MRT: Federal Court Revives Free Speech Lawsuit Against UT; Kamala Harris to Visit FW, McAllen, Houston on Fri; CD-23 Remains Tight; RIP Billy Joe Shaver
Here's What You Need to Know in Texas Today.
MustReadTexas.com – @MustReadTexas
BY: @MattMackowiak
THURSDAY – 10/29/20
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ELECTION COUNTDOWN:
There are 5 days until Election Day.
Early voting is NOW UNDERWAY.
TOP NEWS
"Federal court revives free speech lawsuit against UT,"The Austin American-Statesman's Madlin Mekelburg -- "A lawsuit challenging the University of Texas over policies relating to speech can move forward after the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday held that the group has legal standing to pursue its case.
Speech First, a national group that offers to sue schools over censorship, filed suit against UT in late 2018 over university policies that the group said are restrictive and violate students’ First Amendment rights to free speech.
Specifically, the lawsuit argued that university policies on nondiscrimination and those prohibiting certain behaviors do not clearly define what constitutes violations, which has deterred students from speaking out on certain topics for fear of being reported.
U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel dismissed the case in 2019, stating that the group could not demonstrate that any individual had been harmed by the university’s policies.
Speech First appealed his decision to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which opted on Wednesday to send the case back to district court for consideration.
Judge Edith H. Jones wrote on behalf of the appeals court that the initial decision to dismiss the case “was mistaken.”" Austin American-Statesman
"Outlaw country artist Billy Joe Shaver dead at 81,"AP'sKristen Hall -- "Outlaw country singer songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, who wrote songs like “Honky Tonk Heroes,” “I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train” and “Old Five and Dimers Like Me,” has died He was 81.
His friend Connie Nelson said he died Wednesday in Texas following a stroke.
Born in Corsicana, Texas, Shaver was among the original group of outlaw country artists in the early ’70s, penning songs for Waylon Jennings, Bobby Bare, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall and Willie Nelson.
Shaver’s lyrics reflected his hardscrabble upbringing in Texas, where he lost part of two fingers while working at a lumber mill. He came to Nashville in 1968 and was signed as a writer to Bare’s publishing company.
His big break came when Jennings recorded several of Shaver’s songs for his 1973 album “Honky Tonk Heroes,” which helped popularize the outlaw country genre and turn the maverick country artists into legends.
“There weren’t another other way to be/For lovable losers, no account boozers/And honky tonk heroes like me,” Shaver wrote in the title track.
“When Waylon did ‘Honky Tonk Heroes’ and all those songs in the early 1970s, I couldn’t have possibly sang those songs as he could. The songs were bigger than my talent as a singer and I knew that, too,” Shaver told The Associated Press in 1993.
Shaver wrote songs that were covered by Elvis Presley, Patty Loveless, George Jones, Tex Ritter, Tennessee Ernie Ford and John Anderson.
Anderson had a No. 4 country hit with Shaver’s “I’m Just an Old Chunk of Coal,” and Johnny Rodriquez took Shaver’s song, “I Couldn’t Be Me Without You,” to No. 3 on the country chart. He wrote “Willie the Wandering Gypsy and Me” about Nelson, who was such a fan that Shaver was often invited to play at his annual Fourth of July picnics.
Other songs he wrote include ″Ride Me Down Easy,” “Live Forever,” and “Jesus Was Our Savior (Cotton Was Our King).”
But he didn’t just write about heartfelt lyrics about hardened men, he lived the outlaw life as well. At the age of 70, he was acquitted of aggravated assault in the 2007 shooting of a man at a Waco bar. Shaver contended he shot the man in self defense.
His debut album in 1973 was produced by Kristofferson and he put out over 20 records over his career. His last record was released in 2014.
He was well respected by his peers, including Nelson, who considered him one of the best songwriters in Texas, and Bob Dylan, who name-checked him in a song and would do covers of “Old Five and Dimers Like Me” in concert.
