Your voter's guide for November 8, 2011 Part 1: Mayor, AL1, C

You can vote early beginning Monday at most of the usual locations around the city. On the heels of Greg's G-Slate, here's some of my selections:

Mayor of Houston: Annise Parker

Yes, it's her and five also-rans. If I didn't like the mayor personally so much my protest vote would go to the Socialist, honestly. What bothers me about Parker is that she goes to the Pachyderm Club and brags about being a fiscal conservative, and then backs that up by laying off several hundred blue-collar city workers, cutting library hours, and reducing many other city services. The ongoing ominous threat is that she will reduce the city's contribution to the municipal pension fund, which is just another in a series of defensive moves to try to ward off a Republican challenger two years from now. She could have done something brave and bold, like raising property taxes on the richest Houstonians. Of which there are more than ever.

But because so few vote in our municipal elections -- in a city of 2 million-plus, perhaps 100,000 to 125,000 will turn out, or around 5% -- the voice and influence of the most powerful drown out the the rest of the people's to an even greater degree than would normally be the case.

About one-third of Houston's children -- depending on how it is statistically defined -- live in poverty (that would be a 4-person household earning just over $22K). Probably some of their number now include the children of furloughed city workers: clerks, parks and recreation workers, garbage men, librarians. Given that Mayor Parker will coast to re-election (the percentage of victory she posts will be divined as whatever strength or weakness she will have as she runs for re-election to a third and final term in 2013) what can we progressives do to get her attention to this and other of our causes?

For now ... our support, and then our righteous indignation if she continues to cater to the wealthiest and greediest. Some of us expect a lot more from you in your second term, Mayor. This blog's unofficial motto,'Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable', has to go into overdrive after November 8.

At Large #1:  Don Cook

Cook, as I have indicated previously, is the progressive running against incumbent Stephen Costello, who sponsored the now-infamous Rebuild Houston drainage fee, about which fresh and troubling questions  have arisen just this week. Costello, a civil engineer made wealthy on municipal contracts long before he was first elected to Council two years ago, allegedly bragged recently to the Pachyderm Club that his own drainage assessment was coming in well below the city average. As in about a third of the city's now-revised average of $8.25. On his $300,000+ HCAD-assessed domicile.

Many Democrats still seem to be operating under the mistaken impression -- as they were in 2009 -- that Costello has drifted away from the GOP. Don't bet on it.

Other candidates include perennial James Partsch-Galvan and Republican Scott Boates, who may draw off a chunk of Costello's support from his right flank. Boates has purchased sustaining membership in the HCDP, but that's just camoflage. He's pretty much a TeaBagger from what I have heard him say at candidate fora I've attended. But if you need proof: the Harris County GOP lists Boates on the Republican Leadership Council (and Costello and Partsch-Galvan also as Republicans).

Don Cook is simply the only choice for Democrats, liberals, and progressives in this race.

District C: Karen Derr

I started out this campaign cycle as a supporter of my former state representative in my former city council district. But after I observed that she received $10,000 from "Swift Boat" Bob Perry in 2009 -- around which a separate and recent kerfuffle has erupted -- and then in this cycle garnered the endorsement of the Houston Association of Realtors (who endorse Republicans only slightly less than 99% of the time), I simply couldn't get on that bandwagon. We should have elected Karen in '09 to the AL1 seat Stephen Costello sits in now; the city would be so much better off if we had.

Which means we're getting a do-over for Karen. And we need to get it right this time.

C leans a little to the right -- outgoing Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck previously worked for several years in constituent services for former Congressman and House Ways and Means chairman Bill Archer -- so it's possible the Cohen juggernaut will be stalled by one of the two RWNJs running: Brian Cweren and Randy Locke, who are busily trying to out-conservative each other. Forget them both. Josh Verde is also competing in this race and is a fine candidate. But Karen Derr is, once again, your best progressive option. I intend to help her into a runoff with Cohen and then get a real debate going on the issues.

More later this week.

Who won the 'Yet Another" Debate last night?

I really enjoy this particular site, and not just because the Paulians infest it. Cast your vote here.

