The Dome lives on

The Astrodome will not be demolished after all. The Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation recommended Wednesday that the Houston landmark be renovated with public funds.

The renovations will cost $194 million and will take 30 months to complete, according to officials.

My hat is off to commissioner's court for finding, at last, the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing. Honestly, I didn't think they were capable of it. I thought the best we were going to get was a subterranean parking garage with the skeleton of the old girl standing over a park for tailgating and shitkicker events.

Saying none of the 19 privately submitted ideas for repurposing the Astrodome met the required criteria, officials said they will recommend converting the Dome into a massive convention and exhibition space, promising "a new Dome experience."

"We feel we have the best idea," Sports Corporation Executive Director Willie Loston said. "That idea is a space that will allow many of the ideas that the proposals brought forward to take place."

Under the $194 million plan being recommended by the Sports Corp., the seating would be removed and the existing below-ground portion of the stadium would be filled in to create a street-level exhibit space of 355,000 square feet. The exterior of the structure would transformed into "an inviting green plaza," officials said.

The proposal will be officially presented to Harris County Commissioners Court at its June 25 capital improvement projects meeting, though Harris County Ed Emmett's office issued a statement saying sports corporation officials have briefed court members throughout the selection process.

In a statement released during the meeting, Emmett praised the sports corporation's plan.

"The concept is excellent," Emmett said. "It not only preserves an iconic structure, but it gives Houston and Harris County a truly unique and historic venue for conferences and events. Meeting planners around the world will want to use the space."

With Hunker Down's weight behind it, the Texans and the Rodeo are probably feeling a little raw after the screwing they just got. You know, the one in the parking lot.

Culture Map has more of the concept's renderings.

Other improvements would include adding glass at the stadium's four compass points for enhanced natural light and aesthetics, with a signature entry at the south end; installing solar panels on the domed roof and incorporating other building systems to improve energy-efficiency; and removing the berms, entrance ramps and ticket booths from the building's exterior to create a more continuous and useable outdoor plaza, with food vendors and restroom opportunities as well as green space.

"What we want the 'Dome to become for major events in Reliant Park is the front door," explained Miller.

The reimagined space could serve, he said, as the headquarters for Reliant Park's 24-hour security post, and would help facilitate emergency operations within the county in the case of disaster. The interior could be easily reconfigured to accommodate swim meets, graduations and other community events, football games, conventions and more.

The bond issue still has to go before the voters at some time in the future, and that could throw a monkeywrench into the plans if the TeaBaggers mobilize opposition, but today is a day to be very encouraged about the future of the Eighth Wonder.

Update: Swamplot is severely cynical about the whole thing.

The clearest sign so far that the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation wasn’t really into the half-hearted call for bids to redevelop the Astrodome it sorta-but-not-really issued a couple months ago? At yesterday’s press conference where it — surprise! — announced its own plan to reinvent Houston’s most recognizable landmark, officials didn’t even bother to describe any of the 19 submissions it had received. None of them, declared executive director Willie Loston, actually came with private money attached. (At least not in the inside pockets of their presentation binders.)

The Corporation’s own new idea of turning the dilapidated former sports stadium into additional convention space doesn’t have any private funds attached to it either, but the estimated $194 million plan does already appear to have gained the enthusiastic support of County Judge Emmett — which isn’t so surprising, since he proposed a similar idea a mere 4 years ago. Rodeo chief Leroy Shafer tells the Chronicle’s Kiah Collier that he considers the latest plan to be a scaled-back version of a proposal the Corporation — with the Rodeo’s backing — promoted last year, after a half-million-dollar study led by some Dallas consultants.

[...]

...By the time the 2017 Super Bowl rolls around, if all goes according to plan, Reliant Stadium would sport a new front entrance — and the Astrodome will have been repurposed into the world’s largest . . . event foyer.

Having neatly disposed of all possible alternatives (save, of course, demolition), the Corporation is now passing its this-or-nothing proposal onto the county commissioners. They’ll vote on the plan next week. If the whole thing is an ingenious ploy to cue the Dome up for demolition — which the Texans and the Rodeo have a study saying they could do for a cool $29 million — we might get a sense of that fairly soon.

