a vow
CBS newsman Morley Safer, shown below flanked by Don Carleton of the University of Texas; Safer’s wife, Jane Fearer; and Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas, picked up the new Molly Ivins’ biography at Austin’s Scholz Garten on Thursday night.
I didn’t cadge any bon mots from Safer, who was in town to donate his papers to UT’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.
Separately, a writer in the crowd revealed they’d made a quiet vow-to-self on Ivins’ death. This writer, who I’m not identifying because they spoke confidentially, kicked themselves for never even saying howdy to Ivins when she was a well-known commentator in the thick of Texas politics and government.
Their vow-to-self: Never to let shyness stop them from trying to get to know someone, going forward.
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Podcast: Texas Political Parlor
Podcast
Texas Congress members had starring roles in Fort Hood drama … Party-switching in the House … Gov. Perry uses the “S” word on Washington.
Join the Statesman’s Gardner Selby and Jason Embry, and KUT 90.5 FM’s Ian Crawford in the Texas Political Parlor this week.
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Pick up some Molly on your way home?
The first book-length biography of Texas journalist Molly Ivins premieres this afternoon at an Austin reception hosted by the publication that launched her into Texas politics, The Texas Observer.
The inaugural book signing for authors Bill Minutaglio and W. Michael Smith is set to take place from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacinto Street.
Meantime, read an excerpt from the work here.
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An employee’s firing leaves two observers wondering why it happened
About midday Wednesday, I was into my third day of confirming remarks made by a state elections official about Spanish-speaking voters last weekend when an e-mail came in telling me the official had been fired.
I wrote today’s column about the incident. Significantly, you can hear what Melinda Nickless said, thanks to a recording made Saturday by the state; the audio is posted next to the column.
It’s probably fair to speculate that Nickless was let go because of what she said Saturday. But I didn’t hear that from the agency. Its lead spokesman, Randall Dillard, told me simply that after an internal investigation, Nickless had been terminated. When asked why, Dillard said he couldn’t comment on personnel matters.
A Republican official who earlier told me that Nickless never meant harm by her remarks told me this morning he was trying to follow up to see if other factors were at play in her firing.
Skipper Wallace of Lampasas, legislative chairman for the Texas Republican County Chairmen’s Association, said: “If this is the only reason she was fired, this was a terrible example of political correctness.”
Wallace said he might poll GOP county chairs on what to do next. Referring to Secretary of State Hope Andrade, who heads the agency that terminated Nickless, Wallace said: “If she wants political heat, she’s going to get political heat.”
Andrade has not been available for an interview this week, though she’s said through Dillard that Nickless’s remarks didn’t reflect state policy.
Democrat Rosalie Weisfeld of McAllen, among objectors to Nickless’s remarks Saturday, expressed surprise at the firing.
Weisfeld, a member of the State Democratic Executive Committee, said today: “My first reaction was what happened behind the scenes? What happened at the Secretary of State’s office to have this result? Why did the secretary of state fire her over her statements? Was it just her statements? Was there also something else that happened that we’re not aware of?”
“My intent was not to have someone fired,” Weisfeld said. “But the result does send a strong message… that intolerance for people who are non-English speaking at the polling place is not going to be tolerated.”
“This is about fair treatment of all voters at any polling location,” Weisfeld said.
Weisfeld stressed that she hopes the agency makes a special effort to alert election judges, clerks and party officials around the state about the importance of helping non-English-speaking voters cast their ballots.
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War of words over Forensic Science Commission testimomy
A war or words is raging between the current and former chairs of the Texas Forensic Science Commission over whether the panel is moving fast enough to resolve a politically charged controversy over arson-investigation methods.
Austin attorney Sam Bassett, the commission chair who Gov. Rick Perry abruptly replaced earlier this fall, fired the first volley earlier today with a statement that challenged testimony at a Senate committee hearing yesterday by the current chair, Williamson County DA John Bradley.
Bradley told senators he thinks the panel needs to develop rules and procedures before it moves ahead with a hearing into whether proper investigation techniques were used in a 2004 Corsicana blaze that killed three children. Their father, Cameron Todd Willingham, was executed for the crime — and critics of the arson investigation that helped convict him now insist it was flawed.
In a statement, Bassett disagreed with Bradley that the agency needs rules and procedures before it can continue its examination of the Willingham case.
“Though the Commission might benefit in the long term from development of written standards, I do not believe that this should result in paralysis of Commission activity,” he said. “The Commission doesn’t need to evolve into a large, bureaucratic State agency to carry out its mission.
He also said, “With regard to the Willingham investigation, Mr. Bradley expressed concern that there was no process in place to ensure integrity. He opined that neither I nor the Commission over which I presided “had any idea” what would happen at the scheduled October 2nd hearing in which Dr. Beyler was going to testify. I disagree.
“I had several consultations with representatives from the Attorney General’s Office prior to the scheduled October 2nd meeting. Those same representatives were present for every Commission meeting, advising me on matters of law and process relating to the Commission’s work. At the October 2nd meeting, Commission members were going to question Dr. Beyler concerning his report. After meeting with Dr. Beyler, the Commission was going to consider input from opposing viewpoints including the State Fire Marshal’s office and the City of Corscicana. In my view, it was critical that the Commission consider all sides of the issue before beginning work on its final report.
“What may have been lost in the discussion of “rules and procedures” is that the statute creating the Commission requires investigation of complaints to occur ‘in a timely manner.’ Two of the complaints the Commission unanimously voted to investigate were filed in 2006. The idea that the Commission will likely conclude these investigations in 2011 or beyond is far from timely. Texas deserves better.”
