Don't move to Texas
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Hood Critic
The Power Circle
Hazelwood Central, graduated from McCluer NorthWhat high school did you go to?
I went to Texas for the first time last year (Houston). Learned that cars have the right of way over pedestrians and there is no zoning so you'll see a barbershop next to an apartment next to a warehouse 
Also the fact that you have to hop onto a freeway to do literally anything
Also the fact that you have to hop onto a freeway to do literally anything
I went to Central freshman year, then graduated from Riverview Gardens.
What year?
Hood Critic
The Power Circle
Graduated in '97I went to Central freshman year, then graduated from Riverview Gardens.
What year?
Texas power plants have no responsibility to provide electricity in emergencies, judges rule
A panel of judges has said that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the 2021 blackout. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.
www.kut.org
Texas power plants have no responsibility to provide electricity in emergencies, judges rule
KUT 90.5 | By Mose BuchelePublished December 15, 2023 at 3:39 PM CST
Gabriel C. Pérez / KUT
The decision now leaves the families of those who died during the 2021 blackout unsure where next to seek justice.
Almost three years since the deadly Texas blackout of 2021, a panel of judges from the First Court of Appeals in Houston has ruled that big power companies cannot be held liable for failure to provide electricity during the crisis. The reason is Texas’ deregulated energy market.
The decision seems likely to protect the companies from lawsuits filed against them after the blackout. It leaves the families of those who died unsure where next to seek justice.
In February of 2021, a massive cold front descended on Texas, bringing days of ice and snow. The weather increased energy demand and reduced supply by freezing up power generators and the state’s natural gas supply chain. This led to a blackout that left millions of Texans without energy for nearly a week.
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The state has said almost 250 people diedbecause of the winter storm and blackout, but some analysts call that a serious undercount.
Within days of the storm, Texans affected by the failure of the energy system began filing lawsuits. Some of those suits were brought against power generators whose plants had stopped working in the storm or had run out of fuel to generate electricity.
After years of legal process, a three-judge panel convened to decide on the merits of those lawsuits.
This week, Chief Justice Terry Adams issued the unanimous opinion of that panel that “Texas does not currently recognize a legal duty owed by wholesale power generators to retail customers to provide continuous electricity to the electric grid, and ultimately to the retail customers.”
The opinion states that big power generators “are now statutorily precluded by the legislature from having any direct relationship with retail customers of electricity.”
The Texas energy market
That legal separation of power generation from transmission and retail electric sales in many parts of Texas resulted from energy market deregulation in the early 2000s. The aim was to reduce energy costs.Before deregulation, power companies were “vertically integrated.” That means they controlled generators, transmission lines and sold the energy they produced and transported directly to a regional customer base. Parts of Texas, like Austin, with publicly owned utilities still operate under such a system.
But in other parts of the state, deregulation broke up those regional energy monopolies, creating competing energy-generating companies and retail electric providers that buy power wholesale from generators and then re-sell it to residential consumers.
“One consequence of that was, because of the unbundling and the separation, you also don’t have the same duties and obligations [to consumers],” Tré Fischer, a partner with law firm Jackson Walker who represented the power companies told KUT.
“The structure just doesn't allow for that direct relationship and correspondingly a direct obligation to continually supply the electricity even if there's a natural disaster or catastrophic event,” he added.
In the opinion, Justice Adams noted that, when designing the Texas energy market, state lawmakers “could have codified the retail customers’ asserted duty of continuous electricity on the part of wholesale power generators into law.”
What comes next?
The recent opinion applies to five cases the panel of judges took as representative of the hundreds filed after the blackout. Because of the ruling, it is unlikely that any of those lawsuits against power companies could be successful, according to the court.But plaintiffs' lawyers have told Texas Law Book they plan to appeal.
Fischer said the plaintiffs' attorneys could ask the entire F1st Court of Appeals to review the panel’s opinion, or they could appeal to the state supreme court. KUT has reached out to lawyers representing plaintiffs in these cases and will update if we hear back.
