BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 9, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
***NEW*** BG Podcast Episode 109: Q4 2020 Update with Veronica Briseño, Chief Economic Recovery Officer, City of Austin (SHOW LINK)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Ethics complaints filed against anti-Prop A campaign, nonprofit (American American-Statesman)
More that a dozen complaints have been filed against the anti-Proposition A political action committee Our Mobility Our Future and the organization Voices of Austin, alleging that both failed to properly disclose their donors as required by city campaign finance laws. Mark Littlefield, who works for the pro-Prop A campaign Transit Now, filed 14 complaints Monday with the Austin City Clerk’s office. Many stem from advertising expenses outlined in Our Mobility Our Future’s most recent campaign finance report.
“They are not disclosing what is required -- who is paying for their campaign, or in some cases which group is behind their political ads,” Littlefield said. “Obviously, these groups do not want voters to know that they are the exact same people we have been fighting for 20 years to build real public transit solutions. They have never supported or suggested any transportation program or initiative that did not begin and end with a car.” Prop A is a tax rate proposal on the November ballot that, if approved, would raise the city of Austin’s property tax rate by 8.75 cents. It would fund a $7.1 billion public transit plan that includes multiple light-rail lines, a downtown tunnel and new rapid bus routes. A pair of the complaints Littlefield filed against both organizations stems from a Sept. 26 robo-call urging voters to reject Prop A.
Littlefield named both organizations because he said he was unsure which one paid for the call. Voices of Austin executive director Peck Young said Thursday that his organization did not pay for the Sept. 26 call. A message left seeking comment from Our Mobility Our Future’s leader A. Jo Baylor was not immediately returned. While Our Mobility Our Future is registered as a political action committee and is required to disclose its funding sources, Voices of Austin is a nonprofit 501(c)4, a designation that allows it to keep its donors anonymous… (LINK TO STORY)
City revises street impact fee plan (Austin Monitor)
After years in the making, the city has proposed a modification to the street impact fee program out of a desire to simplify the process and maximize benefits in the city’s eastern crescent. Instead of calculating impact fees individually based on the needs within 17 service zones, the city would now prefer to set different impact fee rates based on whether or not a development falls inside or outside the city’s highway loop, bordered by Ben White Boulevard, U.S. Highway 183 and Loop 360.
“We thought this was a more straightforward process for the development community,” said Liane Miller, planning and policy program manager at the Austin Transportation Department. “It’s going to be a lot simpler to understand; they’ll know those numbers off the top of their head, what their collection rate is going to be no matter where they are in the city. So the development that’s occurring on the west side of Austin is not going to have any sort of incentive or disincentive when it comes to an impact fee for that development to occur – you’re going to have the same fee everywhere.”
Under the proposed fee collection rates, reductions and offsets, the city is anticipating the program would generate roughly $259 million over the first 10 years. Under state law, the money would be eligible only for road capacity improvement projects listed in the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan’s adopted Roadway Capacity Plan, which includes the street network map and table… (LINK TO STORY)
Growth, taxes, transit shape Travis County race to replace longtime Republican (Austin American-Statesman)
Travis County’s Precinct 3 encompasses much of the western half of the county, including several parks and protected lands, and lakes Austin and Travis. As the area continues to grow — even in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic — so does the need for transportation, water quality and wildfire prevention and response. The longtime representative for Precinct 3 and the lone Republican on the Travis County Commissioner’s Court, Gerald Daugherty, won’t seek another four-year term, opening the door for transportation engineer Becky Bray and attorney Ann Howard to compete for the seat in November.
Bray, a native Austinite, said she has seen the area’s many changes and challenges and her service as a community leader on several nonprofit and professional boards has equipped her with the tools necessary to lead the county. “People want to see solutions to our problems both big and small,” said Bray, who is running as a Republican with Daugherty’s endorsement. “Through my work both professionally and within the community, I know I’m the best candidate for Precinct 3.” Howard, as the executive director of the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, an alliance of government agencies and nonprofit groups, spent her time working with people all over the county and addressing the needs of low-income residents and those experiencing homelessness. Like Bray, she said her service to the community and on boards has given her the skill set to tackle the issues facing Precinct 3.
