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While the Bush governorship (and particularly Laura Bush) really pushed education in the state, Rick Perry and the recent legislatures seems to actively hate that book learnin' and cut funding 5.4 billion in 2011. This was ruled unconstitutional by the courts both because the funding levels are comically and because the shifting of the burden to local districts in essence forces a statewide property tax (a big no-no according to the TX constitution) but of course jack poo poo has been done. Also fun: The huge taxpayer funded slush fund which Perry has been using to bribe businesses to relocate and also to raise his own national profile. Most recently Toyota was given $40m from it to relocate 4,000 jobs to Texas. But they came from California so it really sticks it to those liberals!
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Jun 17, 2014 23:10
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PostNouveau posted:"A tremendous amount of fuckall" is an excellent way to describe Amarillo, Lubbock and anything else in the panhandle. I feel like El Paso is this huge enigma to most Texans, despite it being a big city. It describes most of the state really and if you've never driven through Texas it is hard to get a grip on it. The regular highways are 75-80mph slowing to 55 for 400ft every 30 miles when you pass a town of 100 and it still takes forever to get anywhere. You hit the state line on I-10 going West and you are greeted with exit 878. Yes you see giant swaths of red counties on the big electoral maps but that only represents a thousand people or so. The real voting power is in the suburbs that sprawl around the cities. It just so happens that many of the suburbs are concentrations of awful awful people.
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Jun 18, 2014 04:03
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I didn't see it mentioned so far so: Texas has a very limited legislative session that only lasts 140 days every two years. Special sessions, each lasting 30 days, can be called by the governor. Before Rick Perry this wasn't all that common but Perry has routinely called session after session to keep the lawmakers in town until they pass whatever bill he wants, as everyone saw with him calling another session after Davis's filibuster. This gives commissions and appointed positions much more power than they would otherwise have because they are running the state without the legislature there to quickly step in. Perry has by now stuffed every vacancy he could with people that align with him and/or owe him favors. As a side note every session for some reason a slew of bills gets introduced to stick it to the liberal cities. For example Austin passed a ban on disposable bags before the last legislative session, so a North Texas rep was just forced by his love of freedom to introduce  The Shopping Bag Freedom Act .Omi-Polari posted:One little fact about the Texas legislature is that it's actually quite bipartisan in how it's governed. Democrats regularly lead committees despite being a marginal force electorally, and are even over-represented on those committees. Right now there are six (I think, possibly seven) Senate committee chairmanships held by Democrats despite there being only 12 Democrats in the entire Senate (31 senators total). Well, it WAS quite bipartisan. Dan Patrick beat Dewhurst in the primary partly by attacking Dewhurst for appointing Democrats to committee chairs. I expect to see the practice not return for the next legislative session. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Jun 18, 2014 |
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Jun 18, 2014 04:27
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VitalSigns posted:
They don't like it because it is determined per school. So a kid from a school where top 10% consists of everyone over a 3.2 GPAs might conceivably take an admissions slot from a person who went to a different school and graduated with a 3.8 GPA but was not in the top 10% because the school was
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Jun 20, 2014 01:02
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What? How is the ten percent rule not merit-based? Do some schools run a lottery to see who gets the top 10% of GPAs?
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zoux posted:I'm sure Gardner Selby and politifact Texas are on the case! Even ignoring the whole political aspect it is very nice to see a company not get away with the "oh it was our contractor/franchisee/independent-distributor" dodge.
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Aug 12, 2014 22:19
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Pardon would require him to be convicted first. I really hope this sticks.
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Aug 16, 2014 00:31
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Aliquid posted:His threatening the elected official is also a felony, and it was pretty obvious that this was the case (I don't think he even tried to hide it?) so I'm optimistic about the second felony. The first one, actually withholding the funds, is legal according to Perry's counsel, so that one could go either way. Yeah he didn't try to hide it at all. It was explicitly because of the DA refusing to step down and he even said so in is veto statement: quote:Despite the otherwise good work the Public Integrity Unit's employees, I cannot in good conscience support continued State funding for an office with statewide jurisdiction at a time when the person charged with ultimate responsibility of that unit has lost the public's confidence. This unit is in no other way held accountable to state taxpayers, except through the State budgetary process. I therefore object to and disapprove of this appropriation.
