Don't move to Texas
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North side and down south.
enjoy freedom brehs
have your hair be illegal brehs
live down south brehs.
Black teenager suspended over dreadlocks in Texas heads to court in CROWN Act case
A Black teenager in Texas repeatedly suspended for his dreadlocks will get his day in court Thursday in a case that advocates say has broad implications for racial hair discrimination. Darryl Georg…
thehill.com
Black teenager suspended over dreadlocks in Texas heads to court in CROWN Act case
BY LEXI LONAS - 02/22/24 6:00 AM ETA Black teenager in Texas repeatedly suspended for his dreadlocks will get his day in court Thursday in a case that advocates say has broad implications for racial hair discrimination.
Darryl George, 18, has been in in-school suspension for months after Barbers Hill High School said his hair violates policy. His family sued, saying the school’s regulations go against Texas’s newly established CROWN Act.
Allie Booker, George’s attorney, says the case ties into a larger movement “regarding discrimination of minority groups as a whole.”
The case is based on a section in the school’s handbook that contains a rule stating male students cannot have their hair past their eyebrows or earlobes. George wears his dreadlocks on the top of his head, away from his face and neck.
Victoria Kirby York, director of public policy and programs at the National Black Justice Coalition, said Texas’s “law highlights the importance of cultural hairstyles but does not take into consideration the gender expression component.” Barbers Hill High, she said, “was able to opt out of the policy” by saying it did not apply specifically to the hair length of male students.
“They’re saying that this isn’t about the African heritage, this is about the length of the hairstyle, and that the length is inappropriate. But when you ask the question, ‘Why is the length inappropriate?’ The answer is because it, and let’s be clear, the length is only inappropriate for boys,” York said.
For years there have been efforts to get a national version of the CROWN Act, which prevents racial discrimination based on hairstyles, through Congress, but they have been unsuccessful.
The White House said in 2022 it “strongly supports” CROWN Act legislation and that the president “believes that no person should be denied the ability to obtain a job, succeed in school or the workplace, secure housing, or otherwise exercise their rights based on a hair texture or hair style.”
The goal, according to the National Urban League, is to create “a more equitable and inclusive experience for Black people through the advancement of anti-hair discrimination legislation.” To that effort, the group says there has been “tremendous success elevating the public narrative around this important issue and inspiring a movement to end hair bias.”
State District Judge Chap Cain said in January that arguments in the case would be heard Feb. 22 but did not issue a temporary injunction, leaving George in suspension through much of his junior year as the case plays out.
George’s family has also filed suit against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), accusing them of failing to enforce the CROWN Act.
“We look forward to the Texas judicial system clarifying the CROWN Act,” said Greg Poole, superintendent of the Barbers Hill school district. “Hair length of male students is only constitutionally protected for Native American students. Length of hair is not protected in the Texas CROWN nor in any of the CROWN Acts in the 24 states that have one.”
“The Texas CROWN Act protects hair texture and the wearing of braids, twists and locs. Those with agendas wish to make the CROWN Act a blanket allowance of student expression. Again, we look forward to this issue being legally resolved,” Poole added.
William Hill, a legal strategist who worked on the law in Texas, acknowledges it does not directly address the length of hair because “in certain circumstances, the length of one’s hair could be a safety hazard” in a work setting.
“They’re correct, it doesn’t address length because length really isn’t what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about those hairstyles that protect curly and coily hair,” Hill said, arguing “it seems that what the principal is trying to do is to impose his cultural aesthetic on the student body. It has nothing to do with safety. It has nothing to do with disrupting class, because George’s hair is not all over the place.”
Booker said the school previously had a rule that hair could be longer, but it had to be tied up, which students complied with.
“What these individuals were doing was being able to tie up and sew up and put up their locs just like Darryl George is doing in an effort to comply with the dress and the grooming code,” Booker said. “Once [the principal] saw that a person could still have locs and be able to tie them up,” language was changed in the handbook so hair had to be a certain length when let down.
“Well, if somebody’s hair can’t come below the eyebrow, it’s not gonna be long enough for you to braid. It’s not going to be long enough for you to loc, especially coarse, Black hair,” she said.
Booker says there has been “tremendous support” from the public over this case, and she is confident George will win in court.
“One of the things that George constantly says is, ‘I just want to be a regular kid. I just want to be a child, and they’re not letting me be a regular child. And then they’re discussing things with me that are just way above my head. They want to talk to me about constitutional rights and my role in my hair,’ and he’s like, ‘I’m just a kid,’” Booker said, adding “he’s just really frustrated.”
While the hope for advocates is this case both strengthens and clarifies the CROWN Act, some think it may not be an easy process.
As an elected official in Texas, the judge, Hill said, will face “social and political pressures” to side with the school policy, and then the “case will need to be appealed.”
“If the judge is courageous enough to follow the law, then I think it means that these challenges to the CROWN Act will become more sophisticated, because it’s not going to discontinue challenges,” he said.
TAGS CROWN ACT CROWN ACT HAIR DISCRIMINATION HAIR DISCRIMINATION
1/2
Ridiculous. Prosecutors have reached a deal with indicted Texas Republican AG Ken Paxton that would dismiss his nine-year-old securities charges against him.
Terms:
-$300K in restitution
-100 hours community service
-15 hours of legal ethics training
2/2
To be clear, Paxton’s legal troubles are in no way over.
The DOJ is investigating the same charges, taking over from federal prosecutors.
He’s also facing a whistleblower lawsuit that sparked his impeachment inquiry.
Ridiculous. Prosecutors have reached a deal with indicted Texas Republican AG Ken Paxton that would dismiss his nine-year-old securities charges against him.