“The people need our protection and our energy to get our economy rebuilt after COVID-19 to make sure that we have the water we need to drink and to make sure that we don’t go up in smoke as it is so very dry outside,” said Howard, who is running as a Democrat. “It’s going to be tough work and I’m excited to get to work after this year of sort of looking at things and watching and studying.” In the most recent quarterly campaign finance report, Bray received $42,575 in donations and Howard received $72,252 in donations. Bray reported $16,555 in spending with a $10,000 loan to the campaign, and Howard spent $71,940 in the quarter with a $50,000 loan to the campaign… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin chamber unveils its A-List of startups to watch (Austin American-Statesman)
The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce has unveiled its annual A-List, which highlights local startups that the chamber says have breakout potential.
This year’s winners were announced throughout A-List: Up Close & Personal, a three-part online series hosted by the chamber and South by SOuthwest on Wednesday and Thursday.
Any stage startup in any industry was eligible to apply. A panel of independent judges chose the winners. This year, 128 companies were nominated.
Now in its ninth year, the list is intended to increase the visibility of Austin’s most fundable, scalable and innovative startups and attract more venture capital funding and top talent to Central Texas.
“A-List is a celebration of Austin’s tech and innovative founders, leaders, companies and teams,” said Leigh Christie, chamber senior vice president of global technology and innovation. “This year’s event was an opportunity to recognize some of those who keep Austin thriving and spotlight timely conversations that are relevant to the Austin tech and innovation community.”
Here is the 2020 A-List:… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Republican-led counties move to reopen Houston-area bars after Abbott announcement (Houston Chronicle)
Shortly after Gov. Greg Abbott announced a reopening plan for Texas bars, county judges in some Republican-led counties in the Houston area said they planned to opt in to allow drinking establishments to open their doors again soon. Galveston County Judge Mark Henry tweeted on Wednesday that his staff was reviewing Abbott’s executive order allowing counties to reopen bars, and was unequivocal that bars would be welcoming patrons once again. As of Thursday afternoon, Henry said he still hadn’t received the official documents from the state allowing him to reopen county bars, but said he was eager to allow local watering holes to open their doors again. “We’re gonna tell (bar owners) to make good decisions for themselves like they did all year long and get back to work,” Henry said.
Abbott announced Wednesday that bars could reopen on Oct. 14 in counties with low coronavirus hospitalization rates, but county judges would first have to opt in and provide assistance with enforcing safety protocols. For Henry, Abbott’s decision to reopen bars came months too late, and said he was “ignored” by the governor’s office when he noted that the decision also affected VFW and American Legion outposts, which are permitted to sell alcohol and also provide vital services for veterans. “(Abbot’s) sitting there saying ‘Let’s reopen,’ well, you’re the one keeping us from reopening,” Henry said. Bars in counties that approve the openings will have to keep maximum occupancy at or below 50 percent, and patrons will need to be seated or wearing a mask when they are up and about. Montgomery County Judge Mark Keough, another Republican, posted on Facebook that bars could reopen next week based on the governor’s announcement Wednesday. “
As County Judge for Montgomery County I wholeheartedly believe all business should be open 100% not 75% or 50%,” wrote Keough, who has been an outspoken critic of Abbott’s restrictions. Based on Abbott’s order, however, he said bars that meet state guidelines “may resume operations per the Governors order at 50% on October 14th.” Montgomery County reported Wednesday a total of nearly 12,000 cases in the county, including 141 deaths. In Waller County, Trey Duhon, the Republican county judge, said he also intends to allow bars to reopen soon… (LINK TO STORY)
In new email, senior aides say Ken Paxton used power of his office to benefit political donor Nate Paul (Texas Tribune)
Five senior officials in the Texas Attorney General’s Office accused their boss, Ken Paxton, on Wednesday of subverting his office to serve the financial interests of a political donor, according to an email obtained by The Texas Tribune.
