Grading Texas

Some of you may recall that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton misused his office two years ago to try to intimidate educators from actively supporting pro-public education candidates in state elections. He failed then, but he is at it again now, on a larger and, in the current pandemic, a potentially deadly scale.

You may not be thinking about voting yet because you have more pressing needs at present: keeping yourself and your family safe from the coronavirus and, if you are an educator, adjusting to distance learning. But because of the coronavirus and its devastating effect on our economy, this election cycle, especially the general election in November, is extremely critical, and that is why Paxton is trying to suppress voter turnout again. And he is not alone.

Partly because of the premature political reopening of Texas and other states, health experts are warning that the pandemic may still be posing a serious health threat in July and even in November, the next times Texans go to the polls. This is why many Texans (63 percent, according to a recent poll) are concerned about voting in person and would like to have the option of voting by mail. But Paxton, with the obvious support of Gov. Greg Abbott and other state Republican leaders, says no and is fighting the mail-in alternative in court.

Many states make wide use of mail-in ballots. But under Texas law, you can get a mail-in ballot only if you are older than 65, are a member of the military, have a medical condition that makes voting in person dangerous or impossible or will be away from your home county during the early voting period and on Election Day.

In a lawsuit brought by the Texas Democratic Party, a state district judge in Austin ruled that the medical condition provision applied to people who were concerned that voting in person would put them at risk of contracting the coronavirus and endangering their health. He said anyone who felt that way could legally apply for a mail-in ballot.

But Paxton is appealing that judge’s order and has warned local election officials of “criminal sanctions” if they advise voters to seek mail-in ballots. As far as Paxton is concerned, let educators and other voters who want to exercise their constitutional right to vote put their health and maybe even their lives at risk.

Paxton is following President Trump’s lead. Trump has said publicly that he expects to lose reelection if too many people vote.  If too many people start voting by mail during this pandemic, he said, “all of a sudden you lose elections you think you’re going to win.”

Paxton doesn’t want educators, health care advocates and other Texans who value public services to vote for president or in this year’s legislative races. The legislative winners, when they convene in January, will deal with a huge revenue shortfall because of the millions upon millions of tax dollars being lost during this pandemic.

The lower the voter turnout, the greater the likelihood of electing legislators who will attack education and health care budgets with chain saws, rather than writing new budgets based on serious thought about the future of public education in Texas and the critical needs of millions of Texans. Being an ideologue, Paxton prefers chain saws to serious thought – or serious, capable leadership, in Austin and at the highest level of government.

Clay Robison

Weighing the health and safety of 29 million Texans during this deadly pandemic with the economic needs of millions (many in the service industry) who have lost their jobs obviously is not easy for the governor. Throw in the political desire to appease the scorched earth supporters of President Trump, whose overriding concern during this national emergency is his own reelection, and the task becomes almost impossible.

It also is a lot easier to second-guess the governor’s decisions than to make them, but reopening restaurants to on-premises dining and movie theaters to viewers, even at reduced capacity, is scary. About the time the governor was making his announcement on Thursday, the coronavirus count in Texas was 25,297 cases, 663 deaths and rising.

One of the best summations I have seen so far is from a restaurant owner in Dallas, who is not sure when he will reopen but is sure he won’t be reopening on Friday.

“Who doesn’t find this to be hasty,” the restaurateur told The Dallas Morning News. “We can take all the precautions in the world, but you can’t eat with a mask on. You can’t drink wine with a mask on.”

He added: “And if we’re going to be putting people into small spaces with enclosed dining rooms and air conditioning systems – it’s been shown that that’s where (the coronavirus) spreads — statistically it’s a certainty that at some point somebody is going to walk through those doors, and they’re going to have it (the coronavirus), and one of my staff is going to get sick, and then what do we do?”

Or another diner – or handful of diners – gets sick, and on and on.

Then what do we do, governor? Good question.

From my perspective, Gov. Abbott has been wrong on numerous public policies. This time, though, I really hope he is right. But I am not betting my health on it. I am not eating out.

Clay Robison

Reopening states too early will bring deadlier outcomes, coronavirus projection models show

The pension sharks are back, and once again – if you are an educator or public employee – they are circling your retirement income, drawn to your nest egg like four-legged predators are to blood. They love the smell of your money, they want some of it and the coronavirus pandemic has stirred them up.

