Recent editorials from Texas newspapers

Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Texas newspapers:

The Monitor. July 23, 2017.

In an April 19, 2015, special column for The Monitor, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, proudly proclaimed that he had successfully lobbied members of Congress to change a federal law to allow for federal funds to be reimbursed to municipalities and local governments that provided humanitarian relief to immigrants in border communities, like the Rio Grande Valley, a year after a tide of thousands began coming from Central America.

The fiscal 2015 Department of Homeland Security Funding Bill was altered “to include a provision that makes costs of providing humanitarian relief to unaccompanied children and families eligible for reimbursement under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) State Homeland Security Grants,” Cuellar wrote. “Border communities across the American Southwest, including the Rio Grande Valley, are now eligible to be reimbursed for the monies they spent on humanitarian relief to these children and families. This includes reimbursements for food, water, hygiene products, medicine, medical supplies and temporary housing, as well as costs for transportation to and from temporary housing or to permanent housing.”

This was to be the first time that FEMA grants would be allowed for this purpose. And as the surge of Central Americans continued to come through South Texas, the money was much-needed by the City of McAllen and Hidalgo County, which worked with Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley to provide for the immigrants after they were legally released on deferred adjudication by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The assistance not only helped these weary travelers on their way to parts unknown in cities elsewhere, but it helped our community, as well. It prevented thousands of people from sleeping on sidewalks near the downtown McAllen bus station, or wandering aimlessly near downtown shops, which could have affected merchant sales. And it made it safer for these people who were in perilous situations and ripe for being taken advantage of.

Our local leaders did the right thing. And we are proud of them for it. They did a truly Christian service and filled a void left by our federal government’s failures as it relates to immigrants. But it was costly for our relatively small community, totaling over $1.3 million for the various entities, we have been told.

Unfortunately, over two years later, the communities still haven’t been reimbursed. Instead, there has been a maddening shuffle and movement of these funds by state officials, which administer the federal grants, bouncing them from the Texas Department of Public Safety and the governor’s office and even at times saying the money was all gone. Fueling this frustration has been what Cuellar calls miscommunication and misinterpretation of the federal law by federal and state officials.

Perhaps most aggravating has been the underlying reason that we believe is at the political heart of the missing money: Resentment by those who are opposed to applying U.S. taxpayer money to immigrant-related causes.

But the truth of the matter is that Cuellar, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, properly secured the money for this very purpose. Congress approved it. And we demand that the state distribute it and eliminate whatever remaining hoops might impede these reimbursement funds.

We recently thought we were closer to seeing reimbursement checks finally flow into the Valley when The Monitor obtained a letter sent from FEMA officials to Gov. Greg Abbott’s office clarifying that the FEMA funds can be spent on these services dating back to 2014. (The governor’s office told us that they had previously been told by their FEMA liaison that this money could not be used for this reason.)

But then Abbott’s office was sent this letter from FEMA saying: “Upon further review of the pertinent section of the FY 2017 Appropriation regarding your inquiry into reimbursement for humanitarian support provided for unaccompanied alien children, and alien adults with minors, FEMA has amended our prior determination. It added that FEMA officials apologized for “any confusion caused by our initial read of the appropriation.”

Abbott visited McAllen on July 15, during which time his staff assured The Monitor’s editorial board that all confusion had been cleared up and that once the city of McAllen and other eligible entities applied for the money, they would have no problem being cleared, if the applications were in order and met all requirements.

However, as the days went by, city of McAllen officials became exasperated when they couldn’t even electronically file their application and physically had to mail it to Austin, where it was finally received.

This led state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, who had worked with Cuellar to maneuver these funds to the Valley, to tell us he was beyond “frustrated.” And McAllen Mayor Jim Darling to weigh in by telling us he’d be glad when the money was in hand because “I’d like to get on to other issues.”

So would we. But we will not let up until the money that was legally appropriated by Congress is here.

The Monitor has written numerous editorials demanding for this money to make its way to South Texas. We’ve praised lawmakers for their efforts and our community for its patience. And we continue to do so but our collective patience has worn thin. And our respect for any who have (or plan to) impede this process, diminishes by the day.

So send the $530,000 that the city of McAllen has formally requested. Set an example for Hidalgo County, which has also given services and might be eligible for reimbursement funds. These entities helped Sacred Heart Catholic Church to turn itself into a respite center that showed a modicum of compassion to 73,315 people who were given permission by federal officials to legally stay in this country until their asylum claims are evaluated.

Had this oasis not existed just imagine where these people would have gone and imagine how it would have impacted the city on the streets of downtown McAllen.

Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the RGV, recently told us that her organization will likely not ask for any reimbursement funds; they were doing God’s work. She added: “If the city gets refunded that would be wonderful. I think they should get refunded.”

So do we.

