BG Reads | News You Need to Know (November 5, 2021)
Congress Ave. / Texas Capital Building
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Austin Council Member Greg Casar will run for Congress, vacating his council seat midterm (KUT)
Greg Casar, who has served on the Austin City Council since 2015, will run for U.S. Congress, he announced Thursday.
Casar last month teased a race for federal office, saying he was “considering” a run and had convened a committee of advisers.
“I believe that working families from Bexar to Comal to Hays to Travis County deserve a progressive leader who will fight for and deliver on reproductive rights, Medicare for all, good jobs and a better Texas,” he told KUT.
Casar, 32, will vie to represent Texas’s 35th congressional district, which stretches from East Austin and down I-35 to San Antonio. He will first need to win the Democratic primary, which is scheduled for March 2022. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, who currently represents the district, announced last month he would be running to represent a new, more central Austin district created in the latest redistricting effort by state lawmakers.
At least one other person, community activist Claudia Zapata, has said they've filed to run for the 35th district. Last month, Democratic state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, who has represented Austin’s House District 51 since 2002, told KUT he is also considering entering the race.
In order to run, Casar will have to vacate his seat as the representative for Austin City Council District 4, one of the city’s most heavily populated Latino districts. He’ll keep his job until a new council member is elected in a special election. It’s unclear exactly when that would take place, but it would likely be within the next several months.
Whoever is elected to fill Casar’s vacant seat will serve the rest of his term, which ends in January 2025.
Casar’s election to the District 4 seat eight years ago coincided with the city’s move to a new geographic representative government. He is one of 10 council members who represent residents in districts across the city… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Music Commission opts to reevaluate Live Music Fund after affirming diversity goals (Austin Monitor)
The Music Commission will gather more community feedback on the guidelines for the city’s $2.3 million Live Music Fund, but agreed Monday that diversity and inclusion will be one of its baseline goals.
The commission unanimously approved three resolutions related to the fund, which is funded by hotel tax revenues, thanks to a 2019 City Council vote. The first vote approved the PIE concept – preservation, inclusion, elevation and collaboration – as the primary goal of the fund, while a second gives the commission the latitude to discuss with music economy stakeholders how the funds should be used, with discussion likely to continue at next month’s meeting.
A working group was also formed to let commissioners discuss the process of possibly restructuring the program, which has been proposed as a source of $5,000 and $10,000 grants given to musicians and promoters to create live events at clubs and other venues around the city.
That structure had been largely agreed upon by commissioners and others in the community for much of the past year, but came under scrutiny at a Council work session when Mayor Steve Adler said the proposed structure wasn’t business-focused and may need to be reworked.
Commissioner Jonathan “Chaka” Mahone, who helped shape the PIE concept and the grant structure, expressed his frustration over alternative program structures recently put forward by advocacy groups Music Moves Austin and EQ Austin.
“We talked about this for a year as a commission, and since these guidelines were proposed initially by me in October after discussions with the systemic racism working group, where we all thought these were great … these were good ideas for our industry until the last meeting,” he said.
“During that entire year, folks that I talked with after meeting, there was never a statement of disagreement.”
The Music Moves Austin proposal sought to make live music venues possible recipients of some of the money from the Live Music Fund, but that idea was roundly criticized during public comment as well as by some commissioners.
“Music Moves Austin as a whole as well as some including people that are on this board went and lobbied behind the Music Commission to talk to Mayor Adler and congressmen and women to get their support for what we’re basically calling a vertical integration of the Live Music Fund, move it out of the Economic Development Department and into the new economic development corporation,” Commissioner Scott Strickland said. “There’s probably a lot of influence that they can then have with staff and being able to recommend the people able to get on boards.
“No one is disagreeing we need to grow the fund, but it needs to be from the bottom up and middle out, and not from the top down.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin council signs off on Project Connect 'rules of the rails' (Community Impact)
After a week's delay and extended deliberation on the dais, Austin City Council approved an updated version of the document setting the responsibilities for Project Connect's development.
The joint powers agreement involves three Project Connect stakeholders: the city of Austin, Capital Metro, and the Austin Transit Partnership, or ATP. Sam Sargent, ATP director of strategy, said last week that the document represents the "rules of the rails" for the $7.1 billion transit expansion.