Surprised to be leading in polls Herman Cain

Whom Republicans will settle for Mitt Romney

Fast fading and desperate Rick Perry

Wasting our time Michele Bachmann

Curio from a bygone era Newt Gingrich

Ideologically pure and tough as nails Ron Paul

Crapping his pants in a SF gay bar Rick Santorum

Already lost Jon Huntsman

It was an 8-way tie

Lorne Michaels

Dr. No currently leads with 79%. I voted for Frothy Mixture (hey, he had a good night. Really.)

Bill White, Jack Christie, and Jolanda Jones

Fail.

Former Mayor Bill White has endorsed Jack Christie for the At-Large 5 City Council seat. It is the only endorsement the ex-mayor has made in this year’s city elections.

[...]

White, last year’s Democratic nominee for governor, passed over two Democrats in the At-Large 5 race to endorse Christie. 

The reaction from the Khronically Konservative Kommenters seems to be the same as mine. Namely, WTF?

If Bill White so disliked Jolanda Jones that he had to endorse a Republican over the other African-American Democratic woman in the contest ... then I really doubt whether Bill White considers himself a Democrat any longer. Of course, if you have read this blog for very long, you know that my position is that the former mayor and loser to Rick Perry in 2010 is just coming out of the closet here.

Christie narrowly lost to JoJo two years ago in a runoff for At Large 5, and as Charles has noted, the Chron has not announced an endorsement in this race yet, moving on to propositions as of today.

Jolanda Jones has fought for every little guy in sight -- from the po' folks to the union men and women -- and she has paid the price for it: pointless investigations, vendettas from HPD, and even mockery by other city officials. She is by far the strongest progressive on Council and earns the enmity of her detractors as much for that as for her fighting spirit. (Of course, Houston voters can add a couple more progressive fighters to Council -- starting next Monday as early voting begins -- by replacing C.O. Bradford with Amy Price and Steven Costello with Don Cook, but that will be for another post later this week).

Conservatives who seriously think that White's endorsement damns Christie with faint praise have another option in AL5: Bob Ryan. Bob's a longtime friend of my family, and earned some renown as the Harris County grand jury foreman that in 2008 indicted Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina on arson charges (that former DA Chuck Rosenthal refused to pursue). Ryan's about as principled a Republican as they come.

In the interest of noting the widely differing opinions in this contest, I will observe here that my friend Neil, with whom I agree on nearly everything, does not agree that Jones has been an effective council member.

Personally I am going to walk my precinct for Jolanda this weekend, and work hard for her re-election.

Update: Nice job here by the Chron.

The defense attorney and former track star campaigned for office on the promise to serve as "the voice of the voiceless" at City Hall. Over the past four years she has more than fulfilled that commitment, winning a devoted following in the low-income communities of Houston while irritating and sometimes enraging critics and colleagues. She has rough edges, and certainly does not represent business as usual.

The Chronicle believes that on balance, Jones has served a valuable function on a City Council that has historically played a subservient role in Houston's strong-mayor form of government. She speaks out frequently, questioning administration proposals and demanding more information. That lengthens council meeting times and often delays action, but it also provides additional scrutiny and the impetus to improve legislation.

"I'm responsive to the people who put me in office," says Jones. "If I have to push, I will, but I do a lot behind the scenes. I don't brag about it, I just get things done."

Damn straight.

Update II: And a nice rejoinder to Bill White from Chris Bell:

Jo doesn’t mind ruffling feathers and obviously has made some people mad along the way. But if you’re just going to go around City Hall trying not to make anyone mad, you’re not going to get much done. Personally, I’m glad she’s willing to ask tough questions and stand up for people who otherwise might not have anyone in their corner. [...]

There are a lot of powerful people in Houston who would like to see Jolanda Jones off City Council. They don’t like it when someone stands up to them and refuses to go along to get along. But City Council Members aren’t supposed to just be voices for power brokers; they’re supposed to stand up for average citizens. That’s exactly what Jolanda Jones does and that’s why I’ll be standing with her on Election Day.

Update III: And a 4 bars of soap, walleyed, snot-nosed screamin' hissyfit from Juanita.

