http://www.texasobserver.org/lege.php The Texas Observer Archives en webmaster@texasobserver.org Copyright 2009 2009-11-20T16:12:18+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/heaven-and-hell-in-cameron-county-jail http://www.texasobserver.org/features/heaven-and-hell-in-cameron-county-jail/#When:15:25:28Z Gail Hanson’s soft, musical voice served her well for eight years as a volunteer chaplain at the Cameron County Jail in Brownsville. But as she witnessed and heard about the mistreatment of the mostly young and impoverished women she counseled—from unhealthy food to freezing-cold cells to lengthy detentions without convictions—Hanson’s voice grew louder. She began to complain on the women’s behalf, at first to the sheriff and then to the broader community. That didn’t sit well with the law in Cameron County. In March 2008, Sheriff Omar Lucio banned Hanson from ministering to the women. After inmates placed her name on their visitors’ lists, Lucio ultimately barred Hanson from entering the jail at all, even during public visitation hours. Features 2009-11-19T15:25:28+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/dr-strangevox http://www.texasobserver.org/features/dr-strangevox/#When:14:51:41Z In the back room of a studio in North Austin lit only by the glow of computer screens, a producer and singer who calls himself Madd Creole lets out a string of gospel-inflected vocal improvisations. As his voice wavers and slides from note to note, it’s shadowed by a ghostly shimmer from the speakers, giving his soulful crooning a shiny, robotic skin. “It keeps taking my voice to these strange minor notes,” he says afterward. “It’s killing me, almost like having two drummers play at once, but it’s also giving me some new ideas.” Features 2009-11-18T14:51:41+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/coal-star-state http://www.texasobserver.org/features/coal-star-state/#When:20:51:13Z One February night in 2007, a boisterous crowd from all around Texas—old-school ranchers and farmers, fresh-faced Baylor students, environmentalists new and old, big-city Democrats, and rural Republicans—packed a Waco auditorium to discuss the next round of an epic fight. The gathering would turn out to be the high-water mark of a campaign to halt a tsunami of new coal-fired power plants. A staggering 18 plants were on the table statewide, 11 proposed by one unpopular company, Dallas-based utility giant TXU Corp. Only China was doing more to expand the climate-choking reach of coal. Features 2009-11-11T20:51:13+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/boots-on-the-ground http://www.texasobserver.org/features/boots-on-the-ground/#When:17:21:00Z Sierra Blanca—“Y’all got here just in time. We’re going to look for a body. Are you up for it? It’s gonna get rough out there, but I can have you back by lunch.” It’s 7 a.m. I’ve already driven two hours from El Paso with my husband, whom I’ve convinced to shoot ­photographs for my story. If it hadn’t been for the Border Patrol checkpoint just outside of this dusty, half-abandoned town on Interstate 10, we might have missed it altogether. Smack in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert, two hours east of El Paso, we’ve arrived at the office of Arvin West, sheriff of Hudspeth County. Features 2009-10-28T17:21:00+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the-pecos-insurrection http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the-pecos-insurrection/#When:13:56:29Z Last Dec. 12, on the outskirts of Pecos, Texas, the immigrants doing time in the world’s largest privately run prison decided to turn the tables on their captors. It was the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, an important religious holiday in Latin America. But the inmates were in no mood for celebration. The motin, as the overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking inmates called their uprising, began in the Reeves County Detention Center’s Special Housing Unit (SHU), better known as solitary confinement, with two men—a Honduran and a Mexican—using the wires in an electrical outlet to set a mattress on fire. Features 2009-10-08T13:56:29+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/texas-prodigy-goes-pop http://www.texasobserver.org/features/texas-prodigy-goes-pop/#When:14:02:50Z Charles Yang got his first tattoo at a parlor in his hometown of Austin on his 18th birthday. When his parents found out, they didn’t speak to him for a week. The tattoo was the latest rebellion from a man whose parents wanted him to be a classical violinist. He’d joined a rock band and become the lead guitarist; he’d grown increasingly