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Anti-Petition Bill Left Pending

Posted on March 18, 2009 by Linda Curtis • 0 Comments

Today’s hearing on Senate Bill 690, Senator Jeff Wentworth’s “Anti-Petition Bill”, was an interesting display of the Real Estate Council of Austin’s unbelievable temerity in stepping out in front of the train that’s been long overdue–that’s the citizen participation train. This is not a time to be trying to circumvent or stifle voter participation. This is what SB 690 is really about, though RECA’s new President, Craig Douglas, said today that RECA was all for the process of citizen initiatives. They were just so very concerned that there were “too many” citizen charter amendments coming up for a vote in Austin, this was “costing the City” too much money, and besides, they argued, these pesky petitions don’t really have much support anyway.

The only problem is that since 1997, there’s only been five citizens charter amendments on the ballot in Austin, and only two initiatives since 1992 (Save Our Springs and the recent anti-smoking ordinance). Since 1997 petitioning access at local stores has been severely curtailed. The recent Prop 2 charter amendment (Stop Domain Subsidies) had widespread support, came in at 48% and even after it failed it led to some changes at City Hall (though much more is certainly needed).

Senator Wentworth was seemingly caught off guard when Brian Rodgers blew through RECA’s claim that charter amendments are costing the city money. Amendments are placed on the ballot only during regular elections and if there’s no city election happening, the City simply shares the cost with the County — so there’s no additional costs to the taxpayers!

Did RECA write the bill and the bill analysis for Wentworth? This was real tacky.

You democracy junkies might get some entertainment watching the actual testimony here (go to Intergovernmental Relations Committee, Part II, 56 minutes 12 seconds in to the tape). You’ll see Republican Roger Borgelt, Green parttime lobbyist Bill Stout, and a gal who came in from Bryan, Texas, to beg Wentworth not to make this more difficult for citizen activists there and in 345 other Home Rule cities.

Special thanks to attorney Michael Miller who spent a full day of volunteering to research the legislative history of charter amendment petitioning. It was great to know that the legislature UNANIMOUSLY passed the 5%/20,000 signature cap requirement in 1973 because the 10% requirement was too difficult.

My personal favorite was the testimony of Mike Ford of InitiativeforTexas.org, who urged for a reality check on RECA who was simply trying to make sure they have access to hundreds of millions of dollars in special interest subsidies! At 77, Mike not only looks great, he is great — a great defender of the people’s constitutional right to petition government for redress of grievances.

We will keep you informed as to what happens with SB 690, since it is now in the “pending” file. Is it dead? We have no idea. But we know some in the Senate are listening to us, but not yet Senator Wentworth. You might give him a call at 512-463-0125.

SB 690, the Anti-Petition Bill, Hearing Tomorrow!

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Linda Curtis • 1 Comment

Hearing before the Intergovernmental Relations Committee, chaired by Senator Royce West

Wednesday, March 18, 9:30 a.m., Rm. E 1.028

State Senator Jeff Wentworth, who represents most of South Austin, Hays County and NW San Antonio, is pushing his anti-petition bill, Senate Bill 690 which will affect 346 cities in Texas. SB 690 would more than double petition signatures required of citizens in Austin, and more than quintuple them in Houston, to place a municipal charter amendment on the ballot. Currently the law requires 5% of qualified voters up to 20,000, to call for an election to amend the city charter. SB 690 would eliminate the 20,000 signature cap and raise the percentage to 10% of registered voters. The reason for this? The Real Estate Council of Austin was upset that Austin voters almost passed Proposition 2 last November. Proposition 2 would have banned retail subsidies, including the $65 million voluntary giveaway to the developer of the Domain luxury shopping mall, Simon Properties, the country’s largest mall developer.

Brian Rodgers of ChangeAustin.org and formerly the Austin Proposition 2 campaign, said, “The measure barely failed at 48%, but that hasn’t stopped RECA and Wentworth from trying to rig the rules for all 346 Home Rule Texas cities, falsely claiming that the current signature requirements, ‘results in costly elections on issues that are questionable and carry little public support.'”

Come to the hearing tomorrow, Wednesday, 9:30 a.m., held by the Intergovernmental Relations Committee, in the underground extension of the Capitol, E 1.028.

Go here to read SB 690.

For more information call Linda Curtis at 512-657-2089.

