Monthly Archives: October 2011

Houston City Council voted to try and help preserve an historic building in the East End–Rufus Cage Elementary. The 101 year-old building had a wrecking ball headed right for it when HISD Trustee Juliet Stipeche gave a boost to community members who supported its preservation.

The old Cage Elementary School on Telephone Road has been vacant for 12 years and has not served students since 1983.  Houston Independent School District has been trying to sell it for eight years. The district had considered selling the property to a developer with plans to raze the 101-year-old structure. Trustee Juliet Stipeche asked Mayor Annise Parker for the city to step in and save it.

The Historic Rufus Cage Educational Alliance, whose members call themselves the Cage Fighters, intends to raise money for repairs and recruit organizations to use the school for educational purposes, such as public health outreach or performing arts events.

Of course, there is still money to be raised for the improvements to the building, but this is a great opportunity to make a beautiful historic building into a centerpiece of the community. If anything, something like this would spur added development and community improvement efforts.

Congrats to Trustee Stipeche and the Cage Fighters for their efforts. And a big thanks to Mayor Parker and City Council.

Unfortunately, Trustee Juliet Stipeche is being challenged by an opponent affiliated with the fringes of the right wing who never support these efforts and are to blame for the Republican Texas Legislature’s short-changing of our school budgets this academic year. With all of the challenges faced by the school district, in only one year as Trustee, Juliet Stipeche has led efforts to increase parental involvement and has made tough decisions while advocating for those targeted for budget cuts (students and teachers). Can you imagine what Juliet Stipeche will accomplish during a full term in office?

Surely the opposition will only fail teachers and students, much like Rick Perry and the Republicans have.

Early Voting is happening right now. As we head into the weekend and next week, the voting hours expand. Here’s a link to the schedule and map of voting locations.

Well, maybe not in those words, but the Department of Justice has made it clear (PDF) in a brief to a court deciding on a summary judgment requested by the Republicans that they are bad for Texas. Here are some of the highlights:

·         Texas’s statement of undisputed facts is devoid of evidence or assertions in support of its claim that the proposed State House and Congressional plans lack a discriminatory purpose, in apparent non-compliance with Local Rule 7.

·         There is ample circumstantial evidence of a discriminatory purpose with regard to both the State House and Congressional plans to establish a clear and genuine dispute of material facts.

·         The United States contends that a purpose of the proposed State House redistricting plan is to eliminate minority communities’ ability to elect their candidate of choice in districts won by candidates not preferred by the minority voters in the watershed 2010 election.

·         Therefore, there are genuine disputes whether proposed Districts 35, 41, and 117 provide Hispanic voters with the ability to elect their candidates of choice in the proposed plan and whether District 149 provides minority voters with the ability to elect their candidate of choice.

·         In addition, the plan is intended to prevent the emergence of new ability-to-elect districts in Dallas and Harris Counties. The proposed House redistricting plan also splits precincts in a manner that strongly evinces race-based intent, rather than a partisan purpose.

·         The boundaries of proposed District 41 split fourteen precincts and include 69.5% of the Anglo VAP of the split precincts but only 40.2% of the Hispanic VAP of the split precincts. See Arrington Rep. at 30 tbl. 11. The line drawers claimed that they relied on a legislator’s local political knowledge when drawing the district. See Perez Tr. 1001:23-1002:5 (Downton); Interiano Dep. At 185:18-190:1. However the incumbent in that District denied guiding more than the small splits that included his home and excluded the legislator currently representing the District and admitted a lack of local political knowledge concerning the split precincts. See Peña Dep. At 97:16-102:15, 157:5-173:4

·         Representative John Garza of District 117, in Bexar County, rejected inclusion of Hispanics in politically organized portions of the City of San Antonio and told Representative Joe Farias of neighboring District 118 that he needed “more Mexicans in [his] district.”

