Reeve, Ross, Emily and Jim discuss the political landscape now that early voting has begun, the latest in the state's fight against the Ebola virus, the significance of falling oil prices and a guilty plea for embezzlement.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/22/tribcast-early-voting-oil-prices-and-embezzlement/.
While many Democrats in southern states are running away from Barack Obama as fast as they can, state Sen. Wendy Davis leaned into her embrace of the president on Wednesday, saying she valued his support and would welcome him on the campaign trail.
“I would be thrilled if he or the Clintons, anyone, wanted to come and help,” Davis told reporters in Austin. “I’m very honored to have their support and the support of so many prominent Democrats across the country.”
The rhetorical hug contrasts sharply with the arms-length approach many Democrats are showing Obama in other states. In Louisiana, for example, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu ran an ad calling the Obama administration's policies on oil and gas "simply wrong." And in Kentucky, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, running for the U.S. Senate, refuses to say if she even voted for the president.
But unlike those races, the Texas governor's race doesn't look close, according to polls. Davis — badly trailing Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott — has worked in recent days to pump up minority turnout. In Houston on Tuesday she directly appealed to African-American voters at Texas Southern University, and she has been running a radio ad featuring first lady Michelle Obama — signs that she’s focusing more on motivating her base than trying to persuade swing voters.
Abbott spokesman Matt Hirsch said the embrace of Obama is a new strategy for Davis. He noted that during the candidates’ first televised debate in September, Abbott asked Davis if she regretted voting for Obama as president.
Quoting a TV news report, Hirsch said on Twitter that Davis had “uncomfortably skirted” the question.
Davis said the next day, though, that she did not regret her vote for Obama.
“I’ve never backed away from President Obama,” Davis said after a press conference at the Travis County Democratic Party headquarters in Austin.
She said she was “thrilled” to meet Obama during a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and noted that she had talked with him at length about the “discriminatory intent” of the state’s voter ID law.
But Davis hasn’t asked Obama to campaign for her in Texas — and with less than two weeks to go before Election Day, that seems highly unlikely.
“I haven’t, no,” she said. “I imagine he’s busy doing other things.”
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/22/davis-would-be-thrilled-assist-obama/.
Voters can cast ballots today for the Nov. 4 general election as the two-week early voting period commences.
What we know for sure is that this year's election is significant in that it will signal a big turnover among statewide officeholders, even if the new leaders are expected to share the same party identification — Republican — as their predecessors. A new poll of likely voters conducted for Houston Public Media/KHOU-TV finds GOP gubernatorial nominee Greg Abbott with a 15-point lead over his Democratic rival, Wendy Davis. In the race for lieutenant governor, Republican nominee Dan Patrick has a 12-point lead over his Democratic rival, Leticia Van de Putte.
If Democrats are looking for a silver lining, they can find it in their candidates' showings in Harris County, the state's biggest pocket of votes. Van de Putte is tied with Patrick in the Republican's home county — at 30 percent — while Davis leads Abbott, 40 percent to 35 percent. Also, the poll found a large chunk of likely voters still undecided — 15 percent for the governor contest and 32 percent for the lieutenant governor contest.
The Houston Chronicle's Patrick Svitek writes, meanwhile, that Democrats face another challenge in breaking through to voters — the dominance of the news cycles by the ever changing updates on the cases of Ebola that have appeared in Texas.
"Political experts say the wall-to-wall coverage of Ebola hurts challengers more than incumbents who do not need to rely on the media to get their message out. ... 'It does not give Wendy Davis or the other statewide candidates an opportunity to even try and change the narrative,' Wade Emmert, chairman of the Dallas County Republican Party, told Svitek. 'It really has locked in the Republican support as of the day the Ebola situation began.'"
The early voting period runs through Friday, Oct. 31. Voters wishing to locate a polling place can consult with the Secretary of State's website here.
• The House Appropriations subcommittee on general government, the judiciary and criminal justice meets at 10 a.m. in the Capitol Extension to take testimony from state agencies as part of the Speaker's Strategic Fiscal Review Charge. (agenda)
• The House County Affairs Committee meets at 10 a.m. in the Capitol Extension to examine the state's ability to handle its high rate of population growth. (agenda)
• The Texas Access to Justice Foundation hosts a noon luncheon on the UT-Austin campus to kick off Pro Bono Week.
• Former Texas Congressmen Charlie Gonzalez and Henry Bonilla lead a discussion for the Bipartisan Policy Center on political reform at noon at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs in Austin.
