BG Reads | News You Need to Know (May 14, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
*NEW* [BG PODCAST] Episode 86: COVID19 Update with Selena Xie, President, Austin EMS Association (LINK TO SHOW)
*NEW* [BG BLOG] Analysis: Texas AG Paxton Rebukes Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio Leaders on COVID19 Orders (LINK TO BLOG)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin Public Health's Preliminary Data Shows Construction One Of Top Industries For COVID-19 Cases (KUT)
Austin Public Health officials say they’re still crunching the numbers, but their investigations so far show construction joins long-term care facilities, health care and grocery stores as the industries hit hardest locally by COVID-19. The officials say they are still working to determine exactly how many cases have originated and spread from construction sites.
But they claim that number may be hard to pin down.
Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden likens a construction site to a "moving target" when it comes to trying to determine a specific case count because subcontractors will travel from site to site.
APH has set up guidelines to help track any potential spread of disease, like having site managers keep a log of all employees. APH is also conducting pilot testing for potential construction industry clusters, Hayden said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
El Arroyo has overcome multiple gut checks to remain afloat during pandemic, reopen dining room (Austin Business Journal)
Most restaurants don’t have an iconic sign with more than 250,000 Instagram followers.
They also don’t have a national retail line featuring 86 products — books, greeting cards, mugs, coasters, calendars and more — distributed to hundreds of stores in 42 states and Canada.
So yes, Tex-Mex restaurant El Arroyo entered the coronavirus pandemic in better shape than most.
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t gut-check decisions along the way. Co-owner Ellis Winstanley recalled sitting at home in early March, catching up on the news on his phone. He came across the writing on the wall: a story about Taiwan effectively fighting Covid-19 by shutting down restaurants.
Within days, Austin eateries were told to close dining rooms and El Arroyo was forced to lay off the vast majority of its employees. The decision was the result of Winstanley being forced to ask himself a "heartbreaking" question: Were his employees better off staying on the payroll, or filing for unemployment benefits?… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
St. Edwards University Lays Off Professors And Staff As COVID-19 Pandemic Causes Budget Shortfall (KUT)
St. Edward’s University in Austin is laying off professors, reducing the salaries of top administrators and postponing construction projects, the private Catholic university announced Tuesday.
The exact number of layoffs has not been confirmed.
In a letter to the St. Edward’s community, President George Martin said the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to cancel in-person classes has led to less revenue and more expenses.
“Reductions in staff were the last things we considered, and desperately wanted to avoid,” Martin wrote. “Unfortunately, there was no other way to balance the budget. Thus, the Fiscal Year 2021 budget includes the reduction of employee positions, effective this month.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Six candidates, including two well-known Democrats, file in special Texas Senate election to replace Kirk Watson (Texas Tribune)
Six candidates, including some well-known Austin-area politicians, have filed to run for the July 14 special election to replace retired Democratic state Sen. Kirk Watson, according to the Texas secretary of state’s office.
Candidates had until 5 p.m. Wednesday to file to run for the seat.
State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, a longtime Austin Democrat, and former Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt are widely considered the two most prominent candidates for Texas Senate District 14, a historically Democratic seat that covers Bastrop County and parts of Travis County.
Rodriguez has served in the House since 2003 and has support from most of Travis County’s state House delegation. And Eckhardt, whose last day as county judge was Tuesday, has helped to oversee the community’s response to the coronavirus pandemic… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas attorney general asks court to stop counties from issuing mail-in ballots to voters afraid of virus (CNN)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday asked the state's Supreme Court to step in and stop county election officials from letting voters afraid of catching coronavirus to vote by mail.
Paxton, a Republican, filed a petition for Dallas, Cameron, El Paso, Harris and Travis counties. He argued that election officials are "misapplying" the state's "disability" requirement for absentee mail-in voting amid the pandemic.
"Each misapplication of Texas election law damages the integrity of our elections and increases the risk of voter fraud. In-person voting is the surest way to prevent voter fraud and guarantee that every voter is who they claim to be and has a fair opportunity to cast their vote," Paxon said in a press release.
