BG Reads | News You Need to Know (January 6, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW // BG PODCAST - Episode 121: Talking COVID-19 Vaccination with Dr. Aliza Norwood
On today’s episode Bingham Group CEO A.J. speaks with Dr. Aliza Norwood, an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Population Health and Internal Medicine at Dell Medical School. The two discuss her experience with the first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination, the differences between it and the Moderna treatment, vaccine misconceptions and more.
NEW // CEO CONVERSATION
It’s a ways out (maybe not so much IF the strong mayor referendum passes) from candidates openly seeking a run at the mayoral seat in 2022. But the unofficial chatter I’ve been hearing is all from men. Given the discussion playing out now for Mayor Pro Tem (see lead story below) with a majority female Council (8 women to 3 men) , WHO in a category OTHER than male do you think would and/or should run for mayor? //A.J. (Message me directly. Off the record conversations always).
PRE-FILED BILLS FOR THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE:
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (1035)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Replacing Austin's mayor pro tem produces unexpected drama (Austin American-Statesman)
On the Austin City Council, the title mayor pro tem has very little importance.
But right now. it's the source of a very big fuss.
The largely ceremonial title confers no authority to the titleholder beyond running council meetings when the mayor is away. It does not come with a salary bump or a bigger office.
But it could carry weight with voters in the 2022 race to replace Steve Adler as Austin's mayor or could enhance a candidate's résumé in a race for some other office.
For the past two years, District 2 representative Delia Garza has been Austin's mayor pro tem. Her departure — to be Travis County Attorney — opened up the spot, which the colleagues Garza left behind thought they'd be able to work privately to fill.
That process has spilled into public view.
Over the past three weeks, three different council members have campaigned for mayor pro tem: Greg Casar, who early sent out a notice that he had secured the backing of a council majority for the position; Alison Alter, who pushed back against Casar's candidacy, suggesting the role should go to a woman; and Natasha Harper-Madison, who is something of a compromise between the other two as a woman representing an East Austin district adjacent to Casar's district.
The suspense could linger for three more weeks.
A vote by the council for mayor pro tem was scheduled for Wednesday during an inauguration ceremony, when the five newly elected and reelected council members will take an oath of office. But the vote has been postponed until council meetings resume the week of Jan. 25… (LINK TO STORY)
‘Entire state is in surge’ says interim health authority, record number of COVID-19 admissions Tuesday (KXAN)
With a record 115 new COVID-19 hospital admissions reported Tuesday, Austin-Travis County Interim Health Authority Dr. Mark Escott said things are getting worse.
During a presentation Tuesday with Travis County commissioners, Escott laid out the most recent numbers on COVID-19 in the area, and his description of the situation was to the point.
“The entire state is in surge,” he said. “We need a substantial change in policy to more aggressively mitigate the spread because what we’re doing right now isn’t working.”
Escott said 14 trauma service areas in Texas are, by definition, experiencing surge conditions. That means 15% or more of their hospitalizations have been due to COVID-19 for seven consecutive days. The Austin-Travis County area hasn’t reached the seven consecutive days mark, Escott said, but the area has reached the 15% threshold.
“It represents the majority of the population in Texas,” Escott said. “We’re in a state of emergency.”
Escott interrupted the commissioner’s meeting to give them Tuesday’s update of new hospital admissions after he initially finished his presentation. He said the area will need around 1,000 hospital beds by the end of the month, and now is the time where the area can potentially start to see the impact of Christmas gatherings.
Escott said new projections suggest the area will run out of intensive care unit beds by Jan. 15, but he also said it could happen sooner than that if infections continue at their current rate. There were 493 people hospitalized last week for COVID-19, a 43% increase from the week prior… (LINK TO STORY)
Jimmy Flannigan: Taking care of unfinished business (Austin Monitor)
Since losing to Mackenzie Kelly in Northwest Austin’s District 6 runoff election, City Council Member Jimmy Flannigan has focused on keeping his head down, continuing to work and trying to “figure out what’s next.”
“There’s a lot of work that you do as a Council member hoping that you get a second term – a lot of unfinished business,” Flannigan said. “And I still want to see that business finished. I don’t know what that’s going to mean functionally, but that’s where my head is at.”