Replacing the defined benefit pensions enjoyed by teachers and other public workers with much-riskier defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s, has long been a goal of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and other groups and individuals who believe the primary purpose of government is not public service, but profit for themselves and their privatization allies.

The teacher retirement pension fund alone is just too huge a prize to ignore, and the sharks already were zeroing in on the Teacher Retirement System, which administers the fund, before the pandemic struck. TRS will be up for the Legislature’s sunset review next year, making the future of the pension fund a handy target. Add to that the huge public relations fiasco that TRS recently created with the expensive and not-entirely-transparent lease of office space in an upscale Austin tower, and blood started flowing.

TRS is trying to abort the tower lease, but just as publicity was beginning to wane came the arrival of the coronavirus emergency, followed by a plummeting economy and a reeling stock market, which has whacked several billion dollars off the TRS pension fund’s value. The fund still had a value of about $150 billion last Friday (April 17). So, it is not likely to dry up anytime soon.

But one of the guys at the Texas Public Policy Foundation tweeted the same day that TRS was “likely in the ditch” – not true, but a signal that the people who want to take away your defined benefit pensions will use the volatile stock market as an opportunity. Do you want to trade your defined share of a $150 billion pension fund with a long performance history for a 401(k) with no guarantee of any kind of return? The only guarantee a 401(k) offers is how much money you put in it, not how much, if any, you take out of it.

A recession is a particularly awful time to be talking about 401(k)s. Do you have one? Have you checked your balance lately? Yeah, it may be, as the guy said, “in the ditch.” How many school teachers, bus drivers or cafeteria workers want a 401(k) as their sole source of retirement income?

But the pension sharks have a different interest in 401(k)s. They consider the potential management fees they and their allies, instead of TRS, could be raking in from billions of dollars’ worth of 401(k)s. So they will continue to circle.

Clay Robison

Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have made comfortable governmental careers for themselves by attacking government, appealing to people who wish government would go away.

Guess what? Government was the first thing many of Abbott’s and Patrick’s admirers, among other people, thought of when they suddenly found themselves without jobs after the coronavirus disaster struck Texas. They started flooding state government’s unemployment website and phone lines.

Eventually, Texas will begin to rebuild after the pandemic subsides, but it won’t be easy, and the coronavirus may return next year. The economy has been hammered, and it will be difficult for many people as well as governments to recover. These include local governments – the cities and counties that are providing emergency services as well as the normal daily services that people take for granted, the hospital districts that are providing care to COVID-19 victims and the school districts that are continuing to teach children under difficult, challenging conditions.

The coronavirus will cost local governments untold millions in lost sales tax revenue because of the business closures and reduced economic activity during the emergency, but this is only the second economic disaster to recently strike local governments in Texas, including school districts.

The first disaster was planned and carried out by Abbott, Patrick and their anti-government allies in the Legislature about this time last year, long before anyone had ever heard of COVID-19. Last spring, Abbott and Patrick, et al, were ramming through the Legislature a law that will sharply restrict the other major source of revenue for local governments – property taxes.

The new law will limit the ability of cities and counties to increase revenue from property taxes, excluding taxes on new construction, by more than 3.5 percent a year, without local voter approval. Local officials warned the governor and legislators, even before anyone anticipated a pandemic, that the limit would severely restrict their ability to provide normal public services, but the anti-government governor and lieutenant governor wouldn’t listen.

The same law will limit the ability of school districts to increase property tax revenue by more than 2.5 percent a year, and school districts will not be allowed to ask voters for an exception, even though property taxes are their only local revenue option.

It is true that the Legislature increased state funding for schools by several billion dollars last year, but that soon will be gone. Next year’s legislative session instead will probably be cutting state spending to deal with its own revenue shortfall stemming from the pandemic. In addition to the loss of huge amounts of sales tax revenue – state government’s main tax source – oil and gas tax revenues also have fallen. Driving and gasoline consumption have been sharply reduced during the health emergency, and world oil supplies also are keeping prices low.

All this means educators and students may be left holding a very depleted bag of resources. The pandemic was unforeseen, but Abbott’s and Patrick’s folly was premeditated.

Clay Robison