He received the Americana Music Award for Lifetime Achievement in Songwriting in 2002, and was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004. He was given the Academy of Country Music’s Poet’s Award last year." AP
STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
"Developer linked to Texas AG Ken Paxton says loan holders, judge conspired to steal his properties,"The Dallas Morning News' Allie Morris and Lauren McGaughy -- "Nate Paul, the real estate developer at the center of new criminal allegations against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, has accused several people, including a federal judge, of orchestrating a vast criminal conspiracy to steal his properties.
Paul requested an investigation into unsubstantiated claims that 11 people, including loan holders, lawyers and a federal bankruptcy judge, were scheming to seize millions of dollars in real estate equity, according to a document The Dallas Morning News obtained Wednesday.
The allegations apparently were passed on to an outside lawyer Paxton hired to investigate Paul’s concerns, according to an invoice obtained by The News.
The new details raise more questions about Paxton’s alleged use of the resources and power of his position to help Paul, a friend and campaign donor. Paxton personally intervened several times this year in a range of matters that involved or helped Paul — prompting seven senior agency staffers to accuse Paxton of wrongdoing." Dallas Morning News
2020
"Kamala Harris to visit Fort Worth, McAllen, and Houston on Friday,"The Houston Chronicle's Jeremy Wallace -- "Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris will makes stops in Fort Worth and McAllen before coming to Houston on Friday, Joe Biden’s campaign has confirmed.
More details on exact locations and times have not been released, but the campaign confirmed that they are adding a stop in McAllen along the Texas border in an effort to drive up turnout in one of the state’s most reliably blue regions.
“Senator Harris visiting this late in the game shows the significance of Texas and is the game-changer Texas Democrats need to put us over the top,” state Democratic officials said in a statement released Wednesday.
Statewide, Texas already has 48 percent turnout in voting just based off early voting and mail-in ballots. But in the border counties, turnout is running well behind. In Hidalgo County, where McAllen is located, about 40 percent have already voted. In neighboring Cameron County, about 37 percent have voted. And further west in Webb County, just 28 percent have turned out so far.
Harris’s visit marks the first time in 30 years a Democratic presidential ticket has campaigned in Texas this close to Election Day.
Republicans say Democrats are dreaming if they think Biden can win the state. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry earlier this week called the Democratic Party’s ambition of winning Texas a pipe dream and said he’d encourage President Donald Trump to focus his time and resources on true battleground states.
“The president doesn’t need to be in Texas,” Perry said. “He’s going to carry Texas, I think, rather handily.”
But Trump’s Texas campaign chairman, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, said on Tuesday that he now believes it will be a closer race than he first predicted. Patrick told KXAN-TV in Austin that he thinks Trump’s win in Texas could be as close as 4 percentage points. For most of the year, he was predicting Trump would win Texas by more than the 9 percentage points he won it by in 2016 over Hillary Clinton.
Public polls have shown the race close. A Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed Trump and Biden both with 47 percent of the vote in Texas." Houston Chronicle
"John Cornyn embarks on final reelection sprint as late Democratic spending crests in U.S. Senate race,"The Texas Tribune's Patrick Svitek -- "U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, began the final push of his reelection campaign Wednesday, embarking on a statewide bus tour as a wave of late Democratic outside spending continued to rush into the race.
After early voting in the morning in Austin, Cornyn told reporters that the 11th-hour spending surge is the "thing that worries me the most" about his reelection bid at this point, calling it "unusual" and predicting his side will be "outspent by more than 2 to 1." Appearing hours later here for the bus tour's first stop, Cornyn rallied the crowd with warnings that allies of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and "Silicon Valley billionaires" are scrambling to turn Texas into California and New York.
“Do you think they did that because they want Texas to be exceptional? Because they share our values?" Cornyn said. "Absolutely not, absolutely not."
