BG Reads | News You Need to Know (December 14, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW BG PODCAST - EP. 116: Discussing the 87th Texas Legislative Session with Lobbyist Lorena Campos
Pre-filed bills for the 87th Texas Legislature:
[AUSTIN METRO]
Oracle moves headquarters to Texas, joining Valley exodus (Bloomberg)
Oracle Corp., a Silicon Valley stalwart, has moved its headquarters to Texas, becoming the latest technology company to leave its home state in the face of California’s higher taxes, steeper cost of living and a broader shift to remote work.
The move to Austin from Redwood City “means that many of our employees can choose their office location as well as continue to work from home part time or all of the time,” Oracle said Friday in a regulatory filing. The company will continue to support its former headquarters and other U.S. offices in Santa Monica, California; Seattle; Denver; Orlando, Florida; and Burlington, Massachusetts, according to the filing.
The software maker said it had 135,000 employees as of the end of May. Like many other companies, the spread of coronavirus has prompted Oracle to offer staffers more flexible arrangements, including the ability to work from home. It’s just one of a number of companies, executives and employees that are ditching California because of concerns over the state’s tax rates and high costs, as well as arduous commutes in some locales… (LINK TO STORY)
City moves on plan to create AEDC, commissions consider board appointments (Austin Monitor)
The city continues to move forward with plans to create the Austin Economic Development Corporation and expects its 21-member governing board will be decided by late January.
At their Dec. 7 meeting, members of the Music Commission discussed a Nov. 2 presentation about the AEDC by David Colligan, the interim chief operating officer of the corporation, and formed a five-member working group to privately select their appointee to the board.
“Each representative shall possess demonstrable skills and experience in the areas of industry, public/private partnerships, infrastructure or transportation, real estate development or construction, urban/regional planning, historic preservation, finance, creative and music industry, minority and women-owned businesses (MWBE), and/or workforce,” according to the presentation.
The board will elect the AEDC’s CEO, and guide other decision-making by the corporation.
Unlike municipal government, public developers can move at market-pace, accept charitable donations and speed approvals under city oversight, according to the presentation.
“It formed because there are a lot of ideas that are being floated that are really good, but are hard for the city to execute,” Music Commissioner Oren Rosenthal said.
The AEDC will be a public-private partnership, governed by a board of designees in various areas of expertise. Functioning with the agility of a corporation, the AEDC will be able to execute ideas that are often difficult for a city to implement… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin FC acquire 2021 squad members on first day of trading (Austin American-Statesman)
Let the squad build begin for Austin FC. On Sunday morning, Major League Soccer franchises could start trading players to begin juggling squads for the 2021 season. Clubs had until noon to acquire talent in trades, some of which had already been rumored to happen… (LINK TO STORY)
Move over, cars. Bike lanes are coming to a section of South Lamar. (KUT)
The stretch of South Lamar Boulevard between Riverside Drive and Barton Springs Road will lose some street, gain some bicycle lanes and (hopefully) get a little safer.
The Austin City Council approved a construction contract Thursday to make changes to the busy street; it’s one part of the road adjustments voters approved in the $720 million mobility bond in 2016… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin's groundbreaking new 'social contract' is first of its kind in nation (CultureMap Austin)
During its meeting on Thursday, December 10, the Austin City Council issued a groundbreaking directive to the city manager: write a social contract for Austin. The council has tasked City Manager Spencer Cronk to work with the city’s Joint Inclusion Committee to write the document, which is to be presented to the council by June 1, 2021.
"A global pandemic and racial unrest have led this nation and communities across the country to an inflection point; and ... despite the polarization playing out on the national stage, the Austin community strives to rise above," reads the resolution.
This resolution is the first of its kind in the nation, according to those who worked on the initiative.
The contract should reflect values shared by the people of Austin, reads the resolution. Those values are outlined as:
Be respectful
Listen to understand
Act with good intentions
Support ideas with evidence and experience
Disagree without being disagreeable
Critique the idea not the person
Invite wonder
Austin's social contract would not be a legal document, but rather serve as a "written agreement outlining a community’s core values and instructs the direction of laws, regulations, policies, contracts, culture and more.