Terms:
-$300K in restitution
-100 hours community service
-15 hours of legal ethics training
2/2
To be clear, Paxton’s legal troubles are in no way over.
The DOJ is investigating the same charges, taking over from federal prosecutors.
He’s also facing a whistleblower lawsuit that sparked his impeachment inquiry.
1/2
“I don’t think any of this would happen, but for the fact that he is the Attorney General.” defense attorney Dan Cogdell says of longstanding securities fraud charges against Ken Paxton. Notes the deal did not include admission of guilty. #txlege
2/2
“I don’t think any of this would happen, but for the fact that he is the Attorney General.” defense attorney Dan Cogdell says of longstanding securities fraud charges against Ken Paxton. Notes the deal did not include admission of guilty. #txlege
“I don’t think any of this would happen, but for the fact that he is the Attorney General.” defense attorney Dan Cogdell says of longstanding securities fraud charges against Ken Paxton. Notes the deal did not include admission of guilty. #txlege
2/2
“I don’t think any of this would happen, but for the fact that he is the Attorney General.” defense attorney Dan Cogdell says of longstanding securities fraud charges against Ken Paxton. Notes the deal did not include admission of guilty. #txlege
1/3
Wow. A prosecutor cutting a deal to release someone indicted of a felony. I bet Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will demand all communications about this subversion of justice.
J/k. The "tough on crime" crowd actually just wants a system tough on the poor & people of color.
2/3
Wow. A prosecutor cutting a deal to release someone indicted of a felony. I bet Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will demand all communications about this subversion of justice.
J/k. The "tough on crime" crowd actually just wants a system tough on the poor & people of color.
3/3
BREAKING: Texas AG Ken Paxton has reached a deal to resolve 9-year-old felony securities fraud charges through a deal with prosecutors. We will learn the terms momentarily.
Wow. A prosecutor cutting a deal to release someone indicted of a felony. I bet Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will demand all communications about this subversion of justice.
J/k. The "tough on crime" crowd actually just wants a system tough on the poor & people of color.
2/3
Wow. A prosecutor cutting a deal to release someone indicted of a felony. I bet Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will demand all communications about this subversion of justice.
J/k. The "tough on crime" crowd actually just wants a system tough on the poor & people of color.
3/3
BREAKING: Texas AG Ken Paxton has reached a deal to resolve 9-year-old felony securities fraud charges through a deal with prosecutors. We will learn the terms momentarily.
1/1
BREAKING | Prosecutors announced an agreement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that would ultimately dismiss securities fraud charges he has been facing for nearly a decade. https://www.khou.com/article/news/l...ston/285-f992b3dc-bcbe-45a9-a6d1-754ba59a29b3
BREAKING | Prosecutors announced an agreement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that would ultimately dismiss securities fraud charges he has been facing for nearly a decade. https://www.khou.com/article/news/l...ston/285-f992b3dc-bcbe-45a9-a6d1-754ba59a29b3
1/10
NEW: Abortion bans are fueling domestic violence in Texas.
The leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide, often by an abusive partner with a gun. And Texas is forcing victims to stay pregnant, while making it easier for abusers to get guns.
2/10
I've covered policy impacts on domestic violence victims for years, and when Roe fell I wondered how abortion bans would effect victims especially since pregnancy is such a dangerous time for them.
3/10
After months of reporting, experts tell me initial research shows that DV reports are increasing nationally but we're likely seeing it play out first in Texas.
For a couple of reasons:
4/10
1) TX was the first to severely restrict abortion in 2021, forcing women to stay pregnant nearly a year before Roe fell.
5/10
2) This exposed DV victims to more violence with fewer ways to escape because pregnancy is an extremely dangerous time for victims.
Pregnant+postpartum women are more than twice as likely to be murdered than to die from sepsis, hypertensive disorders or hemorrhage.
6/10
3) TX has the largest rate of gun sales in the country and continues to have lax firearm restrictions.
The state is so firearm friendly that gun rights groups chose it as the testing ground for a SCOTUS case that will determine if domestic abusers get to keep their guns.
7/10
In the last decade, the amount of women shot + killed by an abuser has nearly doubled in Texas.
If SCOTUS sides with gun groups, "lives will be lost,"
@ndvh 's Crystal Justice told me.
8/10
4) The shelters & nonprofits trying to help DV victims navigate this new landscape are put in an impossible bind.
Many are funded by the very institution that enacted + enforces the abortion ban: the state of Texas.
9/10
Survivors + advocacy workers tell me they're terrified that this new normal will lead to more dead women in Texas.
Read more here: How Texas Created A Deadly New Normal For Domestic Violence Victims
10/10
One in three women are in abused in Texas. And the majority of those women in abusive relationships are raped by their partners to get them pregnant and keep them in the relationship.
NEW: Abortion bans are fueling domestic violence in Texas.
The leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide, often by an abusive partner with a gun. And Texas is forcing victims to stay pregnant, while making it easier for abusers to get guns.
2/10
I've covered policy impacts on domestic violence victims for years, and when Roe fell I wondered how abortion bans would effect victims especially since pregnancy is such a dangerous time for them.
3/10
After months of reporting, experts tell me initial research shows that DV reports are increasing nationally but we're likely seeing it play out first in Texas.
For a couple of reasons:
4/10
1) TX was the first to severely restrict abortion in 2021, forcing women to stay pregnant nearly a year before Roe fell.
5/10
2) This exposed DV victims to more violence with fewer ways to escape because pregnancy is an extremely dangerous time for victims.
Pregnant+postpartum women are more than twice as likely to be murdered than to die from sepsis, hypertensive disorders or hemorrhage.
