BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 7, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast Episode 98: Processing and the State of Black Austin Music with Jackie Venson (SHOW LINK)
On today’s episode Bingham Group CEO A.J. speaks with Jackie Venson singer-songwriter and guitarist, and native Austinite.
Jackie candidly details her June 12th letter (”Jackie Venson asks the Austin music scene: ‘What are you willing to do?’” ) which led to her curating Blues on the Green’s first all-Black lineup in the event’s 30-year history.
The event, titled Blues on the Screen (due to COVID-19 restrictions), premieres Wednesday July 8th at 7PM.
Note: Show also available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Sound Cloud, and Stitcher
[AUSTIN METRO]
Political vets line up to take on City Hall, educate Austinites on transit and other key issues (Austin Monitor)
A new nonprofit group appears ready to oppose ongoing City Council actions concerning mass transit, public safety, land use and city finances, promising a targeted education campaign in the coming months.
The group Voices for Austin, a 501(c)(4) organized earlier this year by local political leaders, touts the findings of a recent poll of just over 400 Austinites that claims 80 percent of respondents say they are not satisfied with the direction of city government. The group, led by Gonzalo Barrientos, former state representative and senator, and former City Council Member Ora Houston, announced the survey findings at an online press conference last week, though neither the sponsor nor the polling company involved were named.
“A definite majority of Austin voters disagree with current City Hall politics. Over 80 percent of Austinites feel unsafe in their neighborhoods and downtown. Clearly we need better, not fewer police. Over 70 percent of Austinites want traffic to be improved to optimize vehicle transportation, yet our city government does not sufficiently debate traffic congestion,” Barrientos said. “Instead they discuss mobility, which to them means narrower, less drivable streets and a probable 25 percent (property) tax increase for trains that will take years to build and make downtown traffic a mess for decades.”
Houston, who opted not to run for reelection to her District 1 seat, said Council is acting against residents’ best interests with recent actions to defund the Austin Police Department.
“Any serious consideration of reducing the number of peace officers in Austin must be balanced by the fact that more than 80 percent of Austinites in every district in the city feel unsafe in their neighborhoods and downtown,” she said. “Austinites want a police department that is well trained, free of bias and professional, not fewer officers.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
A former public defender hopes to unseat top prosecutor in Travis County District Attorney race (KUT)
The district attorney is considered the most powerful actor in the criminal justice system. These prosecutors have total discretion when it comes to pursuing criminal cases, operating with broad legal immunity.
The Travis County District Attorney's Office prosecutes a range of felony offenses, from low-level drug convictions to aggravated sexual assault to capital murder. (The county attorney’s office, meanwhile, is largely responsible for prosecuting misdemeanor offenses.)
DAs are the ultimate decision-makers on whether to file charges, and, if they decide to do so, these prosecutors hold considerable influence throughout the lifecycle of a case. From plea bargains to trial evidence to sentencing recommendations, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office weighs in at every stage of the process… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin businesses got billions in federal loans to stay afloat amid outbreak (Austin American-Statesman)
About 25,000 Austin-based businesses and nonprofit entities received forgivable loans under the federal program designed to help keep the U.S. economy afloat amid the coronavirus pandemic, equating to a multibillion-dollar — but temporary — life raft for the local economy.
The cumulative amount of loans to Austin recipients totals between $2 billion and $6.3 billion, based on a wide range of loan data released by the U.S. Small Business Administration on Monday.
The federal agency previously declined to disclose the names of loan recipients or how much they received under the government’s Paycheck Protection Program, prompting the American-Statesman and many other news organizations to file open records requests for the information.
The data released Monday doesn’t include the names of businesses that received loans worth less than $150,000, although more than 21,000 loans are in that category in Austin.
Under the program, the loans don’t have to be repaid if they’re used to keep employees on payrolls.
The federal government has made about 4.9 million of the PPP loans nationwide, according to the Small Business Administration, totaling more than $500 billion.
In Austin, 15 companies received loans ranging from $5 million to $10 million — the highest category in terms of loan amount. They include well-known local entities like Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas, Torchy’s Tacos and ABC Pest Control Inc.
Another 405 Austin businesses and nonprofits received loans ranging from $1 million to $5 million, while about 3,150 received loans ranging from $150,000 to $1 million… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner urges Texas GOP to cancel its convention (Texas Tribune)
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner encouraged the Republican Party of Texas on Monday to cancel its in-person convention in Houston next week and warned that should the event continue, health inspectors would have the authority to shut down the gathering if certain guidelines are not followed.