Press Advisory for Immediate Release

Posted on March 12, 2009 by Linda Curtis • 1 Comment

TO: CITY COUNCIL & MAYORAL CANDIDATES

OPPOSE: Senate Bill 690 – The RECA Anti-Petition/Anti-Democracy Bill

WHERE: MAYORAL DEBATE THIS SATURDAY, 4 TO 6 PM @ OPAL DIVINE’S, S. Congress

AUSTIN, Texas – March 12, 2009 – ChangeAustin.org founder, Brian Rodgers, is calling on all City Council and Mayoral candidates to work together to oppose Senate Bill 690, Senator Jeff Wentworth’s “anti-petition” bill at their candidate debate this Saturday, 4 to 6 pm at Opal Divine’s on South Congress.

Rodgers said SB 690, if passed, would more than double petition signatures for citizen initiated charter amendments and would thereby, “stifle public participation when the public is more excited than ever about engaging in the political process. SB 690 is the ‘really sore winner’ response from the Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA) who is pushing this bad bill as retribution for the fact that Austin voters almost passed the Prop 2, aka the Stop Domain Subsidies amendment last November. RECA’s selfish drive to shut down Austin’s activist community arrogantly harms the petition rights of the citizens of 345 other Texas cities, if passed.”

Linda Curtis, one of the founders of ChangeAustin.org and an expert on petition access issues in Texas said, “Petition access has become an increasing problem throughout the state due to anti-petition practices by malls, grocery chains and even college campuses. Raising the petition requirements will severely inhibit public participation in a process that 346 Texas cities have enjoyed for many decades.”

ChangeAustin.org opposes SB 690 because the group knows first-hand how difficult it can be to gather the current number of required signatures. In 2007-2008, it functioned as “Stop Domain Subsidies” to push for an Austin city charter amendment to ban subsidies to retail developments, including the $65 million slated for a luxury shopping mall known as The Domain.

Currently, Texas law requires petitioners calling for a charter amendment of a home-rule municipality to gather signatures from 5% of “qualified voters” with a 20,000-signature cap whichever number is the smaller in order to get on the ballot.

SB 690 would require such a petition to gather signatures from 10% of “registered voters” with no numerical cap on signatures. This would effectively more double required signatures in Austin and more than quadruple the signatures in Houston.

SB 960 can be found at:

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/81R/billtext/html/SB00690I.htm

About ChangeAustin.org

ChangeAustin.org is a mix of local activists (Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Greens, small “I” independents) and owners of local home grown businesses such as Michael Parker, owner of Opal Divine’s and Tim League, co-owner of The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. The group is dedicated to bringing voters and local businesses lacking representation in our local government back to City Hall. More information can be found on the ChangeAustin.org blog at http://www.ChangeAustin.org, or by calling 383-8484.

ChangeAustin.org

CONTACT: Linda Curtis

2153 S. Lamar #205 • Austin, TX 78704

512-383-8484 • 512-657-2089

Sen. Wentworth Attacks Petitioner’s Rights-Defeat SB 690

Posted on March 9, 2009 by Linda Curtis • 0 Comments

Anti-petition bill — set for a hearing THIS WEDNESDAY 9:30 am — to more than double petition signatures for citizen’s charter amendments. (Details below.)

State Senator Jeff Wentworth is sponsoring SB 690 (details below) at the request of the Austin Chamber of Commerce.

Call Senator Wentworth’s office (512) 463-0125. Ask Sen. Wentworth to pull SB 690 down.

Then join us this Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Capital — in the underground extension, Room E 1.028 for a hearing on SB 690.

Are you coming to our Mayoral Forum this coming Saturday, March 14, 4- 6pm, at Opal Divine’s, 3601 S. Congress (Penn Field)?

This will be one of the few places where you get to see Council Members Leffingwell and McCracken together with former Comptroller and Austin Mayor, Carole Strayhorn, in the same place at the same time.

Caution: Wanna vote on our endorsements? Make sure to sign up here to be a member for $20 by this coming Friday at midnite! (If you can’t spring the $20, please call us — there are other ways, like indenturing your labor to us for a few hours).

Linda Curtis & Brian Rodgers
ChangeAustin.org
(formerly your Stop Domain Subsidies friends)
2153 S. Lamar #205
Austin, TX 78704
512-383-8484 or 657-2089

PS Please forward this on to five friends and invite them to join our email network — it’s free of course!

MORE ON SB 690
Here’s the actual bill language.

