BG Reads | News You Need to Know (December 7, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW BG PODCAST - EP. 115: 2020 Fall Closeout with Associate Intern Wendy Rodriguez
Pre-filed bills for the 87th Texas Legislature:
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin area will get 13,650 vaccine doses within weeks (KUT)
The Austin area will get 13,650 initial doses of the Pfizer vaccine when it's approved by the federal government, Austin Public Health announced Friday evening.
The initial shipment will go to a handful of hospitals in Travis, Williamson and Hays counties so health care providers can be vaccinated first.
"We are excited for our hospital systems partners to begin vaccinating our front-line hospital workers against this virus," interim Austin-Travis County Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said in an emailed statement. "By protecting our healthcare system personnel we can ensure that we are able to meet the needs of COVID and non-COVID patients in our community. We are looking forward to vaccine shipments continuing in the weeks and months to come so that, in future phases, we can offer vaccines to those at high risk for severe disease as we progress down the path of community-wide vaccination."
The shipments are dictated by the Texas Department of State Health Services and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 150 health care providers have signed up to distribute the vaccine when it becomes more widely available… (LINK TO STORY)
Sources: Facebook wants 1M more square feet downtown (Austin Business Journal)
Facebook Inc. may put its expansion in Central Texas into overdrive by taking an eye-popping amount of office space downtown.
The California-based social media giant is in the market for 1 million square feet, multiple sources said. That would be on top of the numerous offices it already has in the Texas capital, they added.
There's not currently an office tower that could accommodate that sort of request in downtown Austin — 1 million square feet is roughly tantamount to two Frost Bank Towers — so sources said Facebook seeks to split the space between two towers in development: 6 X Guadalupe and Indeed Tower. Officials with the leasing agencies for the two towers — Lincoln Property Company and CBRE Group Inc., respectively — declined to comment for this article.
A spokesperson for Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) did not return requests for comment on the company's potential expansion.
Sources told Austin Business Journal that Facebook is in the advanced stages of looking for more space although it's always possible the company could decide not to move forward.
If Facebook did take space in those two towers under construction, it would have a large presence in three towers in a row on West Sixth Street — a strip known for its nightlife. It would also make Facebook the largest tenant in downtown Austin, said longtime real estate expert Mike Kennedy of MK Interests.
Kennedy said right now, Google and Facebook are essentially neck-and-neck as the dominant downtown office eaters. Google is in the process of building a tower that will give it roughly another 800,000 square feet… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin created a program to pay struggling tenants’ rent. Some say it added to stress. (Austin Monitor)
Petra Antonio and her husband, Domingo Quiroz, got Covid-19 in September. Antonio said she felt OK, but Quiroz had a fever and a cough that kept him awake at night. He wanted to avoid going to the hospital, because he believed from news reports that if you’re sick enough with the coronavirus to need hospitalization, chances are you won’t survive it.
“He was afraid to go (to the hospital) because they say that you don’t leave,” Antonio said in Spanish.
To quarantine from his wife and four kids, Quiroz spent a week in a hotel run by the city. He eventually felt better, but missed nearly a month of work. The family already had been struggling to pay the roughly $1,600 a month in rent for their two-bedroom apartment in North Austin, especially after Antonio’s hours cleaning office buildings got cut.
The same month they got sick they applied to the city’s rent assistance program. To qualify, residents must prove the coronavirus has affected their income. Antonio attached copies of the family’s positive Covid-19 tests and a letter explaining the wages they’d lost.
But program administrators determined the couple didn’t have enough evidence to show they’d been affected financially by the virus. They didn’t deny them assistance, but asked for more documentation. (The Housing Authority of the City of Austin confirmed by email that a positive Covid test is not sufficient evidence of a financial impact.)
“It wasn’t very clear to me what they actually wanted,” Antonio said.
Relief of Emergency Needs for Tenants, or RENT 2.0, is the second iteration of a program that pays the rent for people who’ve been financially affected by the pandemic. The city and HACA have expended more than three-fourths of the roughly $12.9 million allocated for rent help.
t’s funded almost entirely by federal dollars, which means it comes with a deadline. After struggling at first to dole out the money, now it’s almost gone; the city has put out a last call for applications, and renters have until before noon on Tuesday to apply.
