Published on texasweekly.com
The state’s primary voters decided on most of their general election nominees in the March 1 elections, but 22 of those contests will go to runoffs on May 24. The Democrats have six races left, the Republicans 16. All told, only four statewide races are left; races for Congress, the State Board of Education and the two houses of the Legislature make up the rest. Here’s the list, along with the totals each candidate received in the primaries.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a delegate to the upcoming Republican national convention and a Ted Cruz backer, sent a warning shot last Friday at fellow Republicans who would try to push a nominee for president other than Cruz or Donald Trump.
If neither Cruz nor Trump secures enough delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot, Patrick said in a statement that “I will work to rally support for Ted Cruz’s nomination and fight any effort to disrupt the process by injecting an illegitimate candidate into the mix.
“I will draw a line in the sand on this issue and stand up for the voice of the people at the Convention,” Patrick said. “As conservatives, we believe it is the people who are the power brokers. The Washington cartel will not prevail.”
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The Club for Growth, one of the top outside groups seeking to stop Trump, has decided to start airing ads in favor of Trump's chief opponent in the Republican presidential race, Ted Cruz.
The organization announced the move Thursday, promising to air $1 million in TV and digital ads against Trump in the run-up to Wisconsin's April 5 primary. The Club for Growth's first commercial, a 30-second spot titled "Math," argues only Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, "can beat Donald Trump,"
"John Kasich can't do it," a narrator says, referring to the only other Republican candidate left in the race. "The math won't work. A vote for John Kasich actually helps Trump by dividing the opposition."
The ad marks a shift in strategy for the group, which until now had only been airing commercials against Trump, not in favor of any of his opponents. The Club for Growth made its support for Cruz official Tuesday, endorsing the Texas senator as the GOP's best hope at keeping Trump out of the White House.
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A couple dozen protesters called for U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to take action on the Supreme Court nomination on Monday, chanting “Senator, do you job,” outside Cornyn’s Austin office for just over 20 minutes at noon.
The protest climaxed flyover by a plane that was carrying the same slogan. Reports showed similar protests scattered around the country, including in Iowa for Sen. Chuck Grassley, Pennsylvania for Sen. Pat Toomey and Ohio for Sen. Rob Portman, to name a few.
Along with most of his Republican Senate colleagues, Cornyn has been resolute in his stance that there should be no consideration of a nominee until after the election, promising not to hold any hearings or votes on Obama’s choice of D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland.
In addition, Cornyn sent out a fundraising email last week, trading on his position against the president.
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President Barack Obama on Wednesday criticized Cruz's suggestion that police should patrol Muslim neighborhoods following the terrorist attacks in Brussels, saying the idea "makes absolutely no sense."
"As far as the notion of having surveillance of neighborhoods where Muslims are present, I just left a country that engages in that kind of neighborhood surveillance, which, by the way, the father of Senator Cruz escaped for America, the land of the free," Obama said at a news conference in Argentina, where he went after making a historic trip to Cuba. "The notion that we would start down that slippery slope makes absolutely no sense. It’s contrary to who we are and it’s not going to help us defeat ISIL."
Obama was responding to a statement Tuesday from Cruz, the U.S. senator from Texas, that the United States should "empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized." At least 31 people were killed and hundreds more injured in the attacks, for which the Islamic State terrorist group has taken credit.
Cruz pushed back on Obama's criticism later Wednesday while speaking with reporters in New York City.
"I'm never surprised when President Obama lashes out and attacks me," Cruz said, accusing the president of not doing enough to combat the threat posed by groups like the Islamic State. "We have seen President Obama's weakness and appeasement give rise to radical Islamic terrorism."
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The Campaign Legal Center, a well-known D.C.-based voting rights group that has been closely involved in many of the recent high-profile voting rights cases in Texas, announced on Wednesday a $1 million legacy grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
The award will go toward supporting the Voting Rights Institute, a joint project of the Campaign Legal Center, the American Constitution Society and Georgetown University Law Center launched as a resource on the topic for attorneys, law students and the general public.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has taken follow up action on his suit filed last month against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its rejection of parts of a seven-year-old state proposal to reduce haze in wilderness areas.
Last Friday, Paxton asked the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay to stop the federal haze reduction plan from being implemented.
