Yesterday the H-Town City Council Committee on Ethics, Elections and Council Governance killed the proposal to extend term limits. The proposal won’t be on the ballot this November. This is definitely a good thing. I’ve said it before, if folks want to change or do away with term limits, go out and get the signatures and build a grass roots campaign.
Here is from the Chron:
Councilman Andrew Burks, whose budget amendment last month sent the issue to the council’s ethics and governance committee, first tried to build a case for longer terms on its merits. He argued that it would save money in avoided election costs, attract better candidates, encourage more long-term thinking, shift officials’ focus from fundraising to public policy and reduce the use of council positions as stepping stones to other offices.
Virtually every member of the committee told Burks the proposal was the wrong idea at the wrong time and voted 9-1 to put it to rest. Even Burks, who was elected in December on his 13th try for public office, voted with the majority.
And:
District I Councilman James Rodriguez said any move to change term limits should come from the citizenry.
“I haven’t seen a groundswell of support for changing term limits, especially in my district, and I think they’d like us to get back to the business of running and managing this city,” he said.
Rice University political science professor Robert Stein warned the committee that putting a term limit-change on a November ballot that already may be crowded with bond issues and a sales tax referendum likely would doom it to failure.
Picking up on Stein’s analysis, Councilman Stephen Costello said, “We don’t need to have this particular issue on the ballot. We don’t need to have this issue competing against our future bond issue or a bond issue of the school district or a bond issue of the community college system in addition to a referendum that Metro’s going to have at the same time.” Costello then introduced the motion to kill the proposal.
As the opposition to his plan piled up, Burks snapped back with rambling complaints about the influence of lobbyists, Costello’s involvement in a ballot measure campaign that created a massive public works program that imposed a monthly fee on homeowners, and political cowardice among his colleagues.
CM Rodriguez (Commentary’s client) is on point on this. CM Costello is also correct. I’ve kind of been saying that myself the past couple of weeks.
I don’t know which lobbyist CM Burks is talking about. Commentary has had the same position on this issue since the days of the Term Limits Review Committee back in 2010. I went to most of the meetings and spoke at some of them. I’ve been pretty consistent on this. Oh, well!
Three MLB All Star Games have been played in H-Town (1968, 1986, and 2004). How many of the starting pitchers of those three games are in the Hall of Fame?
The Chron’s Ericka Mellon has a darn good piece today on the HISD bond proposal. You need to check it out because we could be voting on some of this stuff this November. Here it is.
This past Sunday the Chron introduced their new sports columnist, Randy Harvey and for today’s column he bashed the ‘Stros – wow – he certainly dug deep to find something to write about. I’m impressed – woo -woo! Check out his column here.
Hall of Fame great Don Drysdale of course started for the NL All Stars in the Astrodome back in 1968.
Commentary watched last night’s 3 hour long and very boring dinger fest. I’ll head out to The Yard this evening to check out the MLB All Star Game on El Grande and eat the team’s free grub. I’m betting that Jose Altuve will see plenty of action since he is the only backup second baseman on the NL All Star team roster.
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