Now he says what’s next is a new job – as the new president of Austin Convention Enterprises Inc., the local government corporation that oversees the city-owned Hilton Austin hotel. The position is “quasi-connected” to the city, “so I will still be leveraging my skills and what I learned in the job to still fulfill a public purpose, which is still what drives me.”
Reflecting back on the year, Flannigan said the pandemic dramatically altered how public engagement and testimony was handled in his day-to-day job.
“It gave folks a different perspective on the challenges of the day, and it created an environment where more people saw that systems were broken than assumed were broken before,” he said.
Flannigan said the city “did not shy away” from taking on the most challenging issues of the pandemic that highlighted long-standing inequities in the community.
“I think Austin, as a whole, did as best as it could do given the conflicting messages being sent by the governor and the president,” he said… (LINK TO STORY)
Mackenzie Kelly: Ready to collaborate and communicate (Austin Monitor)
Speaking to Mackenzie Kelly, it’s clear she’s touched by the early overtures from her new colleagues, who are already helping her adapt to her new post as City Council member for District 6.
“They’ve been wonderful and kind and gracious, and for that I’m very thankful. When you run a campaign, it’s very different from being in office,” she told the Austin Monitor.
“I’m in this role where I have an incredible amount of responsibility and direction that I can take the city,” she said. “In everything I’ve done, I’ve always asked for permission or RSVP’d for a meeting. Now I get to do it; I get to spearhead it. There’s going to be an adjustment there for a little while.”
As a first step, Kelly said she has to overcome the “awful narrative” about her from this year’s campaign.
“Being labeled as a far-right extremist, that’s definitely not who I am as a person. I’m willing to work with everybody on everything,” she said. “I want to have those lines of communication among my peers open. Because, at the end of the day, it’s about making the quality of life in Austin better.”
That said, Kelly will be the only self-identified conservative on the technically nonpartisan City Council. In the past, those in her position have found it difficult to impossible to forward many of their ideas. She knows that’s the case, but nonetheless, she is optimistic.
“The only way I’m going to get things done is if we do collaborate, and we do communicate,” she said. “I don’t want divisiveness among the Council. I think those days are coming to an end … I think the tone of the Council will definitely change for the better, and I’m looking forward to that.”
She said that, at a local level, issues are likely not to fall along party lines, more often than not. “And that’s OK,” she said. “As long as we’re doing the right thing, for the right reasons, I’m OK with that.”
When asked more pointedly about allegations that she was supported by or was a supporter of white supremacists, Kelly clearly denied the association, reiterating that she did not know she was taking a photo with Proud Boys in a widely circulated photo from earlier this year. She said she has cut ties with and blocked Christopher Ritchie on social media after finding out he was part of the group.
“I think my actions will speak volumes to that,” she said. “I don’t associate with white supremacists or white nationalist groups. I don’t agree with their philosophies. We need to be inclusive of all types of people.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Alto to take on Uber, Lyft in Austin (Austin Business Journal)
Alto Experience Inc., a Dallas-based startup that also operates in Houston, intends to launch in Austin later this year.
The growing startup just selected Los Angeles as the first market outside of Texas to bring its employee-based, on-demand ride-hailing and delivery service.
Founded in 2018, Alto promises an elevated experience with a dedicated fleet of five-star crash-rated SUVs driven by W2 employees who undergo extensive background checks as well as safety and defensive driving training.
In addition to passenger rides, Alto offers a concierge service with corporate or personal courier service, customer or employee courtesy rides, food pickup and delivery, and shopping and delivery, with real-time monitoring and text capabilities.
During the pandemic, Alto's fleet undergoes daily service checks, deep-cleaning and between-ride cleanings with EPA-registered disinfectants, with high-touch surfaces such as the interior and exterior door handles and headrests disinfected between every trip. The company has equipped each vehicle with custom plexiglass barriers between the front and back seats, as well as HEPA cabin air filters that remove 99.9% of airborne particles… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
After top staff exodus, Texas AG seeks $43M for Google suit (Associated Press)
The mass exodus of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s top staff over accusations of bribery against their former boss has left the Republican seeking $43 million in public funds to replace some of them with outside lawyers to lead a high-profile antitrust lawsuit against Google. Former Paxton aides told The Associated Press that before they reported him to the FBI in September and began resigning, the lawsuit against the search engine giant was set to be handled internally by what is one of the largest state attorney general’s offices in the U.S. The outside lawyers’ contracts put a price tag on the fallout from Paxton’s deputies accusing him of crimes in the service of a wealthy donor who employs a woman with whom the attorney general allegedly had an extramarital affair. It remains to be seen how much taxpayers will ultimately shell out under the complex deals.