Bradley then responded:
“Mr. Bassett is changing his story. He clearly told me that he was scared of the hearing getting out of control because the Commission had no plan or rules for the hearing. I can understand if he is now publicly embarrassed by that problem. Nonetheless, the Commission, and not outsiders with various agendas and political goals, will be responsible for establishing a strong, reliable process for improving forensic science in Texas. I look forward to leading the Commission in that work.
“To make a clear point, Bassett utterly failed to adopt even a definition of negligence or misconduct to be applied to investigations of forensic science. In the scientific world, that amounts to incompetence. The Commission will now apply rigorous scientific standards to its work. Ask any scientist whether you have to define the study and pick standards to apply if you want a meaningful result.”
UPDATE: Basset’s response to Bradley’s statement, arriving this evening:
“I am not going to join in dialogue which is personally attacking in nature. I, along with the other 8 Commissioners, did the best job we could under the circumstances. I am not embarrassed (publicly or privately) about anything we accomplished or the process which was taking place at any time during my tenure as Chair of the Commission.
“With regard to the October 2nd meeting, I did tell Mr. Bradley I was concerned about the October 2nd meeting on the issue(s) of controlling the media and/or public interest spectators. However, I had no doubt that the meeting should take place and was obtaining advice from the AG’s office regarding managing those issues. There was an agenda and a plan for the meeting as well as how to handle those concerns. In spite of this, I wanted the meeting to move forward because I did not feel that controversy should stifle the important work that we were doing.
“I am very proud of our accomplishments. I stand by my remarks released earlier today. I also wish Mr. Bradley the best. He is very bright, capable and I respect his authority to run the Commission in the manner he sees as appropriate. Any disagreement I have with his decisions are not personal.”
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Food stamp workers to get one-time bonus
The state employees who process food stamp applications — who have been working long hours because of an application backlog — will get a one-time bonus worth 3.5 percent of their salary, Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Tom Suehs told workers today in an e-mail. He also said that he’s suspending mandatory overtime during the weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Suehs said that the hundreds of e-mails he received from workers when he recently asked them for feedback helped “put a human face on the numbers that cross my desk daily.”
“It’s not just $2 million in overtime a month,” he wrote. “It’s mothers who can’t put their children to bed, parents who miss cheering on their sons and daughters and supervisors who go to sleep wondering about the people who didn’t get help that day.”
He told workers: “I heard you, and we’re going to do better … It won’t happen overnight, but my No. 1 goal is to clear the backlog so we can reduce the amount of overtime you’re working. I want you home in time for dinner.”
Also today, Suehs told federal officials that to cut down on the backlog, he plans to increase reliance on food banks to help with applications, shorten training for new state workers and temporarily assign experienced quality-control workers to process applications.
Suehs outlined the strategies this week in a letter to William Ludwig, regional administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, which oversees food stamps. Ludwig had requested the corrective action plan in a September letter in which he warned Texas officials that its federal food stamp funds were at risk if it did not process applications more quickly. Though the federal government requires applications to be processed within 30 days, families in Texas have regularly been waiting months for benefits.
Ludwig had suggested that to speed application processing, Texas should eliminate a fingerprinting requirement (the Lone Star State is one of four states that fingerprints applicants) and an asset test. But Suehs said in his letter this week that he doesn’t plan to make those changes because finger imaging is required by state law and though the asset test isn’t, “HHSC believes direction from the Texas legislature would be needed to implement this change.”
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Jack McDonald, Austin Democrat poised to challenge U.S. Rep. McCaul, non-committal on two health-care questions
This morning, I took a short video of high-tech executive Jack McDonald of Austin, who’s expected to seek the 2010 Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. House seat held by Republican Michael McCaul of Austin.
Unless I missed something, McDonald essentially didn’t say how he would have voted on two hot-button issues taken up by the House in its health-care debate this weekend.
Skip below to see our exchange if you like, but here’s some background:
After he delivered remarks to a group attending a conference at the University of Texas, I asked McDonald how he would have voted on the health-care plan approved almost entirely with Democratic votes in the House on Saturday.
And I asked how McDonald would have stood on an amendment viewed by some as critical during that debate related to restricting federal funding for abortions—language that President Barack Obama has since said he opposes. (National Public Radio summarizes the amendment debate here.)
McDonald didn’t say he would have voted “aye” or “nay” on either issue, but he offered to take more time later for a fuller interview. I’ve pinged him to say I’m ready when he’s ready.
On Saturday, McCaul voted against the health-care plan. He voted for the adopted amendment on abortion funding; see the roll-call results here.
Below is my video, unedited, of our brief encounter. The other individuals who show up are someone coaxing McDonald to move onto his next stop and Mike Rosen, viewable on the right, who’s communications director for McCaul. Rosen and McDonald briefly sat next to each other before McDonald’s morning talk and McDonald told the crowd he’d be careful knowing the McCaul aide was watching.
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UPDATED: George Strake, former GOP chair, helping challenger for party chair; he says he hopes Chairwoman Cathie Adams drops her re-election plans
George Strake of Houston, a former Texas secretary of state and past chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, has signed on as treasurer in a candidate’s campaign to chair the party, the candidate announced Tuesday.
UPDATE 1:19 p.m.: Strake told me he hopes that Cathie Adams of Dallas, the long-time Texas Eagle Forum leader recently elected to serve as interim chair, changes her plans to seek election at the party’s June convention to a full term as chair.
