The latest on CD-7 and District K

-- Yesterday, in the midst of Monday afternoon business, a knock came at the door, and the wife, working from home and stricken with an upper respiratory infection, yelled out a salutation.  It was a blockwalker for Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, who as it happens also had the first mailer in the #TX07 runoff between she and Laura Moser drop in our box later that same day.

After the visitor identified himself and Mrs. Diddie declared our support for Moser, the caller asked (if he could ask) why.  My wife said, "because Fletcher is too corporate".

That evening, as I retrieved said advertising piece and the rest of the post from the mailbox, I noticed that the neighbor two doors down had a 'Lizzie' yard sign out in front.  This neighbor had not previously committed last month to a candidate lawnwise, so this was a conversion of sorts for Team Fletch.  It also marks the strategy for the March 7 front-runner: go into your opponent's area of strength, and do so strong.

Ours is a working-class neighborhood adjacent to Meyerland.  I haven't bothered to check the precinct tallies but my guess is that Moser did well in my part of town (her grandmother was the first female director of the city's Jewish community center, and the daughter of a rabbi from Congregation Adath Emeth, now part of the United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston, a nearby branch of which was recently forced to close and be demolished after repetitive flooding; another Harvey victim).  Ms. Pannill Fletcher is really more of a West University/Bellaire/Memorial kind of Democrat, with her law pedigree and slightly more conservative POV.

This is a long way of saying that if I had to place my wager today, I would bet that LPF is likely to prevail in the runoff on May 22.  Team Moser: your work is cut out for you.

-- It turns out to be more than the normal crying shame that Houston City Council member Larry Green died prematurely ... because he died of a drug overdose.  His drug usage was perhaps something more than the usual recreational, too.  This development stains his glowing posthumous reputation and plays to a regrettable stereotype.  As with the resignation of JP Hilary Green -- the lurid drug and sex stories that came out a year ago about her, about her acrimonious divorce with ex-husband and former city comptroller Ronald Green -- and combined with the accusations and charges against Lege members Ron Reynolds and Borris Miles, Houston black Democrats are now compelled to make certain they get CM Green's replacement (and Judge Green's, whenever that occurs, by a vote of precinct chairs in Harris County) correct.

This new elected official must prove worthy of carrying a heavier burden to hold himself, or herself, far beyond any reproach.

To that end, the special election for the vacant District K seat -- a .pdf map can be seen here -- to be held on Saturday, May 5, with an abbreviated early voting period beginning April 23 through May 1, has nine contenders.  Of those I would surmise that Larry Blackmon, Pat Frazier, and Martha Castex-Tatum would be the three with the highest name recognition, the campaigns making the strongest effort, and the most likely of two to move on to a runoff.  I'll be following Ashton Woods' lead here, and unless I hear differently from him I will take it that he is supporting Castex-Tatum.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is packing some extra antihistamines in addition to bringing you the best of the left of Texas from last week.

US Senate candidates Beto O'Rourke and Sema Hernandez met for the first time in the wake of the Democratic primary almost a month ago, and Geoff Campbell interviewed Hernandez afterwards for Progressive Army.  The face-to-face seemed more than a little stand-offish, but O'Rourke appears to have won Hernandez's vote -- if not her endorsement -- in the 2018 general election.  Video courtesy Holos Media on Twitter.

~EXCLUSIVE FOR HOLOS MEDIA~
Beto O'Rourke & Sema Hernandez lead by example for our texan society by building a bridge of communication;@BetoORourke@_SemaHernandez_@texasdemocrats@democracynow#SaturdayMorning#WomensHistoryMonth#HOLOSTODOS#HOLOSMEDIA#beto4texas#sema4texas pic.twitter.com/S3XaXo3Mf7

— HOLOSMEDIA (@holosmedia) March 31, 2018

Socratic Gadfly has an update to a previous post on what clearly appears to be a weird triangle in Marlin between Houston real estate "flippers," a former VA hospital building, and the General Land Office and P. Bush.

Ethan Couch -- he was the Brains and Eggs' 2015 Texan of the Year for being responsible (a thinly relative term when referring to Couch) for the word 'affluenza' -- is leaving jail this morning and beginning his ten-year-probationary sentence.  Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer has the details.  Also blogged here a couple of weeks before Couch's award: a disease associated with affluenza is ... gulliblemia.

Talking Points Memo checks in from the federal courthouse in Houston with a report on Steve Stockman's fraud trial, and seems astounded that everything is bigger in Texas, doubly so when it's crimes committed by Texas Republicans.  (Meanwhile, Texans thought everyone knew this already.)

The Texas Standard speaks to the Dallas News' Lauren McGaughey (paywall) about the state's Sunset Advisory Commission describing mental health care oversight among the three agencies charged with that task as being in "severe operational dysfunction".

Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast tips Texas reporters to some news that just might have a Pulitzer hiding in it somewhere.

In the New York Times last week (March 29), former Austin Statesman editor Richard Oppell authored an article that could resonate throughout Texas indigent defense systems, as it describes a practice that's widespread, not remotely limited to the judge or attorney in Galveston at the center of the story. Here's the heart of the allegations ...

(click on the paywalled NYT link above)

Grits has heard similar stories from defense attorneys for as long as I've paid attention to the Texas justice system, including attorneys stiffed not just for time worked but also for investigators' fees or even forensic services.