social and popular. In short, he was spending less time practicing the violin. Features 2009-10-07T14:02:50+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/i-was-just-a-junkie http://www.texasobserver.org/features/i-was-just-a-junkie/#When:13:42:33Z She warned him not to go alone. It was a Wednesday morning in late August, and Alejandra Quintanilla was driving to the courthouse in downtown Houston. Sitting next to her, in the passenger seat, was her older brother, Alfredo Guardiola. He had been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury to testify about one of Houston’s most notorious house fires. Four people had died despite the rescue efforts of Guardiola and several other men who had rushed from neighboring houses to help. He wasn’t a suspect. Prosecutors said they just wanted him to recount for the grand jury what he saw the night of the fire. Still, the subpoena made Quintanilla nervous. Her brother was a gentle man and a heroin addict, and she feared the police would take advantage of him. Features 2009-10-01T13:42:33+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/texas-pickers-strum-germans-to-set-record http://www.texasobserver.org/features/texas-pickers-strum-germans-to-set-record/#When:14:32:14Z On an August afternoon hotter than Jerry Jeff Walker’s temper, two extraordinary things transpired: I played two songs with 1,867 other guitar ­pickers to set a Guinness world record. And I rekindled a subliminal inner joy ­buried for years. Features 2009-09-16T14:32:14+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/killing-kid-care http://www.texasobserver.org/features/killing-kid-care/#When:16:31:01Z On a recent Saturday afternoon, a group of parishioners from Berean Adventist Church on Houston’s near East Side gathered to fill grocery bags with donated food. It was part of a weekly post-church ritual organized by the Porters—Carol and Hurt Jr. The Porters round up donations from grocery stores and bring the fruits and vegetables to be sorted, bagged and delivered to the neighborhood’s numerous elderly and shut-in residents. Features 2009-09-15T16:31:01+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/if-the-revolution-is-over http://www.texasobserver.org/features/if-the-revolution-is-over/#When:16:22:21Z People of a certain age are always talking, sadly and nostalgically, about the bright, unfulfilled dreams of their youth. I’m of a certain age myself—59, to be precise. But I usually draw a blank when the stories about lost youth, failed dreams and tarnished idealism come to the table and claim a chair and the eyes start to fill and the voices break. Features 2009-09-15T16:22:21+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/sick-tired http://www.texasobserver.org/features/sick-tired/#When:13:05:40Z Jefferson County is God and gator country. A 30-­minute drive from the Louisiana border, past Spanish moss-draped cypress trees in muddy bayous, the county is a major cog in East Texas’ petrochemical corridor, a prime wealth ­generator for the state’s economy—but not for all its people. As you approach Beaumont from the west, you can’t miss the big billboard daring motorists to hold a baby gator at a roadside farm. You pass a gas station advertising Jesus Christ First Aid kits. On the radio, the exhortations of down-home evangelists compete with right-wing talk-show shouters testifying against health care reform. Socialism, they say. Nazism. Hitlerism. Americans and Texans beware. Features 2009-09-03T13:05:40+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/boom-town-cleburne http://www.texasobserver.org/features/boom-town-cleburne/#When:13:05:08Z Throughout Cleburne’s 142-year history, people have known it as a quiet, rural town where residents live happily away from the hubbub of neighboring Dallas-Fort Worth. That changed this summer when a series of small earthquakes jolted Cleburne. Though no serious injuries or damage was reported, the quakes upset nerves, stirred controversy, and drew media attention from far corners of the country. Features 2009-09-03T13:05:08+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the-fire-this-time http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the-fire-this-time/#When:16:57:36Z The Citgo Petroleum Corp. refinery and the Hillcrest neighborhood of Corpus Christi sit side by side, separated by a fence. Hillcrest is what environmental justice advocates call a “fenceline community”—a poor, largely minority residential area exposed to high levels of pollution from adjacent industry. When refineries are involved, fences don’t always make for good neighbors. On the morning of July 19, an unspecified equipment