A federal court ruled this week that
a map passed by Texas Republicans
cannot be used in next year's
midterm elections.
That map was set to eliminate one
of Travis County's two
Democratic-held seats.
We're going to hear more from the
Texas newsroom's capital reporter
about the fallout following
yesterday's ruling, and we'll hear
from Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who
plans to run for re-election
following that ruling from the
federal court. Plus, some folks
out there may be feeling property
tax fatigue.
Austin voters overwhelmingly
rejected Proposition Q.
Now, Travis County Commissioners are
being sued for a tax increase.
We've got that story.
Stay tuned.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
And rain chances are ramping up for
the Austin area, pack your umbrella,
join us, we've got more on
Austin Signal.
Howdy out there, thank you for
joining us on Austin Signal.
I'm your host, Jerry Kehannel.
This is listener powered public
radio, KUT News 90.5
on the KUT app and online
at KUT.org.
Wednesday, November 19th, thank
you making us a part of your day.
A quick couple of headlines before
today's show.
Austin City Council members are
working to finalize a city budget
and they have to find ways to
cut. After voters resoundingly
rejected a proposed tax rate
increase that would have generated
more than $100 million.
At a meeting yesterday, city council
members shared some of their funding
priorities.
Those include emergency medical
services, shelter for people
experiencing homelessness, and
wildfire mitigation.
The city council is set to adopt a
new budget by the end of this
week.
And much of central Texas will be
under a flood watch from late
tonight through early Friday morning
that includes Burnett, Comal,
Hayes, Kerr, Travis, and Williamson
counties.
The National Weather Service says
locally heavy rainfall could lead to
some flash flooding.
We could see one to three inches of
rain with some isolated spots
getting up to six inches.
We're gonna have more about the
forecast coming up in the show.
And as always, you can keep up with
the latest news over at KUT.org
and on the KUT
app.
A three-judge panel placed a
temporary block Tuesday on the
congressional map that Texas
Republican lawmakers passed over the
summer. That map passed at
the behest of President Trump was
ruled by the panel to
be racially
gerrymandering, excuse me.
The Texas newsroom's capital
reporter Blaise Ganey is joining us
on the phone now to tell us more.
Howdy, Blaise.
Hey, how's it going?
It's going okay.
Glad you're here with us.
So, this ruling came down yesterday
right about now.
First, can you give us a little
bit more about the reasoning?
What reasoning did the three-judge
panel give for blocking the map?
Yeah, I mean, they essentially just
adopted what the plaintiffs were
saying in this case, which was that
these this map was drawn with
racial bias and it was racially
discriminatory.
They pointed out actual
portions of the map where they
noticed, you know, democratic
areas were targeted, specifically
dominated by African Americans
and Latinos,
Hispanics, In that
they did not Republicans did
not target the Democratic areas
that were dominated by white
individuals.
So like I said, this ruling has been
about 24 hours since this ruling was
issued. What has been the general
reaction to the news?
Were people here in Texas expecting
this decision?
No, I think this actually shocked a
lot of people. I think most people,
and I say that because most people
told the state that they did not
want them to redraw the
congressional districts.
So, you know, about 98% I
believe told of
those who did said they didn't want
them to redrew all the districts.
So I think a lot Texas are happy,
a little surprised, but also now
that it has been appealed, I think
people are sort of holding their
breath with what may be
next to come.
Yeah, you mentioned that appeal that
came from Texas Republicans.
How did they respond?
Can you tell us more about that
appeal?
Yeah, I mean, they essentially just
said that, you know, the ruling is
wrong and that they want the Supreme
Court to reverse the ruling and
allow them to use the
new map, the 2025
map instead of the old
2021 map that
we've used in the past two
elections.
And this is a temporary
block that was issued by this
three judge panel.
And as you mentioned, there has
already been an appeal.
How soon might we expect some
movements on that appeal?
Well, you know, that's, I think,
what a lot of people are wondering.
Um, December 8th is the deadline to
file. The court obviously
has enough power to move that
deadline back, but the hope is
that they can get something out as
quick as possible.
Um, so that, you,
know, candidates can make their
filings and whatnot, and choose
which district they will run in, uh,
as you know Al
Green was, you know going
to run into the 18th district on the
new map hill.
Go back to running in the ninth.
But if a Supreme Court decision
comes down allowing the
2025 map, he'll be returning and
running back in the 18th district.
