Happy Birthday, Kristin!
The AV Club’s Top 50 movies of the decade. I’ve seen two of them, about what I’d have expected given how seldom I watch movies these days.
Talk about having a gambling problem.
After all this time, are we really surprised [...]
This AP story about the Mayoral runoff election contains a paragraph you won’t see very often.
Houston became the largest U.S. city to elect an openly gay mayor, with voters handing a solid victory to City Controller Annise Parker after a hotly contested runoff.
Several other U.S. cities, including Portland, Ore., [...]
It’s an old story. Metro gets some good news relating to the University line. Rep. John Culberson tries again to halt the project. The Chronicle calls him out on it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that last part.
It’s not clear how effective Culberson’s latest railblock will [...]
I’ll go through them one race at a time, with the unofficial vote totals minus Montgomery County for each. Once I have precinct results, I’ll go through those and do a more detailed analysis.
Mayor
Annise Parker – 81,971, 52.78%
Gene Locke – 73,331, 47.22%
This was perhaps a bit closer than one [...]
As tonight is Lights in the Heights, I will be paying attention to things other than election results this evening. Assuming you’re not at an election night party, you can follow results as they are posted here or on the interwebs in various places like Mayoral [...]
When was the last time you heard a Hanukkah song that was written by a Mormon Senator? Well, here’s your chance:
Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.
Pretty catchy, actually. The story behind it is here. You’re no Adam Sandler, Senator Hatch, but you’re [...]
Today is Runoff Day. If you did not vote during Early Voting, this is your lasr chance. The following is from the Harris County Clerk’s office:
Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, the chief elections officer of the County, made available a list of important election related facts voters should be aware [...]
As of today, there are two declared Democratic candidates for Harris County Treasurer – Chad Khan, a three-time candidate for State Representative, and attorney Billy Briscoe, whose press release is beneath the fold. As you may recall, I spent a lot of time in 2006 arguing for the abolition of [...]
Not really a surprise, I guess. A shame, but not a surprise.
State Rep. Mike Villarreal, D-San Antonio, will run for re-election next year instead of launching a statewide race for comptroller.
The five-term legislator says allies encouraged him to run for comptroller, which he briefly considered before deciding to stay [...]
Meet your newest members of the Hall of Fame.
Manager Whitey Herzog and umpire Doug Harvey got the call Monday, elected to the baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.
Herzog and Harvey missed by one vote in their previous tries. This time, they easily drew enough support to reach [...]
Tomorrow is Lights in the Heights, so today here are ten light-related songs.
1. Blinded By The Light – Bruce Springsteen
2. Trick of the Light – The Who
3. Whenever God Shines His Light – Van Morrison
4. Paradise By the Dashboard Light – Meatloaf
5. Let Your Light [...]
Here’s the Chron story about the mailers being sent out opposing Jolanda Jones.
The effort by five council members to oust Jones, arguably the most controversial and well-known figure on council, was virtually unprecedented in the past several decades, according to several City Hall veterans. The only comparable moment [...]
The Chron talks to David Wolff, the soon-to-be-former Chair of Metro, about the state of the agency.
Q: Why has it taken six years to build new light rail lines when the Main Street line was built so quickly?
A: Metro pretty much depleted its treasury because it paid $325 million [...]
You know, I don’t blame any of the jurors in the Cameron Todd Willingham trial for the verdict they rendered. Based on the evidence that was presented to them, a guilty verdict was to be expected. They had no way of knowing that the “science” used to “prove” arson [...]
This was the top story on the 5 PM news.
The final 11News/KUHF Houston Public Radio poll shows Controller Annise Parker has a 13-point lead over former City Attorney Gene Locke.
In the poll, which was conducted this week by the Center for Civic Engagement at Rice University, likely [...]
Got a press release yesterday from Lane Lewis announcing that he had won an endorsement that had previously gone to his opponent.
HARRIS COUNTY COUNCIL OF ORGANIZATIONS RESCINDS STARDIG ENDORSEMENT
Houston, Texas – City Council District A candidate Lane Lewis has earned the endorsement of the Harris County Council of Organizations [...]
Last week, when we heard that the Federal Transit Authority had notified Metro that they would be cleared to begin preliminary engineering of the University Line project if no member of the local Congressional delegation objected by today, I figured there was only one Congressman who mattered. Sure enough, [...]
As we know, Ned Holmes, the finance chair for the Gene Locke campaign, made a $20,000 donation to Steven Hotze’s Conservative Republicans of Harris County PAC just before Hotze sent out his homophobic mailer to voters. Holmes claims that the timing is coincidental because he’s a longtime supporter [...]