At the least, Strake’s leap signals that Adams is in for a fight. (And I’ll update this blog if she airs her reaction.)
Tom Mechler, the Amarillo candidate touting Strake’s backing, said Strake agreed to serve as his campaign treasurer before Adams’ election as interim chair with a majority of votes from the 62-member State Republican Executive Committee. Mechler is pictured here.
“He’s not trying to make a statement about Cathie,” Mechler told me. “He’s making a statement that he’s supporting me.”
Mechler said:
George Strake is a respected and influential conservative voice in our party because he helped build our majority from the ground up in the 1980’s,” said Mechler. “His endorsement signifies the new direction our party must take if we are to maintain our majority in the legislature, and the congressional delegation.
Mechler quoted Strake saying: “I support Tom Mechler because he understands our party must focus on the common enemy: the liberal Democrat agenda. Tom Mechler is prepared to lead us toward a long-term, conservative majority by broadening our appeal to Hispanics and other minorities, leveraging the energy and idealism of college Republicans and tea party activists, and working to elect Republican candidates who share our conservative convictions.”
Strake, who separately has asked Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to stay in the Senate rather than continue running for governor against incumbent Rick Perry, told me he hopes party activists avoid a blood bath over the chair’s post at the June convention.
Should Adams step aside? Strake said: “I kind of hope she does. In politics, you can’t control what people do. There are so many places that she and others could serve.” He said perhaps she should run for public office.
Strake said he doesn’t have big misgivings about Adams. But he said he likes Mechler’s background as a former SREC member and fund-raiser for the party.
“We can’t afford the luxury of a blood bath right now. We’ve got to regroup, reorganize and get on down the road,” Strake said. “We’re in a battle for survival right now.”
Some party activists fear that Adams, long celebrated by social conservatives, may be too sharp-edged to help the party succeed in the wake of elections in which it has lost ground in races for the Texas House and Senate.
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Bradley: Forensic comish needs rules
The new chairman of a state panel that sparked a political storm by raising questions over the legitimacy of an arson probe that led to the 2004 execution of Corsicana man said today the agency must develop new rules before it can proceed with the inquiry.
That could means months of additional delay, a prospect that quickly drew criticism of whether the agency is dragging its feet to politically benefit Gov. Rick Perry.
Forensic Science Commission Chairman John Bradley insisted he is intent on keeping politics from interfering with the panel’s ingoing investigation into whether flawed science played a role in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted of setting fire to his home a few days before Christmas in 1991 in a blaze that killed his three children.
Willingham was executed in 2004, after Perry reviewed the case and declined to intervene.
Bradley said he plans to convene a meeting of the commission in January to discuss developing rules. He declined to speculate on how long the rule-making process will take.
Bradley, who was appointed a month ago, told the Senate Criminal Justice Committee that the commission needs to adopt written policies and procedures before it proceed — and may need to keep some pending details of its inquiries confidential to protect whistleblowers and evidence. He pledged that all final reports and actions of the panel will be handled publicly.
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Full show for forensic comish hearing
This morning’s Senate Criminal Justice Commission hearing probing the Forensic Sciences Commission’s inquiry into a controversial 2004 arson investigation that led to the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham was expected to be standing-room-only.
Packed it is, with lots of political notables.
Among the full audience gallery were Democratic gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman, in trademark black cowboy hat and outfit; House Corrections Committee Chairman Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin; House Public Safety Committee Chairman Tommy Merritt, R-Longview, and state Rep. Terri Hodge, D-Dallas, a longtime prison-reform activist.
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Pippin case: Response to DA’s music vid comments
In a Statesman.com story about the ongoing case of Roddy Dean Pippin, once dubbed the Last Cattle Rustler over his criminal exploits in North Texas, the local district attorney suggested that a music video Pippin filmed might have violated the terms of his previous house arrest.
Not so, say Pippin’s supporters. They say Pippin had permission to travel on the highway where he was filmed.
This information just in from Robert McCausland:
“Roddy’s travel permit was issued by Ms. Pack of the Erath County probation office and it does not specify a mode of transportation. The entire video was filmed on Roddy’s mother’s land where Roddy was confined and literally roadside as we all traveled from her land to Quanah for his return to jail. The route that we took was the normal route. Following the removal of the leg monitor, Roddy was never alone. We have witnesses for 100% of the time following the removal of Roddy’s leg monitor to the time that he entered the doors of the Quanah jail.”
Previous story: Rustler with diabetes says prison may kill him
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Shami’s company directs care packages to Fort Hood
The company owned by Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farouk Shami is donating thousands of care packages filled with shampoos, conditioners, lotions and gels to hospitals and veterans’ facilities around Fort Hood.
Farouk Systems Inc., which makes hair care and spa products, is paying for the care packages, a company spokeswoman said. A press release announcing the donations, which the company sent to a Statesman political reporter, estimates the cost of the packages at more than $1 million.
The packages will be distributed through the American Red Cross. “A lot of times people don’t realize how badly the Red Cross and hospitals are in need of these products,” said Farouk Systems spokeswoman Jessica Gutierrez.
Shami, whose company makes popular CHI products, has said he’s ready to spend $10 million of his own money to win the Democratic nomination for governor.
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UPDATED: All Texas Republicans and one Democrat—Rep. Chet Edwards—voted against health-care plan Saturday
In the U.S. House’s 220-215 approval Saturday of a health-care overhaul—see our published story here—the Texas congressional delegation parted almost entirely along party lines with all but one Democrat voting “aye” on House Resolution 3962 and every Republican voting “no.”
The measure was sent to the Senate, which has yet to act.
Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, was among 39 Democrats nationally who voted against the proposal while Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, the state’s only member of the conservative-leaning Blue Dog Democrats, voted for the plan.
Hours before the vote, Edwards—who represents a predominantly Republican district—announced he’d be voting “no.”
His words:
Given the huge federal deficits facing our nation, I believe there is too much new spending in this bill. I am especially disappointed that the bill does not have a fiscal trigger in it to cut spending if actual costs of new programs turn out to be higher than projected. While the Congressional Budget Office predicts this bill is paid for over 10 years, there is no mechanism in the bill to force spending cuts if those complicated projections turn out to be wrong. I also have concerns about a government-run ‘public option’ insurance company and question whether this bill goes far enough in actually reducing health care costs for working families and businesses.
Edwards closed:
Throughout this debate, I have heard two extremes. Some on the far left would like to see the federal government run a socialized health care system. Some on the far right would get the government completely out of health care, which would mean the elimination of Medicare and Medicaid. I think both extremes are wrong. I believe most people in our district recognize that health care reform is needed to hold down costs and to make health care more affordable and dependable, but they want any reform bill to be fiscally responsible. I agree.
Cuellar said he came around after winning two concessions—language “protecting state tort-reform laws from federal preemption and ensuring that all new health care agencies created under the (proposal) are efficient and held accountable.”
“This vote was a once in a lifetime opportunity to build upon the premise that all Americans are created equal and would ensure that every American is worthy of access to quality affordable health care,” Cuellar said.
Cuellar said: “I decided to vote in favor of this historic legislation because it preserves what works and improves upon what doesn’t. One third of my district is uninsured, meaning that there are over 200,000 reasons why we need immediate health care reform today.”
The full roll-call vote can be seen here.
This morning, the Republican Party of Texas sent out a fund-raising pitch suggesting a party donation could help stave off disaster.
The GOP’s e-mail also states that Edwards twisted and turned in various votes preceding the final vote, performing with political cover in mind rather than acting on principle. The GOP’s e-mail states Edwards cast his “no” vote on the plan only after Speaker Nancy Pelosi was sure it would pass without his support.
UPDATE, 3:33 p.m.: Joshua Taylor of Edwards’ office stressed that Edwards announced his position Saturday morning, implying that he spoke out well before Speaker Pelosi could have know if she needed his vote for the plan to advance.
“To say otherwise is blind partisanship that ignores the facts,” Taylor said.
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Hopson switch hurts Democratic hopes
State Rep. Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville is switching from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party today, setting back Democratic hopes of winning the Texas House.
A press release from Hopson’s campaign said he thinks President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats do not represent the concerns and values of his East Texas district. Hopson is scheduled to hold a press conference on his switch later this afternoon.
In 2008, Hopson won re-election by 114 votes. He likely would have faced even more difficulty in 2010, considering that Democrats have lost some of their momentum from the 2008 election.
“It takes strength and integrity to stand against the special interests — and while some members have that strength, others, like Chuck Hopson, do not,” said state Democratic Party chairman Boyd Richie.
Richie said Hopson had told Democratic members that he’d rather retire from the House than become a Republican.
With Hopson’s switch, Republicans will hold 77 seats in the Texas House and Democrats will hold 73. While Democrats say they remain confident that they can win a House majority next year, this is the second major blow in recent months to that effort. Earlier this year, Rep. David Farabee, D-Wichita Falls, announced that he would not seek re-election, and his seat is widely expected to fall into Republican hands.
In addition, a handful of Democrats who narrowly defeated Republican incumbents in recent years could get swept out of office if the economy does not bounce back.
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Sales tax slide continues
It was another double-digit decline for Texas’ sales tax collections in October, Comptroller Susan Combs reported on Friday.
The state’s October collections, which reflect sales in September, were down 12.8 percent from the same month a year ago to $1.52 billion.
Falling sales tax collections have been the norm for months now and are expected to continue at least through the end of the year.
The sales tax provides about half of the state’s general revenue, which pays for education, prisons and other basic obligations.
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Hopson said to be switching to Republican Party
Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said this morning that Rep. Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville has told colleagues he is switching from the Democratic to Republican Party.
Hopson was facing a very tough re-election fight, considering signs of a national mood swinging against Democratic incumbents. He beat his Republican challenger last year by just 114 votes.
“It takes strength and integrity to stand against the special interests - and while some members have that strength, others like Chuck Hopson, apparently do not,” said Texas Democratic Party Chairman Boyd Richie. “In the Democratic Party, there is room for members who are conservative and progressive - the only reason anyone would leave is for crass political reasons and a refusal to stand up to special interests.”
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Podcast: Texas Political Parlor
Podcast
Texas politics in New York … Tea Party Express chugs back into the Capitol … Self-donating in the Democratic race for governor.
Join the Statesman’s W. Gardner Selby and Kate Alexander and KUT 90.5 FM’s Ian Crawford in the Political Parlor this week.
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Agosto will not run again for SBOE
State Board of Education member Rick Agosto will not seek re-election next year, he said.
Trinity University literature professor Michael Soto, 39, announced Thursday that he will seek the Democratic Party nomination for District 3, which stretches from San Antonio south to the border.
And several top Democratic Party leaders from San Antonio, including state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte and former State Board of Education member Joe Bernal, are backing Soto.
Agosto, who was first elected in 2006, said he needs to spend more time with his family and investment business.
“I’ve enjoyed my time there,” but being a state board member basically can be a full-time job, Agosto said.
Agosto has been the subject of several recent newspaper stories about business relationships with companies vying for contracts with the board.