While Cornyn has maintained varying single-digit leads in recent polls, the contest is reaching a volatile finish as Democratic outside groups make a late play to unseat him. Senate Majority PAC, the top Democratic super PAC in the fight for Senate control, launched an $8.6 million TV ad buy against Cornyn two weeks ago, and it has since been joined in a major way by another super PAC, Future Forward, which has poured $11.3 million into the race." Texas Tribune
"Sen. John Cornyn 'backs the blue' in Houston as challenger MJ Hegar rakes in $3.6M,"The Houston Chronicle's Benjamin Wermund -- "U.S. Sen. John Cornyn took his bus tour of Texas to Houston on Wednesday as he makes his final pitch to voters, and to deliver a message.
“I’m here to say, I back the blue,” Cornyn, a former state attorney general and supreme court justice, said during an event with Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dennis Bonnen at the Houston Police Officers Union. “Anything you need that we can provide, we’re here to do that.”
Cornyn brought up his Democratic challenger MJ Hegar, a decorated combat veteran, multiple times — noting her support for Campaign Zero, an organization advocating policing reforms, and saying she believes law enforcement is a matter of local control as the state leaders threatened to take over policing in Austin, where the city council earlier this year voted to shift funding away from the police department.
“We’re going to fight to defend our state and our values against those who want to change how we relate to our law enforcement officers and the respect we show to them every day,” Cornyn said. “It’s part of a national movement. It doesn’t emanate from here, but it affects our great state.”
Hegar, meanwhile, was holding a Zoom call with Republicans who say they’ve been betrayed by their party and are fed up with Cornyn. Among them was Murray Newman, a former Harris County prosecutor who said he’s voted for Cornyn “every time he’s run” because he was the Republican candidate on the ballot.
“Not out of an abundance of love for him, but because he was there,” Newman said. “We can do better.”
“John Cornyn prides himself on being a former prosecutor. I can tell you that all prosecutors are taught their job is to seek justice,” said Newman. “All I’ve seen John Cornyn seek is re-election and the approval of a president who is devoid of compassion, coherence or character.”
The final stretch of what is likely to be the three-term senator’s closest race has Cornynand his challenger hitting familiar notes. Cornyn has positioned himself throughout the race as a steady hand in D.C. who can get things done for Texans, while framing Hegar as “too liberal.” Like many Republicans from President Donald Trump down the ballot, Cornyn’s campaign has featured a heavy dose of the law-and-order theme that was on display in Houston on Wednesday.
Hegar, in turn, has railed on Cornyn for being “gutless” and ineffective in his 18 years in Washington. She’s sought to tie him to Trump, especially when it comes to the coronavirus." Houston Chronicle
"Always a battleground, never a landslide: Texas’ 23rd Congressional District stays competitive despite state’s political shifts,"The Texas Tribune's Patrick Svitek -- "The Texas congressional battlefield has grown dramatically this election cycle, but one thing has not really changed: The 23rd District remains an all-out brawl until the end.
With less than a week until the election, the sprawling 23rd District along the Texas-Mexico border is holding true to its perennial reputation as a hypercompetitive district in November. It’s a reputation that had seemed to fade as Democrats expanded their Texas offensive elsewhere; expressed surefire confidence that the seat was theirs with the retirement of U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes; and watched as Republicans suffered a seemingly never-ending nominating process.
No one is claiming the contest between Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones and Republican Tony Gonzales will not be close, but the mood around the race has evolved.
“At the beginning of the cycle, in a Republican open seat in a district that Hillary Clinton carried, [it] looked like it would top the Democratic takeover target list,” said Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections. “But as the cycle has evolved, I think it’s clear this district is set to host yet another close race. That’s what this district does — it has close races.”