KochCain

If you want to get down. Down on the ground.

Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has cast himself as the outsider, the pizza magnate with real-world experience who will bring fresh ideas to the nation’s capital. But Cain’s economic ideas, support and organization have close ties to two billionaire brothers who bankroll right-leaning causes through their group Americans for Prosperity.

Cain’s campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending. Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his “9-9-9” plan to rewrite the nation’s tax code. And his years of speaking at AFP events have given the businessman and radio host a network of loyal grassroots fans.

As the Not-Romney of the Month, Herman actually has a chance to stick around a little longer than Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry before him.

His links to the Koch brothers could undercut his outsider, non-political image among tea party fans who detest politics as usual and candidates connected with the party machine.

AFP tapped Cain as the public face of its “Prosperity Expansion Project,” and he traveled the country in 2005 and 2006 speaking to activists who were starting state-based AFP chapters from Wisconsin to Virginia. Through his AFP work he met Mark Block, a longtime Wisconsin Republican operative hired to lead that state’s AFP chapter in 2005 as he rebounded from an earlier campaign scandal that derailed his career.

Block and Cain sometimes traveled together as they built up AFP: Cain was the charismatic speaker preaching the ills of big government; Block was the operative helping with nuts and bolts.

When President Barack Obama’s election helped spawn the tea party, Cain was positioned to take advantage. He became a draw at growing AFP-backed rallies, impressing activists with a mix of humor and hard-hitting rhetoric against Obama’s stimulus, health care and budget policies.

So the Tea Pees have known about the Godfather for some time now.

Block is now Cain’s campaign manager. Other aides who had done AFP work were also brought on board.

Cain’s spokeswoman Ellen Carmichael, who recently left the campaign, was an AFP coordinator in Louisiana. His campaign’s outside law firm is representing AFP in a case challenging Wisconsin campaign finance regulations. At least six other current and former paid employees and consultants for Cain’s campaign have worked for AFP in various capacities.

And Cain has credited Rich Lowrie, a Cleveland businessman who served on AFP’s board of advisors from 2005 to 2008, with being a key economic adviser and with helping to develop his plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 9 percent, impose a national sales tax of 9 percent and set a flat income tax rate of 9 percent.

“He’s got a national network now that perhaps he wouldn’t have had 15 or 20 years ago because of his work with AFP,” said Republican Party of Wisconsin Vice Chair Brian Schimming, who has introduced Cain at events in Wisconsin. “For a presidential candidate, that’s obviously helpful to have.”

The political experts on your teevee keep saying Herman's got no on-the-ground organization, though. They are obviously mistaken. It's a stealth organization, flying under the Beltway radar. And like the rest of the conservative extremists, Cain is just as mean and ignorant as Perry or Bachmann ...

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain is pushing the idea of an electrified fence on the border with Mexico, complete with a sign in English and Spanish warning that it’s lethal, the New York Times reports:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Saturday that part of his immigration policy would be to build an electrified fence on the country’s border with Mexico that could kill people trying to enter the country illegally.

The remarks, which came at two campaign rallies in Tennessee as part of a barnstorming bus tour across the state, drew loud cheers from crowds of several hundred people at each rally. At the second stop, in Harriman, Tenn., Mr. Cain added that he also would consider using military troops “with real guns and real bullets” on the border to stop illegal immigration.

The Times reported that Cain said a sign would accompany the fence saying, “It will kill you — Warning.”

It’s an idea that Cain has broached before. When President Obama joked that some would want a moat with alligators, Cain embraced that idea, too.

Here's the quote in context:

Cain made the fence comments Saturday at a Tennessee rally while kicking off his bus tour to promote his "9-9-9" tax plan.

Speaking to the crowd, Cain recalled a conversation he had on his conservative radio talk show with a caller who argued against building a fence to prevent illegal immigration.But Cain said he fought back, telling the caller:"When I'm in charge of the fence, we going to have a fence. It's going to be 20 feet high. It's going to have barbed wire on the top. It's going to be electrocuted, electrified," Cain said. "And there's going to be a sign on the other side that says it will kill you."