I suppose I could get pretty mad about that, if that were to happen.

Update: John Royal at Hair Balls is yet more caustic.

Sociopath to citizenship

Occasionally a Republican can come to an epiphany when something they have adamantly opposed becomes personal. A senator or a congressman who has voted against stem cell research suddenly has a change of heart when a beloved grandchild comes down with a deadly disease, or if their own child comes out to them, their resistance to gay-friendly legislation suddenly softens.

Ted Cruz's own family history should make him amenable to immigration legislation, but apparently he prefers to climb the ladder of success and then saw off the rungs as he goes. When his father arrived in Austin in 1957 -- a teenage immigrant from Cuba bound for the University of Texas -- he spoke no English and had $100 sewn into his underwear. He worked his way through school as a dishwasher making 50 cents an hour. His mother -- of Irish-Italian descent and who grew up in Delaware, the first person in her family ever to attend college -- earned a math degree at Rice in the 1950s, working summers at Foley’s and Shell.

It's telling that a person could come from that background -- the panoply of the immigrant history of America -- and fail to notice the hurdles and obstacles that exist for others today who wish the same path for their children (never mind themselves).

1) The vast difference between Cuban immigration policy and that of all other Latinos;
2) Being able to work one's way through college on a 50 cents-an-hour job;
3) Achieving the classic American success story: Parents arrive with little money, one unable to speak the language, and still rise into the middle class, with a college degree and good jobs along the way.

These things were all possible in the America of Ted Cruz's parents because...

1) College used to be affordable for low income students;
2) The United States welcomed his father and gave him opportunity that did not exist to other brown-skinned, Spanish-speaking immigrants;
3) His father never had to hide in the shadows, fearful of deportation.

Ted Cruz got a good work ethic from his parents, earned a lofty education and also received dozens of opportunities not accorded others. Oh yeah, somewhere along the way he lost his soul. Or maybe he just sold it.

One thing is for certain: Ted Cruz was born without empathy. That is the hallmark of today's conservative: the more inhumane to others you can be, the brighter your prospects in the GOP.

Update: Why does this news come as no surprise to me?

In a report Thursday on NPR about how Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) father shaped his vision on immigration, his father, Rafael Bienvenido Cruz, an immigrant from Cuba, said that while he “came to this country legally,” he basically bribed an official to get to the United States.

“A friend of the family -- a lawyer friend of my father basically bribed a Batista official to stamp my passport with an exit permit,” the elder Cruz said.

This is not the way most Cubans emigrated to the United States in the '60's. One Cuban I knew very well, in fact, told a much braver story of leaving the country.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is dismayed but not surprised by the hard right turn of the special session as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff wants to know where are all the jobs that Rick Perry is supposedly poaching from other states.

The cruel conditions that are allowed to persist in Texas, while it’s proclaimed to be a miracle economy, are deplorable. That's why WCNews at Eye on Williamson says the Texas budget comes up short.

There were some fireworks at last week's redistricting hearing in Houston, but a few of them turned out to be just sparklers. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs provides the details.

Judge Edith Jones is a piece of work. CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chimse hopes that the judges reviewing the complaints against her force an impeachment.

Over at TexasKaos, lightseeker explores the invisible abomination: Texas and the indigent mentally ill.. Give it a read, it's time more people knew about this!

=====================

Swamplot and Glasstire eulogize Houston "pop-up" sculptor Lee Littlefield.

Scott Braddock tells the tragic tale of the bill that would have helped prevent worker misclassification, a/k/a payroll fraud, had it not suffered the usual fate of well-intentioned reform bills in the Legislature.

Nonsequiteuse marvels at a recent example of trivializing violence in the media.

Better Texas reminds us that the fight to expand health care access to all of Texas will continue after the Legislature finally leaves.

BOR notes how far out of touch with public opinion on immigration reform the two US Senators from Texas are.

Colin Strother and Texas Leftist are firmly on board the Sebastien De La Cruz bandwagon.

Texpatriate publishes its own Best and Worst Legislators list.

Texas Vox bemoans the veto of the omnibus ethics bill.