Inside Elections recently shifted its rating of the race in Republicans’ favor, from “Lean Democratic” to “Tilt Democratic” — a rare development as Texas’ battlefield has mostly trended Democratic throughout the cycle. Jones’ campaign fundraised off the ratings change Wednesday, emailing supporters that the 23rd is the “MOST competitive district in the entire country” and warning that “as each day passes, this race is only getting closer.”
Both sides say TV ad spending has been consistent with a dogfight to the finish. Rather than retrench as Democrats spend more heavily elsewhere in Texas, the National Republican Congressional Committee has only expanded its buy in the 23rd District, disclosing another $1.5 million Tuesday." Texas Tribune
"Growing Asian American population could help sway the 2020 election,"The Houston Chronicle's Anna Bauman -- "Nhat Nguyen stood Sunday morning on a sidewalk on Bellaire Boulevard with a bullhorn in one hand and phone in the other. “Go Trump!” he shouted while live-streaming to Facebook a parade of honking cars bedecked in Trump flags. Trucks blasted music from open windows as they cruised through southwest Houston’s Little Saigon neighborhood.
The previous afternoon, a socially-distanced group stood on a wide lawn just blocks away listening to speakers decry the president’s handling of the pandemic, call for unity and demand for respect. Busy traffic rushed past as the group walked alongside a strip mall of Vietnamese cafes, chanting and clutching signs for Joe Biden.
The Houston metropolitan area is home to a significant population of Vietnamese refugees, many with conservative values who see President Donald Trump as a strong anti-Communist leader. But the Vietnamese American community is splintering along generational lines as new voices herald more progressive views that align with the broader Asian American community — an often overlooked contingent of voters who political experts say could sway Tuesday’s presidential election.
“I think Asian Americans ultimately provide a blue edge in Texas,” said Janelle Wong, a University of Maryland professor and senior researcher at Asian American Pacific Islander Data, a policy research group that co-published in September an Asian American voter survey.
Asian Americans, the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the U.S. electorate, represent a powerful political force. As the population has boomed across Texas and in the Houston area, so too has the number of eligible voters — a historically “untapped source of electorate power,” said Steven Wu, a board member at OCA-Greater Houston, a nonpartisan civic advocacy group.
This year, although most Asian American voters in the September Asian voter survey reported little to no contact from presidential campaigns, the Trump and Biden camps each have stepped up efforts to court those communities.
“Both are recognizing Texas is in play — and that Asian American voters could be the reason why they win the state,” Wu said.
In a tight race that could be clinched on the margins, Democrats are hopeful that high turnout from Asian Americans could be the deciding vote for their candidate’s victory. The recent AAPI Data national poll shows 54% of Asian American voters planned to support Biden while 30% said they prefer Trump.
“We will be the swing vote. We will be what carries Joe Biden across the finish line in Texas,” said state representative Gene Wu during a Saturday rally in Bellaire. “Something people have said could never be possible — our community will make it possible.”
Meanwhile, Texas Republicans are working to get out the vote for Trump. James Tang, former president of the Texas Asian Republican Club, said the group’s roughly 100 Houston-area members have been phone-banking, donating and rallying in the run-up to the election.
“Being a Republican and a supporter of Trump, I would like to do everything I can to influence my fellow Asian Americans in that direction,” the 72-year-old said, listing jobs, the energy sector and law-and-order as his top issues. “I’d like to see him have a second term and continue the good work that he’s been doing for us the past four years. If we can get enough support, we will be able to help him win this election.”
Asian American Pacific Islanders account for 5.5% of the Texas electorate with 795,600 eligible voters — a number that has climbed 20% since the last presidential election and jumped 46% between 2012 and 2018, according to a nonpartisan civic engagement group called Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote.
Asian Americans make up roughly 6% of eligible voters in Harris County and 17% of eligible voters in neighboring Fort Bend County, according to APIA Vote." Houston Chronicle
"Texas voters won't be required to wear masks while voting after appeals court temporarily lets Abbott order stand,"The Texas Tribune's Jolie McCullough -- "A requirement that Texans wear face masks when casting ballots during the pandemic lasted less than a day after a federal appeals court halted an order that would have compelled voters to don the coverings.