6/10
3) TX has the largest rate of gun sales in the country and continues to have lax firearm restrictions.
The state is so firearm friendly that gun rights groups chose it as the testing ground for a SCOTUS case that will determine if domestic abusers get to keep their guns.
7/10
In the last decade, the amount of women shot + killed by an abuser has nearly doubled in Texas.
If SCOTUS sides with gun groups, "lives will be lost,"
@ndvh 's Crystal Justice told me.
8/10
4) The shelters & nonprofits trying to help DV victims navigate this new landscape are put in an impossible bind.
Many are funded by the very institution that enacted + enforces the abortion ban: the state of Texas.
9/10
Survivors + advocacy workers tell me they're terrified that this new normal will lead to more dead women in Texas.
Read more here: How Texas Created A Deadly New Normal For Domestic Violence Victims
10/10
One in three women are in abused in Texas. And the majority of those women in abusive relationships are raped by their partners to get them pregnant and keep them in the relationship.
How Texas Created A Deadly New Normal For Domestic Violence Victims
The leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide, most often by an abusive partner with a gun. And Texas is forcing victims to stay pregnant, while making it easier for abusers to get guns.
When Your Home State Also Becomes Your Abuser
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-abortion-ban-domestic-violence_n_65dcd9a9e4b005b858312158 When Your Home State Also Becomes Your Abuser The leading cause of death for pregnant women is homicide, most often by an abusive partner with a gun. And Texas is forcing victims to stay pregnant...
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Texas GOP Meets Group Suggesting Death Penalty for Women Who Seek Abortions
Story by Khaleda Rahman• 2d • 3 min read
Demonstrators rally against anti-abortion and voter suppression laws at the Texas State Capitol on October 2, 2021 in Austin, Texas.© Montinique Monroe/Getty Images
Texas Democrats have released a leaked video, saying it shows Texas Republicans supporting the death penalty for women who seek abortions at a meeting held by an anti-abortion group.
The video shows Hood County Constable Scott London, Hood County GOP Chair Steve Biggers and Hood County GOP Chair candidate Greg Harrell attending a meeting held by Abolish Abortion Texas (AATX) in Granbury in January, according to a news release from the Texas Democratic Party.
Newsweek has contacted London, Biggers, Harrell and the Texas Republican Party for comment via email. AATX has been contacted through a contact form on its website.
The video, which was originally streamed on Facebook, was obtained by Hood County Democrats Chair Adrienne Quinn Martin.
"If you want to know where the 'pro-life' movement is headed, watch this," Martin wrote on X, formerly Twitter, alongside a seven-minute video consisting of clips from the meeting.
"Many of our elected officials were in attendance. Including school board, constables and at least one county commissioner. Not one person pushes back or questions an agenda that advocates women possibly receiving the death penalty for abortion, including pregnant minors."
Texas is among 14 states that have banned abortion in almost all circumstances since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. In Texas, doctors who provide an abortion can face criminal charges that carry penalties of up to life in prison. They can also face lawsuits from private citizens, who are empowered to sue a person who helps a woman obtain an abortion. The laws do not threaten the mother with any legal consequences.
The video appears to show Paul Brown, the director of policy for AATX, saying the group wants women who have abortions to be prosecuted for murder. Newsweek has not independently verified the video of the event.
"Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life," he said, per the video. "The same penalty for harming or killing a born person is also imposed by God in his law for killing a preborn person."
At another point in the video, he said: "If someone came in here and murdered one of people here, they should be charged with murder. We simply take the exception that currently exists under the Texas penal code that defines murder and then says abortion is not murder, we removed that."
He said women who seek abortions are "real human beings," but that "their lives don't matter more than the babies they are killing."
Several audience members also suggested that pregnant women and doctors who perform abortions should be "held accountable" to the highest extent of the law, according to Texas Democrats.
Brown is heard saying the AATX is against emergency contraception like the Plan B pill, saying that it is used "to terminate or kill a baby prior to implantation—that is an abortion."
He said that IVF should also be considered a form of abortion, saying that those who destroy fertilized eggs are "terminating or destroying a human life."
He said the group would also "never endorse or be OK with abortions in the instance of incest or rape."
Addressing concerns about prosecuting women who seek abortions, Brown said: "No, I don't want any women to have abortions. And the good news is that when you treat abortion like murder, that we should expect it to decrease significantly."
Touting AATX's support of a number of candidates this election season, Brown added: "We have a whole bunch of candidates who are running today who have expressed their willingness to sign on to abolition [of abortion] as well. I am very excited about the upcoming session."
In a statement, Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said: "The fact that Texas Republicans are meeting with people willing to send pregnant women and doctors to Death Row should terrify every person in Texas.
"Make no mistake: Texas Republicans will strip women of their basic healthcare rights and will not stop at just banning abortion. They will punish women and doctors for seeking and performing basic health care, they will ban IVF and they will create a hostile and inhumane state. All of these candidates should be ashamed of themselves. This isn't Texas, but this is the Republican party of Texas."
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Texas GOP Faces Backlash Over Meeting Endorsing Death Penalty for Abortion
Story by Jacob Miller• 12h • 2 min read
At a recent Texas GOP meeting, a group advocating for the death penalty for women who have abortions stirred controversy and drew sharp criticism, reflecting the ongoing intense debate over abortion rights in the state. Leaked video footage from a meeting held by Abolish Abortion Texas (AATX) in Granbury, Texas, showcased attendees, including Hood County GOP officials, endorsing extreme measures against abortion and In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) procedures. This development has reignited concerns over the direction of abortion legislation in Texas.