Juanita is spitting mad at the veto of the Lilly Ledbetter bill.

Egberto Willies talks to Rep. Senfronia Thompson, the author of the Ledbetter bill, about Perry's veto. She vows to bring the bill back next session.

Sunday Funnies

Headline, money graf (and some opinion and perhaps a conversation-starter)

-- Grand Bargaineers still want entitlement cuts:

The underlying issue here has nothing to do with deficits and debt and everything to do with the extent of government fiscal transfers to the elderly. There is a view, driven by a mixture of motives, that it is simply wrong and irresponsible for the government to be devoting a large and growing share of the economy to bolstering the living standards of old retired people. For whatever reason, the people who want legislative action to reduce the living standards of senior citizens prefer not to frame it that way. But their view is that a government guarantee of high living standards for senior citizens reduces the savings rate and reduces labor force participation and that this trend in public policy should be halted.

If that analysis is morally and economically correct, then it remains correct regardless of interest rates or 10-year budget projections. And it would be helpful to the world to debate it plainly.  

Medicare and Social Security were instituted in large part because so many seniors were living in poverty.  Many no longer do, but there is a younger generation saddled with enormous student debt and bleak prospects for middle class employment. With a Congress that increasingly caters to the 1%, it's no wonder the conversation in DC is all about tax cuts and never about jobs.

This intractable societal issue is only worsening. I say this as an aging boomer somewhere around the age to get screwed royally as part of any kind of 'reform'.

-- The conversation we should be having about our private data...

The NSA data-gathering "scandal" is being used a proxy for all sorts of other political fights, from Obama Sucks to ending the War on Terror to smearing whistleblowers. But the real scandal is how completely unregulated data gathering is generally. In truth, the NSA didn't go snooping around in the computers of private individuals to obtain metadata. They simply asked for it from the corporations who are gathering it in the first place. Corporations who had less choice in delivering it than you did in providing it. There are little to no regulations on "terms of service" agreements or in what you can be asked to disclose about yourself. The technological revolution in information gathering is changing the nature of what privacy means and who has a rightful claim to it. But the proxy political fight over the NSA is obscuring the real conversation we ought to be having.

Because surely, someone, anyone, needs to be asking about these reams of data and how they are being used. Or why certain data needs to be kept in the first place. For what purpose is AT&T collecting data on my daily movements? Why is my local grocer keeping track of my buying habits? What is really happening when I haven't moved or touched my phone in day or two, yet there it is sending and receiving streams and streams of I-don't-know-what. We need a modern conversation about life in the modern world and what the boundaries are. With respect to privacy, we should be talking about what privacy means in a world where everyone, or just about everyone, is walking around with listening and watching devices. Everyone can spy on everyone else. It is literally to the point of seeing videos published of people secretly recorded having sexual relations in their own homes, making a private moment a global event.

What Facebook is making us all "share" is, in many cases, not at all what we actually want to share. But they don't care. Not even if stockholders complain. Because on FB, you're not the customer... you're the merchandise. And why would any merchant care about what his inventory is worried about?

Sheep to the slaughter.

-- Why Democrats don't trust Republicans on immigration:

Senate Republicans don't believe President Obama will enforce the bill's border-security provisions--and they don't want to let millions of illegal immigrants begin working their way toward citizenship until they see the president is serious about locking down the borders. That's why they want those immigrants' eligibility for citizenship to be contingent, or “triggered,” on the U.S. Border Patrol meeting benchmarks.

But Democrats don't think Republicans will play fair when it comes to such a trigger. They fear Republicans will hold out for a trigger and then vote against the bill anyway. Or set benchmarks for a trigger that can't be reached. Or establish a trigger but then deny the Border Patrol the funding it needs to meet the benchmarks.

“The lack of trust is real,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican in the middle of the trigger back-and-forth. He is a member of the Senate “gang” who sympathizes with Democrats’ desires to legalize the undocumented population but also with Republicans’ concerns that border security will never be taken seriously.

And everyone, Graham said, is worrying about their leverage.

Enter Sen. John Cornyn ...