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Aug 16, 2014 03:31
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I am in District 7. Wall to wall nimbys.  "Neighborhood Character!"  Also this isn't the first time Austin has had districts. neighborhood districts were a thing from 1840 to 1909. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Sep 5, 2014 |
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Sep 5, 2014 06:30
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ReidRansom posted:Decentralizing really probably would help, but that's not something you can just do. Especially when any attempt to build anything not SFH outside of the CBD is met with screams of Neighborhood Character! A Georgetown - San Marcos commuter rail setup similar to MARC or Caltrain would be a great first step. A Liberty Hill - Bastrop or Driftwood - Elgin alignment would be amazing. And while I'm absolutely dreaming of completely politically infeasible solutions let's go ahead and annex Rollingwood and West Lake Hills.
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Sep 11, 2014 19:59
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^^^^^^^ Work from home is the best commute. One mile is pretty swank too, do you walk in? Vahakyla posted:As a non-texan, I say: build trains, trams and buslines everywhere. Hth. But the average Austin voter will say no unless there is a train stop comfortably close to their house and work, but not so close as to possibly cause inconvenience in any conceivable way. The decade of construction would suck pretty badly as well but that's just the way it goes with such things. And there is little funding which will be forthcoming from the state government as TXDOT is already running on empty and everyone in the lege loves beating up on Austin for brownie points in their home districts. Federal funding is not going to happen either.
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Sep 12, 2014 04:25
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Omi-Polari posted:Dallas is so inauthentic it embraces its inauthenticity and turns it into a completely new and original kind of authenticity. That is completely the opposite of Austin, which is obsessed with the appearance of authenticity. When there is too little authenticity to go around it is created by slapping the appropriate veneer onto it. Every new place now has logo design straight out of the 50s and many food trailers have permanent dedicated seating and haven't been moved in years. You hear people who talk poo poo about a restaurant not because it is bad but because "it is a chain" (even if it is just a local place with North and South locations). Anyway on to housing: I heard someone who works for the city lamenting that Austin has no way to force the inclusion of "affordable" units in the large projects they approve. Is this some Texas legal quirk or is a matter of the city not being willing to attach conditions to the zoning and city variances that the large projects inevitably require?
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Sep 12, 2014 19:58
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Sheng-ji Yang posted:Too close to the ~bad part of town~ *ding* Sorry for large image but scaling it makes it very hard to see. Click for big:  But the market is insane right now and has gentrified the near east neighborhoods. The only thing holding the area back now is lack of transportation and 290 doesn't count because of the 183/I35/290 intersection clusterfuck. Sheng-ji Yang posted:Yeah, central Austin is expensive for Texas but relative to the rest of the country's trendy cities its drastically cheaper. Still, the increase is pretty absurd. My very lovely little college apartment which was $700 rent in 2009 is now $1200. The trouble is that Austin salaries aren't anywhere near what they would be in another trendy city.
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Sep 12, 2014 22:07
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KIM JONG TRILL posted:I would kill for a Houston-Dallas high speed rail line, but I seriously question it ever happening. We've heard about it for decades. DFW, DAL, IAH, and every airline/company that services them would treat it as an existential threat and pour enough money into the lege to make sure it doesn't happen. The Acela in the Northeast put a pretty big dent in the lucrative corporate airline travel market between NYC, BOS, IAD, and DCA and they won't let that happen again without one hell of a fight. Dameius posted:Walgreens and if you have one near, Sam's Club. Talk to pharmacies there about a discount card. Costco as well. While the rest of the store may be members only it is a non-promoted fact that the pharmacy is open to all. Federal law I believe. Badger of Basra posted:Petition for thread name change to "wrap it up, y'all." Eh the main power we have in Texas this cycle to make Texas less lovely is in local elections, which involves discussing local issues. And where the best place to get Banh Mi is (Tam Deli).
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Sep 13, 2014 03:44
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The lege is going to be absolutely bonkers this session if he wins. It will be bad even if he loses but drat.
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Sep 21, 2014 20:17
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Whenever I feel like being sad/angry I try to list out in my head all the awful things that the new legislature, LTGov, and Gov are going to do. I'm guessing tree protection ordinances are going to be a target, as well as things like the Austin bag ban, any city non-discrimination laws, and of course school funding.
