BG Reads | News You Need to Know (June 4, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
SUMMER NEWS
We are proud to announce Kernard Jones and Josh Smythe-Macaulay as Associate Fellow and Associate Intern for the summer.
Kernard is a native Houstonian and 2020 graduate of Texas Southern University majoring in Political Science. He previously interned with BP America as a Summer Associate (State and Local Affairs).
Josh is a native Austinite and graduate of James Bowie High School. A rising junior at Columbia University, he is currently studying Sociology along with being a student-athlete on the varsity football team.
Learn more about them on the Associates Page.
*NEW* BG Podcast EP 89: COVID-19's Impact on the Built Environment with Michael Hsu (LINK TO SHOW)
*NEW* COVIOVID-19: Governor Abbott Announces Phase III To Open Texas (Office of the Governor)
Governor Greg Abbott announced Wednesday the third phase of the State of Texas’ plan to safely open the economy while containing the spread of COVID-19. Under Phase III, effective immediately, all businesses in Texas will be able to operate at up to 50% capacity, with very limited exceptions. Business that previously have been able to operate at 100% capacity may continue to do so, and most outdoor areas are not subject to capacity limits. All businesses and customers should continue to follow minimum standard health protocols laid out by the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS).
Effective June 3:
All businesses currently operating at 25% capacity can expand their occupancy to 50% with certain exceptions.
Bars and similar establishments may increase their capacity to 50% as long as patrons are seated.
Amusement parks and carnivals in counties with less than 1,000 confirmed positive cases may open at 50% capacity.
Restaurants may expand their maximum table size from 6 to 10 persons.
Effective June 12:
Restaurants may expand their occupancy levels to 75%.
Counties with 10 or less active COVID-19 cases may expand their occupancy limits to 75%. Counties that fit this category but have not previously filed an attestation with DSHS will need to do so.
Effective June 19:
Amusement parks and carnivals in counties with more than 1,000 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 may open at 50% capacity.
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin City Council will hold emergency hearings on police violence today (Austin Monitor)
More than 300 people have signed up to talk about what transpired during weekend protests against systemic racism and police killings, at an emergency Austin City Council session Thursday.
Council members will reconvene the following morning to hear from Austin Police Chief Brian Manley. No immediate action is expected to be taken.
According to Manley, police injured at least three people when they shot “less lethal” rounds at protesters, among them a 20-year-old black man who was in critical condition Monday.
On Tuesday, Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, Council’s only black member, appealed to her colleagues to take action on changes within the police department.
“I am angry and I am hurt and I am sad and you should be, too. And if you’re not, then I don’t know what to tell you.
“Our residents, they want us to hear their pain, they want us to hear their outrage,” she said. “They want this long-overdue change to systems that protect the privileged while traumatizing black, brown and other marginalized people. … We cannot continue to stick our fingers in our ears and just wait for the next eruption of anger.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Activists And Protesters Call For Cuts To Police Department Budget (KUT)
In addition to talking about police accountability and the dangers protesters face in the streets, the Austin Justice Coalition discussed Tuesday the idea of cutting police department budgets.
It’s a policy goal that’s existed for years among Austin criminal justice reformers but appears to have gained new momentum as protests and budget woes continue.
“Every dollar spent on policing has an opportunity cost. That cost is money that could have been spent on housing, money that could have been spent on health,” said Chris Harris, who directs criminal justice programs at the nonprofit Texas Appleseed.
“We have doctors without PPE (personal protective equipment), but we have police armed to the teeth,” he added.
Advocates say reducing police spending could lower interactions between officers and black and brown people who feel threatened by police. Opponents counter it could result in police doing more overtime work… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin Public Health director cautions residents against unauthorized antibody tests (Community Impact)
Residents who use some unauthorized antibody tests to determine if they have contracted COVID-19 may be vulnerable to receiving false test results, one local health care official said in a recent interview.
Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden said during a June 3 webinar with Concordia University Texas officials that residents should be wary of antibody tests when shopping to determine if they have previously been infected with the coronavirus.
“There are so many companies now that are marketing antibody tests,” Hayden said. “I caution folks to be very careful because those antibody tests that are on the market, you want to make sure they have received emergency use authorization from the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration.]”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on May 28 released guidance for health care providers, laboratory professionals and public health professionals using antibody tests.Part of that guidance was that health care professionals only administer antibody tests that have received emergency use authorization from the FDA. As of publication, a total of 86 separate COVID-19 infection or antibody tests have been certified by the FDA… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
San Antonio police chief says officers may use tear gas, rubber bullets if protesters start throwing objects at the officers (San Antonio Express-News)
Mayor Ron Nirenberg wants San Antonio Police Chief William McManus to clearly explain to protesters what provokes officers to use force after a confrontation turned violent in downtown San Antonio on Tuesday night. “Our goal is to protect peaceful demonstrators’ rights to voice their demands for equal treatment of all Americans and their desire for criminal justice reform,” Nirenberg said in a statement. “Their goals are laudable.” A couple of hours later, McManus issued a statement of his own, saying police will take measures to disperse crowds — including tear gas, pepper balls and rubber and wood projectiles — when objects are thrown at officers.