As the Tribune reported last month, “The Regional Haze Rule was proposed by the EPA to clean up the air at wilderness areas and national parks. Regulations for Texas include the Guadalupe Mountains National Park east of El Paso and Big Bend National Park on the Texas and Mexico border.”
In a statement accompanying his stay request, Paxton said, “The EPA admits this plan would cost billions, with no perceptible improvement in air quality. Much like its like-minded Clean Power Plan, this is a case of the EPA attempting to restructure the national electric grid, without the authority to do so.”
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The Texas Department of Agriculture has not properly maintained contracts and did not ensure that a vendor followed through with contract requirements, according to a state audit report released Tuesday.
After contracting Periscope Holdings, Inc. to develop a grant management, procurement and contracting system, the Austin-based company developed only a procurement system, the State Auditor’s Office found. The department paid Periscope $450,411 for those services between January 2013 and March 2015.
The SAO recommended that the department “pay for vendor services only after it has received, verified, and determined that the services met the specifications in its contracts.” Additionally, the audit found that the department had not consistently paid U.S. Bank for fuel card services and had no standardized process to review invoices for billing errors.
“I agree with the report recommendations, and appreciate the SAO making time in its schedule to answer our request for audit,” said current Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in response, adding that the department has initiated several changes since Senate Bill 20 passed in 2015, heightening the planning, reporting, and management requirements for state contracting. “The SAO recommendations will further strengthen contracting, IT and reporting processes.”
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In a recurring effort to decrease the feral hog population in Texas, the state’s Department of Agriculture set dates for the 2016 Coordinated Hog Out Management Program (CHOMP) on Tuesday. Participating counties will be scored on the number of feral hogs taken from May 1 to May 31, 2016, and the winners will receive grant assistance to continue local abatement activities after the challenge ends.
“Feral hogs cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damage every year, but by working together, we can take steps to protect our farms, ranches and property from these dangerous and destructive animals,” Commissioner Miller said in a statement.
Counties can earn additional points by implementing educational initiatives to teach residents about abatement technologies. A total of $200,000 is available in project funding for the winners.
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Gov. Greg Abbott traveled to San Antonio on Wednesday to deliver his free enterprise pitch to the city’s Rotary Club, declaring that Texas is on the way to becoming known as a hotbed of innovation, not just as the home of the oil and gas industry.
“Yes, oil and gas will continue to be a part of who we are,” Abbott said. “But part of the reason why oil is so cheap today is because of innovation itself by a Texan who created the hydraulic fracking techniques that allow us to tap into energy that was previously unreachable.”
Abbott also recalled an ad he ran while running for governor, lamenting that “a guy in a wheelchair can move faster than traffic on some roads in Texas.” He claimed that the state is now on the way to improving traffic under his leadership.
While he was in San Antonio, the governor also met with the city’s Honorary Belgian Consul Robert Braubach to share his condolences over yesterday’s terrorist attacks in Brussels.
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On Thursday, Abbott made a slew of earthshaking appointments.
The Republican named nine men to the Technical Advisory Committee to the University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology — a group that will advise the governor on issues related to earthquakes, no longer a rarity in Texas, and possible connections to oil and gas development.
The committee was created during the 2015 Legislative session under House Bill 2, which also authorized nearly $4.5 million for a seismic monitoring program led by the bureau. The initiative would create a statewide network of seismic monitors that would help research better understand the quakes, which have grown in frequency and alarmed some Texans.
The committee will include mostly men with expertise in either petroleum production, seismic research or both. The appointments include:
• Dan Hill, professor and head chair of petroleum engineering at Texas A&M;
• Chris Hillman, city manager of Irving, the North Texas town where some of the shaking has taken place;
• Dana Jurick, manager of Seismic Analysis for the Geoscience and Reservoir Engineering Organization at ConocoPhillips Company;
• Hal Macartney, geoscience manager of Sustainable Development for Pioneer Natural Resources;
• Kris Nygaard of Houston is senior stimulation consultant for ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company;
• Craig Pierson, the state seismologist, who is housed at the Railroad Commission;
• Brian Stump, a professor and well-regarded quake expert at Southern Methodist University;
• Scott Tinker, the official state geologist and director of the Bureau of Economic Geology;
• Robie Vaughn, owner of Dallas-based Vaughn Capital Partners.