Paul Brown, the Director of Policy for AATX, was seen in the video characterizing IVF as a form of abortion, equating the destruction of a fertilized egg to murder. “Their lives [women] don’t matter any more than the babies’ they are killing,” Brown stated, further indicating the group’s opposition to all forms of contraception, including emergency contraception pill Plan B.
Several audience members at the event, hosted by Monica Brown, noted for her book ban attempts, suggested that women and doctors involved in abortion should be “held accountable” to the fullest extent of the law. This rhetoric represents a concerning turn in the anti-abortion movement in Texas, potentially influencing future legislative efforts.
AATX has endorsed a slate of candidates running for the Texas State House, indicative of the strong anti-abortion stance embraced by sections of the Texas GOP. Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa responded with alarm, stating, “The fact that Texas Republicans are meeting with people willing to send pregnant women and doctors to Death Row should terrify every person in Texas.”
Meanwhile, Republican Party of Texas has listed the abolition of abortion as a priority, seeking legislative action to recognize the rights of unborn children at every gestation stage. This push aligns with the intense advocacy for stringent anti-abortion measures within the state.
In contrast, South Carolina’s legislative efforts to impose severe anti-abortion proposals have faced setbacks. Nine GOP co-sponsors withdrew their support from a bill that sought to apply homicide laws to people who undergo abortions, revealing hesitation among legislators to support extreme criminal penalties for abortion.
Rep. Matt Leber, initially a supporter of the South Carolina bill, reversed his stance, emphasizing his unwillingness to criminalize women. “In its current form, I cannot keep my name on it,” Leber stated. Rep. Brandon Guffey, another former co-sponsor, echoed the sentiment, stating, “I don’t believe that a woman should be murdered for having an abortion.”
The South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act aimed to grant unborn children equal protection under homicide laws, potentially categorizing abortion as a capital offense. However, the withdrawal of support and Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey’s assertion that the
A Texas woman is suing the prosecutors who charged her with murder after her self-induced abortion
By Lauren Mascarenhas, Rosa Flores and Sara Weisfeldt, CNN5 minute read
Updated 2:56 PM EDT, Wed April 3, 2024
Demonstrators gathered near the Texas Capitol following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Eric Gay/AP/File
CNN —
A woman in Texas is suing prosecutors and Starr County for more than $1 million after she was arrested and unlawfully charged with murder for an abortion she had in 2022.
Lizelle Gonzalez was arrested and charged with murder in Starr County, Texas, in 2022 after using abortion medication to self-induce an abortion 19 weeks into her pregnancy. The then-26-year-old spent two nights in jail, as her name, mugshot and private medical information made national news, the lawsuit said. The charges were dismissed days later.
The arrest took place months before Roe v. Wade was overturned by the US Supreme Court and at a time when abortions after six weeks were illegal in Texas. However, pregnant people cannot be criminally prosecuted for their own abortions under state law – not now, nor at the time of Gonzalez’s 2022 arrest.
Gonzalez is now suing prosecutors, claiming in her lawsuit they knowingly misrepresented facts and disregarded her rights in order to have her arrested and charged, irrevocably changing the course of her life.
The complaint was filed last week against Gocha Allen Ramirez, the Starr County district attorney, Alexandria Lynn Barrera, the assistant district attorney, and the county itself. CNN has reached out to all the defendants.
Starr County told CNN it has yet to be served with the lawsuit. Gonzalez’s attorneys said they anticipate the county will be served soon.
“We have no doubt that the Starr County District Attorney, and his office, were well-aware that Texas law exempts a woman who receives an abortion, by any means, from a murder charge and yet chose to pursue an unjust and unconstitutional indictment,” Gonzalez’s attorneys, Cecilia Garza and Veronica S. Martinez, told CNN in a statement. “Such a flagrant violation of Ms. Gonzalez’s basic civil rights cannot be regarded as a mere ‘mistake.’”
Ramirez is facing professional consequences beyond the lawsuit.
An investigation by the Texas State Bar found this January that Ramirez had committed professional misconduct and fined him $1,250, as well as placing his license under probated suspension for one year, beginning Monday.
Prosecutors in Ramirez’s office tried to “pursue criminal homicide charges against an individual for acts clearly not criminal pursuant to Texas Penal Code” and Ramirez “failed to refrain from prosecuting a charge that was known not to be supported by probable cause,” reads the findings of a state bar’s investigatory panel, which Ramirez signed in acknowledgment.
According to the panel’s findings, although Ramirez denied that he was ever briefed on the facts of the case before it was prosecuted by his office, investigators determined he was consulted by a prosecutor in his office beforehand and permitted it to go forward.
Barrera, who had only been admitted to practice law in Texas just over five years before the incident, has not faced public disciplinary action for her role in prosecuting Herrera, state bar records show.
The complaint notes Gonzalez self-induced an abortion in January 2022 using misoprostol, a pill that can be used on its own or with another medication, mifepristone, to complete a medication abortion.
After Gonzalez was examined at Starr County Memorial Hospital, staff reported the abortion to the Starr County District Attorney’s Office, in violation of federal privacy laws, the document alleges. CNN has reached out to the hospital, which is not named as a defendant in this suit, for comment.
The complaint alleges Ramirez and Barrera “made misrepresentations of the facts and the law to a grand jury, recklessly and callously disregarding the rights of Plaintiff, allowing a malicious prosecution to commence against her.”
The days Gonzalez spent in jail were filled with fear, confusion and anger, her attorney Martinez told reporters Tuesday. The experience took such a toll that Gonzalez had to be transported to the hospital for hyperventilation and shortness of breath on her second day in jail, she said.
“She was released from custody only after she posted the $500,000 bond and not because the charges were dismissed,” Martinez added. Charging documents confirm Gonzalez’s bond was set at $500,000.