Following up on the reports about BAE Systems and the curious claims by Rep. Mike McCaul that his office had been “in regular contact with BAE Systems” during the bidding process, yet none of that communication was written, the Lone Star Project has a few questions for [...]
This sounds like a pretty good idea to me.
Harris County Commissioner El Franco Lee has proposed that the county consider putting more prisoners to work cleaning local bayous and parks.
The plan would give working inmates three days’ credit per day served in jail instead of the two they receive [...]
Richmond Republican Cynthia Dunbar will not seek re-election next year to a second term on the State Board of Education, fellow board member David Bradley confirmed Wednesday
Dunbar, whose expansive district includes northern Travis County, wrote in an e-mail that she would provide a written statement on her plans later.
Dunbar [...]
Tomorrow night at 7 PM at the Trinity Episcopal Church located at 1015 Holman Street at Main (map) is a public meeting for the H-GAC Livable Centers Study of the Ensemble/HCC Station area in Midtown. You can click on the flyer for the details, but the basic idea [...]
Democratic statehouse Rep. Mike Villarreal of San Antonio is considering running for comptroller and is expected to make a decision next week. The five-term House member is an investor who holds a masters in public policy from Harvard.
[...]
Villarreal’s spokesman said he will be launching a new website that [...]
To wrap up our tour of the finance reports for the city runoffs, here’s a look at the two District Council races. First, District A, in which Lane Lewis is up against Brenda Stardig:
Candidate Raised Spent Loans Cash PAC $$ PAC % =============================================================== Lewis 42,439 33,765 19,401 8,250 19.4 Stardig 41,495 41,638 40,264 [...]I guess I missed this one, but on November 19, the Houston Press published a story called Jail Misery by Randall Patterson that was about Monte Killian, an HIV-positive person who had recently spent time in the Harris County jail. Much like an earlier article by Patterson called [...]
Here comes the Rick Perry unemployment tax increase that we’ve been waiting for.
Nearly two-thirds of Texas businesses will see the unemployment taxes they pay per employee per year nearly triple – from $23.40 to $64.80 – under rates announced today by the Texas Workforce Commission.
The minimum tax is [...]
Here’s an interesting story about the experience the city of Irving has had with its new ordinance that restricted signage by businesses.
Strict new rules regarding business signs in Irving were enacted to literally remake the city’s image. The goal is to eliminate what many officials and residents say are [...]
Once again it’s time for the Texas Progressive Alliance to bring you the highlights from the blogs.
Power to the People! Head over to Texas Vox to learn more about the Fair Elections Now Act.
Xanthippas at Three Wise Men airs out some thoughts on the escalation of [...]
The final tally is in, and after 13,534 in person votes were cast today, a total of 66,909 have been counted so far. This compares to 80,516 early votes for the November election.
Except it doesn’t, since that total represents all of Harris County. In reality, 62,641 early in person [...]
Continuing on with our look at the eight days out reports, here’s how things stack up for the At Large Council candidates in the runoffs.
Candidate Raised Spent Loans Cash PAC $$ PAC % =============================================================== Derr 26,692 13,034 5,000 5,487 8,650 32.4 Costello 193,225 165,200 15,000 16,065 71,000 36.7 Candidate TV Radio Mail Phone Field ==================================================== Derr [...]Nice.
The finance chairman and a finance committee member of Gene Locke’s mayoral campaign helped bankroll the conservative political action committee that sent out an anti-gay mailer targeting City Controller Annise Parker and other municipal candidates earlier this month, according to Texas Ethics Commission documents.
[...]
Locke has been dogged by Parker, [...]
Just a followup on the BAE Systems situation, which I didn’t get around to blogging about last week. I see that in addition to everything else he’s got going on, Mayor White will be trying to save BAE’s contract, along with Sen. Hutchison and Rep. Mike McCaul, whose [...]
Via Nancy Sarnoff, the developers of the Ashby Highrise will appeal the dismissal of their appeal of not getting everything they wanted when their project was finally approved back in August. There’s a public hearing Tuesday and a Council vote Wednesday (assuming no tag), and they’ll [...]
Debra Medina made her filing for Governor today as well, and she hopes to be allowed in the clubhouse when the big kids get together to play.
“Texans deserve a Governor who is more interested in the needs of Texans,” campaign manager Penny Langford Freeman said in a statement. “We [...]
Before I get into today’s numbers, there was an incident at one of the early voting locations this morning.
Police say someone broke into the Hester House Community Center, an early-voting location in the Fifth Ward, overnight, but officials with the Harris County Clerk’s Office said the integrity of the [...]