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Beaumont Enterprise. July 24, 2017.

If states like Mississippi (and Texas, fortunately) didn’t have strong open records laws for public documents, Hugh Freeze might still be head football coach at the University of Mississippi. He recently resigned after public requests for his telephone records revealed that he had called an escort service numerous times.

Had Freeze been a private citizen who used escort services, which is a genteel term for prostitution, that would be between him and his conscience. But as an employee of the state of Mississippi using a state-issued cellphone, just like the governor or treasurer, his call logs were a matter of public record. That made them subject to disclosure if anyone filed an open records request for him, and that’s what led to Freeze’s resignation.

Taxpayers deserve to know if a high-ranking state employee in a position of trust is patronizing escorts. That certainly applies to Freeze, who was married and seemed outwardly religious, attending services and tweeting out Bible verses.

More significantly, as a football coach in charge of teenagers and young adults, his moral guidance was important. Parents needed to know that they could trust their sons with Freeze for four years, when they would be subjected to many temptations and distractions. They needed to have confidence in the example the coach would set by word and deed.

None of this would have been known if the state hadn’t been required to release his phone records. And Freeze first claimed that one call to an escort was simply a misdial. Yet a review of his phone records revealed other calls to escorts, so Freeze was forced to resign for a “pattern of personal misconduct.”

Accountability like that often won’t happen without disclosure, and disclosure often won’t happen with open records laws. It’s all about verifying that tax dollars are being used wisely. In Mississippi or any other state, one way to ensure that has been proved again.

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Corpus Christi Caller-Times. July 24, 2017.

It’s our fervent hope that 18 Texas mayors, including our own Joe McComb, can talk some sense into Gov. Greg Abbott. Their presence alone should be enough to remind him that we’re all in this together.

Lately it hasn’t seemed that way. The governor and like-minded members of the Legislature have been treating cities as liberal enemies of the nation’s reddest state. The relationship between state and local governments should not be based on that kind of partisanship. At the city level, elected officials and their constituents put that kind of politics aside and work together.

Cities are where most of the people in the state reside. Cities make Texas what it is. They are where Texas does most of its growing and the quality of life they provide are what makes Texas a place worth living.

Cities have one thing in common with school districts and counties: They’re where what rolls downhill comes to an abrupt stop. They’re where so-called unfunded mandates get funded and done.

Cities determine for themselves where their city limits will be and what level of services will be provided within those limits - streets, water, sewage treatment, parks, pools, public safety. They issue building permits that are called “permits” because the cities get to decide what is permitted to be built.

That’s a lot of responsibility and a lot of authority. People tend to resent authority. An extreme example would be an owner of a lot on the water side of Ocean Drive who thinks he or she has a right to park a double-wide on that lot as a permanent residence.

There’s a lot of political capital to be had by exploiting resentment of city authority. Abbott’s game has been to tap that resentment. He has been winning at it, at considerable expense to cities’ right to pursue quality of life for their residents. For example, a showdown with Denton resulted in cities losing their authority to ban fracking inside their limits two years ago. Abbott also has targeted cities’ authority to ban single-use plastic bags, protect their trees and tax and annex property.

He derides the decisions of individual cities to govern themselves in their own way as a “patchwork quilt” of regulation. He prefers to impose the state’s will on cities, to homogenize and marginalize them. He spins this tyrannical plan as protection of individual rights against tyranny.

Putting a double-wide on a water-side Ocean Drive lot - that’s tyranny. So is littering our trees and bay indiscriminately with wispy plastic bags.

And so is telling Rockport, a favorite first or second home for well-off political conservatives, that it can’t protect its distinctive wind-swept live oaks. The current special session of the Legislature called by Abbott includes his call for taking away cities’ power to regulate trees.

But the two huge city governance issues of the session are annexation and property taxing authority. Abbott wants to limit both, in ways that would stifle both growth and the means to pay for it.

The biggest cities, especially Austin, are favorite targets of Abbott and the other far-right Republicans running the state. It’s ironic and two-faced of them because most of them love being in Austin. Abbott has spent most of his adult life there.

One flaw in Abbott’s anti-Austin strategy is that all the other cities in Texas are collateral damage, not just the biggest ones.

We’re proud that McComb, who has been a Republican longer than Abbott has been an Austin resident, is one of the 18 mayors who sought to engage with the governor. In 2016, before McComb decided to run for City Council, he wrote a guest column advocating a local-option gas tax to fund residential street work. Without getting too deep into the weeds of his proposal, its overarching philosophy was that we the people of Corpus Christi should have the right to decide this matter and we’d like for the state to kindly please get out of our way.

We’d have the option of saying no. And we’d have the option of voting people like McComb out of office for daring to ask us. McComb, who dared to bring up this risky topic, was the top vote-getter in the at-large council race in November and the overwhelming victor in a special election for mayor.