Days after Gonzalez was charged, Ramirez announced his office was dropping the charges, stating she had not committed a criminal act.
“In reviewing this case, it is clear that the Starr County Sheriff’s Department did their duty in investigating the incident brought to their attention by the reporting hospital. To ignore the incident would have been a dereliction of their duty,” he wrote in an April 10, 2022 news release.
But the complaint alleges “based on information and belief,” neither the Starr County Sheriff’s Office nor the Rio Grande City Police Department performed an investigation in the case, rather the district attorney’s office “initiated and performed its own investigation based on reports from hospital personnel.”
The Starr County Sheriff’s Office, which arrested Gonzalez, told CNN it had no comment but shared Ramirez’s April 10 statement.
After Gonzalez was “involuntarily and detrimentally thrust into the public eye,” the attention was only heightened by news of the charges being dropped, the complaint states.
Advocates for women and their reproductive rights describe the incident as a brazen attempt to restrict access to healthcare for women.
“In this case, the Starr County District Attorney and Assistant District Attorney had absolutely no right to pursue a murder indictment in what was clearly just another effort to exert control over a woman’s deeply personal family planning decision and decision about her own bodily autonomy – and in direct opposition to the vast majority of Americans who support abortion pill access,” Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March and Women’s March Network, told CNN in a statement.
Months after Gonzalez’s arrest, Texas implemented a near-total ban on abortion, with murky exceptions for medical emergencies. State law protects patients who obtain an abortion from criminal liability, though medical professionals can be prosecuted for performing abortions.
“In a world of extremist red-state abortion laws, what we are seeing play out in Texas is some of the most indefensible, most radical instances of state officials going out of their way to punish and control women who desperately need abortion care,” Carmona added.
Texas Attracted California Techies. Now It’s Losing Thousands of Them.
The “Texas Miracle” loses some of its magic as Oracle announces it’s moving its new HQ out of Austin and Tesla lays off nearly 2,700 workers.
www.texasmonthly.com
Texas Attracted California Techies. Now It’s Losing Thousands of Them.
The “Texas Miracle” loses some of its magic as Oracle announces it’s moving its new HQ out of Austin and Tesla lays off nearly 2,700 workers.
By Christopher Hooks
April 26, 2024 0
The Oracle headquarters on April 24, 2024, in Austin.Brandon Bell/Getty
Back in the halcyon days of 2020, a year we all remember fondly, a new flash point opened in the enduring war between Texas and California. Technologists started picking up sticks in Taxifornia and moving to the Lone Star State in greater numbers. The enemy’s chief newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, worried that Silicon Valley’s “monopoly” was over and wondered if Austin was “the future.” Governor Greg Abbott declared Texas was “truly the land of business, jobs, and opportunity.”
In the wave of stories about Austin’s ascension in 2020, there were always two pieces of evidence given top billing. That year the tech goliath Oracle relocated its HQ to Austin, where it had already built a massive campus on the south shore of Town Lake, and Elon Musk began building a gargantuan Cybertruck factory just outside the city. Austin-area authorities helped Oracle secure valuable lakefront real estate and offered Tesla some $60 million in tax abatements, including $50 million from the historically struggling school district in Del Valle. The new facilities were greeted by state officials as evidence that the “Texas Miracle” was alive and well. Abbott proudly proclaimed last year that Austin was “THE destination for the world’s leading tech companies.”
This week saw a major plot twist in that narrative: Oracle declared it was moving its headquarters to Nashville, and Tesla—the largest private employer in the capital city—announced it would be laying off almost 2,700 workers from its Austin plant after a disappointing earnings report. Texas wasn’t really at fault here. Oracle, which makes business software, cited Nashville’s strength as a center of the American health-care industry, though it surely also helps that the company is getting nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in tax breaks and incentives from the city and the state of Tennessee. Tesla, meanwhile, laid off workers across the country after the Cybertruck suffered significant quality issues that put the future of its Austin production facility in doubt. The city’s debut in auto manufacturing is a vehicle that apparently rusts in the rain. The factory complex, which Musk once promised would become an “ ecological paradise,” recently took advantage of a new state law to exempt itself from Austin’s environmental regulations.
The Story: Writer John Spong on "Six Brothers"
But while hard financial realities explain the HQ move and the layoffs, the news also evidences a moment of cultural change: the sudden hotness Austin enjoyed in 2020 has dissipated, at least a bit, into notness. In the mad summer of 2020, tech evangelist Joe Lonsdale wrote that Texas stood as a new frontier in the fight for human freedom and vowed to build a new city outside Austin to serve as a safe haven for disruptors, like other utopians who have been coming to the state for centuries. But, it turned out, after the COVID-19 pandemic, there was more utility in the status quo. When in-person work came back, rubbing shoulders in Palo Alto became more valuable to tech leaders. And while Lonsdale remains, many members of his tribe started heading home.In December, perhaps not coincidentally after Austin’s most miserably hot summer ever, TechCrunch wrote that start-ups were fleeing the city, which was “ losing its luster.” Not surprisingly, some of the Californians who moved here during the pandemic realized they had traded Edenic weather for 110-degree summers and no income tax, and they decided that the income tax wasn’t that bad. That was reflected in the tech industry’s financials. Venture capitalists invested $6.75 billion in Austin start-ups in 2021, but in 2023 they invested only $3.8 billion. (Funding also fell in Palo Alto amid an industry-wide crunch, but the Bay Area remained king by far, with companies there raising more than $60 billion in investment in 2023.)