He has denied any wrongdoing and atrributes the criticism to political back-biting on the board.
Agosto said his re-election decision is not related to this scrutiny.
Bernal, who backed Agosto in 2006, said Agosto’s biggest problem was that he had drawn the ire of teacher groups for his votes on some curriculum issues and that would have made it difficult for him to compete against Soto.
Richard Kouri of the Texas State Teachers Association said Agosto “would not have had friendly-incumbent status,” though the organization had not yet made a decision on who to support in the race.
Soto, who has a first-grader in public school and another child due in March, said as a father he has developed a “profound reservoir of righteous anger” over several state board curriculum decisions.
“I’m simply tired of being angry at the State Board of Education and I want to do what I can to fix it,” said Soto, an expert in 20th century literary movements.
With Agosto, he said, “there has been a vacuum when it comes to anyone standing up and saying enough is enough.”
Van de Putte said she was delighted that someone with Soto’s qualifications would run for the board.
Several other sitting board members have drawn serious primary challengers.
Bryan Republican Don McLeroy will have to defend his seat from Thomas Ratliff, a lobbyist and son of former Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff.
Board Members Ken Mercer and Cynthia Dunbar, two Republicans who represent parts of Austin, also have primary challengers.
“There is no question that it is attracting more candidates. It is attracting more candidates with credentials,” Kouri said.
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UPDATE: Board acts afresh on tuition plan’s refund policy
UPDATED, 10:28 a.m.: The board that oversees the Texas Guaranteed Tuition Plan, which was once called the Texas Tomorrow Fund, voted this morning to adopt State Comptroller Susan Combs’ proposal to back off an earlier declared change in how the pre-paid tuition program pays refunds. (Read our preview skinny here.)
I’m there and Twittered play by play via twitter.com/gardnerselby.
At least two additional twists developed that will be critical to more than 100,000 holders of the pre-paid tuition contracts.
First, the board agreed to extend until Jan. 31 the time period during which participants can still request lump-sum refunds reflecting their initial investments plus earnings, less administrative fees.
Second, the board directed the plan’s staff to enable about 5,000 participants who have already received refunds to re-join the plan, evidently without getting penalized. Participants who have already rolled their refunds into out-of-state 529 funds would face tax penalties for re-joining the plan this year; the board told staff to offer these participants a return to the plan if they say they want back in by Dec. 31 and then re-join by making installment payments through 2010. (If you’re in the plan, watch for a letter spelling this out in detail.)
No board members objected to these moves today, though two asked questions of Combs, its chair.
Combs said she plans to ask the 2011 Legislature to consider injecting about $65 million a year into the plan to ensure its solvency. If that starts happening in the 2012-13 budget period, Combs said, and if such infusions continue for eight years more, the plan will close its projected shortfall, which (depending on investment returns) runs from $1.5 billion to $3 billion.
Combs said too she expects lawmakers to carry out an interim study of the plan’s financial challenges. If that happens, it’ll be announced either by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who orders such studies by the Texas Senate, or House Speaker Joe Straus, who does the same for the House.
“This is a legislatively created program,” Combs said. “I do believe the Legislature will craft a solution in the 2011 session.”
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GOP gov hopeful Medina to advertise en español
Republican Debra Medina says she’ll be the first candidate in the 2010 governor’s race with Spanish-language TV ads.
In the 30- and 60-second spots, which she says will start airing Saturday on Univision in the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi and Laredo, Medina tells viewers that she’s like them: a proud Texan.
In the ads (see below), an announcer says that Medina “shares our values about the importance of family, hard work and faith. She also understands that the money we work so hard to earn should be for us and not for more taxes.”
The announcer calls Medina “alguien como nosotros” — “someone like us.”
Medina, who doesn’t sound at all like a native Spanish speaker, says: “Who is going to think more about Latino families? Rick Perry, Kay Bailey Hutchison or me, who has a Latino family?” The ad then shows Medina with her husband and two children.
Medina’s cultural heritage is German and Bohemian, she told my colleague Gardner Selby last month in an e-mail. “Being married, however, to someone with a Mexican American heritage, I certainly embrace the culture,” she wrote.
But before she explained that, she told Selby, who had asked her whether she considers herself Latina: “I’d not consider myself anything other than a wife and mother, a nurse and a patriot. I believe we too often get into race when it’s immaterial.”
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McCaul hammers absence of GOP members from health-care negotiations; Doggett critiques GOP proposal
U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin joined Republican House colleagues from Texas this morning in reminding reporters that GOP members—in the minority in the House and Senate—have been left out of the Democratic leadership’s search for a plan broadening access to health coverage.
“When you don’t have a seat at the table, it’s hard to negotiate,” McCaul said during a Washington press conference that I joined by telephone.
McCaul noted too that the secretive way Democratic plans are getting hammered out has strayed from how then-Sen. Barack Obama said last year he expected to proceed.
At an August town hall, Obama said:
I’m going to have all the negotiations around a big table. We’ll have doctors and nurses and hospital administrators. Insurance companies, drug companies — they’ll get a seat at the table, they just won’t be able to buy every chair. But what we will do is, we’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies. And so, that approach, I think is what is going to allow people to stay involved in this process.
Didn’t happen—with the result amounting to a broken campaign promise, according to this fact check.