·         The splitting of well-organized Hispanic communities in Maverick and Bexar Counties and substitution with areas that are equallyHispanic, but not politically organized, made it possible to decrease the ability of Hispanic voters to elect a candidate of their choice while still maintaining the illusion of a district with sufficient Hispanic voting age population to control elections.

·         The proposed Congressional plan also removes hundreds of thousands of minority voters from districts that provide them with the ability to elect candidates of choice. Under the proposed plan, 479,704 fewer Hispanics would reside in such districts.

I agree with the Anthony Gutierrez at the Texas Democratic Party on this.

The illegal Republican gerrymanders are meant to protect specific candidates at the expense of voters protected under the Voting Rights Act. After repeatedly voting against the interests of every day Texans, Republicans are using every trick in the book to try and pre-determine the outcome of elections.”

There’s no doubt that Republican Latinos were splicing off Latinos from their districts because it’s the only way they might be able to win in 2012. Bottom line:  Latinos in these districts are Democrats, and these repu-vendidos know it.

Ever had your car towed and you just don’t know where it went? After smacking your head for not paying your parking fines, you can now go to a website which may point you in the right direction.

The city of Houston has just added a convenient little tool to help you deal with the tremendous inconvenience of having your car towed.

A Houston Police Department bulletin to the media announces a new Web site, www.findmytowedcar.com, which provides access to information about towed vehicles.

By entering your license plate or vehicle identification number, you can find out where your car is.

Here’s a link to Police Chief Charles McClelland explaining the site, which launched last week.

This hasn’t happened to me (knock on wood), but one time in college I came close. Considering that the City or any impound yard could make a killing during the time you seek your vehicle, this resource seems to be helpful. They’ll still make money on what you owe them, right?

At least I hope I did!

First of all, here’s a link to a conversation between myself, Sylvia Garcia, Charles Kuffner, and Greg Wythe this morning on This Week With Sylvia Garcia on the 2011 elections. 

After participating in the final candidate forum on “This Week With Sylvia Garcia” on UCTCRadio.com, I headed over to the Metropolitan Service Center on West Gray to visit with some of my favorite judicial candidates who are hard at work collecting signatures from good Democratic voters to earn a place on the ballot. I can’t say it was busy today at about 11:30AM, but I did my duty and participated in this process we call democracy.

Afterwards, I decided to shoot the breeze for a bit with candidates and staffers. Every now and then a prospective voter would arrive and the gaggle of candidates and campaign volunteers would sell their campaigns with the hope of earning a vote. Then the conversations would start up again until the next prospect arrived.

Candidate for At-Large Position 4 Louis Molnar, though, kept himself busy in those lulls, collecting some of the unwanted pushcards–for all of the candidates. In a bit of a lull, he even separated them and offered to give them back. As a candidate, he knows how costly printed material can be; unfortunately, paid campaign volunteers don’t always want them back or they’ll seem as if they aren’t passing them out if they end the day with a huge stack of cards in the trunks of their cars.

So, here’s the thing. You people need to get off your hind-sides, drive over to one of 37 early voting locations, then make your choice. But do it! Because if you don’t vote, you really don’t matter.

Thanks to the Texas Democratic Party for sending this out. It’s what we all need to know about the November 2011 election. Early Voting begins on Monday (here is a PDF of the Harris County Early Voting locations). Remember, if you don’t live within the Houston C\city limits and can’t vote in city elections, you should still vote for/against the constitutional amendments. Si No Votas, No Vales!

Dear fellow Democrat,

Early Voting for the November 8, 2011 elections begins on Monday, October 24th and runs through Friday, November 4th. There are a few things we thought you should know before heading to the polls.