Cornyn's 'poison pill' amendment was gutted like a fish yesterday, and he threw a temper tantrum about it.

-- Two legal eagles in hot water: Judge Edith Jones, and Travis County DA Rosemary Lehmberg.

Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court formally ordered on Wednesday that a rare public judicial misconduct complaint against 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edith Jones be reviewed by officials in a different circuit — one based in the nation's capital.

[...]

It is only one of a handful of times in U.S. history that a federal circuit judge has been the subject of a public judicial misconduct complaint and a formal disciplinary review. Normally such matters are secret under federal law.

Gov. Rick Perry has indicated that he’s willing to veto the $7.5 million two-year budget to the Travis County Public Integrity Unit because of the district attorney’s DWI conviction. He wants DA Rosemary Lehmberg to step down, according to this report in the Austin American-Statesman.

Lehmberg pleaded guilty without putting up a defense, served jail time and is planning to return to her office this week after voluntarily submitting herself to a therapeutic program.

Her blood alcohol level at the time of her April arrest was three times the legal limit.

Both women are in tremendous messes entirely of their own making, and both should take the dignified route out of office.

Today's redistricting hearing

What Greg missed, I caught. Which was a grilling of the state's legal advisor, Jeff Archer of the Texas Legislative Council, by Rep. Trey Martinez Fisher. It was just a prelude to what is happening now (which you can follow over at G's O).

Martinez Fisher asked how many of the briefs and emails Archer had read, how much of the hearings he had witnessed, and other questions that essentially established Archer was fairly well out of the loop throughout this session on the topic of redistricting. Archer often looked helplessly at the chair, Drew Darby, to be bailed out, and Darby occasionally obliged him by nodding -- or shaking -- his head. After about 30 minutes of skewering, committee member Rep. Linda Harper Brown tried to short-circuit the cross-examination of Archer by Martinez Fischer (and succeeded).

Dutiful long-time followers of l'affaire redistricting may recall that Archer's deposition two years ago was barred by the state. (You can watch more of Archer speaking at an LBJ School of Public Affairs symposium. He's in the opening ten minutes.)

Update: I sat with a Fort Bend election law attorney at this hearing and he has a more nuanced and favorable view of Archer's testimony.

The most interesting thing at this hearing was the fact that Jeff Archer of the Texas Legislative Council provided some advice in public to the Committee. Archer's advice or opinions were actually very helpful to the upcoming litigation in that Archer did not believe that the interim maps being considered were intended to be final maps and that the approval of such maps would not help the Texas GOP in the next round of redistricting litigation.

I talked to Archer during the break and he basically told me that he agreed with my analysis of the interim maps and the legal effect of the Texas legislature adopting these maps. The Senate Committee approved the interim maps without change and I have no doubt that the House Committee will (do the same). However, these hearings will be helpful in the litigation that is going to occur with regards to these maps.

Frankly I was of the opinion that this hearing was going to be just another Republican kangaroo court, particularly after the one in Dallas was so contentious, and certainly in the wake this morning of the Texas Senate rubber-stamping the interim maps. My low expectations were met. Eye on Williamson...

Texas is ruled by one party. It’s unaccountable and arrogant and sees the state government as its playground. None of what happens in this special session will do anything to make the lives of Texans better. But it will allow those who run our state to score political points.

That pretty much nails it. Greg's got the rest of the fireworks at the hearing, but it sounds like they're mostly sparklers. Burka, meanwhile, eviscerates the governor, lieutenant governor, and especially the attorney general for the way this is all going down.

More speculation: I suspect Perry is furious with Abbott about this ham-handed redistricting play, which is rapidly developing into a fiasco. It really makes one wonder whether Abbott knows what he is doing and whether he is adept at the law. The triangulation among Perry, Abbott, and Dewhurst has turned in Dewhurst's favor; it looks as if Abbott has been isolated and Dewhurst has Perry's back now.

Abbott, emasculated by Perry, with Dewhurst twisting the shiv? Just too rich.

Update (Monday 6/17): Greg is covering the hearing in Austin -- probably the last of these -- and Archer is getting raked over the coals again.