Separately this week, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, questioned House Republicans lately spelling out what they’d prefer in a health-care plan:
After months of delay in offering any proposal, Republicans have been as revealing as a hospital gown regarding why we lack a bipartisan health insurance plan—they have speeches, but no real solutions to offer our families. Sadly, Republican obstructionism is a recurrent pre-existing condition to any meaningful change. Masquerading as reform, their new bill authorizes insurers to continue denying coverage to Americans with ‘pre-existing health conditions,’ such as acne, a C-section, or any other prior medical treatment. The GOP Leadership again sides with insurance monopolies over struggling middle-class families. Under their proposal, competition does not increase and health insurance coverage remains little more than a receipt for premiums paid and likely denial of coverage when families need it the most.
I asked the GOP House members today—including Reps. John Culberson, Kevin Brady and Louie Gohmert—if Texas members of Congress have played substantive roles in the simmering health-care debate. They singled out Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, who serves on a pivotal committee, and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, the only Texan among conservative-leaning Blue Dog Democrats.
In other words, basically nope. Still, I hope to continue exploring the impact of Texas members on the debate. Fire at me if you have a suggestion, wgselby@statesman.com .
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Two dozen school districts pass tax increases
The good folks at TexasISD.com have done great work this morning to collect the results of elections in school districts where voters were asked to increase the tax rate to pay for school operations.
By their count, 26 of 41 school districts — 63 percent — have approved the tax increases. Most of those elections were held Tuesday, and there’s one more coming up in Crosby ISD in December.
Here in Travis County, voters rejected the proposed 2-cent tax increase.
A shrinking number of school districts have been approving these elections, but the bleeding seems to have stopped. According to TexasISD, 93 percent of these elections passed in 2006, 78 percent in 2007 and 60 percent in 2008
Why are all these elections necessary? In 2006, the Legislature put a cap on the tax rates that school boards can set. If they want to raise more money than that, they need voter approval. And the more voters approve, the more state funding a school district gets.
Districts that got rejected at the polls will now face some very tough choices. Consider this account from the El Paso Times regarding the Canutillo school district near El Paso: “Because the proposal failed, the district will have hiring freezes, an increase in class sizes, and a freeze on pay raises to eliminate the $1 million deficit and recover $4.5 million in a $9 million rainy-day fund, Tidwell said. With the $1.9 million revenue the Canutillo school district would have received if the proposal on the ballot had passed, officials were looking to increase salaries of 900 employees, which required $500,000. Other expenses Canutillo was looking to fund with the tax increase included building upgrades to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
Voters in Canutillo rejected the proposed tax increase 308-276.
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Turnout about 8 percent in Tuesday’s election
The unofficial figures posted at the Texas secretary of state’s Web site show that about 8 percent of the state’s 13 million registered voters went to the polls on Tuesday.
In contrast, turnout was 8.7 percent for the last election involving constitutional amendments, two years ago. In both elections, all of the amendments were approved.
A caveat concerning Tuesday’s election: Upton and Jim Wells counties haven’t reported their returns yet, said Ashley Burton, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office. Still, 99.79 percent of precincts statewide have turned in figures, so that’s probably close enough for newspaper work.
The margins on the 11 amendments — again, these are unofficial figures subject to change — varied considerably. Proposition 11, limiting the government’s exercise of eminent domain, passed with the widest cushion, 89 percent to 11 percent. No surprise there, considering the lofty place occupied by private property rights in the Texas psyche.
Proposition 1, allowing cities and counties to sell bonds to buy open space near military bases, had the narrowest margin, with 55 percent of voters favoring it. Proposition 4, freeing up about $500 million in dormant funds for public universities aspiring to become major research institutions, had the next-closest margin, with 57 percent voting their approval.
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Texans pass all 11 constitutional amendments
Texas voters on Tuesday approved 11 state constitutional amendments, including one intended to help lift more of the state’s public universities into the ranks of major national research institutions.
Proposition 4 would free up about $500 million from a dormant higher education account to fuel the quest for so-called tier-one status and would create an endowment called the National Research University Fund. Five percent of the money, or about $25 million, would be spun off each year for faculty salaries, graduate student stipends and other uses to help seven emerging research universities strive for the big leagues.
According to The Associated Press, Proposition 11 — which limits the government’s eminent domain powers — had 81 percent of the vote favoring it and 19 percent against, with more than half of all precincts reporting.
Proposition 9, which guarantees public access to beaches, and Proposition 8, to help build veterans hospitals, also sailed to passage, AP reported.
Those were the highest-profile propositions in a low-key statewide election. Only spotty opposition emerged to any of the proposed amendments.
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Elections system pulled from IBM data center contract
IBM Corp.’s failure to protect state information under an $863 million data center consolidation contract has prompted the Texas Secretary of State to pull its elections system from the project.
In August, the Secretary of State got a “wake-up call” when a server crash led to a 13-day outage of the agency’s business records filing system. It exposed serious weaknesses in IBM’s ability to recover lost data, said Secretary of State spokesman Randall Dillard.
If a similar failure had affected the agency’s statewide voter registration data at the time of an election, Texas counties would not have been able to verify new voters as required by federal law.
“We couldn’t allow the ability to conduct fair, credible elections to be jeopardized,” Dillard said.
The agency was granted approval from Gov. Rick Perry’s office and the Department of Information Resources, which is overseeing the contract, in September to withdraw its election system from the contract and set up its own data operation with two separate back-up locations.
The Secretary of State is not alone. Most of the 27 agencies involved in the data center consolidation have expressed deep frustration with the project. A survey taken in the spring of the agencies’ information technology directors found that 88 percent of them were dissatisfied with the services provided by IBM.
Perry spokesman Chris Cutrone said that maintaining the integrity of the elections system was paramount.