The idea for the program emerged after months of discussion between lawmakers and regulators about how to respond to the quakes that are shaking unsuspecting communities throughout the state, but particularly North Texas.
Experts suspect nearby disposal wells triggered some of the quakes. The number of those wells — deep resting places for liquid oil and gas waste — has surged amid Texas’ drilling bonanza. Drilling areas in South and West Texas have also seen more earthquakes.
For this week’s nonscientific survey of insiders in government and politics, we asked about your convention prognostications.
We started by asking whether Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who by remaining in the presidential race is denying Ted Cruz his one-on-one contest with Donald Trump, will drop out of the race before the national convention this summer.
On this one, more than three in five of the insiders did not think Kasich would get out of the race early. Another 29 percent thought he would step aside before delegates assemble in Cleveland.
We followed up with a two-part question: would there be a contested Republican convention and, if so, who would prevail?
On this one, roughly two-thirds thought there would be a contested convention with 28 percent favoring Trump, 19 percent favoring Cruz and 21 percent favoring a different candidate. About one-third of the respondents didn't think the convention would end up contested.
In the event of a contested convention, we then asked if the televised spectacle would end up hurting the GOP nominee in the general election. On this question, a bit more than half said the nominee would be hurt with about a third predicting no lasting damage.
On the final question, we turned toward a pending election at the state GOP convention where party Chairman Tom Mechler is being challenged by former Harris County GOP Chairman Jared Woodfill.
Mechler was favored to win re-election by 38 percent of the insiders while the challenger was favored by 16 percent. Fully 46 percent, though, did not care to make a prediction.
We collected comments along the way, and a full set of those is attached. Here’s a sampling:
Does John Kasich drop out before the national GOP convention?
• "He's too pissed at voters to drop out."
• "He doesn't drop out even though he becomes increasingly less relevant, but his presence in the field allows Trump to build a bit more of a margin over Cruz heading into convention."
• "With fewer than a couple dozen states left, why get out? He'll ride into Cleveland and try to play king maker."
• "Kasich drops out before the convention. A tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it. Pity. Such a good man, and so qualified."
• "No, he is the only remaining 'establishment Republican.' ABC, Anybody But Cruz!"
Will there be a contested convention, and who would win?
• "No one will have enough delegates to win the nomination before convention. Anti-Trump factions unite and end up making Ted Cruz (who is just disliked rather than despised) the unlikely nominee."
• "The bombings in Belgium occurring while the President is posing with his comrades in front of a Che mural will serve to make a politically incorrect, unabashed capitalist calling for a stop to immigration seem like the perfect solution to all of this country's woes. Now where can we find one...?”
• "Kasich. If the GOP goes to a contested convention because no one has a majority, the goal will be to pick a presidential candidate that can protect the Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate."
• "And Cruz/the Party damn well better pick Fiorina or a Hispanic as the Veep candidate."
• "Trumpmania continues unabated. He gets to his number. The more they try to stop him, the more support he gets. Roughly my 14th choice out of the original 17. Get over it and move on. There's always 2020."
Does a contested convention hurt the GOP nominee in the general election?
• "Depends, the GOP could lose either way. Trump is not electable for President and neither is Cruz for that matter. But, the Trump folks will sit on their rear end if he isn't nominated."
• "If the convention respects the will of the voters, I think we will emerge even stronger. If they go a different route, it will have long-term negative implications."
• "A contested convention pushes viewership to historic levels. How the party (and eventual nominee) choose to use that large public stage will make all the difference in the world."
• "The general public doesn't understand the electoral college or delegates as is. This will only confirm their suspicions that their votes don't count, that the system is rigged."
• "Not sure how much more 'hurt' the GOP can deal with in an already long-shot general. Contested convention would add to the circus. Circular firing squad on meth."
Who will be the next Texas GOP chairman?
• "Could care less, they just are needed to keep the machinery going and raise money, otherwise they are not relevant."
• "Jared Woodfill and the chair of the Travis County GOP will be quite a pair. Headlines candy for the press."
• "Lord help us if Woodfill gets control of the party. I mean, his vice chair running mate basically ran the party into the ground when she was chairwoman. Why on earth would anyone give serious consideration to a slate that includes her?"
