Monday, February 01, 2021

The Far Left Texas Weekly Wrangle



By gaveling in and out within minutes last week, the clown car that is our Texas Legislature is making obvious its plans to take the long way home this session.

To be fair, this is as much about the coronavirus ravaging us all as it is the wait for the redistricting gerrymandering numbers.

Block-level data needed for redistricting may not be available until after July 31 -- at least two months after the regular legislative session ends -- according to the latest timeline released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have been exacerbated by the need to correct “irregularities” in the data.

More (granular, for you data nerds) from TXElects.  This early snail's pace is imposing another hardship on Lege staff.


There were five public hearings last week of the state Senate Subcommittee on Redistricting, all of them socially distanced and all covered by Reform Austin.  Here's their report from last Friday.  You have two opportunities this week, via ACLU Texas, to get a Zoom briefing that previews the session (if you need to catch up).  Here's that schedule.

Tuesday, February 2nd 2021, 6p-7:30p CST

Thursday, February 4th 2021, 6p-7:30p CST

Among the many items you can keep an eye out for:


Equality Texas warns of the forthcoming attack on trans kids.

The survey mentioned above (in ACLUTx's tweet) opened a few eyes.


Despite those approval ratings on legal weed (we already knew he was a pessimist on casino gambling), Speaker Dade Phelan is dour about its chances.


Perhaps one day Texas will elect representatives who will follow the will of the people.  That day appears to be a long way off.  Behold the stupidity as it relates to fossil fuels (refer back to the polling about fracking and coal mining above).

Four Texas Democrats in the U.S. House have come out against President Joe Biden’s executive order directing the secretary of the interior to halt new oil and gas leases on federal public lands and waters “to the extent possible.”

In a letter, Democratic Reps. Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen, Henry Cuellar of Laredo, Lizzie Pannill Fletcher of Houston and Marc Veasey of Fort Worth called Biden’s order “far-reaching” and demanded he rescind it, arguing that banning “responsible energy leasing” would eliminate jobs, decrease the country’s gross domestic product, increase crude imports from foreign countries and chip away at federal revenue, among other concerns.

In this piece, titled "Gov. Greg Abbott Vows To Fight Joe Biden’s Energy And Climate Agenda", even he is smart enough to acknowledge what these four damned Blue Dogs cannot.

Abbott acknowledged that in Texas, there is “either zero or close to zero” federal lands where drilling is done, so Biden’s order does not impact the state as much as it does New Mexico, for example.

Abbott is, naturally, overly suspicious that Biden “will be trying to take actions that will make it harder, more difficult and more costly” for oil and gas businesses in Texas.  Jeebus, I would hope so.  Loren Steffy for Texas Monthly timely observed that the oil industry didn't do so well under Trump.

While I'm here, let me drop in these links to more news on environmental topics.


As Earthworks blogger Sharon Wilson has written: flaring is (still) flamingly stupid, but unlit flaring is worse.  All yell: "How stupid is it"?


I won't have anything to say today about a possible Beto for governor run.  I already have my candidate. I also won't have any Trumpists 'Behaving Badly'.  Had enough of those for a lifetime.  (Still might be forced to update later in the week.)  Here's a couple of things regarding the pandemic.


Dos Centavos however had a successful Harris County vax portal registration.


There's my segue to the social justice -- and injustice -- updates.


Grits for Breakfast expresses cautious optimism about new Travis County DA Jose Garza.


With the lighter side items to wrap this Wrangle ...

Shari Biediger for the San Antonio Report writes about the death of the publisher of Castroville's newspaper, which has almost unraveled the entire community.  Jason Guerrasio for Insider spoke with Lizzie Gottlieb, whose father, Robert, and LBJ biographer Robert Caro are the focus of her documentary, 'Turn Every Page'.

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