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Oct 2, 2014 16:22
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karlor posted:Has any candidate stated their intentions to target tree protection ordinances or is that just a guess? That is some serious villain-from-Captain-Planet poo poo and on what grounds are they opposed to the ordinances? Is it a case of trees boosting property value and them not wanting to pay more property tax? For the most part good developers will want to keep the trees healthy and build around them because like you say they add value and desirability. But while landscaping is really expensive it is a hell of a lot cheaper to develop most parcels of land if you can clearcut. That isn't to say the tree ordinances are not being used for less than environmentally driven reasons: NIMBY groups have been using them to block any development they don't like as you can't build a big box store or mall when there is a protected tree smack in the middle of the property. I think this is a lot of the cause of the backlash, or at least isn't helping.
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Oct 2, 2014 17:07
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BatteredFeltFedora posted:Found your problem. Ha. Shockingly there are actually a lot of them out there but the bad ones are just so comically evil that they overshadow any good ones. For example in my neighborhood there is a frenzy of teardowns going on. At least four of the companies I know of do everything right: they implement tree protections without being forced, police the job site to keep debris and mud from getting into the road, give the neighbors their number, hire contractors that don't start before 7, and build things on the lots customized to the lot and which blend in really well with the neighborhood. But then there is another developer that does none of those things and has people flipping out because having one of his projects nearby means you are going to get woken up at 6:20 AM daily (including the weekend), your house will get paint overspray, and you should probably have the tire shop on speed dial for a few patches assuming you can get out of your driveway because it is likely going to be blocked by a truck. I've even heard real estate agents swearing about how lovely the guy is, and that's impressive. ugh that reminds me of something that won't get fixed due to the rightward swing: there's pretty much zero chance in getting teeth put into the law to tackle the problem of sleazy subcontractors misclassifying their employees as independent contractors.
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Oct 2, 2014 17:54
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zoux posted:Do you live on the east side? Crestview.
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Oct 2, 2014 18:07
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zoux posted:Federal judge ruled that the Voter ID law in Texas constitutes a poll tax. Ha! Oh you missed the best parts of the ruling. It wasn't just that it was a poll tax, the judge also found among other things that the burden placed on voters was not commiserate with the "problem" the law was claiming to fix and quote:This Court concludes that the evidence in the record demonstrates that proponents of SB 14 within the 82nd Texas Legislature were motivated, at the very least in part, because of and not merely in spite of the voter ID law’s detrimental effects on the African-American and Hispanic electorate. As such, SB 14 violates the VRA as well as the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Unites States Constitution. The poll tax ruling is pretty airtight, but the findings of fact in the other rulings are also exhaustive and overwhelmingly against Texas. Including tidbits like this: 1970-2014: Redistricting o In every redistricting cycle since 1970, Texas has been found to have violated the VRA with racially gerrymandered districts.
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Oct 10, 2014 16:05
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Cross posting from the SCOTUS thread: Thank the various gods... quote:The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday barred Texas from enforcing an abortion regulation that left only seven clinics open in the state. gently caress you Scalia, Alito, and Thomas. Abbot and Perry have got to be livid that their pet women
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Oct 15, 2014 01:08
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Sardonik posted:Loling hard at some of the statesman comments: Statesman comments are 70% trolls attempting to get the other trolls' personas to feign outrage. And 30% spam they never seem to be able to fix.
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Oct 15, 2014 02:33
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Badger of Basra posted:But it's not on the right route!!!!!! Ha. Austin politics are going to get hilarious when the districts come into full force. The city is stuffed with people that are of the "if it doesn't benefit me personally it has no reason to exist" mentality. I need to read up on the bajillion people running for my district but the times I have looked into it they all are pretty much the same: pledge to fix transportation and affordability but without any plans that might actually address those problems and with many other pledges which contradict them.
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Oct 21, 2014 00:55
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Well that certainly narrows down the choices. I have seven. And I'm in district seven... oh no 
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Oct 21, 2014 01:21
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zoux posted:The I35 split is a horrendous abomination that turns every exit on the lower deck into a concrete gauntlet but I get a rash thinking about how bad a five year construction project on all of the downtown stretch would be. You just need to tie in into graft to get it approved. Redirect through traffic onto 130, have the state pay the tolls to provide returns for the Perry sweetheart deals which haven't gone as well as they hoped. It is insane just how much better Austin's traffic situation would be had we started working on things 15 years ago.
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Oct 24, 2014 03:14
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Jiro posted:
I had a person trying to push a petition to overturn Austin's ban on digital billboards by straight up lying to me and saying it was to upgrade the amber alert signs on the highway.
