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November 17, 2023

In today's BG Reads:

✅ Austin ISD posts superintendent position; signals possible inside choice

✅ After $1.8 billion verdict in National Association of Real Estate lawsuit, Texas gets its own version

✅ Senate Republicans get ready to roll Tuberville on military holds

More stories below. Read on!

[BG PODCAST]

On this episode (223) Bingham Group CEO A.J. Bingham and Associate Hannah Garcia wrap up the week of November 6th in Austin politics.

TOPICS INCLUDE:

✅ Travis County judge signaling 3 Austin land code ordinances will be voided; and

✅ 2024 City Council Race Watch (Districts 2, 7, and 10)

LISTEN HERE

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

City Council moves toward enshrining remote work options (Austin Monitor)

City Council recently approved a resolution that initiates amendments to the city’s Climate Equity Plan, Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan and the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan regarding remote work policies for city employees. 

The amendments – recommended by the Planning Commission and supported by the city employees’ union – would ensure remote work policies align with the plans’ goals, which include reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips in the region, parking demand at city facilities and the share of Austin residents who commute to work. 

They also diverge from a controversial telework policy announced by interim City Manager Jesús Garza in May, the implementation of which was later delayed until January... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Fallen Austin police officer Jorge Pastore to be honored during procession, funeral (Austin American-Statesman)

The funeral for Jorge "George" Pastore, the Austin SWAT officer who was killed this past weekend after a firefight at a South Austin home, will take place Friday morning.

Pastore, 38, was killed by a gunman who police said barricaded himself in a house after killing his mother and brother and stabbing someone else who managed to escape and call 911.

Police invited all emergency vehicles to join a procession across the city to the Circuit of the Americas, where Pastore's visitation and funeral are set to take place afterward. Thousands of people are expected to line the streets to watch the procession.

The procession is set to start at 8 a.m. at Weed Corley Fish Funeral Home in West Austin and travel north on MoPac Expressway to Highway 183 and south on Interstate 35 before winding through downtown Austin. It will then return to I-35 and travel east on Texas 71, ultimately arriving at Circuit of the Americas… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin ISD posts superintendent position; signals possible inside choice (KXAN)

 In a sign that it is ready to move forward with choosing a new leader for the district, the Board of Trustees for the Austin Independent School District unanimously voted Thursday night to post the job of superintendent.

It also unanimously voted to add the following to the superintendent job profile:

• prioritization of special education, with specific references to inclusive practices

• a focus placed on multilingual education

• more emphasis on staff morale

• an equality statement on gender identity and sexual orientation

The board voted to post the position from Friday, Nov. 17 until 5 p.m., Dec. 7.

AISD Board President Arati Singh said the board faced two options: a months-long national search or an immediate posting if they felt that a search was not necessary.

According to the district, school boards generally choose the latter option when they have a strong candidate in mind.

The Board of Trustees paused the current superintendent search Mar. 30 and extended the contract of Interim Superintendent Matias Segura through June 30, 2024… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

School voucher bill to reach Texas House floor Friday for potentially pivotal vote (Texas Tribune)

After years of work from advocates and months of arm-twisting in the state Capitol, the Texas House appears poised to vote on the creation of a school voucher program Friday.

House Bill 1, authored by Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Killeen, is the lower chamber's $7 billion wide-ranging education proposal that would create education savings accounts, a voucher-like program that would allow parents access to taxpayer money to pay for private schools. The House is set to convene at 10 a.m. Friday and will take up the bill at some point.

The bill passed a House committee on Nov. 10 and its initial approval marked the furthest a school voucher program has reached in the Texas House in recent history. In fact, it’s possible a school voucher bill has never made it to a floor vote in the House, according to legislative records — though an exact determination is difficult given that the Legislature has considered different forms of school voucher programs since the 1950s.

HB 1 also includes billions of dollars worth of new funding for public schools to sweeten the deal for House members — both rural Republicans and Democrats — who have traditionally stood in the way of school vouchers in Texas. But there will likely be attempts on the floor Friday to strip vouchers from the bill and pass a measure that increases school funding without education savings accounts… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

After $1.8 billion verdict in National Association of Real Estate lawsuit, Texas gets its own version (D Magazine)

Last month, a Missouri court found the National Association of Realtors and two brokerage firms liable for $1.8 billion in damages related to how its members collected commissions. Two North Texas companies have now filed a similar suit against the Texas Association of Realtors. The suit, which also names the real estate associations in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio, was filed on Monday by Granbury-based QJ Homes LLC and Dallas-based Five Points Holdings LLC. It also names a handful of other local brokerages or their parent companies, including Dave Perry-Miller and Associates and Ebby Halliday Realtors. In October, a Missouri court found that NAR conspired to artificially inflate real estate agent commissions. Homeservices of America and Keller Williams Realty were co-defendants in the suit. However, Re/Max and Anywhere Real Estate were also initially named in the lawsuit before settling out of court.

At the heart of the Texas and NAR suits is the practice of paying real estate agents commissions when they help a customer buy or sell a property. Typically, 3 percent of the sale goes to the buyer’s agent, and another 3 percent goes to the seller’s agent. The NAR suit alleged that the organization forces home sellers to pay those commissions as a condition of having their home listed in the local Multiple Listing Service, which is only accessible to real estate brokerages. The use of the MLS and other tactics, plaintiffs argued, restricted price competition to ensure that each real estate agent continued to collect 3 percent for each transaction.