The state Supreme Court has already ruled that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s power grid operator, enjoys sovereign immunity and cannot be sued over the blackout.
Now, this recent opinion leaves the question of who, if anyone, may be taken to court over deaths and losses incurred in the blackout.
“It’s certainly left unaddressed by this opinion because the court wasn’t being asked that question,” Fischer said. “If anything [the judges] were saying that is a question for the Texas legislature.”
Batsute
The Lion Choker
Texas AG Paxton sues five cities, including Austin and San Marcos, over marijuana policies
TX AG Paxton sues 5 cities over ordinances reducing low-level marijuana possession enforcement.
cbsaustin.com
Texas AG Paxton sues five cities, including Austin and San Marcos, over marijuana policies
by CBS Austin
Wed, January 31st 2024
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued five cities, including Austin and San Marcos, challenging their ordinances that limit enforcement of low-level marijuana possession, alleging these policies violate state law and the Texas constitution. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed lawsuits against five cities -- Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Denton and Elgin -- ordinances that aim to eliminate enforcement of low-level marijuana possession offenses.
Paxton alleges the cities' actions violate state law and the Texas constitution. The lawsuits ask the courts to declare the ordinances void and order the cities to fully enforce state drug laws.
The ordinances were passed after being approved by voters in local ballot propositions. They prohibit police from making arrests or issuing citations for misdemeanor marijuana possession in most cases.
However, Paxton argues the Texas Local Government Code forbids cities from adopting policies not to fully enforce drug laws. He also says the ordinances violate a section of the Texas Constitution stating that city ordinances cannot conflict with state law.
“I will not stand idly by as cities run by pro-crime extremists deliberately violate Texas law and promote the use of illicit drugs that harm our communities,” said Paxton.
In the lawsuits , Paxton states the cities and their police chiefs "lack legal authority" to adopt ordinances that do not fully enforce laws prohibiting marijuana possession and distribution.
ALSO | Judge rules Paxton whistleblower suit must move forward after AG requested judgment
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The lawsuits ask the courts to temporarily and permanently bar enforcement of the city ordinances. They also seek orders for the cities to repeal the ordinances, enforce state drug laws and not discipline police employees who make marijuana possession arrests.[/SIZE]
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy — Texas Monthly
The state’s most powerful figure, Tim Dunn, isn’t an elected official. But behind the scenes, the West Texas oilman and lay preacher is lavishly financing what he regards as a holy war against public education, renewable energy, and non-Christians.
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mastermind
Rest In Power Kobe
Evangelicals are fukking stupid
The Billionaire Bully Who Wants to Turn Texas Into a Christian Theocracy — Texas Monthly
The state’s most powerful figure, Tim Dunn, isn’t an elected official. But behind the scenes, the West Texas oilman and lay preacher is lavishly financing what he regards as a holy war against public education, renewable energy, and non-Christians.
“Jesus wants me to have this wealth and make sure people are poor so I can teach them the word.”
Congregation money always goes up in church, never down.
One of our greatest scams.
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
Black Student’s Suspension Over Hairstyle Didn’t Violate Law, Texas Judge Rules
The trial was the latest development in a case that has prompted scrutiny of education policies and race in the United States.
Darryl George, a high school student in Texas, was suspended for violating a dress code because he has locs, or long ropelike strands of hair, that he pins on his head in a barrel roll.Credit...Michael Wyke/Associated Press
By Christine Hauser and Patrick McGee
Patrick McGee reported from Anahuac, Texas.
Feb. 22, 2024Updated 4:26 p.m. ET
A Texas judge ruled on Thursday that a school district’s dress code, which it used to suspend a Black student last year for refusing to change the way he wears his hair, did not violate a state law meant to prohibit race-based discrimination against people based on their hairstyle.