• "Mechler is blah, Woodfill is a principled anti-establishment conservative who takes on the special interests and wins."
• "Mechler must be one of those 'librels'?"
Our thanks to this week's participants: Gene Acuna, Brandon Aghamalian, Brandon Alderete, Jay Arnold, Charles Bailey, Dave Beckwith, Andrew Biar, Allen Blakemore, Tom Blanton, Raif Calvert, Lydia Camarillo, Snapper Carr, Elna Christopher, Harold Cook, Kevin Cooper, Randy Cubriel, Beth Cubriel, Denise Davis, June Deadrick, Tom Duffy, David Dunn, Jack Erskine, Neftali Garcia, Dominic Giarratani, Bruce Gibson, Kinnan Golemon, John Greytok, Clint Hackney, Wayne Hamilton, Bill Hammond, Steve Holzheauser, Deborah Ingersoll, Mark Jones, Robert Kepple, Richard Khouri, Tom Kleinworth, Dale Laine, Pete Laney, James LeBas, Luke Legate, Vilma Luna, Matt Mackowiak, Jason McElvaney, Steve Minick, Bee Moorhead, Mike Moses, Nelson Nease, Gardner Pate, Jerod Patterson, Robert Peeler, Jerry Philips, Tom Phillips, Wayne Pierce, Allen Place, Gary Polland, Jay Pritchard, Jay Propes, Ted Melina Raab, Patrick Reinhart, David Reynolds, Chuck Rice, Carl Richie, A.J. Rodriguez, Grant Ruckel, Andy Sansom, Jim Sartwelle, Barbara Schlief, Stan Schlueter, Robert Scott, Steve Scurlock, Ben Sebree, Christopher Shields, Jason Skaggs, Ed Small, Larry Soward, Leonard Spearman, Dennis Speight, Jason Stanford, Colin Strother, Sherry Sylvester, Sara Tays, Jay Thompson, Trey Trainor, Vicki Truitt, Corbin Van Arsdale, Ware Wendell, David White, Darren Whitehurst, Peck Young, Angelo Zottarelli.
Saturday, March 26
Sunday, March 27
Tuesday, March 29
Wednesday, March 30
Thursday, March 31
A Texas-based Planned Parenthood affiliate on Thursday moved to join a federal lawsuit filed in California against the anti-abortion group behind undercover videos of the organization’s clinics.
A Collin County grand jury looking into a 2004 land sale tied to a business group involving Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has decided to drop its investigation, a lawyer for the McKinney Republican said Wednesday.
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz picked up two key endorsements Wednesday: one from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and another from powerful conservative group Club for Growth.
U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, have introduced legislation designed to roll back the automatic benefits and legal status that Cuban immigrants receive shortly after reaching U.S. ports.
Ted Cruz on Tuesday night split two Republican nominating contests with Donald Trump, defeating the billionaire in Utah but getting blown out by him in Arizona. Cruz was set to win the Utah caucuses with 69 percent of the vote, putting him on track to collect all 40 of the state's delegates.
Former Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Brian Encinia appeared before a state district judge Tuesday and entered a not guilty plea to a perjury charge stemming from his arrest of Sandra Bland.
Texas regulators on Thursday approved the Ray L. Hunt family’s high-stakes plan to purchase and reshape the state's largest electric utility. But they added major revisions, prolonging the battle to own Oncor.
In another major case concerning Texas women’s reproductive care, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider if the right to religious freedom is broad enough to completely exempt nonprofits with religious objections to birth control from providing women access to it through their insurance plans.
As Americans were learning about the latest terrorist attacks in Western Europe, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz called for law enforcement targeting of Muslim neighborhoods, while also taking swipes at both President Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
Speaking in Manhattan Wednesday, Ted Cruz sought to find common cause with New York Republicans and reconcile his bashing of “New York values.” Cruz is seeking to perform well in the state’s Republican presidential primary to catch up with Donald Trump in the hunt for delegates.
Texas’ suburban population continues to surge with growth in some suburban counties outpacing the state’s biggest cities, new U.S. Census Bureau Figures show. Texas gained almost half a million new residents from July 2014 to July 2015. Hays County, between Austin and San Antonio, was again the state's fastest growing county, and ranked fifth in the nation.