On Wednesday, the three-judge appellate panel stopped, at least for now, a district judge's Tuesday ruling that invalidated an exemption for polling places included in Gov. Greg Abbott's statewide mask mandate. The panel granted what's known as an administrative stay, which only stops the ruling from taking effect while the court considers whether it will issue an order to nullify it during the entire appeals process.
The governor’s mandate for Texans to cover their mouths and noses in public does not apply to polling places, an exclusion that has been challenged as discriminatory against Black and Latino voters who are more likely to be harmed by the coronavirus. Abbott has previously said he encourages voters to wear a face mask, but said he excluded polling places from his mandate to prevent people from being turned away from voting just because they don’t have a mask. Under Abbott’s order, poll workers are also not required to wear masks.
In his temporary ruling issued Tuesday night, U.S. District Judge Jason Pulliam said the exemption “creates a discriminatory burden on Black and Latino voters.”
Abbott and Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs immediately sought an appeal at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which granted the administrative stay Wednesday evening. The Harris County Clerk's Office, anticipating the appeals court's ruling, said earlier Wednesday that it had continued its policy of strongly encouraging, but not requiring, masks at the polls to avoid voter confusion.
The argument for a mask mandate at the polls was first raised in a much broader lawsuit filed against Abbott and the Texas secretary of state in July by Mi Familia Vota, the Texas National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and two Texas voters. The plaintiffs also sought things like a month of early voting, the opening of additional polling places and a suspension of rules that limit who can vote curbside without entering a polling place.
Pulliam, based in San Antonio, had dismissed the lawsuit in September, with Texas having convinced him that the sweeping changes sought to the state’s rules for in-person voting during the pandemic were outside of his jurisdiction as a federal judge. But earlier this month, with early voting already underway, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals punted the case back to Pulliam for him to again review the argument for an across-the-board mask mandate for anyone at a polling place.
The appeals court said that if Pulliam found that Abbott’s decision to not require masks at the polls violated the federal Voting Rights Act’s disallowance of discriminatory voting practices based on race, he would have jurisdiction to order changes.
“Black and Latino Texans … are more likely to become infected and more likely to suffer severe illness or to die of COVID-19. Black and Latino voters in Texas also face longer lines at the polls, increasing their risk of transmission by exposing them to crowds of other voters and poll workers,” the plaintiffs wrote in their renewed argument before Pulliam last week. “Under these conditions, Black and Latino voters must choose between not voting or risking their lives or the lives of their loved ones to vote. White voters do not face the same level of risk.”
The Texas attorney general’s office countered that the majority of states are not requiring masks at polling places and argued that the new legal fight over a potential Voting Rights Act violation is happening too late — after more than 7 million Texans have already cast ballots since early voting began on Oct. 13.
“Texas is on track to smash its prior turnout record, even during the pandemic and in counties with large minority populations,” the state’s filing said."
After the district judge voided Abbott's exemption, in effect requiring masks at polls, the plaintiffs said it was a "tremendous victory for democracy."
"The Judge has already been vindicated, as last night we received reports of polling officials in Texas testing positive for the coronavirus, and other polling places being required to close down because of sick poll workers," said Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP, in a statement. "And, this past weekend, we received reports of poll watchers who were using their maskless presence to approach and intimidate minority voters."" Texas Tribune
TEXANS IN DC
"Cruz and FEC fight over whether donors can repay $10,000 he loaned his 2018 campaign against O’Rourke,"The Dallas Morning News' Todd Gillman -- "The day before he won reelection by the skin of his teeth two years ago, Sen. Ted Cruz borrowed against his personal investment account and put $260,000 into the final push against Beto O’Rourke.
Under federal campaign law, candidates have 20 days after the election to collect donations usable to repay personal loans to their campaigns. After that, they can only recoup $250,000.