But some tenants and the nonprofits helping them apply say the documentation they have to provide is especially burdensome. Some have complained of having to wait more than a month to receive any communication about their status. Others awarded relief say it took more than a month to get their rent paid.
All this has left tenants behind on rent unable to know for certain if they can depend on the city’s help and whether to plan for a potential eviction… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Texas House Republican Caucus endorses Rep. Dade Phelan as next Speaker of the House (KXAN)
The Texas House Republican Caucus has selected state Rep. Dade Phelan as its endorsed candidate to become the next Speaker of the Texas House. Phelan is one of a number of lawmakers who has stated an intent to run to succeed Dennis Bonnen as House Speaker. Last month, he insisted he had enough support to become the next Speaker, saying “the race is over.”
“Texas House Republicans hold Representative Phelan in the highest esteem and we are confident he shall be a successful House Speaker that will achieve many legislative triumphs over the next biennium,” Chairman Jim Murphy said. “It is my honor to have received the endorsement of my House Republican colleagues to become Speaker of the Texas House, and I am humbled by the trust and confidence they have placed in me today,” Phelan said. The official vote will take place on the first day of the legislative session in January… (LINK TO STORY)
Dan Patrick says people may need to take a coronavirus test 24 hours before testifying during the legislative session (Texas Tribune)
As the latest discussions over how the Texas Legislature should operate during a pandemic continue to surface, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told members of the Texas Senate this week that people wishing to testify on legislation before a committee may need to register days beforehand and take a coronavirus test ahead of the hearing.
Patrick, the Republican head of the upper chamber, mentioned a number of possibilities to the Senate Democrat Caucus during a conference call Friday. Patrick said people may have to register online three days before a committee hearing to testify and take a rapid test for the virus 24 hours beforehand. People have typically been allowed to sign up to speak on a piece of legislation the day of a committee hearing.
Patrick said that the National Guard could test between 10 to 12 people at the Capitol in an hour. Once results are back, which could take up to an hour, persons cleared would be allowed into the building. He also mentioned that most committee hearings may only take place Tuesday and Wednesday — at least for the first 60 days of the 87th Legislature, which convenes in January.
Sherry Sylvester, a senior adviser to Patrick, told The Texas Tribune on Saturday that conversations are still ongoing about specific protocols and that Patrick and Republican state Rep. Dade Phelan, the likely next House speaker, have been in talks and “hope to be able to make an announcement regarding the Session shortly.”… (LINK TO STORY)
As COVID spiked in Texas, lawmakers escaped to Maui for corporate-backed confab on economy (Dallas Morning News)
At least two state lawmakers decamped to Hawaii the week before Thanksgiving for a conference funded by corporate sponsors, just as public health officials urged Americans to call off or downsize their holiday gatherings due to the coronavirus. Rep. Lyle Larson of San Antonio and Sen. Larry Taylor of Friendswood, both Republicans, confirmed to The Dallas Morning News that they attended the meeting at a luxury hotel in Maui the week of Nov. 16. Hosted by the Independent Voter Project, a San Diego-based nonprofit, this year’s conference reportedly brought together at least 50 people, including about 20 state legislators from California and Texas, to discuss ways to restart the economy during the pandemic.
Ethics watchdogs have long criticized the four-day confab as an industry backed tropical getaway masquerading as a policy conference. This year, organizers were hit with even harsher criticism for not cancelling the conference amid the surge in COVID-19 cases. And now, Independent Voter Project chairman Dan Howle and the lawmakers who attended his event in the recent past have a different problem on their hands. After scouring years of financial documents, The News found that potentially tens of thousands of dollars in expenses the Independent Voter Project covered for Texas legislators to attend its last three conferences were never disclosed.