On yesterday's D.C. BS Talking Heads, Herman was quick to say "That was a joke." Good to hear. Cain, as much as anyone, ought to be well aware of the price some people pay not only for bad jokes but for the sort of thing an electrified border fence would meet the definition of: a high-tech lynching.

Of course, the price paid depends on who's getting bought and who's getting sold.

Here's a bit more on the topic from Eminem (unreleased and NSFW at the link):

This was a beat with no words at first, it's a blank painting
Exercising the mind, it's brain strength training
Starts off something like shady's an insane maniac
Yeah slim shady that's a zany name aint it
Now all you needs an image to go with the name, baby
Wife beaters and white t-shirts
Hanes mainly, it's a long shot but is it possible
There's a lane maybe,
If not, he's gonna have to come and change the whole game aint he
He wants the fame so bad he can taste it
He can see his name up in lights

[...]

But he aint trailing anymore he's ahead of the race
While maintaining his innocence
Little does he know his train is derailing...

The Weekly (waiting on the cold front) Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance reminds you that early voting for the November election starts next week as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff looks at the likely effect of voter ID on voter participation. Hint: Fewer people will be able to vote. Who could have guessed?

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme calls out Lamar Smith for his racist legislation that will harm abused women.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson says it's time for the people of Williamson County to stand up so they no longer ask: how do these people keep getting elected?

Neil at Texas Liberal offered some pictures of Occupy Houston. Neil has visited the good folks at Occupy Houston a few times now and donated some supplies and a few bucks. The Occupy movement has taken hold in many Texas cities and across the nation. Please consider supporting Occupy in some fashion.

The Ghost of Sam Houston has some unkind words for Rick Perry's energy plan over at Darth Politico.

In the spirit of Halloween, McBlogger takes a look at The Return of the Living Dread.

Sunday Occupied Funnies

Or is it Octopi?

Open Source Dem on Rebuild Houston's fees going to hike and bike trails

Toes will be stepped upon and oxen will be gored. You've been warned. -- PD

----------------

Re: Rebuild Houston funds may be going to hike/bike trails ...

There may or may not be a good reason for that. We will never know because Houston does not have plans or standards for this or anything. Remember? That Peter Brown was the plans guy, not Annise Parker the financial guy. (Ed.: *ouch*)

We have big deals, small deals, and probably -- in the case of hike/bike trails to or from nowhere -- side-deals. Such are the artifacts of collusive bargaining. The accounting aspects of all that are interesting -- well, to me, the economist -- but the accountability aspects of it are devastating to me the political executive: There are none!

This is pervasive unaccountability, which mainly benefits GOP incumbents and ideologues in state, county, and local governments. That is, government that the GOP here mostly controls but “govmint” that it runs against successfully for lack of any principled opposition or coherent alternative from the cringing liberal party of Vichy Democrats.

Municipalities have something called funds accounting. This (collusive bargaining, not funds accounting) will allow the drainage fee and Rebuild Houston scheme -- a huge transfer of municipal debt into a special-purpose entity “off the books” -- to have consequences that somebody envisioned originally (the transaction lawyers, surely) but that most of our elected officials and few if any citizens even begin to grasp. “Who could have known?” the Tim Geithners and Andy Ickens will ask rhetorically?

Well, the fee-men know for sure. They know about the fiascos they engineer (financially) and the whiz-bangs they plant in government (politically).

The right wing take, a “rain tax”, is farcical but predictable. It was a stupid-clever phrase that was nearly successful in defeating the measure in 2010 and, oh, a great way to sweep Sylvia Garcia out of office. That was not bad politics from the GOP standpoint. The, well, center-wing critique -- a “management district” -- is comparatively lame but true. Still it was nothing cringing liberals wanted to hear, so they lined up behind the drainage fee, and now they get their little hike/bike trails.

Some things are knowable: logically, funds accounting is neither complex nor much different from what people think of as budgeting or as just reconciling a bank account. Funds accounting is something the Democratic Party ought to not just understand but to use if it is to compete with the GOP for votes and, oh, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo or the King Street Patriots for money and activists.

