From our blog: The Dallas 365 Dashboard presents a great opportunity for the city to relay data on its progress in many policy areas, but if the city is serious about tracking its progress on waste reduction, then it needs to measure the numbers that matter.
From our blog: The Austin City Council may vote as early as this week on who to hire for their new City Manager. One of the finalists, Howard Lazarus, has raised considerable concern among TCE and other environmentalists.
From our blog: Fort Worth City Council voted to approve their 20-year “Comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan.” As a result of widespread citizen participation and advocacy, the final document included many more program and policy goals to reduce waste and increase recycling than originally planned.
On June 14, 2017 the City of Austin’s Water and Wastewater Commission passed a resolution attacking the Zero Waste Advisory Commission (ZWAC). In our view, ZWAC built upon the work of the Joint Committee on Bio-Solids Management and improved public oversight on a costly, environmentally sensitive program. Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE) does not […]
From our blog: We are proud to see our activists whose skills we have developed make great strides in their careers to transform policy for a healthier, more just world.
From our blog: For the first time ever, a statewide coalition of advocates proactively introduced a bill to protect local rights to ban bags: HB 3482. The bill passed out of its committee with a “yes” vote from one of the House’s most conservative Republicans, and then passed out of the Calendars Committee and was scheduled for a floor vote!
Greg Abbott supporters cheer on the attorney general as he begins his campaign for governor in July 2013. Patrick Michels
After an intense week of news featuring major legal opinions on the most contentious issues of our time—public school funding, abortion access, single-use plastic bags—this short Labor Day week presented a welcome respite from the ideological canyons and petty rifts that divide us.
In the immortal words of Kris Kristofferson, “There’s no need to watch the bridges that we’re burning.” Plenty of time for that before November! For now, let’s just relax and enjoy the good times.
After all, it’s football season! With all the divisive strife in the world today, it’s nice to know that we can all kick back together on a Sunday afternoon, let everyone celebrate their fandom as they like, and may the best team win. A time to put politics aside!
That’s Greg Abbott’s campaign dinging Davis for daring to cheer for the Dallas Cowboys and for an entirely different team on some other occasions. Who knows? Maybe even at the same time! On any given Sunday, Wendy Davis, alone in the universe, may hope to see both the Cowboys and the Patriots win their football games.
Peggy Fikac at the Houston Chronicle followed up to ask the natural next question: So, what team is Abbott’s favorite?
Abbott spokesman Matt Hirsch said the attorney general favors two Texas teams: the Cowboys and the Texans.
At Texas Monthly, Dan Solomon takes a deep dive into the many ways this fight is “silly,” but also notes how easily politicians can screw up the seemingly simple “local football team pander.” The funniest thing about the affair might be seeing Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson trotted out to provide the following expert analysis:
This week also brought us Greg Abbott’s new campaign ad, “Garage,” in which the gubernatorial candidate recalls his difficult training after being partially paralyzed, which included tackling eight floors of a parking garage in his wheelchair to build upper-body strength. Abbott could be running for governor here, or he might be trying to sell you some Under Armour.
Abbott conveys this simple and inspirational message about how he faces personal challenges, then makes a broad, anodyne leap to the challenges we all face as Texans.
But seriously, who could find fault in a message like this? And what everyday setting could be more unimpeachable than a parking garage? What could anyone possibly find to rebut in this unassailably upbeat little nugget of bumper-sticker-grade inspiration?
“If you had told me Greg Abbott was running an ad titled ‘Garage’, I would have assumed it would be an apology to the woman he sided against on the Texas Supreme Court after she was brutally raped in a parking garage.”
Acuña, a Davis campaign spokeswoman, is referring specifically to a case from 1999. The content of Abbott’s ad left little room for attack, but the name… oh, the name! Sure, using that one innocuous word as a cudgel may strike some as a bit of a stretch, but only until you think of all the wild rebuttals that didn’t make the cut. You know who else spent a lot of time in a concrete bunker?
Maybe Abbott can make a sport of this, and challenge Davis by giving his next ads even blander one-word titles. “Satchel.” “Receptacle.” “Spork.” This campaign’s getting hot already!