Janek finally out as HHS director

Your Friday afternoon state execution. No, not that one. This one.

Health and Human Services Commissioner Kyle Janek is on his way out, state officials announced Friday, shaking up Texas' biggest agency that plunged into turmoil over a $110 million no-bid contracting scandal that remains under criminal investigation.

Janek, who makes $260,000 a year and was appointed in 2012, will step down on July 1.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott made no mention of the unrest at the massive agency, which includes an ongoing probe by public corruption prosecutors and the forced resignation of other top officials, in naming two veteran state executives to take over the 56,000-person commission.

But tellingly, within an hour of announcing the changes, the governor touted his signing of contracting laws that are being tightened after HHSC last year gave an Austin tech company lucrative no-bid deals to help the state root out Medicaid fraud. 

Meet the new boss.  Same as the old boss.

Chief Deputy Commissioner Chris Traylor is set to assume the top job. But if Traylor knew it earlier this week, he certainly didn’t show it. The deputy commissioner announced last month that he was retiring and was actually feted Tuesday at a goodbye party for him.

Remember, ethics reform was an emergency item of the new governor's, announced at the beginning of the just-concluded 84th legislative session.   And the one thing he has to show for it is this bill, and Janek's scalp.  Not according to the good doctor, naturally.

Janek told reporters the decision to resign was his and was unrelated to the scandal. Asked if he felt any pressure from the governor's office, he said, "None."

"History will show this job has a shelf life," the 57-year-old said.

Traylor long had been seen as potential pick for the top job, but had said as recently as last month he would retire this summer.

A longtime health commission leader, he was seen inside the agency as more of Janek's co-captain than deputy since the two were appointed to their jobs in 2012 by then-Gov. Rick Perry.

Perhaps most importantly, he had avoided any blame for the contracting scandal, which previously had caused the resignations of four high-ranking officials, a criminal investigation and calls by several lawmakers for Janek to step down.

Republic and Democratic state legislators alike approve of Traylor, so there's that.

"I am thankful Commissioner Traylor agreed to forego his retirement," state Senate budget writer Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, said in a statement. "His institutional memory and his understanding of the mechanics of our programs will be a huge asset, especially as we transition to a more cohesive health and human services system."

State Rep. Garnet Coleman, one of the legislators who had asked Janek to resign, said Friday that Traylor is "more than capable" of leading the commission at this time. 

"You need some experience, some hands on the wheel," said the Houston Democrat, who first met Traylor in 1995. "He's a straight shooter, tells the truth. He's seasoned." 

Okay then.  If the commission can't get its act cleaned up this time, then pretty much everybody running this state should be held accountable if yet another lapse in moral judgment suddenly appears.  With a former governor still under indictment and a current attorney general under investigation, the prevailing Lone Star attitude seems to be: what's a little graft from a health commissioner in the grand scheme?

Sunday Funnies, 19 and counting edition

Scattershooting Eddie Lucio and Houston lobbyists

-- Have I said 'Screw Eddie Lucio" this week yet?  South Texas Chisme has your "'Democratic' senator lauds Patrick" post.  There has GOT to be a real Democrat in that district to replace this guy (and I'm not referring to Eddie Lucio III, necessarily).

-- This from a week ago almost got past me in a very busy week.

Four years after Mayor Annise Parker's administration tightened Houston's lobbying rules and pledged to enforce them, not a single person or firm has been cited despite records showing that many lobbyists have failed to abide by the regulations.

A Houston Chronicle review of city records and interviews show that dozens of lobbyists do not properly record the clients they represent, do not keep their registrations up to date or do not report spending any money to influence city leaders.

In addition to registering their employers, lobbyists must disclose the spending they do to lobby city officials. Of the 142 lobbyists with active files in the City Secretary's office, only 24 reported spending money on lobbying, and only 10 reported making more than three expenditures. Many activity reports also were filed late.

Lobbyists must update their registrations annually, but dozens fail to do so, leading to lapses ranging from a few days to several months. Some fought issues before the City Council, met with city officials or took council members to luncheons or Astros games during those lapses.

Most of these people identified in the article are Democrats.  A couple are former council members of council.  They're identified by name in the article.  Frankly I'm embarrassed that people I know and like seem to be out to lunch (pun not intended) about properly disclosing their business.  The bottom line is: if you play the game, you need to play by the rules.  If you don't know the rules, you need to learn them.

Even the new city attorney prevaricated  on the matter.

City Attorney Donna Edmundson said her office does not have the resources to do proactive enforcement. Edmundson acknowledged some lobbyists complain about competitors, but said she has never received a written complaint that would spur her to investigate.

