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Just how happy a birthday will Mayor White have?

Mayor Bill White sure is ramping up his campaign these days.  Heck, his campaign Twitter username, TX4BillWhite, has about 1,100 followers.  Okay, it's not quite a million, but they are Tweeting a lot.

Okay, back to what's going on today.  It's the Mayor's 55th birthday, and his kids sent out a campaign appeal to donate $55 bucks to the Mayor on his birthday.   Don't know how much money he'll pull in at tonight's birthday party yet, but he's been running around the state shaking hands and finding money.

Just last week, White’s campaign held a fundraiser for young people at Discovery Green.  The price tag was light, around $25 bucks, but the idea was to get the younger set excited.  The campaign was selling t-shirts with something that’s supposed to be considered a “hip” logo printed on them.  The logo’s appeal was debatable.  You can see for it yourself on this blog.  I thought it tended to accentuate White’s ears more than normal.  However, the event was fairly successful.  They raised about $15,000.  That’s decent for the cash bar, happy hour crowd.

Having young professionals events for politicians are nothing new.  However, I’m always entertained by how many not-so-young folks showed up.  Namely, there were three of the current five Mayoral candidates, a few judicial candidates, and several potential council members.  White tried to be diplomatic, and didn’t refer to any of them by name.  Gene Locke, Annise Parker, and Peter Brown all seemed to get along.  Then again, they do have to go to a lot Mayoral forums from now until election day.
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County Tax Man and his #2 under scrutiny.

Tax Assessor Collector Leo Vasquez and his Associate Voter Registrar Ed Johnson has been the subject of plenty of accusations on the internet and in the media of late.  This afternoon, Vasquez issued a long defense of Johnson, whose side gig of selling voter data alongside State Rep. Dwayne Bohac has come under scrutiny.  You can see the full statement here. Download Response from Leo Vasquez. This is a portion of that statement:

The Texas Democratic Party, in conjunction with the Harris County Democratic Party, went on a legal fishing expedition last fall and filed a nuisance lawsuit against the Harris County Tax Office with unspecified aggrieved parties and unspecified remedies. ... They have most recently pointed their finger at Mr. Ed Johnson, the voter department’s associate director, and yelled "Witch!" due to his well-documented, and legal, outside business activities.

You can watch my television coverage of the story below, and decide for yourself.  However, Dr. Richard Murray, our political consultant, did say the whole thing "smells."

Sheila gets a potential challenger

Well, somebody had to jump in. You knew it was coming.  So the Facebook group is up, the Twitter account his open, there's a website, and Sean Roberts' sister is awfully proud.  His website, like all good local politicians, show a Houston skyline.  It's just an exploratory committee for now.  But, who knows?  The email blasts have been going strong for the past 24 hours, it certainly looks like Sean has every intention of running.

The political reality is that anyone who wants to challenge Rep, Sheila Jackson-Lee will have an oh-so-uphill battle.  For everything that is said or unsaid in the community, Jackson-Lee has incredible name ID.  Running against her is betting against the odds.  Still, a lot of people have wanted to.

When the whispers of Jackson-Lee possibly going to work for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton first surfaced, the names started jumping out.  There was State Rep. Sylvester Turner, Council Members Jolanda Jones, Jarvis Johnson, and Ronald Green.  Community activists like Marcus Davis and local attorneys including Marlen Whitley have all sort of publicly mulled over the idea.  Now that Roberts actually has a website up, will someone else be willing to jump in?  It's could get to be a very crowded pond, but we all know who the big fish still is... and she's not going anywhere.

And then there were four

I had the great pleasure of moderating a mayoral forum last night, focusing on the subject of the Arts.  The event was held at the Museum of Fine Arts, and featured all four announced candidates for Houston Mayor.  My thanks to Nancy Sims for inviting me, and to Ed Schipul for the photos.

It may seem surprising that you can spend more than an hour talking about Arts related issues, but that's exactly what we did.  The discussions ranged from the Hotel Occupancy Tax to METRO.  In general, the candidates all said they supported the arts (wouldn't you?)  All said the current partial use of the HOT taxes for tourism related art spending is appropriate.  However, no one was willing to make any promises about spending extra city dollars for arts related activities.

T he candidates were limited to one minute responses, and for the most part, they complied.  Council Member Peter Brown tended to run a bit long, but better than his well known rambling tendencies at City Hall.  Brown, of course, is heavily involved in the Opera, the Menil, and has quite an art collection.  Controller Annise Parker spent time between questions taking lots of notes.  She gave very thought out responses, and talked a lot about her involvement in civic arts.  Roy Morales caused some rumblings when he said he didn't support light rail.  As for Gene Locke, he pointed out that his kids are actors and artists.