failure on the alkylation unit at the refinery released butane, hydrocarbons and hydrogen fluoride, sparking a fire that burned for two days and left one worker, Gabriel Alvarado, with severe burns and an amputated forearm. Features 2009-08-19T16:57:36+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/white-mans-burden http://www.texasobserver.org/features/white-mans-burden/#When:16:48:09Z The city of Irving, Texas, has long been known as a genteel white suburb—fed first by white flight from nearby Dallas and later by the arrival of headquarters for international corporations such as Exxon Mobil Corp. It’s also known as the home of the Dallas Cowboys. Driving into Irving from the east, you’re greeted by the town’s most recognizable building: white-domed Texas Stadium, with its iconic hole in the roof under which the Cowboys played home games for 37 years. Features 2009-08-19T16:48:09+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/blood-treasure http://www.texasobserver.org/features/blood-treasure/#When:16:31:54Z On the morning of March 10, Andres Hernandez crawled ashore on South Padre Island, spitting saltwater and blood onto the sand. His clothes were soaked, torn, falling off his slim frame. He tried to get the attention of tourists sunbathing on the beach, but they ignored him. “They thought I was drunk,” he recalls. “They looked the other way.” Features 2009-08-19T16:31:54+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/something-in-the-air http://www.texasobserver.org/features/something-in-the-air/#When:16:29:38Z Several years ago, a friend of mine was pursuing a hopeless marriage in rural Ireland, of all places. And early one morning, while wandering an emerald pasture and pondering her doomed romance, she paused to compliment a ­farmer’s stock. “Your cows are very beautiful,” she called out to him. “Ah,” he nodded wistfully. “Very. But you can’t eat beauty.” Features 2009-08-04T16:29:38+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/no-way-out http://www.texasobserver.org/features/no-way-out/#When:16:17:09Z In July, as Hurricane Dolly made landfall in South Texas, Susanna, Raul, and their daughter Nayelly huddled in their two-room wooden shanty, watching water pour through cracks in the ceiling and walls. Dolly was only a Category 1 storm, but in the family’s unincorporated colonia—one of the country’s ­poorest communities—their home was one of many that didn’t stand a chance. Susanna had wanted her family to flee the colonia, located just east of McAllen. “I looked at the house, with its flimsy walls,” she says, “and I thought, ‘What are we going to do here? We’re totally exposed.’” Features 2009-08-04T16:17:09+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/nuts http://www.texasobserver.org/features/nuts/#When:16:11:05Z Locked chains snake through Plainview’s Peanut Corp. of America plant fence, clinking in the wind. Grain elevators dot the flat Panhandle horizon. Standing in the deserted building’s gravel parking lot, you feel the diesel trucks rumbling a few hundred yards away on Interstate 27. You see smoke rise from the nearby Cargill Inc. beef-processing plant. You can’t miss the roadside billboard depicting a cowboy hat-and-boots-clad peanut with cartoon eyes lassoing the PCA logo. Features 2009-08-04T16:11:05+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/buildings-made-of-mirrors http://www.texasobserver.org/features/buildings-made-of-mirrors/#When:15:48:32Z I was on a farmer’s schedule: down with the dark, up with the dawn. Each morning the sunrise bored through the kitchen window by the cupboards as I boiled water for tea and old-fashioned oatmeal. Sometimes there would be a few deer on the outskirts of the yard munching the corn I’d left by the three small gates that opened onto wildflower fields and a forest of oak and cedar. Paisano deer were shy and skittish, not like the deer that frequented the new housing developments farther down Highway 290, the deer that would come to the back door and eat out of your hand. Features 2009-07-07T15:48:32+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the-man-from-bountiful http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the-man-from-bountiful/#When:15:47:52Z On a late afternoon in early May, the leading lights of the New York theater community gathered at Lincoln Center to pay tribute to Horton Foote, the late playwright from Wharton who died March 4. With a critical reputation as the American Chekhov, Foote was the recipient of two Academy Awards, the National Medal of Arts and the Pulitzer Prize (for The Young Man from Atlanta). He authored such languorous classics as The Trip to