Oracle’s decision to move its HQ out of Texas after less than four years is a reminder that trying to lasso global companies is like trying to wrestle the wind, and that the economic-development incentives that were so vaunted here earlier this century can only do so much. Austin will most likely continue to grow, of course, but the end of this particular hype cycle coincides with a ground shift in the state’s political identity.
For the first two decades of the century, what it meant to be Texan—as explained by the state’s politicians—was largely wrapped up in a feeling of competition with California. The state’s “wins” were often counted by how many new residents and companies Texas could induce to move here from the Golden State.
Governor Rick Perry was the main figure associated with this contest: he bragged endlessly about the deals he had struck with CEOs from colder and more heavily income-taxed states, and even about the rising price of in-demand U-Haul rentals from San Francisco to Dallas. He took credit for the growth of the Texas economy, the primary accomplishment of his fourteen-year stretch in office. Abbott picked up the baton, and Senator Ted Cruz has sought to share in the glory. The political culture of the state was oriented around attracting newcomers at any cost, even if the effort got a little ridiculous.
In 2014, the producer of the hip Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce, Huy Fong Foods, got into trouble with the local authorities in Irwindale, California, near Los Angeles. The problem: residents said the roasted chile fumes from the factory were giving their eyes and throats hell, and the city sued the company to try to make it curb its emissions. (The company denied responsibility and hung a banner outside its headquarters reading, “No tear gas made here,” but air-quality regulators promised to investigate.) “[That] would not happen in Texas,” said then–state representative Jason Villalba, a moderate Republican from the Dallas area. He led a delegation of Texas lawmakers—two state representatives, a state senator, and officials from the governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, and the Texas Department of Agriculture—to beg Huy Fong to relocate to some part of Texas where the residents would be grateful.
The delegation did not succeed: the factory’s owner used the Texans as leverage to negotiate with California authorities and sent both groups packing. Nearly every statewide politician in the Lone Star State, however, agreed that this kind of effort was valiant, even as theater: the state’s role was to encourage new businesses and new folks to move here, even if the transplants inspired grumpy jokes.
That belief has dissipated. The right wing in Texas has changed how state officials view newcomers and the very prospect of economic growth. That shift accelerated at the start of the pandemic, when hostility to Californians and transplants had become more commonly expressed by Texas politicians. Republicans are now just as likely to promise to protect Texas from Californians as to celebrate winning them over. At a rally this spring, Perry noted that Texans frequently approach him to blame him—even if jokingly—for all the out-of-staters they have to deal with now. Last Friday, the Republican Party of Texas (run by a transplant from Connecticut) sent a fund-raising appeal that began with the declaration that “Joe Biden is flooding Texas with migrants & Californians.”
This generation of Republican leaders, most prominently Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick—himself a transplant from Baltimore—is less prone to seeing economic growth as a goal in and of itself. The state GOP has grown increasingly skeptical of business interests, which often favor moderate Republicans and a timid approach to the culture wars. When Rick Perry left office, the Legislature kneecapped his most treasured economic development: slush funds.
Recent sessions saw a prolonged fight over the future of the Chapter 313 tax-incentive program, created in 2001, which authorized property tax breaks to induce large businesses to relocate here. The Legislature allowed the program to expire in 2022 and then revived it in a new and shrunken form that went into effect this year. While Abbott blamed the loss of a major semiconductor plant to New York on the lapse of the program, Patrick was quite proud of the death of Chapter 313, which he said had been “misused.”
More than just the mood of the Legislature has changed. While many Texans don’t like Californians, those who use the word as a curse are generally using it to describe all newcomers, much like those who call brown migrants “Mexicans.” Though no polling will tell you so, and though those who are angry about newcomers may not themselves make the connection, there’s a good case to be made that the fear of both Latin American migrants and American transplants comes from a general sense of economic instability. Texas overall has gotten much wealthier this century. But that wealth has been distributed unevenly. The cost of living in the state’s cities has skyrocketed: home prices have risen faster in Austin than in Los Angeles this century, according to Federal Reserve data. In the last decade, housing prices in DFW more than doubled, while the median income only rose 45 percent. Chicago is now a better bet for would-be homeowners.
Meanwhile, Texas is not a low-tax, low-service state, as is commonly held. It’s a high-tax, low-service state: we may have no income tax, but at least one study found that we have one of the ten highest total tax burdens in the nation, with property taxes making up most of the gap. The quality of state services, however, has not improved commensurate with the growth of state budgets. Older Texans feel squeezed in cities where they’ve lived for decades. Younger Texans go to too-often substandard schools, receive substandard health care, and then can’t afford homes in the cities of their birth. Texas politics has increasingly focused on managing the resulting resentment, and the easiest way to do so is to blame outsiders.
But that puts state leaders in a bind. The state’s economic model is dependent on cheap migrant labor, skilled workers from out of state, and the regular infusion of new capital. Transplants are twice as likely as native Texans to have a bachelor’s degree. They live in homes built by, and eat at restaurants staffed by, undocumented migrants. The growth that results helps everyone, but it benefits some much more than others. “All boats rise,” Steven Pedigo, a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, told Texas Monthly in 2021, “but not all boats rise enough and rise fast enough” to account for rising costs of living. So even in the good times, you have burgeoning resentment. Problems accruing from the population surge go unaddressed as the Legislature stumbles from budget surplus to budget surplus.
Smarter anti-immigration conservatives make the case that by using foreign labor to solve America’s skilled-labor shortages, the country stifles the process by which native Americans might be trained up to meet skilled-labor demand. We import doctors and engineers because it’s cheaper than training our own. Whether that’s true or not, Texas is doing something similar with “Californians.” The state stinks at developing its own labor force. And why should we bother when we can poach workers from other states?
