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BG Reads Weekend Edition
BG Reads Weekend Edition (10.13.2024)
BG Reads Week in Review
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>>> See also, Austin City Council Regular Meeting Agenda (10.24.2024) <<<
Item 47 Discussion and possible action to ratify a proposed five-year Meet and Confer Agreement with the Austin Police Association relating to wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment for police officers of the Austin Police Department.
Top Clicks for the Week of October 7, 2024
WEEKEND NEWS
Judge reportedly strikes down Texas law that Ken Paxton frequently uses to investigate companies and nonprofits (Texas Tribune)
Attorney General Ken Paxton can’t use a state statute that he repeatedly relies on to scrutinize various companies and nonprofits — including an El Paso migrant shelter network and a nonprofit focused on increasing Latinos’ civic participation — after a federal magistrate judge on Friday ruled the tool unconstitutional, according to Bloomberg Law.
Judge Mark Lane of the Western District of Texas verbally granted a permanent injunction stopping Paxton using what’s called a “request to examine” to probe myriad practices. The ruling stemmed from a lawsuit filed by Spirit AeroSystems, Inc., a Boeing 737 jets manufacturer that received such a request from Paxton earlier this year requiring the company to produce a variety of documents.
Spirit challenged the constitutionality of Texas’ request to examine statute because it requires recipients to “immediately permit” the attorney general to inspect its records, without an opportunity for precompliance judicial review of the request — in violation of the right to freedom from unreasonable search or seizure that’s granted by the Fourth and 14th Amendments of the Constitution. Lane agreed.
“This call for me is easy,” Lane said at a hearing Friday, according to Bloomberg Law… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas students can now see which state public universities would accept them before they apply (Texas Tribune)
Texas high school students will now be able to see which of the state’s public universities would accept them based on their credentials before they fill out a college application, state leaders announced Friday.
The new tool, called Direct Admissions, is meant to streamline the college application process and remove some of the challenges that can make students hesitant to apply, higher education officials say.
“Direct Admissions has the potential to reduce time, boost confidence, and increase transparency, encouraging Texans who might not otherwise consider college to take the next step,” Interim Commissioner of Higher Education Sarah Keyton said in a press release.
Students can plug their class rank, grade point average, and standardized test scores into the state’s college and career website, My Texas Future, to get a list of the participating universities to which they’d be accepted. Students can access the information starting at the end of their junior year of high school… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
This proud liberal city is throwing out its entire government (Politico)
Few American cities faced as much chaos as Portland over the last four years. This proudly liberal city has endured more than 100 days of often-violent protests, a fentanyl and homelessness crisis, a pandemic — and, in arguably the nation’s boldest progressive policy experiment in recent history — decriminalization of all drugs.
This November, Portland is undertaking one more chaotic act.
In a sign of either hope or desperation, Rose City voters decided to throw out their entire government structure and replace it with a weaker mayor, expanded City Council and ranked choice voting.
A major driving factor was the passage of “Measure 110” decriminalizing all drugs in 2020, which was backed by 74 percent of Multnomah County’s residents. Voters couldn’t — or at least didn’t — anticipate how this policy change would reshape a city already strapped for money, dealing with a public health crisis and confronting rising rates of homelessness and fentanyl abuse.
Drug use shot up, homelessness worsened and taxpayers fled… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
North Carolina hoped for a nice, normal election. Helene had other plans. (Wall Street Journal)
Flooded voting sites. Stranded poll workers. Absentee ballots washed away in mailboxes. Election officials face unprecedented challenges after Hurricane Helene ravaged towns in the South.
It is a nightmare scenario, especially in the swing state of North Carolina. Almost 1.3 million voters live in the hardest-hit parts of the state, many of them unaffiliated voters who could help determine the election. Helene cut off rural communities in the mountainous area last month, washing away homes and killing dozens. In some neighborhoods, power might not be restored for months. Hurricane Milton smashed through Florida on Wednesday evening, compounding the damage on densely populated areas still recovering from Helene.
North Carolina officials don’t know exactly how they’ll pull off the election in just a few weeks. They are throwing together backup plans before in-person early voting starts on Oct. 17.
“A week before all this happened, I was thinking how nice this was we might have a normal election after the Covid and all that,” said Polk County Elections Director Cliff Marr. “Then this happened.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
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