Bountiful, Tender Mercies and the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. But for all of his 92 years, the most vital bit of Foote’s biography remained, astoundingly, the fact that he hailed from Wharton, a perfectly unexceptional South Texas town, and among the world’s least-likely wellsprings of a lifetime’s literary oeuvre. Features 2009-07-07T15:47:52+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the_peoples_friends_and_foes http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the_peoples_friends_and_foes/#When:17:15:15Z As a rule, we tend to steer clear of “best of” and “top 10” lists at the Observer. Sure, they’re fine ­harmless fun; we just can’t help feeling that their natural milieu is high school yearbooks and The Late Show with David Letterman. But even haughty ­journalist types can’t always resist the temptation. We herewith offer our highly selective tallies of lawmakers who notably opposed—or bravely ­championed—the best interests of the good folk of Texas at the 81st Legislature. Features 2009-06-23T17:15:15+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/baddest_bills http://www.texasobserver.org/features/baddest_bills/#When:17:00:17Z If there’s any upside to having an end-of-session ­breakdown in legislative progress—beyond the sheer, dopey spectacle­—it’s that a lot of bad bills end up in the resulting pile of dead legislation. (See stories, pp. 3 and 21.) During the 81st session of the Texas Legislature, the Observer’s intrepid legislative interns, Reeve Hamilton and Susan Peterson, sussed out and exposed dozens of rotten pieces of legislation. Here we’ve selected the worst of the worst from the nearly 7,500 bills filed during the session—no easy task. Though none of these stinkers made it to the governor’s desk this time around, chances are that they will be revived in 2011 because, sadly, most of the authors will be back for more. And we’ll be back to dog them. Features 2009-06-23T17:00:17+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/un-covered http://www.texasobserver.org/features/un-covered/#When:16:45:22Z It got to be routine. Brandi Grissom of the El Paso Times would look up and see yet another lawmaker standing there, peering down at the handful of reporters scattered around what was once a jam-packed press table at the state Capitol. And then would come the inevitable question: Where is everybody? Legislators weren’t the only ones who noticed. Political insiders who tinker with all the oily machinery, out of sight and below deck, were well aware of the crushing cutbacks at traditional news outlets that have decimated the ranks of Capitol reporters. And they knew that each round of layoffs, buyouts or retirements left fewer reporters to monitor that machinery and spot the small threads that can lead to important investigative stories or analysis shedding light on the dark corners of legislative business. Features 2009-06-23T16:45:22+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/out_of_the_box http://www.texasobserver.org/features/out_of_the_box/#When:16:30:55Z Despite the various slowdowns and mad rushes in the Texas House this session, the Legislature managed to pass a number of key bills that will benefit Texans. But the fact that the system almost crashed, and the likelihood it will only get worse in the future, means that we must take a serious look at how our legislative process can be improved to meet the people’s needs in sessions to come. Here’s the reality: By 2040, the state’s population will double to nearly 50 million. Our budget will likely be well over $500 billion. We’ll need hundreds of miles of new roads, 40,000 or more new teachers, more nurses, more schools, more hospitals. Features 2009-06-23T16:30:55+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/snuffed http://www.texasobserver.org/features/snuffed/#When:16:15:09Z On a chilly January day, Lance Armstrong and a coalition of anti-smoking groups joined legislators on the steps of the Capitol to announce that the days of puffing in Texas bars and restaurants would soon be over. A new poll indicated that 68 percent of Texans favored a statewide smoking ban, Armstrong told the crowd. “The first job of government is to protect the people,” he said, “and today, the people of Texas are sending a clear message to their elected representatives: They want protection from secondhand smoke.” Four months later, as Armstrong competed in the Giro d’Italia bicycle race, the smoking ban bill was pronounced dead. Authored by Democratic Sen. Rodney Ellis of Houston, the legislation would have prohibited smoking in indoor public places, including government offices and