In practice funds accounting can be very complex, indeed opaque, if a municipal or non-profit corporation like a hospital or my favorite, the “Fat Stock Show”, has many sources and uses of money. It may be channeled through many different funds and some officials may be able hide from others what is going on behind the legal mumbo-jumbo that municipal business in Houston is festooned with. To deal with such accounting, financial engineering, and even legal complexity, you have to trust the people managing it or at least appreciate the result ... as Rodeo, Pickup Truck, and Barbecue fans seem to.

Meanwhile, in municipal government …we do not have planning and standards so much as we have deals. We do not have agendas on Commissioners’ Court or City Council, we have dockets. So we fire-proof half a warehouse and wake up one morning with all the voting machines burned up. Duh!

The civil engineering is done not by actual civil engineers but by bond lawyers on behalf of land speculators and slumlords; thus, the engineers design the basements of world-class buildings downtown, then connect them all to an underground garage next to the bayou and eventually wonder: “why do all the buildings flood?” Duh! Plaintiff and defense lawyers -- symbiotes politically, mock adversaries in court -- loot banks and insurance exchanges all over the world with such fiascos and laugh all the way to … wherever else in the world they hide the proceeds. This is the way to run a pirate's cove, not a world-class professional and economic powerhouse.

Corporations, criminals, and syndicates comprised of both only have one fund to account for: a bottom line, also known in the trades as “net, net, net” or, in the original Italian, patrimonio netto. Exotic public/private enterprises use “special-purpose entities” -- specialty bankers or just 'bagmen' -- and now what are called transaction lawyers to do externally what, for example, the City of Houston does internally: exploit the fungible nature of money … creatively, as they say. When the internal and external obfuscation overlap, as they did here in Austin, and in D.C. with Enron, we get grand larceny as well as everything from the incompetent terrorism of the Iranian used-car salesman from Corpus Christi to the flamboyant piracy of Sir Allen Stanford. That is sad and dangerous but at this point almost funny.

There is no telling what will become of Rebuild Houston. Certainly it does not seem to be any different from what has gone before, just a new way to provide public credit for private real estate development and to poorly maintain everything with the cheapest labor possible. Hike and bike trails will certainly appease a few goo-goo liberals among the newly-prized class of political investors with incomes in the $250,000-1,000,000 bracket -- the darlings of political bundlers and consultants, the constituency of Martin Frost.

Sadly, the legalized criminality and criminalized legalism that pass for proficiency in municipal government is not conducive to peace or prosperity. They will destroy moderate Republicans like Ed Emmett and Steven Costello as well as sweep well-meaning Democrats out of citywide and countywide offices they have been elected to.

What we have been doing here in Houston and Harris County for decades cannot go on, so it won’t. The magical realism of the far-right noise and cringing liberal sham of center-left government will end in brutal clarity of some sort.

“You can fool some people all the time and all the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.”

President Lincoln said that, and I think President Obama gets it.

But I worry about the rest of the Democratic Party. It is plain enough that many of the voters I represent have less and less trust in our complex machinations and excuses for cowardice or failure. They do not think that a tortured succession of deals amount to a plan, and the Solyandra vultures on talk radio will not let them forget it.

Yes, this public credit for a private venture was craven, rotten, bundler/consultant politics from first (Bush) to finish (Obama). And that is likely how the White-Parker deal culture will play out as long as whiz-bangs -- in Steampunk terminology called mountebanks -- like Andy Icken are involved.

So who here would trust anything an Andy Icken would vouch for, a Vinson  Elkins would sign off on, and an Arthur Andersen -- now called Protiviti -- would account for?

Nobody in their right mind!

But those are whom the Seinfeld “Party about Nothing” rely on in city government obviously, and County Commissioner Precinct 2 most recently. This deal-culture -- legal or not -- is a suicidal paradigm of politics and government. It benefits the parasites of government and the pirates of modern commerce.

The Tea Party suspects as much. Cringing liberal, center-left office squatters and their entourages do not. They haven’t a clue and in fact live from deal to deal. They will probably lose their Blazing Saddles jobs owing to precisely the sort of demoralization they are spreading with regressive and indirect taxation multiplied many times over by the obfuscation of public finance generally.