"The criminal standard is 'intentionally or knowingly violates.' The bottom line is, it's just a Class C misdemeanor," Edmundson said, noting the $500 fine such a violation would carry. "If someone files a written complaint, that's fine. I don't know of anyone in the city that would sit here and look at the City Secretary's list."

Well, that's going to change.  Especially when the city attorney telephones a lobbyist after receiving complaints to encourage that person to get into compliance.  The former city attorney seems to have a different POV about being 'proactive'.

Many lobbyists who report no activity say they deliberately avoid spending money on lobbying or avoid topping $25 per purchase, the threshold above which expenses must be disclosed, in part because they want to avoid the hassle of filling out reports.

"Are these people really saying they don't ever spend in excess of $25? That's just not believable," (David) Feldman said. "If this ordinance is being interpreted and applied in such a way that they're not having to really disclose their activities, then there needs to be another look at this ordinance."

Yet another reason we can't have a nice democracy.  Greg Abbott and the Texas Legislature have already set a bad enough example for the sham of talking about ethics reform and doing nothing about it; let's hold our city's leaders and those who exert influence on them to a higher standard of accountability.

This would seem to be an opportunity tailor-made for a mayoral candidate to capitalize on, especially if a mayoral candidate has served previously on council -- like Chris Bell, Adrian Garcia, and/or Stephen Costello.  I hope somebody will be asking them about it at this morning's third mayoral forum (which I will again be forced to miss).

Clinton, in Houston, touts universal voter registration

And an extended early voting period.  Her short talk on expanding voting rights in H-Town yesterday afternoon stomped all over Rick Perry's presidential declaration, and may have even affected turnout at the mayoral forum next door at U of H (in the evening).  And she busted a lot of Republican balls in the process.

"What is happening is a sweeping effort to disempower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people and young people from one end of our country to the other," Clinton said at the historically black Texas Southern University, where she received a leadership award named after the late Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.

The former Secretary of State and the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for president also suggested a national requirement for at least 20 days of in-person early voting, including options for weekend and evening voting.

"If families coming out of church on Sunday are inspired to go vote, they should be free to do just that," Clinton said after calling on Congress to replace the portions of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.

You may recall that the Texas Legislature passed, in 2013, what was generally acknowledged as the most restrictive voter photo ID bill in the nation.  A federal judge struck it down about a month before the 2014 general election, but the Fifth Circuit quickly reversed that, and with just a few days before early voting was to begin, the Supreme Court -- having quashed several other states' less restrictive laws -- declined to intervene in the Texas case at the last hour.  So we got the lowest recorded voter participation since the Great Depression in the past statewide election cycle.  Oh yeah, Democrats got hammered.

Coincidence?

The Fifth is yet to rule on the case, having heard arguments at the end of April.  It will likely go on  to the Supremes after that, perhaps for a final ruling this time next year.  But the SCOTUS declined to stop a similarly harsh law in Wisconsin just this past March.  If the Texas law ultimately stands, Democrats are going to have to keep grinding on their potential voter base to get registered, get ID, and then get their asses to the voting booth.  But photo ID or no, a blue wave is coming, and only the US House -- gerrymandered to hell and back -- may remain red after November of 2016.  The US Senate is primed and ready to revert to Democratic control.  In other words, there may be no stopping the removal of these ridiculous obstacles to citizen participation in Texas elections (save the electorate's own apathy, of course).

Read Clinton's full speech here, and her reference to Oregon as the model.  Or watch it below.

More presidential logo hilarity

So Rick Perry stole his campaign logo from Popeyes? pic.twitter.com/tLA0UyopEi

— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm) June 4, 2015

This is the result of too many corporate PR firms "expanding their markets" into politics.  Bernie Sanders, notably, doesn't suffer that problem.

Second mayoral forum draws sparse crowd, few fireworks

Houston mayoral hopefuls swapped plans to shore up the city's finances at a forum Thursday, pledging everything from pension reform to scrapping the city's crime lab.

The event drew little in the way of political fireworks, with the rival candidates largely sticking to their own talking points at the University of Houston student center. More than 200 people were in attendance.

I wasn't one of them, and neither was Ben Hall.  Twitter coverage was also skimpy, and non-existent after the first 30 minutes or so.  Reading the story at the Chron made me sleepy.  I'll have to assume that the affair put everybody's feet to sleep, save the wonkiest of those present.  Here's a sampling of statements by the six in attendance without ellipses.