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Oct 24, 2014 03:35
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I.......that's one of the most sleaziest things you can say holy poo poo. gently caress that guy.
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Trabisnikof posted:The 2000 rail measure failed because the suburbs didn't want to pay for a train that didn't go to their community not because of old guard hippies in the core. Also there was that guy with a store on the drag that plowed a ton of money into whipping up opposition because he thought the construction would ruin his business or whatever. Which I will note is out of business now. Speaking of, I'd love to know who is behind OurRail and the Central Austin Community Development Corporation. There's one guy who is director at both and I think he lives near 38th and Speedway (which gives him a reason to care that Guad/Lamar got shot down I guess) but he can't be the sole source of funding.
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Oct 25, 2014 03:53
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A new Texas Tribune poll is out. Good news is the transportation bill looks like it will pass easily. The bad news: Q15. If the 2014 general election for Governor were held today, would you vote for the Democrat Wendy Davis, the Republican Greg Abbott, the Libertarian Kathie Glass, the Green Party candidate Brandon Parmer, or haven’t you thought about it enough to have an opinion? [RANDOMIZE 1-4] Among likely voters (n=866, MOE is +/-3.33%; 3.60+/-% adjusted for weighting) 1. Greg Abbott 54% 2. Wendy Davis 38 3. Kathie Glass 6 4. Brandon Parmer 2 Q16. If the 2014 general election for Lieutenant Governor were held today, would you vote for the Democrat Leticia Van de Putte, the Republican Dan Patrick, the Libertarian Robert D. Butler, the Green Party candidate Chandrakantha Courtney, or haven’t you thought about it enough to have an opinion? [RANDOMIZE 1-4] Among likely voters (n=866, MOE is +/-3.33%; 3.60+/-% adjusted for weighting) 1. Dan Patrick 52% 2. Leticia Van de Putte 35 3. Robert D. Butler 9 4. Chandrakantha Courtney 4 Q36. When thinking about your gubernatorial vote choice this year, which ONE of the following issues is most important to you? [RANDOMIZE 1-12] 1. Border security 23 2. Immigration 11 3. Education 10 4. Jobs/employment 9 5. Affordable Care Act/”Obamacare” 9 6. Ethics in government 8 7. Abortion/women’s health 7 8. Size and scope of government 6 9. Taxes and spending 6 10. Income inequality 5 11. Infrastructure (e.g. Water and Transportation) 4 12. Voter identification 3 And just for fun: Q28. [ASK IF Q27=1] If the 2016 Republican primary election for president were held today, which of the following possible candidates would you vote for, or haven’t you thought about it enough to have an opinion? [Randomize 1-13] (n=560, MOE is +/-4.14%; 4.50+/-% adjusted for weighting) 1. Ted Cruz 27% 2. Rick Perry 14 3. Ben Carson 10 4. Jeb Bush 7 5. Rand Paul 7 6. Mike Huckabee 7 7. Paul Ryan 4 8. Marco Rubio 3 9. Chris Christie 3 10. Bobby Jindal 2 11. Scott Walker 2 12. Rick Santorum 1 13. John Kasich 0 14. Haven’t thought enough about it to have an opinion 11 Q29. [ASK IF Q27=2] If the 2016 Democratic primary election for president were held today, which of the following possible candidates would you vote for, or haven’t you thought about it enough to have an opinion? [Randomize 1-7] (n=429, MOE is +/-4.73%; 5.04+/-% adjusted for weighting) 1. Hillary Clinton 60% 2. Elizabeth Warren 13 3. Joe Biden 10 4. Andrew Cuomo 2 5. Brian Schweitzer 1 6. Jim Webb 1 7. Martin O’Malley 0 8. Haven’t thought enough about it to have an opinion 13
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Oct 27, 2014 19:44
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radical meme posted:vvvvv Hey I understand. It really is a head scratcher for me because I've always thought we had a kinship and good neighbor policy with our latin immigrants here. That's been changed by a deliberate marketing campaign by the GOP, a decision that was obviously made at the national level and that is bad for our state. I think you have it right with it being a national trend that is trickling down to Texas. The GOP, independent groups, and conservative media have all figured out that beating the border security fear drum works really well in most of the states. That narrative was bound to have an effect on Texas voters just because it kept getting repeated in the national press over and over. Even if it didn't any R who has ambitions beyond Texas knows that the previous policies won't fly in today's national GOP so they go hard-line. You only have to look at the thrashing Perry got over his support of in state tuition for immigrants who meet the residency requirements.