Sometimes the simplest questions can be the most telling.  A member of the audience asked what the last art related event each candidate went to.  Parker said she had tickets to the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater last weekend, but couldn't make it.  Brown pointed out he was endorsed recently by none other than super-artist George Clinton.  Locke took the opportunity to tell the audience that his daughter is publishing a book, and he'll be going to her book signing.  Morales, though, couldn't come up with a significant answer.  He fumbled around a bit before stating that he went to an Ambassador's Club gala recently, and there was a dance performance during the gala.

Overall, I thought all the candidates performed fairly well.  Granted, this wasn't a grilling, but careful listeners would have heard obvious differences among the candidates.  Some audience members told me that they thought Locke should have smiled more.  Others said they were surprised that Brown stayed fairly on topic.  Still, no major gaffes among the four candidates. 

Mayor White gets sort of mad.

City department leaders have been ordered to take a hard look at how to cut their budgets, or someone else may do it for them. That's the warning issued by Mayor Bill White who says something needs to be done to reduce expenses.

From fixing water breaks, to building out the city's infrastructure, you see city workers out almost every day. The ones we talked to say they're not worried about their jobs being affected by the nationwide recession.

"Not in my department," said solid waste employee Levada Tidwell. "Because we do the trash, and people always need trash."

But Mayor White is concerned about the long term effects of the economic downturn, and he's aggressively asking city departments to look for ways to streamline their work.

Mayor White said, "You could have one more highly compensated doing the job of two, or if you can decrease the supervisor to employee ratio, I want them to be looking for that."

Mayor White insists there are no plans for any citywide employee layoffs, but he is considering bringing in outside consultants to look at the city's budget if city managers can't find the cost savings themselves.

He explained, "If I can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get millions of dollars of efficiency, I'm willing to do it."

The employees' union doesn't like the idea, saying it could just be a precursor to layoffs.

Alejandra Valles with the Houston Employees Union said, "We don't agree that that's the best course of action. Why not ask city employees themselves, who work side by side with him, hands on, on the front line, what they think."

Mayor White says he's doesn't know how much money he's trying to save yet. Employees say they'll just keep on working, and for now they remain unconcerned

Public works employee Cory Jerome said, "We always have stuff to do. It's non-stop work."

Employees we talked to say they feel secure in their jobs, but city leaders say a number of vacancies have gone unfilled in the past few months in an effort to streamline and save money in the face of the nationwide downturn. The city budget workshops are expected to start in late May. That should give more specifics on where the city is trying to streamline and whether or not outside consultants

The Great Country of Texas!

“We’re fed up in Texas, fed up in America!” 

That’s how Governor Rick Perry began his day on Wednesday, during all the Austin area Tea Parties.  Gov. Perry certainly rallied the Republican base on Wednesday, so much so that when someone in the crowd yelled “Secede!”  The governor didn’t seem to mind.

Just minutes later on Wednesday, when questioned by a reporter, Perry replied:  “We got a great Union, there’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it.  But, if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what may come out of that.”

Those words reverberated around Austin, and in less than 24 hours, it sent shockwaves across the Country.  Locally, Democratic legislators pounced.

“That kind of language at this time, brings up images of an era that isn’t where we want to go,” remarked State Sen. Rodney Ellis.  “The Governor of a Southern state, it just brings up an era we’d like to leave behind us.”

Houston area Representative Carol Alvarado called the idea of succession “crazy,” and says the governor was simply playing politics.

“We always like to say that Texas is God’s country,” she said.  “But, we’re happy to be part of the United States, and this is strictly political pandering.”

Republicans, as you might expect, had a different reaction.  Freshman Representative Allen Fletcher says what Perry meant to say is that he just wanted the rest of the country to be more like Texas.”

“If the people of the United States were more like us, they might be doing a little better,” remarked Fletcher, a fan of Perry.  “We’re setting an example for the rest of the country.”

That brings us back to Perry.  On Thursday, after signing his first bill, Perry was pummeled with secession questions.  Fortunately for Texans, he reaffirmed his love for the country as a whole.

“Texas is part of a great Union and I see no reason for that to change.”

You’ll notice the Governor didn’t exactly back down from his initial statements, however, it’s nice to know we won’t have to get new Texas passports soon just to visit relatives in other states.

It's tea time!

If you have filed your taxes already or have filed an extension, maybe you will find the time to attend one of the hundreds of "Tea Parties" around the country.  The Tea Parties are organized by conservatives who say they're tired of the way the Government is taxing their income.

Governor Rick Perry will be making his tea party rounds, and we're sure he won't be sipping any tea from a ceramic cup.  His first stop will be in Austin, before heading to Arlington and Forth Worth.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Perry will be in Houston, she's the headline speaker at the Greater Houston Women's Chamber of Commerce Conference.  I hope they don't serve any tea during the luncheon.  I'm the MC for the event, so I'll let you know what the State's First Lady has to say.

This is not the first Tea Party. A few months ago, a smaller scale event was held around the country.  I remember the Houston event being held at Discovery Green, the downtown park.  There were a few hundred people who showed up for the mid-afternoon event, It was fairly mild, but today's event is destined for much bigger attention. 