Texas' election code defines "disability" as "a sickness or physical condition that prevents the voter from appearing at the polling place on election day without a likelihood of needing personal assistance or of injuring the voter's health." Voters who meet this definition and wish to vote by mail must submit applications… (LINK TO STORY)
House coronavirus relief bill would send $29 billion to Texas cities, counties (San Antonio Express-News)
Cities and counties across Texas would get more than $29 billion from the $3 trillion coronavirus relief package House Democrats want to pass as soon as Friday. That includes more than $1.7 billion to Houston and nearly $1 billion to San Antonio as both cities stare down massive budget holes caused by the outbreak. Harris County's funding could top $2.6 billion and Bexar County could be on tap for more than $1 billion, as well. Texas, meanwhile, could get nearly $35.5 billion from a separate pool of funding to aid states.
That's all according to estimates compiled by the Congressional Research Service, Congress’ public policy institute. The estimates, which cover the rest of 2020 and 2021, are based on some factors not yet known, such as unemployment and infection rates, so they're not exact. House Democrats are sharing the city-by-city numbers as they try to overcome growing opposition from the Republican-led Senate to the 1,800-page stimulus bill, which is replete with partisan Democratic priorities. It provides $3.6 billion in elections funding as they push to expand mail-in voting during the outbreak, as well as $25 billion to bolster the U.S. Postal Service. House leaders aim to vote on it this week… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Virus restrictions fuel anti-government ‘boogaloo’ movement (Associated Press)
They carry high-powered rifles and wear tactical gear, but their Hawaiian shirts and leis are what stand out in the crowds that have formed at state capital buildings to protest COVID-19 lockdown orders. The signature look for the “boogaloo” anti-government movement is designed to get attention. The loose movement, which uses an ’80s movie sequel as a code word for a second civil war, is among the extremists using the armed protests against stay-at-home orders as a platform. Like other movements that once largely inhabited corners of the internet, it has seized on the social unrest and economic calamity caused by the pandemic to publicize its violent messages.
In April, armed demonstrators passed out “Liberty or Boogaloo” fliers at a statehouse protest in Concord, New Hampshire. A leader of the Three Percenters militia movement who organized a rally in Olympia, Washington, last month encouraged rally participants to wear Hawaiian shirts, according to the Anti-Defamation League. On Saturday, a demonstration in Raleigh, North Carolina, promoted by a Facebook group called “Blue Igloo” — a derivation of the term — led to a police investigation of a confrontation between an armed protester and a couple pushing a stroller. Another anti-lockdown rally is planned for Thursday at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, site of an angry protest last month that included armed members of the Michigan Liberty Militia. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has been the target of violent threats on Facebook forums, including a private one called “The Rhett E. Boogie Group.” One user said Whitmer should be “guillotined” after another suggested another governor should be hanged from a noose, according to a screenshot captured by the Tech Transparency Project research initiative… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
GOP is increasingly siding with Trump over Fauci (Washington Post)
At the beginning of the novel coronavirus outbreak - and for weeks afterward - there was one thing Americans could seemingly agree upon: Anthony Fauci. Today, that's considerably less the case. While Fauci retains the faith of a strong majority of Americans, opposition from Republicans has crept up steadily over the past month or so, as conservative media figures and politicians have increasingly called his advice in to question. Picking up that mantle in a particularly prominent way Tuesday was Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who spent his time at a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee grilling Fauci and suggesting he shouldn't oversell his knowledge about what might become of the virus - along with Fauci's role in decisions about the response.
As The Post's Amber Phillips recapped on Tuesday, Paul pressed Fauci to admit he wasn't the "end-all" when it comes to the response, particularly when it comes to decisions about whether the economy should be reopened at this point. Fauci offered a subtly pointed response. While noting that he had never presented himself as the "end-all" - Fauci has made a point to say that others are in charge of economic considerations - he repeated Paul's allusions to using "humility" in offering prescriptions about what might lay ahead. Particularly, he pushed back on Paul's suggestion that schools could reopen because children suffer many fewer deaths from covid-19 by saying people should be "humble" about what they don't know about how the virus impacts young people. But Paul's line of questioning reflects an increasing conservative skepticism of Fauci - a skepticism that has grown over the past month in part thanks to people like him questioning Fauci's advice. And a new poll this week reinforces that this skepticism is slowly taking hold: The CNN poll suggests a significant decline in GOP regard for Fauci's expertise, when measure against other similar polls of Fauci in recent weeks… (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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