Texas or bust for the GOP

Good piece at the top of the Great Orange Satan this morning, so I'm going to duplicate some of it and add a little of my own thinking at the end.

On Tuesday, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to debate comprehensive immigration reform. The amendment-o-rama begins! The actual 84-15 vote isn't indicative of much...

[...]

Aside from (Illinois' Mark) Kirk and Iowa's Chuck Grassley, the other 13 obstructionist votes all came from solidly red states. Among them? Texas freshman Ted Cruz.

This is interesting because Texas, by its lonesome self, should be the only excuse Republicans need to support genuine immigration reform.

Want some crazy math? How about this?

Mitt Romney carried Texas by a margin of 15.8 percent over President Obama in 2012. If Latino citizens had voted at the same rate as non-Hispanic whites, Romney’s victory margin would shrink to 5.4 points.

Or this?

If current demographic trends continue, Democrats would whittle about 5 ½ percentage points off the 15.8-point margin of victory won by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012 in every subsequent presidential cycle. That would transform Texas - the center of Republican resistance to Obama's agenda - into a competitive state at the presidential level by 2020 and a toss-up state four years later.

Let's be clear about this: If Latinos voted at the same rates as whites, Texas would already be purple.[...]

How important is Texas? If Republicans lost it, they could win Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin and still lose the election. In other words, lose Texas, or even be forced to defend that expensive-ass state, and Republicans are screwed.

So the math is clear—Texas would be purple if Latinos voted. But they don't, so who cares, right? Well, Republicans should, because even with the same existing shitty turnout rate the growth in the Latino and Asian communities will erode the GOP's base by about 5 1/2 points every four years, or about 1.4 points per year.

In other words, demographics alone will make Texas purple by 2024. And if Latinos decide to start voting, years sooner.

Markos finally sees what those of us who worked on elections here in Deep-In-The-Hearta have known for at least the last ten years: break the spine of the Republicans in Texas, and they don't get back up for a generation.

Said it before, but it needs sayin' again: if Hillary Clinton goes for the presidency in 2016 and taps a Castro, or another Texas Latino -- it has to be a man for gender balance -- as her running mate, then the GOP doesn't get a decent sniff at the White House until 2032.

(That would be the Republican party in its current iteration, of course. It could always fall apart, split up into Whigs and Teas, and in any event maintain Southern regional strength in places like Columbia, SC and Montgomery, AL.)

Oh yeah, and Texas turns blue. Not just in the electoral college, either. Absent unknowable future events like terrorist attacks or scandals, the nation's first female president -- and then its first Latino one -- don't get defeated for re-election.

But it's what happens here at home that's the most encouraging.

No longer will the future of Texas be decided in the Republican primaries exclusively. We can kiss Rick Perry, Greg Abbott, and all their associated lackeys and lickspittles goodbye. And we can finally start moving down the road toward a more just and equitable Lone Star State. That's what Battleground Texas exists for. The TX GOP brain trust, such as it is, understands this dilemma implicitly, and it's what motivates their ongoing gerrymander of Congressional and statehouse districts, while at the same time pushing all in on wiping out the VRA at the SCOTUS.

Speaking of that, I'll be at the hearing this afternoon, and I hope to have more to be encouraged about afterwards.

Update: My hopes about the hearing were false. But Joe Scarborough and Michael Steele spoke the very next morning about their party's problems... because GOP Congressmen are talking about rape and pregnancy again.

Scarborough noted reaction he’s seen from Republicans “out and about” who are outraged by remarks like (Rep. Trent) Franks’ — and he questioned why such individuals want to damage the party.

“The national party right now really has to find a better voice,” Steele noted. “Or maybe it should just find a voice.”

A voice that will “tell the idiots out there to just shut up,” Scarborough agreed. “Because you know what? Before I pass away, I would like to have a Republican in the White House again.”

But alas, Steele lamented, “that day is looking further and further away.” Diagnosing the problem, Scarborough added, “We are so undermined by so many of the shrillest voices in our own party. That has nothing to do with conservatism.”

They can't help themselves. It's self-destructive behavior at its most classic, and no amount of carnage to their electoral future can get them to stop.