But no boom lasts forever, and Oracle’s departure is a reminder that folks can move in both directions. What happens when the influx slows—and we’re left with our own atrophied mechanisms for generating growth? Well, we can do what Americans have always done. We can hitch the U-Haul to the Cybertruck and hit the road.[/SIZE]
The delegation did not succeed: the factory’s owner used the Texans as leverage to negotiate with California authorities and sent both groups packing. Nearly every statewide politician in the Lone Star State, however, agreed that this kind of effort was valiant, even as theater: the state’s role was to encourage new businesses and new folks to move here, even if the transplants inspired grumpy jokes.
That belief has dissipated. The right wing in Texas has changed how state officials view newcomers and the very prospect of economic growth. That shift accelerated at the start of the pandemic, when hostility to Californians and transplants had become more commonly expressed by Texas politicians. Republicans are now just as likely to promise to protect Texas from Californians as to celebrate winning them over. At a rally this spring, Perry noted that Texans frequently approach him to blame him—even if jokingly—for all the out-of-staters they have to deal with now. Last Friday, the Republican Party of Texas (run by a transplant from Connecticut) sent a fund-raising appeal that began with the declaration that “Joe Biden is flooding Texas with migrants & Californians.”
This generation of Republican leaders, most prominently Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick—himself a transplant from Baltimore—is less prone to seeing economic growth as a goal in and of itself. The state GOP has grown increasingly skeptical of business interests, which often favor moderate Republicans and a timid approach to the culture wars. When Rick Perry left office, the Legislature kneecapped his most treasured economic development: slush funds.
Recent sessions saw a prolonged fight over the future of the Chapter 313 tax-incentive program, created in 2001, which authorized property tax breaks to induce large businesses to relocate here. The Legislature allowed the program to expire in 2022 and then revived it in a new and shrunken form that went into effect this year. While Abbott blamed the loss of a major semiconductor plant to New York on the lapse of the program, Patrick was quite proud of the death of Chapter 313, which he said had been “misused.”
More than just the mood of the Legislature has changed. While many Texans don’t like Californians, those who use the word as a curse are generally using it to describe all newcomers, much like those who call brown migrants “Mexicans.” Though no polling will tell you so, and though those who are angry about newcomers may not themselves make the connection, there’s a good case to be made that the fear of both Latin American migrants and American transplants comes from a general sense of economic instability. Texas overall has gotten much wealthier this century. But that wealth has been distributed unevenly. The cost of living in the state’s cities has skyrocketed: home prices have risen faster in Austin than in Los Angeles this century, according to Federal Reserve data. In the last decade, housing prices in DFW more than doubled, while the median income only rose 45 percent. Chicago is now a better bet for would-be homeowners.
Meanwhile, Texas is not a low-tax, low-service state, as is commonly held. It’s a high-tax, low-service state: we may have no income tax, but at least one study found that we have one of the ten highest total tax burdens in the nation, with property taxes making up most of the gap. The quality of state services, however, has not improved commensurate with the growth of state budgets. Older Texans feel squeezed in cities where they’ve lived for decades. Younger Texans go to too-often substandard schools, receive substandard health care, and then can’t afford homes in the cities of their birth. Texas politics has increasingly focused on managing the resulting resentment, and the easiest way to do so is to blame outsiders.
But that puts state leaders in a bind. The state’s economic model is dependent on cheap migrant labor, skilled workers from out of state, and the regular infusion of new capital. Transplants are twice as likely as native Texans to have a bachelor’s degree. They live in homes built by, and eat at restaurants staffed by, undocumented migrants. The growth that results helps everyone, but it benefits some much more than others. “All boats rise,” Steven Pedigo, a professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, told Texas Monthly in 2021, “but not all boats rise enough and rise fast enough” to account for rising costs of living. So even in the good times, you have burgeoning resentment. Problems accruing from the population surge go unaddressed as the Legislature stumbles from budget surplus to budget surplus.
Smarter anti-immigration conservatives make the case that by using foreign labor to solve America’s skilled-labor shortages, the country stifles the process by which native Americans might be trained up to meet skilled-labor demand. We import doctors and engineers because it’s cheaper than training our own. Whether that’s true or not, Texas is doing something similar with “Californians.” The state stinks at developing its own labor force. And why should we bother when we can poach workers from other states?
But no boom lasts forever, and Oracle’s departure is a reminder that folks can move in both directions. What happens when the influx slows—and we’re left with our own atrophied mechanisms for generating growth? Well, we can do what Americans have always done. We can hitch the U-Haul to the Cybertruck and hit the road.[/SIZE]
ReturnOfJudah
Veteran
Bboystyle
Bang Bang Packers gang!
good on oracle for treating these city/states like the whores that they are. just keep relocating for the money until they get wise.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Texas man files legal action to probe ex-partner’s out-of-state abortion
The previously unreported petition reflects a potential new antiabortion strategy to block women from ending their pregnancies in states where abortion is legal.By Caroline Kitchener
May 3, 2024 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
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As soon as Collin Davis found out his ex-partner was planning to travel to Colorado to have an abortion in late February, the Texas man retained a high-powered antiabortion attorney — who court records show immediately issued a legal threat.
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If the woman proceeded with the abortion, even in a state where the procedure remains legal, Davis would seek a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the abortion and “pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child,” the lawyer wrote in a letter, according to records.
Now, Davis has disclosed his former partner’s abortion to a state district court in Texas, asking for the power to investigate what his lawyer characterizes as potentially illegal activity in a state where almost all abortions are banned.
The previously unreported petition was submitted under an unusual legal mechanism often used in Texas to investigate suspected illegal actions before a lawsuit is filed. The petition claims Davis could sue either under the state’s wrongful-death statute or the novel Texas law known as Senate Bill 8 that allows private citizens to file suit against anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion.