"The recommendations in this resolution are an important step to give our city a shared compass — rooted in equity — that leads us toward our north star: A city where everyone can reach their full potential," said David Smith, CEO at United Way for Greater Austin… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
With excitement and uncertainty, Texas readies for coronavirus vaccine (Austin American-Statesman)
As a wartime-like deployment of vaccinations unfolded across the country over the weekend, fault lines in Texas emerged over who will take the medicine. In public comments and tweets, Gov. Greg Abbott, toeing a line of public health and politics, has repeatedly said that "vaccines are voluntary, never forced." And earlier in the month, the governor said "the Lone Star State is prepared to swiftly distribute" the vaccine "to those who voluntarily choose to be immunized." On Saturday, he repeated that message, writing that the vaccine would arrive in Texas by Monday and will be distributed immediately.
"Texas is slated to receive more doses THIS MONTH than the total number of Texans who have tested positive for COVID," he said. It's a grim accounting, with narrow margins. More than 1.3 million known positive cases of COVID have been notched in Texas since the start of the pandemic; at least 23,800 of those cases have ended in death. Texas officials have said they expect 1.4 million doses of vaccine in December. But as some government officials and public health experts labor to reassure the public of the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer version of the vaccine, which won federal emergency use last week, a murmur of resistance is already echoing off the walls of social media. "Voluntary, not forced," a Twitter user named @LieeManzur wrote over the weekend in response to one of Abbott's pronouncements. "Ok. Well make sure it stays that way in the schools. And saying you can’t attend unless vaccinated is not 'voluntary.'"… (LINK TO STORY)
El Paso Mayor Dee Margo loses reelection bid to Oscar Leeser (Texas Tribune)
El Paso Mayor Dee Margo has lost reelection to his predecessor, Oscar Leeser, in a runoff defined by the city's coronavirus crisis and the incumbent's management of it.
With early voting numbers Saturday night showing Leeser beating Margo by almost 65 percentage points, an overwhelming margin to beat on an election day during COVID-19, Margo conceded, according to local reports.
At the time of his concession, Leeser had 82.3% of the early vote, while Margo had 17.7%. With all vote centers reporting early Sunday morning, Leeser’s final lead came out to just under 60 points… (LINK TO STORY)
Three indicted in Harris County on allegations of trying to illegally influence state House races (Texas Tribune)
A Harris County grand jury has indicted three people who tried to illegally influence races in two Houston-area state House districts during the 2020 election cycle, District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Friday.
The impacted districts were House District 132 and House District 142, currently represented by state Reps. Gina Calanni, D-Katy, and Harold Dutton, D-Houston, respectively. Dutton's reelection bid made headlines earlier this year after questions were raised about whether one of the candidates on the ballot in his March primary actually existed. None of the allegations involved the voting process or the casting of illegal ballots.
That candidate, listed as Natasha Ruiz on ballot application paperwork, was absent from the campaign trail but received enough votes in the four-way race that helped force Dutton into a runoff with Houston City Council member Jerry Davis.
Ruiz, who would later identify herself to a news outlet as Natasha Demming, worked with Richard Bonton, the fourth candidate, to file her ballot application under a false name, Ogg said Friday. Bonton's motive, Ogg said in a news release, appeared to be an attempt to manipulate voters in the district into supporting a Latina candidate and "dilute [Dutton's] voter base in a district with a growing Latino population." Demming is Black, as are Bonton and Dutton, who has held the seat since 1985… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Historic U.S. vaccine campaign begins with first shipments 'delivering hope' to millions (Reuters)
The first shipments of COVID-19 vaccine left on trucks and planes early on Sunday, kicking off a historic effort to stop a surging pandemic that is claiming more than 2,400 lives a day in the United States.
Mask-wearing workers at a Pfizer Inc factory in Michigan began packing the first shipments of the vaccine developed with German partner BioNTech SE in dry ice shortly after 6:30 a.m. ET (1130 GMT) on Sunday.
Trucks carrying pallets of boxed, refrigerated vaccine began rolling away from the Kalamazoo facility, escorted by body armor-clad security officers. The shots then were loaded onto FedEx and United Parcel Service planes that will whisk the precious cargo across the country.