While I never believed that Kay Bailey Hutchison would actually resign her Senate seat in order to run for Governor, I also never believed that she would drop her primary challenge to Rick Perry, even as he played his mind games with her to try to make her go away. [...]
We’ve seen the eight days out finance reports for the Mayor’s race, now here’s the same thing for the Controller’s race. As before, the campaign finance spreadsheet has been updated with all of the raw data. Here’s how it breaks down for Ronald Green and MJ Khan:
Candidate Raised [...]I’m not much of a debate-watching person, and we had company yesterday afternoon, so I did not catch the last Mayoral debate. (Judging by David Ortez’s liveblogging, it would seem a lot of people weren’t watching.) I don’t think events like these tell you much about a candidate [...]
I believe this will be the last of the runoff overview stories.
The runoff for an at-large City Council seat has devolved into a battle over the subtle connotations of the phrase “city contractor.”
One of the candidates for Position One, Stephen Costello, has worked as a drainage engineer for Houston, [...]
We’ve had one full week of early voting, with two twelve-hour days to go. As you can see on the spreadsheet, today was the slowest day, with 2,600 voters showing up, giving a total of 43,989 votes. I’ve been remiss in noting the fact that some of these votes [...]
No planet status for Pluto, no justice.
Yeah, I can’t believe there hasn’t been one of these before now, either.
Coolio’s kitchen. I got nothin’.
James Garfield is in his rightful place, and all is well with the universe.
The dark side of embedding one’s Twitter feed.
I’ll never [...]
It’s a Zogby poll, so don’t get too excited, but that’s still four out of four since Election Day.
While the race for Houston mayor remains too close to call, Parker’s 5.5 percentage point lead stems from advantages among several demographics, including women, whites, Hispanics and self-identified independent voters.
Parker leads [...]
Among other things, Friday was the eight days out campaign finance reporting deadline for the city runoffs. The Chron reports on the Mayoral candidates.
Both sides aggressively asked for volunteers and donors before the Wednesday deadline. Election rules allowed Parker and Locke to go back to donors who gave the [...]
The Salvation Army of Houston will no longer require Social Security numbers from those seeking Christmas gifts, the organization announced today.
“It was never our intention to offend anyone with our registration requirement to provide a Social Security number, or to give the impression that we were discriminating [...]
More like this next year would be nice.
The Atlantic hurricane season ended Monday with barely a whimper: Not a single hurricane came ashore in the United States.
Since June, when the season began, just nine named storms developed. Only three of them became hurricanes, and those stayed out at sea [...]
Today was a beautiful day following yesterday’s snow and ice, there were twelve full hours of early voting, and there were a total of 6,072 in-person ballots cast (no mail ballots today), which is almost indistinguishable from the first four days. Here’s the spreadsheet, for your edification. I expect [...]
A little snow on the ground, and my thoughts turn to this:
The secret to getting unstuck, as I understand it, is to pour some warm water over the affected area. I do not know this from personal experience.
[...]The Chron writes about the early voting turnout so far.
After four days, nearly 10,000 more Houstonians voted early than in the general election, a trend Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman said she predicted.
“Voters just weren’t engaged back in November,” she said. “Now that the race has narrowed to [...]
A group of Houston clergy members has signed a letter objecting to recent anti-gay sentiment “espoused by those who co-opt religion as a cover for hatred.”
The letter reads as follows:
We the undersigned religious leaders have gathered our names here to make clear our strong objection to [...]
This would be a little too weird.
[Bill] White, expected to say Friday that he’s shifting his political sights from the U.S. Senate to the Democratic nod for governor, confirmed Thursday that [former Comptroller Carole Keeton] Strayhorn has tried to reach him.
Asked if he’d welcome Strayhorn to the Democratic ticket [...]
It’s always sad to see a relationship go down the tubes, isn’t it?
Long before the campaigns of Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry started calling each other “Kay Bailout” and “Tricky Ricky,” the senator and governor exchanged handwritten birthday notes and congratulatory letters.
The Republican political heavyweights have never been [...]
Today’s inclement weather may not have closed the polls down, but they did reduce the number of voters by a considerable amount. Only 3287 hardy souls made it out to an EV location, some of which saw fewer than 20 people all day. After five days of early [...]
Yes, this is happening right now in Houston.
That would be “snow”. Which we don’t get much of here in Houston. But we’re getting it today, and it’s even starting to accumulate. So here are ten songs about snow and/or [...]