The decision to target an abortion that occurred outside of Texas represents a potential new strategy by antiabortion activists to achieve a goal many in the movement have been working toward since Roe v. Wade was overturned: stopping women from traveling out of state to end their pregnancies. Crossing state lines for abortion care remains legal nationwide.
The case also illustrates the role that men who disapprove of their partners’ decisions could play in surfacing future cases that may violate abortion bans — either by filing their own civil lawsuits or by reporting the abortions to law enforcement.
Under Texas law, performing an abortion is a crime punishable by up to a lifetime in prison and up to $100,000 in civil penalties. Women seeking abortions cannot be charged under the state’s abortion restrictions, but the laws target anyone who performs or helps to facilitate an illegal abortion, including those who help distribute abortion pills.
Davis’s petition — filed under Texas’s Rule 202 by Jonathan Mitchell, a prominent antiabortion attorney known for devising new and aggressive legal strategies to crack down on abortion — follows a lawsuit filed last spring by another Texas man, Marcus Silva, who is attempting to sue three women who allegedly helped his ex-wife obtain abortion pills.
“Mr. Davis is considering whether to sue individuals and organizations that participated in the murder of his unborn child,” Mitchell, widely known as the architect of Senate Bill 8, wrote in Davis’s complaint in March.
Davis’s petition includes no evidence of illegal activity. Davis’s former partner ultimately obtained her abortion in Colorado, Davis claims in the court documents. Mitchell suggests in the petition that people who helped her procure the abortion could be found liable.
Antiabortion advocates have tried various tactics to dissuade women from traveling out of state for abortions. Idaho has passed a law making it illegal for someone to help a minor leave the state for an abortion without parental consent — which is currently blocked by the courts — and Tennessee is pursuing similar restrictions. Several Texas cities and counties have passed local ordinances attempting to stop women seeking abortions from using key portions of high-traffic highways.
Mitchell said in a statement that abortions that occur outside Texas can be targets for civil litigation.
“Fathers of aborted fetuses can sue for wrongful death in states with abortion bans, even if the abortion occurs out-of-state,” he wrote. “They can sue anyone who paid for the abortion, anyone who aided or abetted the travel, and anyone involved in the manufacture or distribution of abortion drugs.”
Molly Duane, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, described Mitchell’s statement and general approach as misleading “fearmongering.”
“People need to understand that it is not a crime to leave Texas or any other state in the country for an abortion,” said Duane, who is working with lawyers from the firm Arnold & Porter to represent the woman and others targeted in the Davis case. “I don’t want people to be intimidated, but they should be outraged and alarmed.”
Duane described the woman’s relationship with Davis as “toxic and harmful.”
Davis — who claims in the petition to have helped conceive what he calls his “unborn child” — did not respond to requests for comment. Mitchell declined to comment on Duane’s description of the relationship.
Abortion rights advocates say these types of legal actions amount to “vigilante justice” designed to intimidate people who have done nothing wrong. Duane and other lawyers representing the woman asked the court to redact the names of those involved from the public court filings, out of a concern for their privacy and safety.
The judge agreed to seal the original petition with the identifying information.
“The document at issue contains confidential and sensitive information including the Respondents’ full names ... and sensitive allegations about health care that the Respondents have a substantial interest in keeping confidential,” the judge wrote in an order signed Wednesday.
Over the past two years, many antiabortion activists have grown frustrated by what they see as a lack of enforcement of abortion bans — particularly as abortion pills become more widely available in antiabortion states because of growing online and community-based pill networks.
Some antiabortion advocates are searching for a way to crack down.
“You have laws being ignored systematically — so what are we going to do about it?” said John Seago, president of Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest antiabortion group. The pill networks, he added, “can and should be prosecuted.”
Several district attorneys in conservative areas told The Post that abortion laws are difficult to enforce in practice, largely because they have no clear way to find out about these cases.
“First you would have to have some sort of complaining party … then law enforcement would have to do a full investigation,” said Kent Volkmer, county attorney for Pinal County in Arizona, where the Republican-led legislature has voted to repeal an 1864 abortion law. “I think it’s extremely unlikely that an abortion-related criminal charge would ever be submitted to our office.”
If one of these cases did surface, Volkmer said, it would probably be reported by an employee of a doctor’s office who was aware of the abortion — or by the “purported father.”
Volkmer added that, because of his office’s policy to only prosecute cases with a reasonable likelihood of conviction, he would only anticipate prosecuting what he characterized as an “extreme” situation, such as an abortion that occurred late in the third trimester.
In the Davis case, Mitchell is attempting to depose the woman who had the abortion, along with several other people he writes may be “complicit” in the abortion. If deposed, they would be asked about others involved in the abortion, including any abortion funds or any other entities that provided financial support, according to court records. They would also have to provide all documentation relevant to the abortion.
“Mr. Davis expects to be able to better evaluate the prospects for legal success after deposing [the people listed], and discovering the identity of their co-conspirators and accomplices,” Mitchell wrote in the complaint, which he filed on March 22.
Davis is now awaiting a decision from the state district court.
While the vast majority of Texas abortion funds stopped providing funding for out-of-state abortions after Roe was overturned — concerned for their legal risk amid vague laws they worried might allow prosecutors to target them — many resumed operations in the spring of 2023, reassured by a court ruling that has temporarily blocked some prosecutors from going after people who help Texans obtain abortions across state lines.
“I want people to know we don’t think there’s anything illegal about helping someone leave the state for an abortion,” said Duane, with the Center for Reproductive Rights. “These are Jonathan Mitchell … tactics to discourage people.”