“Today, we’re not hauling freight, we’re delivering hope,” said Andrew Boyle, co-president of Boyle Transportation, which was hired by UPS to help ferry vaccine from the factory to a waiting plane in Lansing, Michigan… (LINK TO STORY)
Electoral College set to affirm Biden’s victory (Politico)
Electors in 50 state capitals and Washington, D.C., are gathering Monday to cast the formal votes electing Joe Biden president, one of the last steps to finalize the 2020 election process and close off President Donald Trump’s continued efforts to overturn the results.
The constitutionally mandated ritual rarely draws much notice, but the electors are meeting this year against an unusual backdrop, with the sitting president sowing doubts about the legitimacy of the election and lodging baseless claims of fraud that have been adopted, despite repeated losses in court, by a significant portion of GOP voters and officials.
That’s why electors, while excited to perform their constitutional function, are watching warily for last-ditch protests by Trump or his allies Monday. Democratic electors are working in close coordination with their state parties and the Biden campaign to ensure Monday’s ceremonies run smoothly, especially in five states Biden flipped: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where Trump allies have continued to contest the results.
For Trump, the Electoral College vote likely marks the end of his wide-ranging legal effort to remain in power. While his legal team and their allies have talked of continuing their litigation, they have also pointed to the Electoral College vote as a crucial and essentially irreversible milestone.
The only step that remains after Monday is a Jan. 6 meeting of Congress to count and certify the electoral votes. Trump’s allies in the House are promising to inject some drama into that process by challenging Biden’s win in Congress, but it will likely amount to a filibuster, forcing a daylong debate that delays certification by a matter of hours… (LINK TO STORY)
Fauci says herd immunity possible by fall, ‘normality’ by end of 2021 (The Harvard Gazette)
The nation’s top infectious disease doctor offered a timeline for ending the COVID-19 pandemic this week, saying that if the coming vaccination campaign goes well, we could approach herd immunity by summer’s end and “normality that is close to where we were before” by the end of 2021.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday that that estimate is dependent on significant numbers of Americans being willing to be inoculated with one of several vaccines in various stages of development. If 75 percent to 80 percent of Americans are vaccinated in broad-based campaigns likely to start in the second quarter of next year, then the U.S. should reach the herd immunity threshold months later. If vaccination levels are significantly lower, 40 percent to 50 percent, Fauci said, it could take a very long time to reach that level of protection.
“Let’s say we get 75 percent, 80 percent of the population vaccinated,” Fauci said. “If we do that, if we do it efficiently enough over the second quarter of 2021, by the time we get to the end of the summer, i.e., the third quarter, we may actually have enough herd immunity protecting our society that as we get to the end of 2021, we can approach very much some degree of normality that is close to where we were before.” (LINK TO STORY)
Tech "exodus" isn't scaring Silicon Valley (AXIOS)
Silicon Valley's powerhouses aren't putting out the "moving sale" signs, even as a handful of high-profile departures raises questions about the region's status.
Driving the news: Oracle's Friday announcement that it's shifting its headquarters to Austin, Texas follows a previous move by Hewlett Packard Enterprise to Houston.
Reality check: These companies aren't shutting down their Californian offices. They've changed their legal addresses in part to flee the state's taxes and regulations.
Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has sparred with California over labor issues amid pandemic restrictions, recently announced he would move from Los Angeles to Texas, which is likely to save him a fortune in personal taxes.
Between the lines: The firms leading this wave of departures from Silicon Valley represent the industry's more conservative wing.
Surveillance-focused Palantir has moved from Palo Alto to Denver.
Oracle was the tech industry's biggest supporter of President Trump.
Think of their moves as a part of the U.S.'s ongoing "big sort," where businesses and individuals increasingly choose where to live based on their political and cultural affiliations to the "blue" or "red" tribes.
Context: Oracle is a venerable database powerhouse, but it has never vaulted into the front rank of tech industry giants. HPE is a shard of the once-mighty Hewlett Packard focused on corporate hardware and services. (The rest of the old Hewlett Packard remains in the Valley.)
You won't find anyone on Sand Hill Road who believes these firms' departures say anything about Silicon Valley's capacity to keep innovating.
The big picture: The "tech exodus" from the San Francisco Bay Area is a permanent feature of the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Every turn of the tech business cycle brings new waves of engineers, entrepreneurs and startups to the housing-starved region — and others regularly leave to make room… (LINK TO STORY)