McManus deemed those “less than lethal options” and said the projectiles become necessary because “instigators” often wear gas masks impervious to tear gas. “Typically, police will issue several warnings, but very fluid situations do not always allow for that,” McManus said. Tuesday night, a line of San Antonio police met about 100 protesters at Alamo Plaza. SAPD officials said glass bottles had been thrown at officers; several video recordings show plastic water bottles being thrown at the plaza but no glass. Police fired pepper balls, smoke, wooden and rubber projectiles at the marchers. When a person was injured with a wooden bullet Tuesday night, the mayor was asked on Twitter whether he was OK with that use of force. “No, I'm not,” Nirenberg responded Tuesday night. “I am asking for more information on these projectiles.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas Democrats plan to create a voter registration army – via Zoom (The Guardian)
Texas Democrats plan to use Zoom to create an army of voter registration volunteers, a novel approach to work around the state’s severe restrictions on voter registration during the Covid-19 pandemic. The effort comes as voter registration efforts, both in Texas and around the US have effectively stalled just months before the presidential election. Texas makes it extremely difficult to conduct voter registration drives, even outside of the pandemic. The state requires anyone who wants to do so to become a volunteer deputy registrar, a process that requires going to a county-run training.
Only Texas residents who are eligible to vote in the state can get the certification. Texas has 254 counties, but someone can only legally register voters in the county in which they are deputized and their certification expires at the end of every even-numbered year. Some states place no restrictions on voter registration drives at all, while others have more modest ones in place like requiring groups to register with the state before they begin their drive. Civil rights groups have long called the Texas requirement a form of voter suppression. “Texas has some of the strictest voter registration laws in the country,” said Beth Stevens, voting rights legal director at the Texas Civil Rights Project. “In Texas, volunteer deputy registrars can be criminally prosecuted for what most of us would consider administrative errors while they’re registering people.” Working around the state’s barriers, the Texas Democratic party plans to partner with a local election official in Travis county to conduct a mass deputization during its virtual state convention this week. More than 2,000 people have already signed up for the training on Saturday, which will allow the party to get an unprecedented number of people certified at once… (LINK TO STORY)
In Austin, a liberal bastion, protests force another reckoning with racism, segregation (Texas Tribune)
Many Austin residents bask in their city’s reputation as a laid-back liberal bastion — a city of hippies and festivals that coined the motto “Keep Austin Weird” to distance itself from the surrounding state’s conservatism.
But the events of the last few days are once again forcing a reckoning with the city’s history of deep-rooted inequality and segregation. Thousands of residents have taken to the streets to protest police brutality, which they say isn’t just visible in the video of a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, who died in police custody, but in the actions of their local police.
And there remains an extraordinary racial gap for people of color in the state’s capital city. It’s visible in historically black East Austin, where gentrification is driving the area’s longtime residents out. And it can be seen in the overwhelmingly Latino clientele at the People’s Community Clinic, which serves 20,000 uninsured and underinsured Central Texans… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
What other social networks can learn from Snapchat’s rebuke of Trump (The Verge)
On Sunday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel sent employees an unusually personal note reflecting on the events of the past several weeks. Many brands took the occasion of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police, and the global protests that have followed, to signal their solidarity with the black community and their allies. But few CEOs took the step, as Spiegel did, of reflecting on his own privilege — and then calling for reparations for black folks. (He threw in a cogent analysis of the federal budget, too.)
Spiegel’s memo, which Snap later made public, also came as the big social companies were reckoning over what to do about President Donald Trump’s increasingly bellicose posts about voting by mail and peaceful protesters. Twitter moved to add labels to one set of tweets and hid others behind a warning for “glorifying violence”; Facebook agonized but ultimately decided to take no action, triggering a virtual walkout of hundreds of employees earlier this week.
On Wednesday, Snap entered that fray, announcing that it would stop promoting Trump’s account in its Discover section… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Esper, on thin ice with the White House, reverses decision on troop deployments (Politico)
Defense Secretary Mark Esper abruptly reversed a decision to order active-duty troops home from the national capital region on Wednesday, capping a roller-coaster eight hours that have raised new questions about whether the beleaguered Pentagon chief will keep his job.
Esper irked the White House Wednesday morning when he appeared in front of cameras to proclaim his opposition to deploying active-duty troops to respond to protests around the country — a move that many saw as a break with the president, who on Monday threatened to do just that if state and local officials fail to deal with violent protests breaking out across the country… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Trump defaults to his safe space: Energizing the MAGA base (Politico)
His message was more strategic than symbolic: As President Donald Trump waved a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church this week, like an auctioneer brandishing a rare book, he signaled that in the five months remaining between now and Election Day he will be singularly focused on his core supporters — and whatever energizes them most.
The president’s brief appearance outside the historic chapel across from the White House on Monday, a move he later claimed “many religious leaders loved,” was an unmistakable sign — one of several this week — that Trump is defaulting to his most familiar strategy, where his every move is intended to excite or rile the GOP base. In the past 72 hours, he’s made back-to-back visits to religious sites, vowed to protect his supporters’ Second Amendment rights amid protests against police brutality and late-night violence — blaming the “lamestream media” for inciting those nationwide demonstrations — suggested mail-in voting is part of a Democratic scheme to rig the 2020 election and threatened to send active-duty military into America’s communities while declaring himself a “law and order president.”… (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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