Wealthy Donor Pumps Cash Into Bexar County Race, by Terri Langford
First Wind, Now Gas: Tax Breaks Face Scrutiny, by Jim Malewitz
Analysis: Behind Voter ID, Federal Pre-Clearance, by Ross Ramsey
Fraud inspector’s falsified work could cost state millions, Austin American-Statesman
School districts hit tax caps as they borrow for construction, Houston Chronicle
Ebola isolation ending, but not fiancée’s grief, The Dallas Morning News
Fear of Ebola Closes Schools and Shapes Politics, The New York Times
Wendy Davis faces long odds without an ‘October surprise’, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Federal Hatch Act complaint surfaces in state House race, The Dallas Morning News
Fighting for every mile in a west Texas showdown, Houston Chronicle
Rick Perry's Ebola test, Politico
Fikac: Echo of past in ban on gay marriage?, San Antonio Express-News
Tinderholt visits club on campus, The Shorthorn
"When people are concerned about catching a potentially deadly disease, that's going to trump all."
— University of Houston political science professor Jason Casellas on concerns about the Ebola virus pushing state politics off the front burner on the eve of the start of early voting
Why the Texas Enterprise Fund is still worth it, by Jason Villalba
• A Conversation With state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, and state Rep. Travis Clardy, R-Nacogdoches, on Oct. 22 at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches
• A Conversation With Railroad Commission Candidates Steve Brown and Ryan Sitton, on Oct. 30 at The Austin Club in Austin
• A One-Day Symposium on the Impact of the Shale Boom on Oct. 31 at the University of Texas San Antonio
• A Live Post-Election TribCast, featuring Tribune editors and reporters on the election results, on Nov. 5 at The Austin Club
• A Conversation With Railroad Commissioner Christi Craddick on Nov. 6 at The Austin Club
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/20/brief/.
Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout.
A provision of the Texas abortion law that closed all but eight abortion facilities in the state almost two weeks ago was temporarily put on hold Tuesday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The decision comes a week after attorneys representing a coalition of abortion providers in the state asked the Supreme Court to reinstate a U.S. district court ruling that had blocked a key provision that requires abortion facilities to meet the same hospital-like standards as ambulatory surgical centers. Those include minimum sizes for rooms and doorways and having pipelines for anesthesia.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had overturned that ruling and allowed the provision to go into effect as the appeals process continues, shutting down most of the state’s facilities. The 5th Circuit is still weighing the constitutionality of the law.
In Tuesday's ruling, the Supreme Court also overturned the provision of the abortion law, which is known as House Bill 2, that requires doctors who perform abortions to obtain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles for two facilities: Whole Woman’s Health in McAllen and Reproductive Services in El Paso.
Representatives for the abortion providers were quick to celebrate the Supreme Court’s decision as they await the appeals court's ruling on the law.
“The U.S. Supreme Court gave Texas women a tremendous victory today,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the abortion providers in the case. “Tomorrow, thirteen clinics across the state will be allowed to reopen and provide women with safe and legal abortion care in their own communities.
Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for the Texas attorney general's office, said in a statement that the office "will continue to defend the law, just as we defend all state laws when they are challenged in court."
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court, state attorneys argued that abortion providers’ request to review the 5th Circuit’s decision was “unwarranted” because “abortion remains widely available in Texas — even after HB2’s provisions have taken full effect.”
State attorneys wrote that the majority of Texas women still live within “comfortable driving distance” or 150 miles of an abortion facility that meets HB 2 standards. For the “small portion” of those living further from a clinic, the state argued that the travel distance was “an inconvenience, but still a manageable one.”
In their application to the Supreme Court, the abortion providers argued that the enforcement of HB 2 had already had “a devastating impact on the availability of abortion services,” leaving only eight abortion facilities in the state and none south of San Antonio or west of Fort Worth.
“If the stay entered by the Fifth Circuit is not vacated, the clinics forced to remain closed during the appeals process will likely never reopen,” the request reads. “Further, women’s ability to exercise their constitutional right to obtain an abortion will be lost, and their lives will be permanently and profoundly altered.”
This story was produced in partnership with Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy research and communication organization not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/14/us-supreme-court-puts-abortion-law-provision-hold/.
State Sen. Wendy Davis touched off a political firestorm Friday with a 30-second TV ad that features an empty wheelchair and slams Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott for working against disabled people despite winning a settlement after he was disabled himself.
“Wendy Davis is running one of the nastiest campaign ads you’ll ever see,” The Washington Post blared.
A “historic low” is how the attack ad was described by the Abbott campaign, which saw fellow Republicans rally to his side and issue demands that she pull down the ad.
Even liberal Mother Jones magazine unloaded on Davis, a Democrat.
“It's offensive and nasty and it shouldn't exist,” wrote Ben Dreyfess. “She's basically calling Abbott a cripple.”
The ad opens with the image of an empty wheelchair, after which an announcer states flatly, “A tree fell on Greg Abbott,” a reference to his catastrophic 1984 accident in Houston. It notes that Abbott won a multimillion-dollar settlement and then says he used his power as a state judge and as attorney general to oppose disabled Texans and others who have sued for damages or court redress — including a woman who had a leg amputated and another who was raped.