During an hours-long committee on border security and immigration Wednesday, Republican Bexar County Sheriff Susan Pamerleau was called out for doing what some argue only Democrats do: Let deportable immigrants out of jail.
Disclosure: Oncor was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune in 2012. Planned Parenthood was a corporate sponsor in 2011. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.
Gov. Greg Abbott has appointed Ryan Larson of Hutto judge for the 395th Judicial District Court, based in Williamson County. Currently head administrative law judge at the Railroad Commission, he also counts a stint in then AG Abbott’s shop as assistant attorney general. He’s also the GOP nominee for the seat in the general election, having won the March primary election.
Abbott named Stuart W. Stedman of Houston vice chairman of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Stedman was appointed to the board on March 9 for a term to expire Aug. 31, 2021.
Alston Beinhorn of Catarina and Mary Beth Delano of Corpus Christi were appointed by Abbott to the Nueces River Authority Board of Directors for terms to expire Feb. 1, 2017. Additionally, Dan Leyendecker of Corpus Christi and Trace Burton of San Antonio were appointed for terms to expire Feb. 1, 2019.
Abbott appointed three people — Bret McCoy of Omaha, Mike Sandefur of Texarkana and Katie Stedman of Mount Pleasant — to the Sulphur River Basin Authority Board of Directors for terms to expire Feb. 1, 2021.
Abbott appointed Aaron Bulkley of Hunt to the Upper Guadalupe River Authority for a term to expire Feb. 1, 2019.
Trey Hill and Kelly Lovell, both of Friendswood, were appointed by Abbott to the Board of Pilot Commissioners for Galveston County Ports for terms to expire on Feb. 1, 2020.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has been named to the executive committee of the Republican Lieutenant Governor’s Association (RLGA), which touts itself as the only national organization supporting Republican lieutenant governors and candidates. Patrick announced that he will host the RLGA in Austin this June, marking the first time the group has met in Texas.
The Texas Association of Business’ PAC announced this week its choices in the GOP primary runoff elections. It endorsed two House incumbents — New Braunfels' Doug Miller (HD-73) and Baytown’s Wayne Smith (HD-128) — and Bryan Hughes and Susan King for the open seats in SD-1 and SD-24, respectively. Other endorsements included: Jodey Arrington (CD-19); Ernest Bailes (HD-18); Justin Holland (HD-32); Scott Cosper (HD-54); and Lynn Stucky (HD-64).
Democratic HD-27 runoff candidate Angelique Bartholomew announced an endorsement Wednesday from the African-American Police Officers League (AAPOL).
Justin Holland, Republican candidate in the runoff election to represent the North Texas-based HD-33, announced Thursday an endorsement from the Dallas Police Association.
Todd Kimbriel, who is currently the deputy executive director for the state’s Department of Information Resources, is adding an additional title — chief information officer for the state of Texas. He served for a spell as the interim executive director at DIR before the hire of Stacey Napier for the position.
Ryan, the influential tax services firm, announced Friday that it has hired former Rick Perry presidential campaign manager Jeff Miller to lead the advocacy and legislative affairs teams for its newly formed Ryan Advocacy group. He will work out of Ryan’s Austin office.
Disclosure: The Texas Association of Business and Ryan are corporate sponsors of The Texas Tribune. A complete list of Tribune donors and sponsors can be viewed here.
We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.
Ted Cruz, offering an immediately controversial suggestion on how the U.S. should proceed in reaction to this week's terrorist attacks in Brussels
I prefer John Kasich; Cruz is not my first pick by any choice.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, announcing his decision last week to endorse Ted Cruz for president
Keeping attention on the exploding use of dark money is laudable. Getting a disclosure amendment to the ballot in the face of active opposition from the governor and lieutenant governor is politically impossible.
Texans for Public Justice's Craig McDonald, on House State Affairs Chairman Byron Cook's stated intent to purse a constitutional amendment requiring disclosure of "dark money" political donors
That's private medical information. I'm not going to share that with you. But it's worked out good.
Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller to the Houston Chronicle on a controversial anti-inflammatory treatment called the "Jesus Shot." After initially billing taxpayers for the cost of a trip to Oklahoma where he may have received the shot, he later reimbursed the state for the cost of the trip.