From the County Clerk’s office:
Early voting locations for the Joint Runoff Election will remain open as scheduled
Houston, TX- Harris County Clerk Beverly Kaufman, the chief elections officer of the County, announced this afternoon that all early voting locations for the on-going Joint Runoff Election will remain open today until 5:00 [...]
Well, between a dead car battery, a preschool that closed early, and a wife that had an unbreakable noon appointment, I am at home instead of at the Bill White for Governor launch. At least I have Elise Hu’s liveblog to keep me informed. Here’s the release that [...]
If you’re anything like me, you have probably received multiple communications from the Bill White campaign inviting you to come down to the Hilton Americas at noon and hear White say officially what office he’ll be pursuing. The Chron attempts to preempt him.
Mayor Bill White will formally [...]
The light rail route known as the “University Line” is close to clearing the first major hurdle for obtaining federal funding.
The Federal Transit Authority notified Metro this week that the project has entered a 10-day congressional notification period. If no member of Congress objects by Dec. 10, then the [...]
The light rail route known as the “University Line” is close to clearing the first major hurdle for obtaining federal funding.
The Federal Transit Authority notified Metro this week that the project has entered a 10-day congressional notification period. If no member of Congress objects by Dec. 10, then the [...]
Here’s the Chron story on the two runoffs for HISD Trustee. It echoes a theme from that Examiner story we saw yesterday.
The outcome of the races could reshape several board debates — particularly over wages for construction workers, efforts to hold weak teachers more accountable and the role [...]
I don’t usually get involved in the national stuff, but I’m totally on board with this idea and hope you will take action as you can.
Ever since Stupak hijacked the health care bill, we’ve been watching. So far, nothing looks like it has any chance of success of [...]
Democrats have made huge strides in Texas’ large urban counties in recent years. The main holdout has been Tarrant County, which has remained solidly blue. Is 2010 the year things change? Maybe not, but it ought to be an interesting electoral season anyway.
The death of longtime Tarrant County District [...]
Consistency, thy name is early voting runoff turnout. Here are the in-person totals for each of the days so far:
Monday = 5,834
Tuesday = 5,726
Wednesday = 5,787
Thursday = 5,772
Flat as Houston itself. It’ll be interesting to see how things are tomorrow given the weather forecast. I’m [...]
Here’s the Chron story on the District F runoff.
The condensed version of Al Hoang’s vision for Sharps town’s shopping center echoes a Reagan-era foreign policy pronouncement: Tear down this mall.
Mike Laster’s recent work on Sharpstown Mall is more analogous to Vietnam War-era peace talks. Mall owners can use someone [...]
I’ve mentioned the group HISD Parent Visionaries a couple of times in this space. Here’s an article about them from the Examiner.
Parent Visionaries was spawned after HISD’s former superintendent, Dr. Abelardo Saavedra, voiced an interest in eliminating or reducing magnet school transportation. The parent group, largely from District V, [...]
Former US Rep. Nick Lampson may be getting back in the game.
Former Congressman Nick Lampson, a moderate Democrat from southeast Texas, is considering a race for state comptroller, he confirmed this afternoon.
“It’s something that I’ve been asked to look at,” he said. “I don’t know that I will but [...]
An audit of the Houston Police Department’s fingerprinting comparison unit revealed so many problems that investigators will be reviewing all violent crime cases for the past six years, officials said Tuesday.
Major problems in the Latent Prints Comparison Unit included significant deficiencies with staffing, a lack of proper supervisory review, [...]
I’m sure House Speaker Joe Straus is looking ahead to the 2011 session and stockpiling the Maalox and Excedrin.
Among the “interim charges” to 31 committees handed out by Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio – issues for lawmakers to study and consider – are examinations of tax changes that could [...]
Here it is, for what it’s worth, which isn’t much. I guess if you can truly convince yourself that Hotze’s endorsement wasn’t about Annise Parker’s sexuality, you can believe it’s okay to accept it. I don’t know what there is to say about this that hasn’t already been said, [...]
Here’s the spreadsheet. Basically, three near-identical days for in person voting. At this rate, about 75,000 ballots will be cast before Election Day. I think it will be higher than that, but I don’t think by much.
For comparison, here’s Bradley Olson’s spreadsheet with the daily EV totals from [...]
I certainly agree that the Democratic statewide ticket would benefit from the presence of a qualified Latino candidate or two or three. Agreeing on that is the easy part. Finding someone who qualifies as qualified and who is actually willing to get into a race, especially if it means [...]
This is what you call bad holiday publicity.
The Salvation Army and a charity affiliated with the Houston Fire Department are among those that consider immigration status, asking for birth certificates or Social Security cards for the children.