There’s a message in all of that. It’s the message we’d like to see conveyed to longtime Austinite Greg Abbott. He and the members of the Legislature who support his war on local authority need to be reminded where they live, and that politics is local.

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Houston Chronicle. July 24, 2017.

Lonnie “Bo” Pilgrim, a man from East Texas who got rich selling chickens, passed away July 21. As co-founder of the Pilgrim’s Pride line of poultry products, he leaves behind a legacy that’s especially noteworthy during this special session of the Texas Legislature.

One day during a 1989 special session, Pilgrim strolled onto the floor of the Senate and distributed $10,000 checks to politicians who were about to vote on a bill he supported. On each of the checks, he also conveniently left the payee’s name blank. Even in a state where lawmakers nakedly play fast and loose with campaign money, this audacious act sparked public outrage. Legislators decided to outlaw the sordid practice of collecting campaign contributions inside the Capitol.

Now, a generation later, we need to take that reform one step further. A law passed in the same era forbids legislators and statewide office holders from accepting any campaign cash during regular sessions of the Legislature. But as the Chronicle’s James Drew reports from our Capitol bureau, that rule doesn’t apply during special sessions. It’s a loophole as wide as the Texas sky, and the Legislature needs to close it.

Unfortunately, Gov. Greg Abbott has no compunctions about dragging the sack as state lawmakers debate the items he put on their agenda. Indeed, his fundraising emails have shamelessly cited his pending legislation as a reason for donors to write him campaign checks. And Abbott’s not alone. Donors have been doling out cash at fundraisers hosted by a number of state lawmakers, including newly elected state Sen. Borris Miles, D-Houston; his colleague state Sen. Jose Menendez, D-San Antonio, held a fundraiser sponsored in part by three powerful lobbying firms.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Joe Straus have set a good example by refusing to accept campaign cash during the current special session. That standard needs to be codified in state law. State Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Frisco, has filed legislation that would extend the contribution ban to special sessions. Our governor, who campaigned on ethics reform, should add this subject to his agenda for the special session.

Pilgrim, may he rest in peace, won’t hand out any more checks inside the Texas Capitol. But what’s happening today in the Legislature isn’t much better. Our elected officials need to stop hitting up lobbyists for campaign cash during special sessions of the Legislature.

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The Dallas Morning News. July 24, 2017.

The horrific death of at least 10 immigrants sneaking across Texas in the back of a tractor-trailer rig with no air conditioning is a tragic reminder of the lengths people will go to in pursuit of a better life.

It’s also a grim, cautionary tale about greedy predators who stand ready to capitalize on that greatest of all human suffering - that irrepressible yearning for a better life; in this case, a shot at the American dream.

It’s small solace that the driver of that rig was arrested and charged with illegally transporting the immigrants, nearly three dozen of whom were found in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio.

The question we all should ponder now is this: What can we do to stave off such tragedies, and to shut down sinister underground enterprises that exploit a vulnerable, yet steady stream of desperate souls?

Telling people to come into the country legally doesn’t work. Those paths are few. And as the ringleaders of these human smuggling rackets well know, desperate people do desperate things.

That’s why we find the rhetoric from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other immigration saber-rattlers so troubling. Building walls, mass arrests, deportations - they are sound bites that play to the get-tough crowd but do little to actually solve the problem. Yes, border security is important. But the lure of a better life will forever tempt those trapped in despair.

It’s important for our leaders to be smart about immigration reform. And to look at the whole picture.

“These economic migrants are basically law-abiding people who are seeking work because their country of origin has not given them a chance to succeed,” Dennis Nixon, the CEO of International Bancshares Corp. and International Bank of Commerce in Laredo, wrote in an op-ed column on these pages recently.

Nixon, who helped lead President Trump’s campaign in Texas last year, recognizes that we can curb the incentive - and the risks - for those sneaking across the border illegally by providing a pathway to legal status. Harsh and unaccommodating immigration policies are impractical and inhumane.

The flow of illegal immigrants into the United States has slowed in recent decades. The vast majority of those still coming through Mexico - many from Central America -are looking for work, not trouble. They are a pillar of our growing economy.

Turning our backs on those fleeing violence or hopeless situations, as we’ve seen with the refugee crisis in Europe, simply shifts the burden elsewhere.

Our immigration courts are clogged. Through October of last year, there were more than half a million immigration cases in the pipeline with a wait time of up to nearly three years. These are people trying to come here legally.

Unless Congress beefs up the number of immigration judges, that backlog could reach 1 million in five years, Nixon wrote.

That’s not as it should be. The consequences are dire: More opportunities for human smugglers to prey on those looking for any way out; more people sneaking into the country and living in the shadows.

It’s not the American way.