So a lot of things are up in the
air right now.
Yeah, you mentioned Al Green.
Here in Austin, here in the Austin
area, the new map was set to
have an impact.
We're gonna lose one, or two
congressional Democratic-held
seats right now. That was gonna be
going back to one, correct?
That's correct, yeah.
So you had Greg Kazar,
a congressman, and also Lloyd
Doggett, and Kazar
was actually gonna, and I
may be pronouncing that wrong, but
Kazar is gonna continue to
take over the
district, the one district, and
Lloyd Doggott was gonna retire
yesterday after the ruling.
He announced that he will actually,
he's been revived essentially,
and will come back and
run in his district Um,
since you know, the district remains
for now.
Yeah, for now.
You mentioned that December 8th
deadline. Is that kind of the next
step? What are we expecting next
in this continuing battle?
Yeah, we're sort of just waiting
once again for a
ruling now from the United States
Supreme Court, Supreme Court of the
United states to either
say yes, the court can go
ahead and stay the map and we
move forward with the old map or
to say no, the courts got it
all wrong and this is
partisan gerrymandering, which is
legal and they can
go ahead and use the 2025
map.
That'll be the next ruling.
Alright, that is Blaise Ganey, he is
the Capital Reporter for the Texas
Newsroom.
You can find his reporting at
KUT.org.
Blaise, thank you.
Thanks for having me.
And Blaise mentioned longtime
Democratic Congressman Lloyd
Doggett.
We reached out to the Austin
representative yesterday after he'd
had some time to process the ruling.
Here's some of his reaction to the
news.
Well, I'm really encouraged by it.
This is really good news for Austin
and especially the university
community.
Uh, what a incredible
map, uh, the Trump
Abbott combinations that connected
the downtown area
of Austin, uh city
hall and the courthouse, not
with the university of Texas campus
a few blocks away, but with Texas
A&M that denied, uh
probably to half of our delegation
of African American members.
Representation here in Congress
and would
have people in Travis County,
some of them represented from San
Angelo, from Victoria and
Waco, but without
two representatives,
myself and Congressman Casar, that
we have today.
Now I'll be able to run in
my district, he and his.
We hope this decision holds and
that we have that opportunity.
Austin will certainly be the better
if both of us are able to serve and
work together here.
In your announcement on
Tuesday, you invoked Mark Twain
saying reports of your death
have been greatly exaggerated.
It made me think a little bit about
George Bailey as well and It's a
Wonderful Life. He gets this
chance to see what life would have
been like without him and how things
would change.
How excited are you at the
prospect of getting back to work for
the people of and for the people who
you represent.
Well, I really never stopped
working. I was at four or five
events this past weekend in
Austin. I like being out
and visiting with people in
different neighborhoods and
learning about the latest
developments in my hometown
and finding ways that I can be
helpful.
But yes, I'm excited about the
prospect of applying
for a job to represent Central
Texas for one more term.
And that's really what this
is all about. It's a job application
where. The voters get to evaluate
my performance and decide
whether they want to keep me for
another two years doing the kind of
work I've done in the past.
This redistricting battle obviously
started here in Texas, but it's lit
a fire that has spread across the
country, both in state legislatures
and in city streets across the
county. What have you seen from
Texans and Americans responding to
this attempt to redistrict a
lot of their congressional districts
without their voice or approval?
Well, you know, I've been involved
in just about every major rally
and protest we've had in
Austin since the beginning
of the year, and I'm really
encouraged that our events have
grown. When people ask me about
hope, the hope is shown in
the number of people that are
standing up and saying that they're
going to push back against
Trump's attempts to become really
a total dictator with no restraint.
And so I
remain hopeful that we will continue
to progress in that direction.
And I think none of us,
certainly not me, thought that
at the beginning of this year, or
even as late as early July,
that Trump would use this tactic of
trying to redraw the lines in
order to control the House in
the midterm elections.
But that's exactly what he's done.
And now it's backfiring on him
with a decision that a
Trump appointee as a federal judge
in a 160 page opinion
condemned the effort.
Not as a partisan effort,
but as a racial effort to
discriminate against people
of color and reduce
their representation in Congress.
I'm concerned about how this has
spread to other states.
My good friend, Emanuel Cleaver,
an African American who is the mayor
of Kansas City, a very successful
one, he's had this happen to him
where they've come in and split
Kansas City in three ways in
order to try to eliminate
him from Congress.