The three entities gathered last week at the Austin Convention Center to hammer out the final agreement but were forced to delay due to technical difficulties. Council took up its approval of the document, and several members' revisions to the plan, Nov. 4.
In addition to detailing the roles of the ATP, Capital Metro and city officials and staff, portions of the document also tie to equity, land use and community engagement as the expansive transit project moves ahead. Several edits to the agreement approved by council this week also reflect commentary from residents and mobility groups that had previously expressed reservations.
One such change brought forward by Mayor Steve Adler concerned how the ATP, which oversees Project Connect's implementation, chooses a director and CEO. Adler's amendment to the joint powers agreement allows the ATP to select a leader with additional guidance on community engagement… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin's Prop A police expansion measure was doomed from the start (Austin American-Statesman)
Austin's Proposition A police staffing plan was defeated so soundly Tuesday that it's difficult to reduce the 37-percentage point loss to one or two reasons. In retrospect, the measure likely had little chance from the beginning, doomed by messaging that never resonated with casual voters but wound up energizing the opposition, including a Washington billionaire and two local union heads. The defeat does not necessarily signal that voters do not support police, or even that they do not want more officers, but more likely indicates that they agreed with the plan's critics who viewed it as needlessly arbitrary and financially burdensome. If approved, Prop A would have required the city to hire hundreds of additional officers as soon as possible and maintain two officers per 1,000 residents in perpetuity. It was brought before voters in response to a staffing shortage at the Austin Police Department coupled with a record number of homicides in the city this year.
The defeat appears to be a rebuke to Save Austin Now, the political action committee behind the plan — just as May's vote to reinstate the homeless camping ban (which also was brought forward by Save Austin Now) was a rebuke of the Austin City Council. Austin City Council Member Greg Casar speaks to supporters of the “No Way on Prop A” campaign as they gather Tuesday night to celebrate the defeat of Proposition A. After telling the American-Statesman in October that he'd consider leaving Austin if Prop A failed, Save Austin Now co-founder Matt Mackowiak says he is committed to staying put. In a conversation Wednesday, he said Save Austin Now leaders will strategize in the coming weeks on plans for next year's elections, which includes the mayor's race and five City Council district races in November. "The risk of this city becoming San Francisco or Portland remains unacceptably high, particularly while these individuals are leading this city," said Mackowiak, who is the local Republican Party chair.
"We have no intention of quitting. We want to learn what voters are telling us. We'll do that with humility." Heading into election night, leaders on both sides of the issue say they expected the vote would be close, although those opposing Prop A were more outwardly confident they'd win. But predictions of a nail-biter turned out to be incorrect… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Beto O’Rourke scripting 2nd Texas act in anticipated race against Greg Abbott for governor (Dallas Morning News)
In what would be his second act on a complex Texas political stage, Beto O’Rourke is studying how to craft a campaign challenge against incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott. O’Rourke, a former Democratic congressman from El Paso, burst on the statewide scene in 2018, when he staged an unconventional campaign that nearly ousted Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz. Now, with the unsavory taste of a failed 2020 presidential bid, O’Rourke has to develop a campaign with different themes, new strategies and a tougher edge against Abbott, one of the most proven political campaigners in Texas history. Democrats said O’Rourke should not treat his campaign as an intellectual exchange of ideas, but a rough-and-tumble political fight, where he’ll have to forcefully remind voters of Abbott’s weaknesses. They also contend that O’Rourke must define himself before Abbott does it for him. That includes proving to skeptical Texans that he’s not too liberal for the conservative-leaning state.
His 2020 presidential debate pledge: “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15,” could be a liability. Abbott has already been running web spots to cast his potential rival as too far left for Texas. Most analysts agree that O’Rourke should keep the elements of his 2018 Senate campaign that captivated voters, but add structure. Next year, Democrats want him to hammer their point that Abbott is leading the state in the wrong direction. “He needs to bring the positive assets from his Senate race to bear in the race for governor,” said Lisa Turner, the state director for the Democratic Party research group called the Lone Star Project. “Beto is a fresh and energetic problem solver that in my view contrasts well with stale and corrupt politicians like Abbott, who is way past his sell by date.” Turner said O’Rourke should contrast himself with Abbott by stressing the need to improve public education, expand access to healthcare and fortify the state’s energy grid. Labor activist Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez said while O’Rourke was successful in 2018 in getting persuadable voters on his side, the race against Abbott should feature early investments in turning out minority voters…. (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Democrat Eddie Lucio Jr., known for voting with Republicans on key issues, to retire after three decades in Texas Senate (Texas Tribune)
State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville, announced Thursday that he is not seeking reelection after three decades in the upper chamber.