“This conspiracy centers around the enforcement of an anticompetitive restraint that compels home sellers to provide an inflated fee to the broker representing the buyer of their properties, thus violating federal antitrust regulations,” the North Texas suit says. While it names NAR a conspirator, it does not list the organization as a co-defendant. The suit also says that brokerages and real estate agents are under pressure to join NAR and conform to its practices as a prerequisite for doing business. Part of those practices, it says, requires home sellers to pay a commission that the home buyer should pay… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

In Houston’s mayoral contests, the first-place finisher has won every runoff since 1977 (Houston Chronicle)

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is trying to do something no Houston mayor has done in 46 years: flip the result between a general election and a runoff. Jim McConn last achieved the feat in 1977, erasing a 9.9-point deficit in the first round to win a “stunning” victory, as the Chronicle described it at the time. The top finisher in Houston’s last 20 mayoral elections, though, either has won outright or gone on to win a runoff. The historical trend is one of several obstacles that Jackson Lee, who trailed state Sen. John Whitmire by 6.9 percentage points in November’s contest, must overcome to become mayor.

The congresswoman also faces a steep financial deficit and ominous poll numbers. If turnout drops by 20%, that would leave the runoff up to about 201,000 voters. That means Whitmire’s 107,000 voters would be enough to carry him to victory if they all showed up in December. The senator’s primary focus likely will be ensuring as many of them return as possible.

Jackson Lee will be focused on trying to maintain or drive up turnout in areas where she performed well. And the congresswoman, who garnered 90,000 votes in the first round, will have to try to persuade new voters to increase her share and erode Whitmire’s. Turnout in her strongholds was down significantly compared to 2015, and there are fewer avenues to win over new voters. Jackson Lee performed best in City Council Districts B and D, which have the highest concentration of Black residents.

The congresswoman won 75% and 68% of votes there, respectively. But 8,230 fewer voters from those districts voted this fall when compared to 2015, a drop of about 17%. She netted 21,000 more votes than Whitmire there, whereas Mayor Sylvester Turner’s edge over Bill King was 31,000 votes in 2015. And while 43% of voters picked a candidate that did not make the runoff in 2015, the share of newly unaffiliated voters is about half that entering this year’s runoff: just 22%. “I think she makes up the difference by increasing turnout. She’s got to get more turnout from her voters than she did in the first round,” Sims said. “The turnout was just so low in her core precincts.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Biden signs temporary spending bill averting government shutdown, pushing budget fight into new year (Associated Press)

President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a temporary spending bill a day before a potential government shutdown, pushing a fight with congressional Republicans over the federal budget into the new year, as wartime aid for Ukraine and Israel remains stalled.

The measure passed the House and Senate by wide bipartisan margins this week, ensuring the government remains open until after the holiday season, and potentially giving lawmakers more time to sort out their considerable differences over government spending levels for the current fiscal year. Biden signed the bill in San Francisco, where he is hosting the summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation economies… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

In Michigan, where every vote counts, Arab Americans are turning away from Biden (NPR)

Michigan's large Arab American and Muslim American populations turned out big for Biden in 2020, helping him clinch the battleground and solidify his win over Trump for the presidency. AP reported that 64% of Muslims nationwide supported Biden in 2020, while 35% supported Trump. And in heavily Arab American counties in Michigan, voters went for Biden by a little less than 70%.

Biden's margin of victory in Michigan was 154,000 votes. The state is home to more than 200,000 registered voters who are Muslim and 300,000 people claim ancestry from the Middle East and North Africa. Michigan's Arab American population includes Muslims and Christians, along with recent immigrants and families whose ancestors arrived in the late 1800s alike.

But the Israel-Hamas war is throwing the support of Michigan's large Arab American population into doubt for Democrats.

Because they feel the White House is disproportionately supporting Israel at the cost of the lives of Palestinians, leaders in Muslim American communities have been encouraging others to not put Biden down on their ballot in 2024.

"They are being instructed that Biden is the issue here, that he is forming the policy and that the blood is on his hands," said Nazita Lajevardi, a political scientist at Michigan State University who studies both attitudes towards Muslims in the U.S. as well as Muslim-American public opinion. They are also consuming Arab media publications and social media posts where Lajevardi says the message is "The way to end this type of atrocity is to vote him out of office."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Senate Republicans get ready to roll Tuberville on military holds (The Hill)

Republican senators are laying the groundwork to vote before Christmas on a Democratic-drafted resolution to circumvent the blockade that Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R) has placed in front of more than 400 military nominees. 

Republican frustrations with Tuberville and his ally, Senate Steering Committee Chairman Mike Lee (R-Utah), spilled into public view again early Thursday morning in yet another sign of tension between pro-defense GOP lawmakers and conservative populists. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a prominent Senate defense hawk, said that he will be ready to vote for a resolution to change Senate procedure and allow Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to bring hundreds of military promotions to the floor to be confirmed en bloc if Tuberville doesn’t cut a deal to break the backlog by Christmas.  

“I promise you this. This will be the last holiday this happens,” Graham told Tuberville on the Senate floor, referring to the uncertainty faced by the group of military officers heading into Thanksgiving… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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