The attempts to get the elections system installed and tested at the consolidated data center was marred by missed deadlines, equipment and software failure, inadequate disaster recovery and other problems, Cutrone said.
“We reached the point where we were no longer confident that Team for Texas could get servers and software for the elections system installed and properly tested,” Cutrone said, referring to the IBM-led partnership.
Federal money that pays for the mandated statewide voter registration system will cover the $7.9 million cost of the new data home for the elections system, known as Texas Elections Administration Management, Dillard said.
The Secretary of State’s data system will probably operate independently at least through the 2011 redistricting process, Dillard said.
When issues related to “inadequate performance and service” with the data center project are resolved, the agency will rejoin the effort, Secretary of State Hope Andrade wrote in a September letter to the Department of Information Resources.
“Until then, we simply cannot put the Texas election system at risk,” Andrade wrote. IBM spokesman Jeff Tieszen said the company would work with the Department of Information Resources during the transition. He would not address the specific criticism offered by the Secretary of State.
Under the seven-year contract, IBM is merging the separate data centers of 27 state agencies into two streamlined and updated facilities.The objective of the contract is to save money and improve security.
But the project has been plagued with service issues, slow progress and high-profile data losses. A December completion date looms for IBM to get the all the agencies’ operations running in the consolidated centers but, as of this summer, the process was far behind schedule.
In 2008, the loss of some critical state data at the Office of the Attorney General led Perry to suspend consolidation until IBM ensured that the state’s data was protected. Although the consolidation resumed, the problems have persisted.
On the heels of the Secretary of State outage, the attorney general suffered another loss of data related to Medicaid fraud cases just as it had in 2008.
Cutrone said the attorney general’s office had not asked to withdraw from the consolidation and its problems were different than those faced by the Secretary of State.
The Department of Information Resources has taken steps recently to put the project back on track.
There is a new agency head, a high-level executive solely responsible for the data center contract, and an independent review is underway to identify the problems with the project and recommend changes. That report is due next week.
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Voters considering university fund, other constitutional amendments
Voters in Texas were deciding today whether to approve 11 proposed constitutional amendments, including one that would free up about $500 million to help public universities strive for tier-one status.
Proposition 4, which faced little organized opposition, would transfer that sum from a dormant higher education account to create an endowment called the National Research University Fund. Five percent of the money, or about $25 million, would be spun off each year for faculty salaries, graduate student stipends and other uses intended to help seven emerging research universities strive for a position on the national stage.
The other 10 amendments up for decision included propositions that would guarantee public access to beaches, bar residential appraisals from being set based on a property’s “highest and best use” and ban governmental taking of private property for economic development or tax revenue.
Turnout in the election was expected to be low. In the state’s 15 most populous counties, 2.4 percent of registered voters voted early, said Randall Dillard, a spokesman for the Texas secretary of state’s office.
Constitutional amendments generally have an easy ride at the polls. In the last such election, in November 2007, all 16 amendments passed. But the economic downturn could be a factor this time around.
The research university amendment, which does not involve any new taxes, is part of a broader effort to boost the number of tier-one — also known as top-tier or flagship — institutions in Texas. State lawmakers earlier this year added $50 million to the state’s two-year budget for the emerging research universities on top of their usual appropriations. That money will be parceled out based on how well the schools have done in raising private donations.
The state currently has tier-one schools: the University of Texas, Texas A&M University and Rice University, which is private. Such schools, with stout research grants and intellectual heft, are powerful engines of economic and civic advancement.
The schools aspiring to join the big leagues are UT-Dallas, UT-Arlington, UT-El Paso, UT-San Antonio, Texas Tech University, the University of Houston and the University of North Texas.
Under companion legislation approved by the Legislature this year, those schools would have to meet certain benchmarks to be eligible for distributions from the proposed National Research University Fund. None currently meets the criteria, which include research expenditures of at least $45 million a year and compliance with four of six other standards, such as awarding at least 200 Ph.D. degrees annually and amassing an endowment of at least $400 million.
Fueling a successful rise of just one campus to the top tier could require a $100 million annual injection of state money and private donations for many years, according to higher education leaders. Still, they have described the proposed constitutional amendment and the other spending as important steps in building a pathway.
The dormant account from which the roughly $500 million would be drawn, known as the Higher Education Fund, was set up to receive regular legislative appropriations until it reached $2 billion, after which distributions could begin. Lawmakers have not allocated money to it since 2003, leaving the balance stranded.
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Long history between lawyer, State Board members
When State Board of Education Member David Bradley had a legal question about investing the Permanent School Fund, his first stop was not the lawyer hired by the board to answer such inquiries. It was Austin lawyer Kevin O’Hanlon.
A former general counsel for the Texas Education Agency, O’Hanlon was asked by Bradley to explore the idea of investing a small portion of the $22 billion public school endowment in charter school facilities, the Statesman reported Monday.
O’Hanlon has represented charter schools, including American YouthWorks in Austin, and his involvement in this issue stems from his strong personal and professional ties to several board members, including Bradley, Rene Nunez and Rick Agosto. All three serve on the Permanent School Fund committee.
On the charter school issue, O’Hanlon’s involvement started well over a year ago with a presentation promoting the idea to a State Board committee in July 2008, according to the meeting’s minutes.
At the same time, O’Hanlon was part of a team of lawyers bidding for a Permanent School Fund contract to pursue securities litigation, records show. A board rule prohibiting contact between board members and bidders would have been in effect since the bid was submitted in May. The prohibition continued through this August when the bid process was ended without a hiring decision.