bars. At a news conference on May 19, supporters including Ellis and Rep. Myra Crownover, a Denton Republican who authored the companion bill in the House, admitted defeat. In full Senatorial mode, Ellis waxed diplomatic. “Members were acting in good faith and trying to find common ground on a tough issue,” he said. “Myra and I are not bitter because we couldn’t get the votes in the Senate.” Features 2009-06-23T16:15:09+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/reconstruction http://www.texasobserver.org/features/reconstruction/#When:16:00:32Z It’s been a year since a still-unidentified arsonist lobbed a Molotov cocktail at the Texas Governor’s Mansion. The Greek Revival columns out front are still black from the smoke, but crews have torn out damaged walls, cleared away debris and stabilized the foundation. Now, with a mix of federal stimulus funds, state money and private cash, officials say they’re ready to rebuild. The Texas Department of Public Safety underwent a razing of its own this session, and plans to rebuild the state’s top law-enforcement agency, with its history of scandals and chronic mismanagement, are under way. The Governor’s Mansion burned on DPS’s watch. Whether or not it’s fair to say that DPS could have prevented the arson, the fire added fuel to many critics’ calls for a thorough reconstruction of the agency. Features 2009-06-23T16:00:32+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the_republican_from_la_mancha http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the_republican_from_la_mancha/#When:15:45:38Z Like any summer camp or high-school clique worth its salt, the Texas Senate produces a distinctive anthology of inside jokes. Of the many tedium-induced, knee-slapping nicknames concocted and whispered in the hallowed chamber—“Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Wisteria Lane,” “Sen. Tommy Williams, R-Bedrock”—the most fitting is surely “Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-La Mancha.” A casual observer might think the wiry San Antonio Republican, nearly 70 years old, is too frail to keep battling the giant political windmills he tilts against session after session. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, one of Wentworth’s most powerful foes, stands at least 6-feet-5, with impeccable posture and middle-aged vigor to boot. But if diligence is, as Cervantes claims in Don Quixote, “the mother of good fortune,” then Wentworth is way overdue for a triumph over the likes of Dewhurst. Features 2009-06-23T15:45:38+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/state_schooled http://www.texasobserver.org/features/state_schooled/#When:15:30:01Z It’s long been a cliché that no positive change occurs in Texas without a major public scandal or a federal lawsuit. This session, reforming Texas’ violent and troubled institutions for mental retardation required both. The state operates 13 large facilities for mentally disabled Texans. After neglecting and underfunding them for years, the Legislature finally took steps this session to make residents safer, lighten the workload on the overburdened staff and raise the level of care. All it took to prod lawmakers to implement these reforms was three years of damning media reports (including several in this magazine), an embarrassing abuse scandal and the threat of litigation from the U.S. Department of Justice. Features 2009-06-23T15:30:01+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/five_days_of_chub http://www.texasobserver.org/features/five_days_of_chub/#When:15:15:07Z For most of the session, the plotline featured an uncharacteristically demure House carrying out its business—slowly but surely—while the Senate went berserk over what Republicans called voter ID and Democrats called voter suppression. That all changed when the Senate’s voter ID bill showed up on the House legislative calendar, just five days before the deadline—midnight on May 26—for passing bills into law. Democrats would have filibustered voter ID, which they said would block thousands of Texans from voting, if House rules hadn't forbade it. Instead, they resorted to a tactic called (for reasons long forgotten) “chubbing.” Basically, chubbing means stalling: seizing the microphone to talk for the maximum allowable time about every bill that comes up. By stretching hours into days, the Democrats could push voter ID past the deadline, killing the bill without a vote. But since the bills scheduled for consideration before voter ID were almost all “local and consent” bills—routine legislation usually dispatched in a matter of hours—they’d have to get creative. Features 