The hypocrisy attack isn’t new. As far back as 2002, when Abbott was first running for attorney general, Democratic critics accused him of a double standard by suing when he got hurt but then supporting lawsuit curbs for others. Abbott has said a victim of a similar accident would still be able to sue under state law.
Unlike the previous criticism, though, Davis' edgy new ad is stirring intense blowback — and it has spread far outside the borders of Texas. The image of the wheelchair sparked particularly heated chatter on social media, as pundits threw around words like “mean-spirited” and “nasty” and, from NBC’s Kasie Hunt, “Just, Wow.”
The New Hampshire Republican Party has already made the ad an issue in a hot U.S. Senate contest, in which Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is in a tight race with Republican Scott Brown.
“Shaheen should be ashamed of her support for her disgusting campaign,” New Hampshire GOP chairman Jennifer Horn said in a email blast. “Senator Shaheen has raised money to fund this despicable ad, and she should immediately call for Wendy Davis to take it down.”
Davis spokesman Zac Petkanas said Davis had no plans to take down the ad. He declined to talk about the campaign’s decision to use the image of the wheelchair but defended the content of the spot, which he said will begin airing Saturday.
“It’s not surprising that Greg Abbott and his allies don’t like the fact that voters are seeing that he sought justice for himself by going to court, suing a home owner and a tree company, and then building a career on denying that same justice to victims throughout the state of Texas,” Petkanas said.
Harold Cook, a Democratic strategist not affiliated with the Davis campaign, said he didn’t understand the outrage and noted that Republicans had often used hard-hitting, controversial tactics in their broadcast ads.
“I don’t know what the big deal is,” he said. “It’s clear she is not talking about his disability. She’s talking about his hypocrisy.”
Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University, said Abbott himself had used his wheelchair in ads, showing himself pushing his way up a parking garage to underscore his perseverance and rolling alongside a jam-packed freeway to draw attention to traffic gridlock in Texas.
Jillson called the Davis campaign commercial a "jarring ad that will get people's attention." He said the content of it underscores her dominant theme that Abbott is an insider who sides with corporate interests and donors over the rights of average Texans.
If that's what people take away from the ad, she benefits, Jillson said.
"But that wheelchair makes it a little bit different," he said. "If the conversation is, 'I'm horrified at that empty wheelchair,' she loses."
Disclosure: Southern Methodist University is a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/10/davis-ad-empty-wheelchair-sparks-firerstorm/.
Editor's note: This story has been updated throughout.
Lawyers for Gov. Rick Perry on Friday filed a request to dismiss the indictment against the governor, saying paperwork needed to properly swear in the prosecutor appointed to shepherd the case was not properly filled out or filed.
"Insofar as the records on file in these cases reflect, [special prosecutor Michael] McCrum, the purported attorney pro tem, is acting illegally because the basic procedural requirements have been overlooked," attorneys Tony Buzbee, Tom Phillips and David Botsford wrote in their filing with Travis County’s 390th District Court. The lawyers wrote that their allegations were based upon the district clerk's files in the case.
McCrum, who obtained the indictment against Perry in August, told The Texas Tribune that he was indeed sworn in.
"I don't know what they're talking about," said McCrum, who was sworn in as special prosecutor in August 2013 and again in 2014.
Perry is charged with abusing his official power by threatening to veto $7.5 million in state funds from the state's public integrity unit unless Democratic Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg stepped down following a 2013 drunken driving arrest and conviction. The Travis County DA's office oversees the state-financed public integrity unit. Lehmberg refused to resign, and Perry vetoed the money.
Because the case involves Lehmberg's office, a special prosecutor outside of the agency was appointed. McCrum was appointed by Visiting Judge Bert Richardson.
A copy of McCrum’s 2013 oath of office was obtained by the Tribune from the Travis County district clerk’s office. Form 2204, as it is known, has McCrum’s name printed in as the person taking an “oath of office.”
Another blank line for the “signature of officer” is signed by the judge in the case, Richardson, who was also appointed to oversee the case.
It differs from a similar form for a second lawyer appointed to assist McCrum, David Gonzalez. That oath of office form has Gonzalez’s signature, not the judge’s.
According to the Texas criminal code, an oath by someone like McCrum, who is operating in the place of an assistant district attorney or a district attorney “pro tem,” must be filed with the clerk.
As for the forms and how they are supposed to be filled out, that’s not specified in the code.
However, Perry’s attorneys point to how the clerk’s office does not have paperwork verifying DA Rosemary Lehmberg’s recusal from the case and other paperwork.
An email to the clerk’s office regarding those forms was not immediately answered.
Disclosure: Tony Buzbee has been a major donor to The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.
This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at http://www.texastribune.org/2014/10/03/perry-attorneys-say-special-pros-never-took-oath/.