Bradley said he asked O’Hanlon to make the presentation and did not discuss the securities litigation job.
The relationship with board members extends beyond State Board business.
O’Hanlon has has provided legal services to Bradley, R-Beaumont, Agosto, D-San Antonio and Mary Helen Berlanga, D-Corpus Christi, according to disclosure forms filed as part of the bid. Nunez, D-El Paso, has been a friend for a long time, O’Hanlon said.
His law firm also paid a $300 treasurer filing fee for Agosto in 2005 and O’Hanlon gave the candidate another $1,500 that same year, campaign finance records show.
Agosto said O’Hanlon’s firm represented his company, Aureus Partners, but no longer has a business relationship with him. They met when O’Hanlon was a lobbyist for Agosto’s employer, Fortis Investments, which was a money manager for the Permanent School Fund several years ago.
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Gilbert proposes 10 gubernatorial debates
Gubernatorial candidate Hank Gilbert today challenged fellow Democratic hopefuls to a series of 10 debates around Texas.
“My opponents should welcome this opportunity to put themselves and their issues before Democratic primary voters,” Gilbert said.
But one of his leading Democratic rivals, Tom Schieffer, probably won’t be playing along.
“Tom Schieffer is already participating in candidate forums around the state,” said Schieffer spokesman Clay Robison. “He looks forward to continuing his dialogue with Texas Democrats as we move toward the March primary.”’
Gilbert also extended the invitation to candidates Kinky Friedman and Felix Alvarado, and a Gilbert spokesman said he’d also invite any other Democrat who formally announces a run for governor.
Mark Thompson, a therapist who had said he’d run for governor, has endorsed Gilbert, telling the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that “there’s just too many people running.”
Gilbert’s proposed debate schedule includes Tyler, which is close to his home in Whitehouse:
Week of Jan. 4: Education debate in El Paso
Week of Jan. 11: All-issues debate in Dallas/Fort Worth
Week of Jan. 18: Jobs/economy debate in Amarillo
Week of Jan. 25: Energy/environment debate in Houston
Week of Feb. 1: All-issues debates in McAllen and Laredo
Week of Feb. 8: Environmental policy debate in Austin
Week of Feb. 15: All-issues debate in Tyler
Week of Feb. 22: All-issues debate in San Antonio
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Berman challenger opts out
Former Tyler Mayor Joey Seeber told the Tyler Morning Telegraph today that he is dropping his bid for the Texas House seat now held by Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler.
Seeber had earlier said he would run in the Republican primary when it looked as though Berman might seek the GOP nomination for governor. It appeared Seeber would continue to seek the seat after Berman said he’d run for re-election, but today’s announcement puts an end to those plans.
Seeber hadn’t been making many waves on the campaign trail. Now we know why.
Check out the Tyler Morning Telegraph story here.
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Texas docs endorse Perry
The Texas Medical Association’s political arm, TEXPAC, today announced its endorsement of Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign.
The group selected Perry because of his “unwavering support and defense of Texas’ medical liability reforms and his efforts to protect the sacred patient-physician bond,” said Dr. William Fleming III, president of the association.
But relations between the doctors and Perry haven’t always been so warm.
In 2002, the year after Perry vetoed a bill that would have required insurance companies to promptly pay routine medical claims, the association endorsed Perry’s Democratic opponent, Tony Sanchez. At the time, Perry said that the legislation would have encouraged frivolous lawsuits.
And this year, the governor publicly indicated he wouldn’t support a Texas Medical Association-backed legislative proposal to allow about 80,000 families to buy into the Children’s Health Insurance Program. (The measure died before landing on Perry’s desk).
“We don’t agree 100 percent, but we agree most of the time,” Fleming told reporters at a press conference today at the association’s Austin headquarters, which Perry attended.
On tort reform, they tend to agree.
Since Texas voters in 2003 approved a constitutional amendment limiting jury awards in medical malpractice cases, Perry said, the number of doctors applying to practice in the state has increased 57 percent.
“There were too many areas of Texas where there was a dwindling access to health care because of these frivolous lawsuits,” Perry said. In some areas of the state, he said, doctors were “almost an endangered species.”
Since the reforms, 14,498 doctors either returned to practice in Texas or started practicing in the state, Perry said.
These days, the association — which includes nearly 44,000 Texas doctors and medical students — likes Perry so much that Fleming, in an apparent slip, called the governor “Dr. Perry.”
Perry said that the endorsement was the second most important physician endorsement he’s ever received.
The most important: when Dr. Joe Thigpen granted Perry permission to marry Thigpen’s daughter, Anita.
The AP photo below by Harry Cabluck shows Fleming, left, and Perry.
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A tale of Sen. Watson’s ego and eggs
As a state senator, Austin Democrat Kirk Watson picks up plenty of awards. But he says his wife, Liz, who has known him since elementary school, keeps him grounded.
In his e-mail newsletter this morning, Watson shared the story of how on a recent day when he was honored by Marathon Kids, he sent his wife a text message reminding her that he was heading to Whole Foods to pick up the award.
She texted back, “That’s great,” and her husband wrote in his newsletter: “My ego momentarily ticked up a bit.”
Then he read the rest of her text message: “While you’re there, pick up some eggs and whatever else you want.”
“So I shook some hands,” Watson wrote, “thanked folks for the award, headed downstairs, made a beeline for the egg cooler, checked out, headed home, and made myself some dinner.”
“Yeah, I had eggs.”
The photo below by Robert Godwin for the American-Statesman’s Glossy magazine shows the Watsons in August.
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