The student, Darryl George, 18, has locs, or long ropelike strands of hair, that he pins on his head in a barrel roll, a protective style that his mother said reflected Black culture. Since the start of his junior year last August, he has faced a series of disciplinary actions at Barbers Hill High School in Mont Belvieu, about 30 miles east of Houston, after refusing to cut his hair. He was separated from his classmates, given disciplinary notices, placed in in-school suspension and sent to an off-campus program.
The hearing on Thursday, in the 253rd Judicial District Court in Anahuac, was in response to a lawsuit filed in September by the Barbers Hill Independent School District. The lawsuit argued that Mr. George was “in violation of the District’s dress and grooming code” because he wears his hair “in braids and twists” at a length that extends “below the top of a T-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, and/or below the earlobes when let down.”
The district asked State District Judge Chap B. Cain III to clarify whether the dress code violated a state law called the Texas CROWN Act, as the defendants, Mr. George and his mother, Darresha George, assert. The act, which took effect on Sept. 1, says a school district policy “may not discriminate against a hair texture or protective hairstyle commonly or historically associated with race.” It does not specifically mention hair length.
“The CROWN Act does not render unlawful those portions of the Barbers Hill dress and grooming restrictions limiting male students’ hair length,” Judge Cain said.
More on Texas
- A Legal Showdown: The Biden administration is suing Texas over a new state law that would empower state and local police officers to arrest migrants who cross from Mexico without authorization. Here’s what to know.
- A Round of ‘Combat Golf’: In Eagle Pass, the city at the center of the dispute over immigration enforcement along the Texas border, an unusual golf course operates alongside National Guard troops, Humvees and rolls of concertina wire.
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“I am not going to tell you that this has been an easy decision to make,” the judge said. Addressing the family, he encouraged them to “go back to the Legislature or go back to the school board because the remedy you seek can be had from either of those bodies.”
Allie Booker, a lawyer for the Georges, said she would appeal the ruling and seek an injunction to prevent the district from punishing Mr. George pending the outcome of a federal civil rights lawsuit that he and his mother filed last year against the state’s governor and attorney general.
The Georges left without commenting to reporters, more than a dozen of whom had gathered at the courthouse. State Representative Jolanda Jones said she walked them to their car.
“When I accompanied Darryl and his mom to the car, I saw a child that was crying, and he was upset and he didn’t understand,” Ms. Jones, a Democrat, said in an interview. “His mother was visibly shaking.”
Dr. Greg Poole, the superintendent of the Barbers Hill Independent School District, said in an emailed statement that the ruling “validated our position” that the dress code does not violate the state law, which “does not give students unlimited self-expression.”
The trial was the latest development in a case that has prompted scrutiny of education policies and race in the United States. At least 24 states have adopted laws that make it illegal to discriminate against students or workers because of their hairstyle.
The case involving Mr. George began soon after officials at the school objected to his locs and told Ms. George that the length of her son’s hair, even though it was pinned, violated the district’s dress code. The district subjected him to punishments, including suspension, after he refused to cut it.
Ms. George and her son filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in September against Texas’ governor, Greg Abbott, who signed the law, and the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, saying they allowed the school to violate the act.
Their lawsuit is seeking a temporary order to stop Darryl’s suspension while the case moves through the federal court system, and accuses Mr. Abbott and Mr. Paxton of “purposely or recklessly” causing Ms. George and Darryl emotional distress by not intervening.
Supporters of the family, including legislators and activists, also said the measures violated the CROWN Act.
The family’s lawsuit said that Mr. George wears locs as an “expression of cultural pride” and claims that his protections under the federal Civil Rights Act are being violated because the dress code policy disproportionately affects Black male students.
In October, Mr. George was transferred to an off-campus disciplinary program. In December, he was allowed to return to his high school but then was given another in-school suspension, this time for 13 days.
In January, Mr. Poole, the superintendent, defended the policy in an advertisement published in The Houston Chronicle, saying that districts with dress codes are safer and have higher academic performance, and that “being an American requires conformity.”
Kitty Bennett contributed research.