“At the time I left, there was no intention of hiring outside counsel,” Jeff Mateer, Paxton’s former top lieutenant who resigned in October, told the AP. Mateer said former Deputy Attorney General Darren McCarty was leading the investigation into Google and they intended to assemble a trial team from among the office’s thousands of employees. “Darren was more than able to do it,” Mateer said.
Through public records requests, the AP obtained contracts Paxton signed last month with two big-name law firms and a letter informing lawmakers of them. The letter was sent a day before the contracts were signed. “The legal services cannot be adequately performed by the attorneys and supporting personnel,” of the attorney general’s office, Paxton wrote. The attorney general has denied any wrongdoing. In response to questions for this story, Kayleigh Date, spokeswoman for Paxton’s office, said “the contract speaks for itself.” Paxton hired the firms as Texas residents are footing the bill for his defense against a whistleblower lawsuit brought by his former employees. The public may also end up on the hook for legal costs from the FBI’s investigation of Texas’ top lawman. In December, Texas led 10 Republican attorneys general in suing Google for allegedly running an illegal digital-advertising monopoly in cahoots with Facebook. Paxton picked Houston attorney Mark Lanier to lead the case… (LINK TO STORY)
John Cornyn says he won't join growing number of Texas Republicans planning to object to certification of Joe Biden's win (Texas Tribune)
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, announced Tuesday that he isn't planning to object to the certification of the Electoral College vote in Congress, splitting with a growing number of GOP colleagues that most notably includes the state’s junior senator, Ted Cruz.
In a lengthy letter to Texans, Cornyn noted that he has supported President Donald Trump’s right to challenge election results in the courts but that Trump's lawsuits have gone nowhere, and recounts in multiple states have also failed to change the outcome. Trump has continued to push baseless claims of widespread fraud in the election, including at a campaign rally Monday night in Georgia.
"As a former judge, I view this process with the same impartial, evidence-based decision-making as I did my job on the bench,” wrote Cornyn, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court. “So, unless substantial, new evidence is presented during the challenges to each state’s ballots, I will not object to the certification of that stave’s election results based on unproven allegations.”
"Allegations alone will not suffice," Cornyn said earlier in the letter. "Evidence is required."… (LINK TO STORY)
Joe Biden selects three Texans for White House staff (Texas Tribune)
Three Texans are headed to the White House.
President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris announced the appointments Tuesday of three Democratic operatives with Texas roots: Emmy Ruiz, Cristóbal J. Alex and Adrian Saenz. All will serve in high-profile roles in the Biden administration… (LINK TO STORY)
After yearlong delay in District B runoff, new council member’s eligibility questioned (Houston Chronicle)
The election in Houston city council’s District B was put on hold for a year as courts addressed whether one of the two finalists for the seat, Cynthia Bailey, was eligible to run for office. Now, the winner of last month’s runoff, Tarsha Jackson, is drawing scrutiny of her own, just weeks after she prevailed against Bailey and took office at City Hall as District B’s city council member. Some civic leaders in District B are asking the city attorney’s office to review Jackson’s eligibility because she lives in a portion of Harris County that Houston annexed for limited purposes. Residents in those areas can vote in city elections — Jackson’s voter registration shows she lives in District B — but state law appears to bar them from running for office. The Texas Local Government Code says residents in those areas are “not eligible to be a candidate for or to be elected to a municipal office.”
A city map of Houston annexations shows the north Houston address where Jackson lives was annexed by the city in 2002. The city planning department said it was a limited purpose annexation, in which the city does not collect property taxes but can levy a sales tax. Jackson does not pay city property taxes on her home, according to the Harris County Appraisal District. That could make Jackson ineligible, although the city has not taken a stand on the issue. City Attorney Arturo Michel declined an interview request. Charles Noble, a leader with the Greater North-Northeast Coalition of Civic Clubs, said the latest questions are causing more confusion for District B’s historically neglected residents who already were flummoxed trying to make sense of a year-long delay in their council election. He and other coalition leaders held a call Sunday to try to sort through the issue.