The aides are doubling down on accusations they made last week to law enforcement — that Paxton had committed crimes including bribery and abuse of office — even as the second-term Republican says he’ll forge ahead as the state’s top lawyer under a fresh cloud of criminal allegations and as some in his party call on him to resign.
“It would be a violation of our own public responsibilities and ethical obligations to stand by while the significant power and resources of the Texas Attorney General’s Office are used to serve the interests of a private citizen bent on impeding a federal investigation into his own alleged wrongdoing and advancing his own financial interests,” the aides aides wrote in the email. “We urge you to end this course of conduct immediately.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas has the U.S.'s second-largest Indian American community. Politicians are starting to take notice (Dallas Morning News)
Texas' fast-growing Indian-American community is poised to play a decisive role in the 2020 election, reflecting a profound demographic shift that’s playing out in the emerging political battlegrounds of suburban Dallas and Houston. The state is now home to the second-largest Indian-American population in the U.S. – a development, to be clear, that didn’t happen overnight. But politicians and political groups are engaging South Asian American voters in Texas in a deliberate and sustained way for the first time, as both Democrats and Republicans recognize the importance of connecting with a community that numbers there in the hundreds of thousands.
Some candidates are contacting voters in Hindi and other languages native to the subcontinent. Events like iftars – the breaking of the fast during Ramadan – have become part of the political calendar. Voter registration drives are being conducted at Hindu temples and Muslim mosques. “Texas is the big dosa,” said Varun Nikore, president of the AAPI Victory Fund, a progressive super PAC that’s devoting $1 million toward mobilizing Asian American and Pacific Islander voters in Texas, making reference to an Indian delicacy that he likened to an enchilada. The implications could reverberate through the White House race between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden -- and beyond. Indian Americans, even more than other Asian American groups, tend to support Democratic causes and candidates, per polling by California-based AAPI Data, making it even more notable that Biden selected Sen. Kamala Harris, whose mother was born in India, as his running mate. Republicans, though, have made some headway over the last four years, AAPI Data found. Some of that shift almost certainly reflects President Donald Trump’s embrace of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with whom he appeared last year at a blockbuster event in Houston… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
New England Journal of Medicine Editorial: Dying in a leadership vacuum (New England Journal of Medicine)
Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy. The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. According to the Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering, the United States leads the world in Covid-19 cases and in deaths due to the disease, far exceeding the numbers in much larger countries, such as China. The death rate in this country is more than double that of Canada, exceeds that of Japan, a country with a vulnerable and elderly population, by a factor of almost 50, and even dwarfs the rates in lower-middle-income countries, such as Vietnam, by a factor of almost 2000. Covid-19 is an overwhelming challenge, and many factors contribute to its severity. But the one we can control is how we behave. And in the United States we have consistently behaved poorly.
We know that we could have done better. China, faced with the first outbreak, chose strict quarantine and isolation after an initial delay. These measures were severe but effective, essentially eliminating transmission at the point where the outbreak began and reducing the death rate to a reported 3 per million, as compared with more than 500 per million in the United States. Countries that had far more exchange with China, such as Singapore and South Korea, began intensive testing early, along with aggressive contact tracing and appropriate isolation, and have had relatively small outbreaks. And New Zealand has used these same measures, together with its geographic advantages, to come close to eliminating the disease, something that has allowed that country to limit the time of closure and to largely reopen society to a prepandemic level. In general, not only have many democracies done better than the United States, but they have also outperformed us by orders of magnitude.