The point isn’t to punish the children but to ensure that their parents [...]
According to Grits, UH law professor David Dow and the nonprofit Texas Defender Service will be called to account before the Court of Criminal Appeals for filing tardy paperwork.
Two years ago, David Dow and the Texas Defender Service were embroiled in a controversy after a thwarted last-minute attempt [...]
Here are two thoughtful and interesting posts about data centers and carbon neutrality from my friend and Trinity classmate Robert Nagle; a postscript with some added thoughts is here. I’m glad to see that my webhost does pretty well in this regard, though it’s purely [...]
The Texas Progressive Alliance hopes everyone had a happy Thanksgiving weekend. Click on to see what you missed last week amid all the turkey and football.
TXsharon has arranged by area 60 TCEQ fugitive emission videos obtained via the Texas Public Information Act. The videos were taken throughout the [...]
No, not me. David Ortez, over at Hair Balls. It’s just getting underway now. I’m sure Twitter will be lighting up with commentary as well, so head over there or run for the hills, as the case may be.
UPDATE: Here’s the Chron story on the debate, which not [...]
The early vote spreadsheet has now been updated to include Day Two. Short story, about the same number of in person votes, fewer mail ballots returned, two day total of 17,480. Again, not too shabby considering the crappy weather. Maybe folks just want to get it done. For comparison [...]
So here’s the Chron coverage of the Hotze endorsement. Of the many things I find unfathomable about this, here’s the item at the top of the list.
Kris Banks, president of Houston’s GLBT Political Caucus, which has endorsed Parker, questioned why Locke did not distance himself from Hotze.
“He came [...]
In case I haven’t beaten this horse beyond recognition yet, the stimulus money really saved our budgetary bacon this year, and without something equally dramatic, we are so screwed in 2011.
“It was a deficit budget as written,” said Scott Hochberg (D-Houston), who chaired the Appropriations subcommittee on Education.
As soon [...]
Here’s the Chron overview of the Controller’s runoff. Two points of interest to note. One is what presence, if any, the two candidates will have on the airwaves.
Tactically, both campaigns said they intend to focus on direct-mail, block-walking and other field operations and will produce TV ads if they [...]
I think this sums it all up right here.
The governor’s Oct. 24 political trip to Las Vegas to meet with Brian Sandoval, a Republican candidate for Nevada governor, included a bachelor party for Perry’s son, Griffin, spokesman Mark Miner conceded Thursday.
He initially declined to call it a bachelor’s party, [...]
I’ve updated my early vote spreadsheet from the first round to include the early vote totals for the runoff. Note that this is almost entirely City of Houston – there are a few Bellaire voters in there, and maybe a stray HISD Trustee vote or two from outside the [...]
You might have noticed, when you opened your metaphorical copy of the Texas Tribune this morning, that they’re hosting a discussion between myself and David Benzion on the merits of Houston Mayor and (by God we sure hope he’s a) candidate for Governor of Texas Bill White. You [...]
Today marks the start of early voting for all of the runoff elections, which include Houston, Bellaire, and HISD. Early voting schedule and locations can be found here; remember that EV locations outside of Houston city limits are mostly closed, as there’s no action out there. Early voting [...]
Well, this is a surprise.
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 [...]
Among other things, the Thanksgiving season signals the arrival of year end lists – Top Ten this and that, Best Of, Worst Of, you name it. The local highlight is the Houston Press’ annual Turkey of the Year award, which has been made easier in recent times by the presence [...]
Just in case the fact that he’s Rick Perry isn’t enough, how about the fact that he’s objectively anti-microbrewery?
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, running for re-election in 2010, just got the endorsement of the Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas. Therefore, that makes Perry the enemy of craft beer lovers in [...]
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas sales…
The real trick is to not be an idiot about things you don’t understand.
How To Teach Physics To Your Dog is now available.
Why don’t I ever go to estate sales like this?
How California got into the pickle [...]
And here’s the Chron story on the At Large #2 runoff, featuring Council Member Sue Lovell and Andrew Burks. Unlike Jones v. Christie, my opinion that CM Lovell will retain her seat is much more common. Burks does have a base of support in the African-American community, where [...]
The thought that struck me as I read this story about Bill White’s expected switch to the Governor’s race is that maybe he was right to have taken this particular route to where he is now. I mean, he’s generated a ton of excitement with this announcement, more [...]
We all know by now that Texas has had many problems with its administration of food stamps. Apparently, so have other states, according to a letter, signed by Kevin Concannon, the department’s undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, sent to state officials. Of interest to me is [...]