Cruz wants his other $10,000, and he was in federal court Wednesday challenging the cap, which he argues infringes on free speech rights.
In April 2019, Cruz and his campaign sued the Federal Election Commission, hoping to overturn the part of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, signed by President George W. Bush, that sets the cap on loan repayments.
The FEC argues that the provision ensures that winners can’t shake down donors, and that donors can’t curry favor by lining the pockets of a candidate they know will be in office for the next few years.
“If what you’re looking for is influence or access, you’re not certain you’ll get it before the election. After the election, there’s some greater certainty,” Judge Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said at one point in the hearing, according to the National Law Journal." Dallas Morning News
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
"Lawsuit says census takers were pressured to falsify data,"AP's Mike Schneider -- "The U.S. Census Bureau was able to claim it had reached 99.9% of households when the 2020 census ended two weeks ago because census takers were pressured to falsify data as the statistical agency cut corners and slashed standards, according to an amended lawsuit from advocacy groups and local governments.
In Baltimore, Southern California and the states of Massachusetts, North Carolina and Texas, some households were marked as completed after only one attempt to reach residents living there, according to the revised lawsuit filed by the National Urban League; the city of San Jose, California; and others.
Elsewhere, census takers were pressured by supervisors to close cases as quickly as possible, and they did this by guessing the number of people living in a household, claiming an address was too dangerous to visit or falsely saying residents of a household had refused to answer questions during door-knocking, said the lawsuit filed in federal court in San Jose.
“Instructions such as those identified above suggested to enumerators that they should falsify data to close cases quickly,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit argues the disregard for accuracy was done to end the count early so that census numbers could be processed while President Donald Trump was still in the White House, regardless of who wins the presidential race. That would allow the Trump administration to enforce a presidential order seeking to exclude people living in the U.S. illegally when congressional seats are divvied up among the states.
According to the lawsuit, the Census Bureau also relied heavily on methods other than directly interviewing households during its door-knocking phase in order to achieve its high completion rate. Those less accurate methods relied on administrative records like IRS returns, interviewing neighbors or landlords and just getting a head count rather than getting details about residents’ race, sex, age, Hispanic origin and relationship to each other, the lawsuit said.
In the race to finish field operations for the 2020 census, “Defendants cut many corners and made decisions that do not bear a reasonable relationship to the accomplishment of an actual enumeration,” the amended complaint said. “Such non-direct enumeration methods are less accurate and have a profound effect on immigrants and minorities — the hard-to-count populations.”
The revised lawsuit was filed late Tuesday, two weeks after the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration and suspended an order from a district judge allowing the head count to continue through the end of the month. The coalition of local governments and advocacy groups had sued the Trump administration to keep the count from ending a month early and to extend the deadline for turning in apportionment numbers from Dec. 31 to the end of April 2021." AP
REMAINDERS
DALLAS COWBOYS: "Cowboys release DT Poe amid shakeup of disappointing defense" AP
HOUSTON ROCKETS: "AP sources: Rockets hiring Stephen Silas to replace D'Antoni" AP
FC DALLAS: "Hollingshead scores in 82nd, FC Dallas beats Inter Miami 2-1" AP
NASCAR: "Kyle Busch wins rain-delayed NASCAR playoff race in Texas" AP
BAYLOR WOMEN'S BASKETBALL: "Baylor seniors injured in practice collision" AP
'MACK ON POLITICS' PODCAST
LATEST "MACK ON POLITICS" PODCAST:The 2020 presidential race is the subject of our 260th episode.
Our returning guest is Brad Todd, Republican ad maker and co-author of “The Great Revolt”.
In this conversation, we discuss whether Trump can win, the battle for the suburbs, the electoral map, the state of polling, key Senate races, one possible scenario and whether populism is here to stay.
Available on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher and on the web at http://www.MackOnPoliticsPodcast.com.
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