A quick political history. The Austin Chamber of Commerce has been pushing this bill, we believe as their response to Prop 2, even though Prop 2 failed! It was just a little too close (48%) for the Chamber’s comfort. In 2007 Senator Kirk Watson carried this bill (minus an amendment in this year’s bill that exempts police and fire). The requirements currently for citizen’s charter amendment petitioning is 5% of registered voters, with a 20,000 signature cap. Wentworth’s SB 690 would raise the signatures to 10% and remove the 20,000 cap. The law already requires 10% for citizen’s municipal initiatives, referenda and recall petitions. (Remember, Texans only have I&R&R at the city level). The reason you don’t see more referenda and initiatives is because petitioning requirements make them near impossible and WAY too expensive. If anything, they should lower those requirements. Bottom line — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. How many citizen’s charter amendments have we seen in the last 10 years in Austin? Four. How many have passed? None! But that hasn’t stopped the Chamber from trying to snuff out any opposition to their developer scams on Austin taxpayers. Defeat SB 690! If you’re a member of the Chamber — let ’em have an earful, cancel your membership and tell them you’re sending your dues for ChangeAustin.org, who will keep fighting for voters and local business.

Beating Grandma aka Carole Strayhorn

Posted on January 19, 2009 by Linda Curtis • 3 Comments

Beating Grandma

It’s not nice to beat up on Grandma. That said, if the other Mayoral candidates want to beat her — have at it. The “it” are the issues in this race. What are the issues? So far as ChangeAusitn.org is concerned, the issues loosely fit under the heading of “populism”, uniting people from all political persuasions like:

1. Transparency and greater public oversight of decisions with far reaching fiscal implications.
2. Championing locally owned businesses and fighting to keep our dollars from leaving the community.
3. Requiring that development growth pays for itself and make those who benefit bear the costs.
4. Developing a publicly supported plan for our region’s transportation needs.
5. Protecting the rights of citizens to petition city government, guaranteed by our City Charter and state constitution.

ChangeAustin.org grew out of the effort to pass Prop 2 last November, to stop the Domain luxury shopping mall subsidies and others like it. Though we lost by only 4 percentage points, we have begun to build a significant movement to “change” Austin politics in, we hope, a positive way.

Will we have a fair election in May? Will the press (including the blogging community) deal with the issues — the actual record of all the candidates, including Strayhorn’s — in an objective manner? Or will they attempt to demonize the candidates who have had a mixed relationship to the Democratic Party? We’re not talking bad about Democratic voters here — we’re talking about party insiders and partisanship at its worst.

Prop 2’s proponents (aka Stop Domain Subsidies) have been “burned” by the Democratic Party operatives who worked behind the scenes to ditch Prop 2, while the rank-and-file Precinct Leaders overwhelmingly supported and endorsed Prop 2. (You can read the details under our “Who Killed Prop 2” section.) What’s more, Mayor Will Wynn appeared in non-stop ads against Prop 2 paid for by Simon Malls who owns the Domain.

While the press beats up on Carole Strayhorn (and, God knows, Carole’s got her short-comings – which have nothing to do with her height, thank you very much!), where was their outrage about the Mayor’s behavior?

Beat Grandma fair and square. Her record is fair game. Her height, number of husbands, and her party status (or now lack thereof) isn’t. That’s the new Austin way.

Note: In the interests of full disclosure, one of our founders, Linda Curtis, worked on the Strayhorn for Governor campaign in 2006.

Transparency

Austin’s City Hall, in some ways, is no different than any other government entity. They’re all “transparency challenged.” It’s also been that way for a very long time, maybe forever.

The need for strict public oversight could not be more important, as large-scale developers are lobbying overtime to keep area officials on board with their plan to double the area’s population in just 16 years! The costs are offloaded on ordinary Austinites. There is no real plan for conservation and protection of our most valuable (and limited) resource – water!

The 2003 council decision to fund the Domain luxury shopping mall with ONLY 7 DAYS public scrutiny, was a low point but not the lowest. This year, the council, signed on to a $2.3 billion, 20 year, NO BID, contract to purchase much higher than market electricity from a Bio Mass Electrical Generating Plant to be built in Nacogdoches.

Local activists who’ve been pushing for energy independence and renewables for decades in this City, showed up at City Hall last August. The City gave this mega-deal the bums rush and signed a contract with a three week public notice! The excuse provided by Roger Duncan of Austin Energy for the hurry was that the equipment prices were fixed until the end of the month so we had to sign up right away. With deflation and depression in our midst, the folly of that decision will become only more glaring. (You can read the Chronicle articles we’ve linked to in our “BioMess” section). The most important questions were twofold. Why didn’t the city put this up for a bid? And why didn’t they put it up for a public vote?

We don’t know about you, but we’ve had it up to here with rushed deals so rushed that “public oversight” is now a running joke in Austin city politics. You can pass laws for better transparency. But what’s most needed is Austin area citizens getting better organized to dictate more accountability through upcoming elections.

ChangeAustin.org is engaged in the electoral arena. Sign up as a member – it’s just $20 per year. That gives you the right to vote on our endorsements.

We’re getting ready for May 2011 y’all!