Why has the United States handled this pandemic so badly? We have failed at almost every step. We had ample warning, but when the disease first arrived, we were incapable of testing effectively and couldn’t provide even the most basic personal protective equipment to health care workers and the general public. And we continue to be way behind the curve in testing. While the absolute numbers of tests have increased substantially, the more useful metric is the number of tests performed per infected person, a rate that puts us far down the international list, below such places as Kazakhstan, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, countries that cannot boast the biomedical infrastructure or the manufacturing capacity that we have.2 Moreover, a lack of emphasis on developing capacity has meant that U.S. test results are often long delayed, rendering the results useless for disease control… (LINK TO STORY)
13 charged in plots against Michigan governor, police (Associated Press)
Agents foiled a stunning plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, authorities said Thursday in announcing charges in an alleged scheme that involved months of planning and even rehearsals to snatch her from her vacation home.
Six men were charged in federal court with conspiring to kidnap the governor before the Nov. 3 elections in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power,” according to a federal complaint. Separately, seven others linked to a paramilitary group called the Wolverine Watchmen were charged in state court for allegedly seeking to storm the Michigan Capitol and seek a “civil war.”
The two groups trained together and planned “various acts of violence,” according to the state police.
Surveillance for the kidnapping plot took place in August and September, according to an FBI affidavit, and four of the men had planned to meet Wednesday to “make a payment on explosives and exchange tactical gear.”
The FBI quoted one of the men as saying Whitmer “has no checks and balances at all. She has uncontrolled power right now. All good things must come to an end.”
Authorities said the plots were stopped with the work of undercover agents and informants. The men were arrested Wednesday night. The six charged in federal court face up to life in prison if convicted. The state terrorism charges the other seven men face carry a possible 20-year sentence.
Andrew Birge, the U.S. attorney in western Michigan, called the men “violent extremists.” They discussed detonating explosive devices — including under a highway bridge — to divert police from the area near Whitmer’s vacation home and Fox bought a Taser for use in the kidnapping, Birge said.
“All of us in Michigan can disagree about politics, but those disagreements should never, ever amount to violence. Violence has been prevented today,” Detroit U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider told reporters… (LINK TO STORY)
North Carolina sex scandal rocks battle for Senate majority (Politico)
Democrats have a clear shot at taking back the Senate majority next month. But if they fall short, Cal Cunningham may shoulder the blame.
President Donald Trump is sagging nearly everywhere that matters and is placing more and more Senate races in the firing line for a Democratic takeover. But suddenly, Cunningham has clouded over what should be a fairly obvious Democratic path to victory that runs straight through North Carolina.
The Democratic nominee's infidelity and reluctance to address it fully is now a cudgel for endangered Republican Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). The Republican senator's fortunes were dimming just a week ago, as Cunningham reported eye-popping fundraising numbers on top of a months-long lead in public and private polling.
Democrats can win the majority without North Carolina, but the path is more complicated. And Democrats insist Tillis has yet to make up ground in the polls.
But the fundamentals of the race have changed: Cunningham is on defense and seen as ducking questions about an affair with a veteran’s estranged wife. Cunningham’s story is leading North Carolina’s newscasts and front pages. And Tillis is on the attack, going after Cunningham himself instead of relying on political surrogates.
“This undermines a voter’s confidence in Cal, particularly if you’re in the undecided” camp, Tillis said in an interview from North Carolina, where he is isolated after contracting the coronavirus. “There’s no question that North Carolina is the bellwether state for holding the majority in the Senate.”
If Tillis can mount a stunning comeback, Republicans hope he can save their majority — even if Joe Biden defeats Trump. And though the first-term Republican still sees a path for Trump to win and said nothing critical of the president, he also indicated he’s running as a check on a potential President Biden.
“The best check on a Biden presidency is for Republicans to have a majority in the Senate. And I do think 'checks and balances' does resonate with North Carolina voters,” he said.
North Carolina is one of a handful of top-tier states that will determine the majority. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 advantage, but Democrats are favored to win in Arizona and Colorado. Republicans have an edge in Alabama, and races in Iowa and Maine are highly competitive. Democrats have also pushed races in deeper red territory like Alaska, Montana, South Carolina and Kansas into play, broadening their path back to power… (LINK TO STORY)