Which brings me to this observation for Texas-based reporters: This is a national story which can be localized. This isn't the only Texas jurisdiction, by any stretch, in which judges reduced pay requests from lawyers as excessive when they tried to put on a zealous defense. There are also stories out there of lawyers losing out on appointments because judges considered them a tad too zealous. Attorneys who make a living representing indigent clients must routinely take on caseloads well beyond bar-association-recommended guidelines in order to pay for a mortgage, middle-class lifestyle, and law-school debts. This story explains why, and it's not just happening in Galveston.

So, for my reporter friends on the local courthouse beat: There's a courthouse paper trail on cases where judges reduce attorneys' fees, which a local attorney who takes indigent cases or the court coordinator can help you identify. Then, one simply calls up the attorneys to ask why they requested the additional pay. Follow up with calls to the judges in question to get their side of the story; the county judge so s/he can lodge a complaint about unfunded mandates from the state; then make a call to indigent defense experts like the Texas Fair Defense Project or Civil Rights Corps (the two nonprofits that sued over Harris County's unconstitutional bail practices), and you've just localized a national story.

The Lewisville Texan Journal took note of a local election where residents were asked to support or oppose giving themselves a $100 check ... but nobody bothered to vote.  Really; 0% turnout.

Voting ended Saturday for a city referendum, which would cut a $100 check for each resident of Lewisville due to a budgeting error at City Hall. Not one person voted in the election though, causing a standstill among city officials.

“If I’m being honest, we don’t really know what to do,” City Manager Donna Barron said. “We don’t have anything in the city charter to address something like this.”

A Fort Bend county commissioner wants the Lege to consider exempting the Texas Open Meetings Act for emergencies, but Christopher Collins at the Texas Observer asks if that's just another excuse to kill laws that force government to conduct itself transparently.

David Collins attended a recent Socialist Alternative meeting in Houston, where former Greenwatch host and political candidate Brian Harrison spoke about gun violence (not control).

Houston Justice wants to see more African American representation on the Bayou City's commissions and boards, and blogs about how action on that might look.

The Rag Blog's Alice Embree writes about a Chilean student who presented a paper in Paris about protests against Salvador Allende in the '60's and '70's, and used the Austin underground newspaper's digital archives for research.

Another poll bar-graphed by Ted at jobsanger leaves him puzzled as to the conservative political leanings of the Baby Boomer generation.

And both Houston Public Media and Texas Leftist covered the Bean Art War that erupted into a series of putdowns, crackbacks, and other sick burns between Chi-Town and H-Town.  (Few seemed to notice that the artist considers them 'clouds' and not beans.)

Easter Sunday Fools Funnies

The Roseanne revival, and the argument over how TV depicts Trump supporters, explained

The Weekly Wrangle

With this week's lefty blog post and news round-up, the Texas Progressive Alliance was delighted to let the youth lead the way this past weekend.

As if the March For Our Lives events weren’t epic enough, Texas Leftist was glad to see some Houston-area high school students begin another impressive movement.  By bringing prominent Democratic and Republican leaders together in ways that political forces have fallen short, the Inaugural Day of Unity Texas is off to a great start.

Stace at Dos Centavos gives his impressions of law enforcement's and the media's portrayal of the Austin bomber.  With a corresponding POV, Progressive.org employs an unfortunate pun to destroy the myth of Austin as the liberal bastion of Texas.

Across social media, especially, a narrative formed that the Austin bombings were another example that media does not cover tragedies in communities of color with the same determination as disasters affecting white communities.

“When does a story pick up steam and why -- is it simply because of the volume or because the problem left East Austin,” says Kevin Foster, a professor in the African and African Diaspora Studies department at the University of Texas at Austin, and who is involved in community programs on the east side. “I don’t know the answer, but we need to ask the question. This community is used to institutional neglect and being marginalised.”

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton revealed himself to be entirely clueless about the details of the Austin bomber in multiple media appearances, writes RG Ratcliffe at Texas Monthly.

In his irregular curation of criminal justice stories needing more attention, Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast blogged about the Fifth Circuit getting benchslapped by the SCOTUS in Ayestas v. Davis.

Both The Intercept and Down With Tyranny wrote about the DCCC's greasy thumb on the scales in Texas Congressional primaries.

Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer names ten Texas celebrities who ought to get into politics, a list that might have been a bit more useful before we voted three weeks ago.

Off the Kuff analyzed Harris County precinct data for the Democratic Senate primary. (zzz)

SocraticGadfly offers his thoughts on the lawsuit by Seth Rich's parents.

Neil at All People Had Value made the point that we are facing an authoritarian/Constitutional crisis.

Ted at jobsanger enjoys watching Trump squirm over the Stormy Daniels business, but thinks it's time for the country to move on.

Lewisville municipal candidates debated at the city's renovated Music City Mall, and the Texan Journal has details.

Ahead of the 2020 census, the TexTrib counts the ways Texans are getting more difficult to find and include, which has ramifications from federal funding to redistricting.

Space City Weather explains why a hurricane forecast for 2018 will be a challenge.

Bonddad advises caution in interpreting opinion polls based on voluntary associations.

In transportation blame-game postings, Jeff Balke at the Houston Press faults negligent drivers for the spate of car crashes with light rail trains in H-Town, and Mean Green Cougar Red takes a long look at the Uber self-driving car that caused the death of a bicyclist.

In another post about closing the barn door after the cows have left the building, Dwight Silverman at Tech Burger shows how to manage your Facebook privacy settings.  Just get off the crack, y'all.

And Harry Hamid writes a story about a friend who became an energy vampire.