City Councilman Steve Costello, who chairs the city's budget and fiscal affairs committee, focused almost exclusively on taming the city's pension costs, calling it a "looming crisis" and promising to achieve reform. "So here's what happens if we don't get pension reform," Costello said. "We won't be able to do things like after school programs we won't be able to do summer jobs, we won't be able to district service accounts. These are this issues that we have."

Former congressman and City Councilman Chris Bell acknowledged the city's current pension costs are not "sustainable" but he pushed for a broader approach.

Bell called the city's revenue cap, which limits the property taxes the city can collect, a "bad policy." He said he would support considering an exception to the cap for public safety spending, a change that would need voter approval.

"I happen to feel that it's disingenuous though to try to lead voters to believe that as the next mayor you can simply cram a solution down the throats of the Houston firefighters," Bell said.

State Rep. Sylvester Turner, too, said he would support a possible carve-out for public safety spending under the city's revenue cap.

"For a growing city the revenue cap works against our interests," Turner said.

Turner authored a bill during this year's legislative session aimed at lowering Houston's pension payments by $77 million over three years, but it never made it to the House floor. The effort drew praise from some corners but critics called it a short-term solution.

Turner said the budget conversation needs to be broader than just pension reform.

"You have to bring everything to the table," Turner said. "Be very careful when you're talking about pensions.

Former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia touted his management and budget experience, saying he thinks the city needs to "match up our core services to our available revenue stream." On the pension front, Garcia also said he would work to restore "desperately needed local control."

Former mayor of Kemah Bill King said the city's budget woes are "not a revenue problem."

He said he would push for more cost-saving partnerships with the county, particularly merging the city's independent crime lab with the county's lab.

"I cannot for the life of me figure out why the city is still in the crime lab business," King said. "I think we've pretty thoroughly demonstrated this is not one of the city's core competencies."

Businessman Marty McVey largely skirted the pension and revenue cap issues, instead focusing on expanding the city's property tax base.

"I think the reality is this: we cannot cut our way to prosperity," McVey said. "We have to look for ways to increase our tax base, we have to go out and recruit new businesses."

So (IMHO) Costello, Bell, and Turner remain at the head of the class in terms of understanding the issues and communicating their solutions effectively.  King's got the grouchy Republican vote cornered, Garcia brags about something he shouldn't be, and McVey still thinks Rick Perry's business initiatives are a good idea.

This is all going according to my plan.

Some 2016 light bites

-- Rick Perry's up and running, as of 2 a.m. this morning and, formally later today, live from Addison.  Jeb Bush will be also -- after some pointed legal criticism -- in a couple of weeks.

-- Lincoln Chafee, in his announcement yesterday, wants Edward Snowden to come home, the US to convert its weights and measures to the metric system, and negotiations with the IS to be on the table.  There's bound to be a few people outside Rhode Island, where he was both senator and governor as a Republican, for which that platform represents hope and change.

-- Ted Cruz has been telling a weak joke about Joe Biden for some months now.  This time he told it just after Beau Biden passed, so it came off a little worse than previously.  The audience still laughed heartily.

Afterwards when he was asked about the appropriateness of the timing of the joke, he stalked off from the reporter who questioned him about it.  Crooks and Liars characterized his behavior as 'sociopathic'.  I wouldn't go that far -- his actions haven't resulted in people dying, like those of Rick Perry and Greg Abbott (denying Medicaid expansion) -- but Cruz is a turd and a massive jerk, and just because somebody died doesn't mean he's not going to make a joke about it.  He'll just make sure he does so when there aren't any cameras or microphones present.

-- The Duggars continue to make excuses for their son's child molestations.  Cringe-worthy.  Mike Huckabee wasn't available for comment after the Fox News interview with the family patriarch last night, by all indications.  If he still wants to be president, he should keep doing that.  Making himself unavailable for comment on this matter.

Update: State Rep. Bill Zedler of Arlington chimed in today, saying "The Left hates the Duggars because they have standards".  We were running on stupid fumes until this moment.  Now we have a full tank again.

-- A billionaire Wall Street hedge fund manager named Leon Cooperman didn't like Hillary Clinton's pandering to the Warren crowd and promptly jerked her chain.

"I don't need anybody crapping all over what I do for a living," the founder of $9.2 billion hedge fund firm Omega Advisors said.

[...]

"[She] hangs out with all these people in Martha's Vineyard and in the Hamptons and then the very first thing she has to say is to criticize hedge funds," he said.

It's all crap, Leon.  You should know this.  This crap coming out of her mouth is the full extent of what is being passed off as Hillary's progressivism.  Everybody in the whole wide world knows it except for you, Leon.  (And maybe Ted.)  So stop taking it personally.