Turner said that he planned to send a letter to members of the State Republican Executive Committee, the state party’s governing board, outlining conditions the party must follow in order to hold the convention.
“I do not think it is wise or prudent to hold a convention of 6,000 or more,” the Houston mayor’s office tweeted. “I am asking them to have a virtual event.”
A spokesperson for the state party did not immediately respond to a request for comment. And a copy of Turner's letter to the SREC was not immediately available… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas coronavirus cases cross 200,000 mark (Austin American-Statesman)
Texas reached 200,000 total COVID-19 cases Monday, just 17 days after crossing the 100,000 threshold, a figure that took the state nearly four months to hit. The grim milestone came as the state has reported weeks of surging hospitalizations and new cases, and as Gov. Greg Abbott aimed to clamp down on those rising numbers with a statewide mask order.
Although the number of newly reported cases rose at a slower rate Sunday and Monday, with the Texas Department of State Health Services reporting 5,318 cases Monday, a spokesman for the health agency said the state may see a “big increase” in new cases this week as more local jurisdictions report data after the holiday weekend. “There were a lot of jurisdictions that didn’t report new cases with the holiday weekend, particularly on Saturday, which would have showed up in yesterday’s update,” agency spokesman Chris Van Deusen said in an email. The number of cases and hospitalizations has accelerated since Memorial Day, prompting Abbott to close bars, reduce restaurant occupancy, pause additional reopenings and issue a statewide order to wear a face covering in counties with more than 20 COVID-19 cases. But Texas has yet to see whether the latest restrictions will improve the numbers. The incubation period for the virus is between one and 14 days, meaning data won’t immediately reflect the changes… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas wants $32 million in unemployment benefits back after finding 46,000 people were overpaid (Texas Tribune)
More than 46,000 Texans who lost their jobs in recent months were initially overpaid by the Texas Workforce Commission, which now wants $32 million in unemployment benefits back.
“State law requires TWC to recover all unemployment benefits overpayments,” Cisco Gamez, spokesperson for the state agency, said in an email. “Overpayments stay on your record until repaid."
It's unclear how many of those overpayments, first reported by the Houston Chronicle, are due to fraud and how many are due to TWC's errors. The agency had not responded to requests for that information by late Monday. The agency also did not immediately provide the average amount that was overpaid.
Benefits must be repaid even if the state is to blame for the overpayment, or if it was otherwise not the recipient's fault. If TWC finds unemployment fraud in a case, the person has to give back the benefits and pay a 15% penalty.
The Texas Tribune thanks its sponsors… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Fauci: State of US coronavirus outbreak “really not good”
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, warned Monday that the state of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States is “really not good” and that action is needed to stop the resurgence.
New cases per day in the U.S. have now climbed to about 50,000, which Fauci, speaking in an online chat hosted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), linked to some states and cities reopening their economies too aggressively.
“A series of circumstances associated with various states and cities trying to open up in the sense of getting back to some form of normality has led to a situation where we now have record-breaking cases,” Fauci said in the chat with NIH Director Francis Collins.
Fauci said part of the problem is the U.S. never got the virus down to a low level before the most recent surge.
“We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this,” he said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Justices rule states can bind presidential electors’ votes (Associated Press)
In a decision flavored with references to “Hamilton” and “Veep,” the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that states can require presidential electors to back their states’ popular vote winner in the Electoral College.
The ruling, in cases in Washington state and Colorado just under four months before the 2020 election, leaves in place laws in 32 states and the District of Columbia that bind electors to vote for the popular-vote winner, as electors almost always do anyway.
So-called faithless electors have not been critical to the outcome of a presidential election, but that could change in a race decided by just a few electoral votes. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
A state may instruct “electors that they have no ground for reversing the vote of millions of its citizens,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her majority opinion that walked through American political and constitutional history with an occasional nod to pop culture…(LINK TO FULL STORY)
With new security law, China outlaws global activism (AXIOS)
The draconian security law that Beijing forced upon Hong Kong last week contains an article making it illegal for anyone in the world to promote democratic reform for Hong Kong.
Why it matters: China has long sought to crush organized dissent abroad through quiet threats and coercion. Now it has codified that practice into law — potentially forcing people and companies around the world to choose between speaking freely and ever stepping foot in Hong Kong again.
What's happening: Article 38 of the national security law states, "This Law shall apply to offenses under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region."
In other words, every provision of the law applies to everyone outside of Hong Kong — including you… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
The Bingham Group, LLC is an Austin-based full service lobbying firm representing and advising clients on municipal, legislative, and regulatory matters throughout Texas.
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