“We’re all getting it from the residents, like, ‘What’s what?’ And we don’t have an answer to give,” Noble said. “We’re at a loss, because if she’s not qualified, then tell us. And if she is qualified, say that too.” The city declared another council candidate ineligible for living in an annexed neighborhood in 2019. Michelle Bonton was running for an at-large seat on council from her address near Lake Houston, a neighborhood that also was annexed for limited purposes. The city allowed Bonton on the ballot. When the Chronicle asked questions about Bonton’s candidacy, the city declared her ineligible in October, a month before the election. Her name remained on the ballot but votes for Bonton did not count… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Warnock makes history with Senate win as Dems near majority (Associated Press)
Democrat Raphael Warnock won one of Georgia’s two Senate runoffs Wednesday, becoming the first Black senator in his state’s history and putting the Senate majority within the party’s reach.
A pastor who spent the past 15 years leading the Atlanta church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, Warnock defeated Republican incumbent Kelly Loeffler. It was a stinging rebuke of outgoing President Donald Trump, who made one of his final trips in office to Georgia to rally his loyal base behind Loeffler and the Republican running for the other seat, David Perdue.
The focus now shifts to the second race between Perdue and Democrat Jon Ossoff. The candidates were locked in a tight race and it was too early to call a winner. Under Georgia law, a trailing candidate may request a recount when the margin of an election is less than or equal to 0.5 percentage points.
If Ossoff wins, Democrats will have complete control of Congress, strengthening President-elect Joe Biden’s standing as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20.
Warnock’s victory is a symbol of a striking shift in Georgia’s politics as the swelling number of diverse, college-educated voters flex their power in the heart of the Deep South. It follows Biden’s victory in November, when he became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state since 1992… (LINK TO STORY)
Sen. Cruz to object to Arizona electors who certified Biden’s win when Congress counts the votes (Washington Post)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) plans to formally object to the certification of electors from Arizona during Wednesday’s joint session of Congress, according to a person familiar with the matter, ensuring that the duly certified results from a third state will be challenged by a GOP senator. Cruz has led a coalition of 10 other GOP senators who have threatened objections during what is otherwise a pro forma process to ratify Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral college win unless Republicans secure an audit of the election results. But until Tuesday, Cruz had declined to identify a specific state whose electors he will challenge. The person familiar with Cruz’s plans said the Texas senator, seen as a 2024 presidential hopeful, will join with Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) to contest the results from Biggs’s home state. The person said it is likely that at least some of the 10 senators who announced the effort with Cruz last week will join the Arizona effort.
The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose strategy that is not yet public. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), who faces a runoff election Tuesday to keep her seat, plans to object to results from her home state, and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has pledged to contest the outcome in Pennsylvania. The objections are all but certain to fail in the Democratic-controlled House and the GOP-led Senate, where a growing number of Republicans have called the challenges dangerous to democracy. For Cruz, the objection to Arizona — which will come first alphabetically among the list of battleground states on Wednesday — is largely about pushing for an electoral commission early on in the process, not necessarily about the specifics related to the state. President Trump has falsely claimed widespread voter fraud rigged the election, but there has been no evidence to support his baseless allegations. The Trump campaign has repeatedly lost challenges in the courts of such claims. Former Attorney General William P. Barr has also said there is no such evidence… (LINK TO STORY)
'Things are worse than people think': LA County official on new directives for EMS (NPR)
In Los Angeles, ambulances are waiting for hours — up to eight, in some cases — to admit new patients at overwhelmed hospitals. The number of coronavirus patients in intensive care units has more than quadrupled since the beginning of November.
On Monday, Los Angeles County's Emergency Medical Services Agency directed EMTs not to bring people who have little chance of survival into hospitals and to conserve oxygen out in the field.
And with the holidays just behind us, public health officials warn that the situation could get worse for emergency services.
"A lot of what's happening right now, even though people are talking about it, people are reporting about it, people aren't really seeing it. And the reality is, things are worse than people think," says Dr. Nichole Bosson, assistant medical director at the LA County Emergency Medical Services Agency. "And I say that because I see how people are still congregating in groups and making decisions to have family gatherings or New Year's parties. And these decisions are what continues to impact our health care system."… (LINK TO STORY)