1. You don’t need a photo ID to vote in this election. The photo voter ID bill that passed the legislature last session has not been pre-cleared by the Department of Justice and has not gone into effect. All you need is your voter registration certificate or any of the many other acceptable forms of ID under current election law listed here.
2. The last day to apply for a ballot by mail is November 1, 2011. More information about voting by mail can be found here.
3. Everyone will have Constitutional Amendments on their ballot. These are amendments to the Texas Constitution. You can read explanations of each amendment here. The Texas Democratic Party has no official position on any of these amendments.
4. Some of you will have local elections or bond elections on your ballot. For information on additional items that will be on your ballot, contact your County Elections office.
5. If you plan to vote early in person, contact your County Early Voting Clerk for locations. During Early Voting, you may vote anywhere in the county.
6. On Election Day, you’ll have to vote at the location specific to your precinct. Find out more about your precinct specific voting location here.

If you have additional questions about voting in this year’s election, check out votexas.org.

TDW-Harris’ Awesome Carnival

Texas Democratic Women-Harris hosted their Candidates Carnival last night at the CWA Hall. A whole bunch of 2012 candidates and office holders were in attendance gathering signatures for their efforts in obtaining ballot status. Guests from all over the county were in attendance, as well as our hard-working friends from Fort Bend County, The Bankstons. Guests enjoyed all sorts of carnival games, including the chance to dunk a Rick Perry look-alike, as well as a costume contest.

I don’t know about the rest in attendance, but I needed this type of event. These last few weeks, we’ve been pointing our political weaponry at the GOP debates, but it was good to talk shop regarding 2012 Dem efforts. Can’t wait for the next event.

Ted Poe–The Human Air Raid Siren

Ted Poe, the member of Congress from my area, is known for sounding the alarms for just about anything–pretty  much like his right-wing constituency. And his reaction to some pranksters donning sombreros at a San Antonio courthouse would have given me a chuckle if Poe’s freak-out wasn’t part of a pattern. Remember Ted Poe’s fake crime statistics on immigrants?

Donning sombreros seemed more like some frat prank than anything. You figure the member of Congress would know about such things.

Rick Perry’s Drug Plane

Yes, finally, after Rick Perry’s lies about 2002 Gov candidate Tony Sanchez’s bank being involved in drug dealing, Perry gets his own drug plane to fly around the country. Makes one wonder if the drug kingpins are buying politicians now.

Oh, wait. Just read the rest of the story. Oh well, no need to retract anything, right?

Give the Republicans Un Chanclaso!

I’ve always said that Latino-targeted messaging needs to be culturally relevant–beyond simple translations. Thanks to comedian Gabriel Iglesias, we now have an example of this, and the Democrats should take note. Insurance companies are known for saying their claims services are fast and speedy, well, here’s a way to say it, Raza style. (Faster than a flying slipper (thrown by a pissed of mom, maybe?))

Even the phone number is an example of good messaging.

What’s the message for 2012, Dems?

With today’s HISD endorsements, it looks like the Chron is done with their endorsements, other than the constitutional amendments, I think. (NOTE:  Wait, what about HCC?).

Needless to say, there weren’t many surprises, even in At-Large 5; other than the drama provided by the Chron’s delay on that race. I’ve made my choices, but other than telling the candidates that I’m supporting (and a few fellow bloggers), I haven’t been too public about my secret ballot this time around. Maybe after I cast my early vote? Maybe…

Anyway, you can find all the ChroNods here.

For those of you who still need to learn more about the candidates, Charles Kuffner has been the best blog resource.

And the League of Women Voters is awesome, as always, with their voter guide (en EsPanish here). LWV Houston has also been showing their candidate forums on Houston Media Source. Here’s what’s left:

October 20
Houston City Council District J | 6:30 pm
Houston City Council District K | 8:00 pm

October 22
Houston City Council Position 4 | 2:00 pm
Houston City Council Position 5 | 3:30 pm

October 27
Houston Mayor | 6:30 pm
Houston City Council District I | 8:00 pm

With only 125,000 voters predicted to participate in the 2011 election, it is best to be prepared. For those of you who still can’t figure out for whom to vote and need one hot button issue on which to base a decision, then I would suggest Planned Parenthood’s list. And if you can’t decide in At-Large 2, then scroll down that list and find those that scored a 100–only three out of the 10 candidates made the cut.