He made the announcement during a news conference in Harlingen, saying he was retiring "because a lot of wonderful things are yet to come in my life." He said he wanted to spend more time with family "and to do some of the things that I've been wanting to do like my own personal ministry to help the less fortunate in our community."
"I want to continue to fight for what's right in our community for our families," Lucio said.
Lucio's decision comes as a surprise — earlier this year he announced he was running for reelection, and his office confirmed that remained his plan during the redistricting process this fall.
Lucio, vice chair of the Senate Education and Finance committees, has served in the Senate since 1991, making him the third most senior member. He became known as a stalwart advocate for the needs of the Rio Grande Valley — and for breaking with his party on some major issues, making him easily the most moderate Democrat in the Senate.
Lucio opposes abortion and voted in support of Texas' new abortion restriction law that went into effect in September. He supports school choice, putting him at odds with fellow Democrats who believe it harms public schools. And he infuriated the LGBTQ community in 2017 when he voted for the "bathroom bill" that would have restricted transgender Texans’ access to certain public facilities.
Lucio's independence has endeared him to GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who regularly compliments him and has even campaigned for him. Patrick released an effusive statement on Lucio's retirement, saying he has "lost a great friend and ally in the Texas Senate."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas’ robust COVID-19 economic rebound will lead to $25B budget cushion in 2023, comptroller says (Dallas Morning News)
Texas’ economic rebound from the coronavirus pandemic has been so robust, and state leaders, so cautious about spending, that in 22 months the treasury should have nearly $25 billion parked on the sidelines, Comptroller Glenn Hegar said Thursday. Hegar foresees an August 2023 cushion of $12.62 billion in the “rainy day fund,” or savings account, and an ending balance of $11.99 billion in discretionary state revenue. In the past, Hegar has extolled the virtues of one-time expenditures of surplus cash to repair aging infrastructure, renovate sagging state buildings and shore up pension funds But as the two-term Republican looks to seek a third term next year – he is just a little over five weeks away from getting through a candidate-filing period with no serious primary opposition – Hegar shrank from urging any such “investments,” citing uncertainties and a need for fiscal caution. “It’s not as though we just ended the legislative session with $24 billion in the bank,” he told The Dallas Morning News as he certified his revenue estimate from January is still adequate to cover state spending.
“This is an expectation,” he said of his certification, “not a guarantee of what may be in the treasury. It’s important to always leave a little money in the bank because you never know what the economy’s going to do.” Hegar cited uncertainties over inflation, energy prices, labor availability and global supply chain bottlenecks as grounds for circumspection. Texas has the nation’s highest share – and number – of residents lacking health insurance. Urban breadwinners have emerged from COVID-19 lockdowns to return to work – and crowded freeways. Experts have warned of wastewater and electric grid needs. Community colleges have suffered a dramatic 11% decline in enrollment since the pandemic began. But Hegar, asked if he would use his megaphone as the state’s chief tax collector and fiscal officer to recommend selective increases in spending, said it’s “very prudent” to wait through 2022 to see if his revenue projections are on target. The 2023 Legislature can then “make some decisions on how they prudently want to use these dollars – if the numbers bear out.” In the two-year cycle that began Sept. 1, lawmakers and Gov. Greg Abbott have approved spending measures that would consume $123.3 billion of state general-purpose revenue. In January, Hegar projected that there would be $112.5 billion of such discretionary revenue. He now foresees $135.32 billion, up 15.1% from the previous cycle… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Biden's vaccine rules for 100 million workers are here. These are the details (NPR)
In early September, President Biden announced he was taking steps to get more Americans vaccinated and turn the tide on COVID-19.
On Thursday, the administration rolled out two of those steps — two different vaccine rules covering more than 100 million workers.
Here are the details… (LINK TO FULL STORY)