In a related note, I'll be heading to Austin to cover the Legislature for a few days. So, stay tuned!

Lawmaker suggests Asians change their names to "easier" ones

Update, this aftenoon, several Asian American advocacy organizations issued a joint press release. It reads in part:

OCA, Asian American Justice Center (AAJC) and the Asian American Legal Defense Fund (AALDEF) express disappointment over Texas Representative Betty Brown’s suggestion at a hearing on April 7 that Asian Americans adopt “names that are easier for Americans to deal with.”   ...
 
“Representative Brown’s comments made clear that she lacks an understanding of Asian American cultures and that she in fact undervalues other cultures,” said OCA Executive Director George Wu.
 
"It is unacceptable that Representative Brown believes that the burden should be placed upon individual voters to make it easier on poll workers to ensure that the voters get to exercise their right to vote, rather than expecting that the burden lay with the government to do its job correctly," said Terry Ao, director of Census & Voting Programs at the Asian American Justice Center.  "Participation in the democratic process should unite all Americans; we should be seeking ways to encourage more voters, not inventing excuses to deny citizens their constitutional right to vote."
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I wonder if State Rep. Betty Brown has ever hung out with State Rep. Hubert Vo, one of the few Asian Americans in the Texas Legislature.  But anyway, Rep. Brown is raising eyebrows after suggesting that Asian American should change their names to make it easier for Americans to deal with.  The Associated Press reports the following:

The Texas Democratic Party is demanding an apology from Republican state Rep. Betty Brown , of Terrell, for suggesting Asian-descent voters should adopt names that are "easier for Americans to deal with."

Brown made the comments Tuesday night as the House Elections Committee discussed voter identification legislation. Brown spokesman Jordan Berry said Brown was not making a racially motivated comment but was trying to resolve an identification problem.

The comments came after a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans , told the committee that people of Asian descent often have problems voting and with forms of identification because of differences in their legal transliterated name and a common English name used on their driver's license.

It will be interesting to see how this filters out.  Depending on how aggressively OCA's national chapter goes after this issue, it could make national headlines.  Locally, the Voter ID bill has been voted out of Committee.  However, whether this will eventually make it out of Calendars, remains to be seen.  Democrats in the State House has been actively trying to block this.  The comments for Rep. Brown, nomatter what the intentions, will complicate things. 

In reality, this really hits a nerve among Asian Americans, who take pride in their family names, just like everyone else.  Imagine telling a Polish American that his name needs a few extra vowels, just to make it easier to pronounce.

Judge Jim Sharp wants wood floors, won't get them.

Justice Jim Sharp of the Texas 1st Court of Appeals got a different kind of rebuke today.  Unlike the fun things that happen in the court room, this occasion occurred at Commissioners Court.

It seems that Justice Sharp wanted improvements made to his judicial quarters, currently housed at the South Texas College of Law.  The standard issue carpeting just won't do.

This is what was reported in the Commissioners Court Agenda: Requested by Justice Sharp, First Court , for authorization to removed carpet and install reclaimed wood flooring in leased space on the 10th floor of 1307 San Jacinto at his expense, and for Facilities & Property Management to renovate the office space at the county's expense.

As you can expect, in these tough economic times, the county folks weren't too happy.  Besides, the county is already renovating the historic courthouse that will be home to the Appellate Courts in just a few years.  So, in a unanimous decision, the Commissioners voted to reject his request.  Judge Ed Emmett called the request "odd", even though Justice Sharp offered to pay for the cost of the antique wood flooring.  Guess it's carpeting for the Justice, until the new digs open up.

Locke's coming out party

Having never held City Wide elected office before, Gene Locke did a little test run of his reach yesterday, participating in a fundraiser and then holding a "meet and greet" with whoever showed up.

With Annise Parker and Peter Brown both having some name ID around the city, getting his name and face out there will be crucial for Locke.  What Locke may have discovered last night is that everybody likes a commitment free, and cost free party.

Earlier in the evening, Locke participated in a $250 per person fundraiser and the home of his neighbor, Ramon Manning.  Then, it was off to the hotel ZaZa, where a few hundred of his close and not-so-close friends gathered.  The event was definitely non-partisan, as both Pam Holm and Ronald Green showed up.  They are both running for Controller.  One of Locke's big supporters is lawyer Rusty Hardin, who cheerfully proclaimed that he's hoped Locke would run for years.

While most attendees have already professed there support, I did spot a few people who were in a "scene survey" mentality.  These usually not-too-political folks took the opportunity to see who is supporting Locke, and tried to figure out if they should go to the next Peter Brown event as well.  After all, everyone wants to be with the winner, even if that means spreading your bets around.

Brown, by the way, held a Young Professionals event earlier in the week.  Parker is moving to her new campaign offices in The Heights this weekend.  I haven't heard much about what Roy Morales is doing.

The next step for Gene Locke?  A thousand dollar a head fundraiser at the Fertitta mansion next week.  Locke is pictured here with his treasurer Jacob Monty.