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Oct 27, 2014 21:39
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If oil and gas prices stay as low as they have been exploration in those regions might not be the economic driver it has been of late.
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Oct 29, 2014 22:43
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I took a photo of the sign absurdity in Austin: It wraps around the corner too until lit hits the property adjacent to the early voting location.
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Nov 1, 2014 04:52
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computer parts posted:Maybe running a bland white person in a minority-majority state is not the best strategy! "Not the best strategy" pretty much sums up the Texas Democratic party.
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Nov 5, 2014 04:55
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1stGear posted:"Hey, Austin is the fastest growing city in the country. What should we do about that?" And you can forget about those commutes being short thanks to the mix of "preserve neighborhood character" folks who look like they are going to win (especially because you just know who will turn out to runoffs). But they'll have their 20% homestead exemption so I guess we're entering full FYGM territory?
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Nov 5, 2014 15:11
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Rabble posted:This was the worst part! "It's the wrong route" with no rebuttal to what the "right route" would be. I know a whole bunch of progressive people spouting this bullshit line (and the "We need to do something but this isn't it") and it drove me crazy every time. As if a proposal to rip up MOPAC and I-35 and replace them with 12 lane superhighways would pass without the same people going fully NIMBY. This is why there is no right route:  Short of some multi-billion dollar multi-line system which hit every single place in Austin on day one there's no way to get the suburbs on board. And without the suburbs being on board you can't pass it. Here are the maps to play around with: http://traviselectionresults.com/enr/results/display.do?criteria.electionId=20141104&formSubmitted=1 The mayoral map is pretty depressing too: 
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Nov 5, 2014 21:39
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VitalSigns posted:So is there any way the Austin city council can get a rail project done or is there some arcane reason that it has to be a ballot initiative to happen? The city can't issue debt to be repaid by property taxes without an election authorizing it. So given the cost of rail, no.
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Nov 6, 2014 00:19
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Twerk from Home posted:Adler wants to cut your property taxes, Martinez cares about poor people and public transit. The way Adler wants to cut taxes is important too. His proposal is a 20% exemption which gets more and more popular as you move west across the city into neighborhoods of million dollar plus houses. They stand to get exemptions greater than the entire value of many properties in the East. Has anyone else noticed that Adler has really gone hard negative lately? I've been getting a flood of mailers from his campaign pretty much accusing Martinez of kicking puppies for fun.
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Dec 9, 2014 17:58
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As it is now it is a city manager centric system. Council and the mayor aren't too involved in the day to day operation of the city. (Thank goodness)
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Dec 10, 2014 04:07
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emfive posted:Despicable shitlord Zimmerman won in district 6 I think. Yup, by 300 votes. I wonder how long it is before he sues another council member because they didn't vote for something that he wants. Pressley didn't win. Surely because of everyone being unable to think correctly due to all the radiation from our smart meters. Also Almanza lost too, thank goodness. Having the ANC be represented via Tovo is bad enough but having a PODER member on council would have been an utter NIMBY clusterfuck.
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Dec 17, 2014 17:13
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Austin Neighborhoods Council. One of the groups that reflexively and vociferously opposes anything but single family homes in central Austin by screaming about "Neighborhood Character".
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Dec 17, 2014 17:32
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zoux posted:And PODER is the reason I have to throw away my toilet paper in a trash can because my broken sewer line runs under a tree and we have to have someone come out and inspect the root system and bless a new path before I can have a new line put in? No that would be the Austin Heritage Tree Foundation and the myriad ordinances they have gotten passed regarding trees in this city. Although the ordinances are increasingly used as an anti-development weapon I think that the AHTF is just populated by starry eyed environmental hippies. Not that that makes your poop-trash situation any less annoying. PODER is a strange bird. It started as a group opposed to the East Side getting shat on by industry and helped get a whole bunch of tank farms moved away from residential areas. Now it is really hard to pin down exactly what it exists for. Ostensibly it is anti-gentrificaion but that seems to be defined as "whatever Susan Almanza personally dislikes this month". Recently their target has been urban farms.
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Dec 17, 2014 17:59
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The best part of the Austin bag ban is that I don't see bags in all the trees, bushes, and streams. It is a huge change. The second best part is watching people too proud to spend the 25 cents for a reusable bag at HEB try to juggle an arm full of loose goods to their car.
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Jan 6, 2015 15:45
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