2009-06-23T15:15:07+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/no_green_sweep http://www.texasobserver.org/features/no_green_sweep/#When:14:59:12Z When green jobs guru Van Jones spoke at the Texas Capitol during the jam-packed Texas Energy Future: Green Jobs and Clean Power conference in mid-February, the state’s environmental advocates might have been forgiven for pinching themselves. Jones’ keynote address about achieving social justice by “greening” the economy came at a time of palpable optimism for the gathered crowd of students, lawmakers, renewable energy boosters and environmental activists—a crowd not necessarily accustomed to a speaking role, or even a friendly ear. A new president was already rolling back certain Bush administration policies and promising to restore the role of science in federal decision-making. Change was in the air in Texas, too. Not a revolution, exactly, but a thawing—a green glasnost—seemed to be underway at the Texas Legislature, a body not known for environmental enlightenment. Features 2009-06-23T14:59:12+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/status_woe http://www.texasobserver.org/features/status_woe/#When:14:49:19Z The idea behind sunset reviews is straightforward enough: On a staggered 12-year schedule (in most cases), Texas’ state agencies, commissions and boards submit to examination by an independent commission charged with rooting out waste, fraud and defunctitude. The agency under review may get a clean bill of health or an opportunity to reform. If it’s judged to have outlived its usefulness or is otherwise beyond saving, it may be mothballed. In practice, the outcomes are rarely that simple. When the largest and most important state agencies undergo sunset review, political fisticuffs are almost always the result. Such was the case this session when the Legislature tried to reform two of Texas’ most controversial bureaucracies: the Texas Department of Transportation and the Texas Department of Insurance. Features 2009-06-23T14:49:19+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the_twittering_class http://www.texasobserver.org/features/the_twittering_class/#When:17:17:23Z For better and worse, we’ve all gotten used to being flooded with messages from elected officials, campaigns and candidates: Postcards urging you to vote a certain way. E-mail prodding you to send money, now! Phone calls from robots or celebrities, telling you where and when to head to the polls. Features 2009-06-10T17:17:23+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/dying_to_build http://www.texasobserver.org/features/dying_to_build/#When:17:08:04Z On Oct. 23, 2006, 19-year-old Omar Puerto was painting trim and preparing to install rain gutters on a three-story apartment building in South Austin. It was his third day on the job. So far, the main challenge had been moving the heavy 40-foot aluminum ladder; he and a fellow worker had struggled with it all three days. Behind the men was a spider’s web of electrical wires leading from the apartment building to a 7,200-volt transformer. Federal law requires that workers be trained before working around live wires. The law also says that any exposed wiring must be clearly marked. These wires weren’t. And Puerto, according to his family, had gotten no training. Features 2009-06-10T17:08:04+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/water_water_everywhere http://www.texasobserver.org/features/water_water_everywhere/#When:17:02:18Z In 2007, geologists for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told their bosses that a proposal for a radioactive waste dump in West Texas was fatally flawed because of the landfill’s proximity to the Ogallala and Dockum aquifers. Then-agency head Glenn Shankle (now a lobbyist for the dump’s owner, Waste Control Specialists) overruled his employees, issuing licenses for the two adjacent landfills in Andrews County. But as a compromise of sorts, he required Waste Control to conduct a number of tests and studies to prove that the site was dry enough. Features 2009-06-10T17:02:18+00:00 http://www.texasobserver.org/features/i_give_thanks_for_illegal_immigrants http://www.texasobserver.org/features/i_give_thanks_for_illegal_immigrants/#When:15:31:52Z This year, as we gather for the feast, I am giving thanks for illegal immigrants. I have a particular group of illegals in mind, but I confess that my gratitude to them does color my view of most other illegals. I refer to the liars, debtors, opportunists and criminals who flooded into Texas in the first half of the 19th century, and then wrested the land from Mexico. Features, The MOLLY 09 Winners 2009-06-10T15:31:52+00:00