Critics of Texas ethics laws say this lapse reveals how loosely the state’s rules are followed and proves they should be tightened. Howle, who defended holding the conference during the pandemic, originally told The News that he informed legislators they would have to disclose expenses paid by his organization. At least five lawmakers who attended in recent years dispute this claim, alleging Howle is blaming them to cover his mistake. Failing to disclose these expenses is a violation of state ethics laws, which require either the host or the public official to report the benefit. But hours after The News published this story, Howle took full responsibility for the disclosure lapse and promised to apologize to lawmakers who attended in recent years… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Trump election claims dominate Georgia Senate debate (The Hill)
President Trump’s efforts to sow doubt in the 2020 presidential election took center stage Sunday night during a debate between Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) and Democrat Raphael Warnock, serving as a reminder of the long shadow the president has cast over the Georgia Senate runoffs.
Loeffler and Warnock sparred over a long list of issues during the hour-long televised debate.
Loeffler repeatedly accused Warnock of supporting “socialist” policies and seized on a host of well-worn Republican talking points to attack her Democratic opponent. Warnock, meanwhile, accused Loeffler of seeking to profit from her office and dragging her feet on efforts to provide legislative relief to a country roiled by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
But it was Trump’s efforts to dispute the outcome of the 2020 election that dominated the conversation on Sunday. From the outset, Loeffler declined to say whether she supported the president’s claims of a so-called “rigged” election, though she repeatedly said that Trump had a right to seek recourse in the courts.
“The president has the right to pursue every legal recourse to make sure this was a free and fair election in Georgia,” she said.
The questions on Trump’s refusal to concede the presidential race to President-elect Joe Biden came not only from the debate moderators, but from Warnock himself. At one point, he pressed Loeffler on whether or not she believes Trump lost the election… (LINK TO STORY)
Vaccine opponents rebrand as rollout of Covid-19 shots looms (Politico)
With weeks to go until the United States begins vaccinating people against the coronavirus, an increasingly vocal “medical freedom” movement is gearing up to fight any attempts to make the shots mandatory.
Longstanding vaccine opponents have rebranded themselves, forging alliances with religious and civil liberties groups to protest stay-at-home orders, business closures and mask mandates in recent months. They argue that those policies, designed to stop the spread of a deadly virus, violate their rights.
Now this emerging coalition, which draws from both ends of the political spectrum, is turning its attention to coronavirus vaccines — and any states or employers who might try to make getting the shots mandatory. These anti-vaccine activists are seeking to capitalize on resistance to existing public health measures along with concerns that the hunt for Covid-19 shots has been politicized.
“With a lot of focus on Covid-19, we’re hoping to get something on protection on the Covid-19 vaccine specifically,” said Stephanie Stock, president of the Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, which opposes any type of mandatory vaccination.
Already, several governors have dismissed the notion of requiring coronavirus shots for their residents over fears of a legal or cultural backlash that could make it harder to reach the 70 to 85 percent vaccination rate needed to achieve herd immunity.
“The anti-vaccine movement has been going for years and years without a big audience, so the anti-mask thing, which has become very common now, suddenly gives the anti-vaccines an audience,” said Jonathan Berman, a physiologist who’s authored a book on vaccine opponents. “You see anti-maskers adopting tactics from the anti-vaccine movement, and you’ve seen anti-vaccine ideas fall into the anti-mask rhetoric.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Biden announces health team, taps Xavier Becerra to lead HHS (AXIOS)
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced the key members of his health team, tapping California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be Health and Human Services secretary and Harvard infectious-disease expert Rochelle Walensky to be director of the CDC.
Why it matters: The team will immediately be in charge of addressing what will likely still be an out-of-control pandemic, including the government's efforts to distribute coronavirus vaccines.
Other appointments:
Vivek Murthy has been nominated for Surgeon General, the same role he served during the Obama administration between 2014 and 2017.
Rochelle Walensky has been nominated to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Walensky is Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School.
Marcella Nunez-Smith will serve as the COVID-19 Equity Task Force Chair — a new role in the White House. Smith is a professor at the Yale School of Medicine and the founding director of Yale’s Equity Research and Innovation Center.
Jeff Zients will be coordinator of the COVID-19 Response and Counselor to the President. He previously provided leadership of the 2013 HealthCare.gov tech surge and oversight of the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ fuel-efficiency program.
Natalie Quillian will serve as deputy coordinator of the COVID-19 Response. She previously coordenated the Obama administration’s interagency response to the opioid epidemic… (LINK TO STORY)