Much the same thing has happened in
North Carolina, and in Ohio,
there's also been gerrymandering.
So I think it's important that
California tried to balance this
out. But the real balance that would
benefit every state and
every voter is if we had nonpartisan
redistricting.
It just can't be in a few states
that are democratic controlled.
It needs to be nationwide.
We had a proposal to do that
when Speaker Pelosi was our speaker.
We couldn't get it passed in
the Senate, but I hope that
this experience will
lead more people of all political
persuasions to realize
that the best representation
is that which is organized around
communities of interest so
that people don't have to go to San
Angelo if they live in
Austin in order to get help.
We need our representatives to be
accessible and thereby to be
accountable.
We've been hearing a lot about the
federal government shutdown over the
last two months now that has ended
and we saw some election results
from other states around
the country.
What is your message to voters in
Texas and across the U.S.
Generally as we start
to ramp up ahead of next year's
midterm elections.
We need to be sure that
everyone is involved, taking a
part, doing more than just voting,
but getting others to vote.
That's the way to respond to
the tyrannical policies
of the Trump administration.
The result of this is
sometimes viewed as just an inside
game with politicians
fighting over what turf they might
be representing, but what's
really at stake in redistricting
and what's really at stake as we
go forward.
Is healthcare, which we fought this
battle unsuccessfully during
the shutdown to try to assure that
premiums did not soar and
people did not access to physicians.
It's women's healthcare and the
terrible decision to limit the
reproductive choice available
to women.
It's about the climate crisis and
how we will respond to
an ever-growing crisis.
It's about where we stand in
terms of a wide range of pocketbook
issues that affect
the opportunity for
students to get all the education
they want and then to have good job
opportunities.
And it's certainly about where we
stand in the world and whether we
will foolishly
engage in a conflict in
Venezuela and fail at
the same time to provide protection
for Ukraine against a war
criminal.
And so there's so much on this valid
redistricting is just the way that
Trump can block and achieve his
objectives and engagement.
Now in preparation for
next year is how we should be
responding.
Okay, we have been speaking with
long-time Austin Democratic
Congressman Lloyd Doggett.
He intends to run for re-election
after a federal court blocked
Texas from using its newly drawn
congressional map in next year's
midterm elections.
Congressman, thank you for your time.
Jerry, thanks a lot.
See you at home.
And yesterday was a busy news day,
you can catch up on anything you
might have missed over at KUT.org.
This is Austin Signal,
we'll be back in just a moment.
Welcome back, this is Austin
signal on KUT
News.
Some folks in the Austin area may
be feeling some property tax
fatigue, perhaps you are one
of them.
Earlier this month, voters
overwhelmingly rejected Proposition
Q, a City of Austin tax
rate increase.
And now, Travis County commissioners
are being sued over a 9%
property tax rate hike that they
approved back in September.
KUT's Katy McAfee has the details
on why Travis County raised taxes
and what the lawsuit asks
for.
For this story, we need to go back
in time to July.
It was going to take weeks to repair
all of the damage from this
weekend's deadly flooding.
A powerful storm swept through
central Texas and flooded the Sandy
Creek neighborhood in northwest
Travis County.
Nearly 200 homes were damaged.
Multiple bridges were knocked off
their foundation and piles and
piles of debris amassed in the
area.
The storm was expensive for the
county. So far, officials have
spent over $21 million on
cleanup and emergency assistance.
And officials say more costs could
still be accrued.
But lucky for Travis County, both
the governor and the president
issued emergency declarations for
the area after the flood.
That allowed the county to take
advantage of a section of Texas
tax code.
It lets local governments raise
property taxes by higher than normal
without voter approval.
Typically, they can't raise taxes
more than 3.5% without
going to voters.
Travis County commissioners approved
the 9% property tax increase in
September. It will cost the average
homeowner, someone with the home
valued around $500,000,
an additional $200 on their
property tax bill compared to last
year.
Commissioners estimate it will
generate $42 million,
enough to pay for flood repairs and
prepare the county for future
disasters.
The county never laid out exactly
how this extra money would be spent,
but commissioners have thrown out
some ideas.
Speaking ahead of the vote in
September, Commissioner Margaret
Gomez said the county should use the
money for flood mitigation in Onion
Creek, which did not flood in July,
but has several times in recent
years.
And that way people can rest
easy, that they won't
be flooded in the middle of the
night and put their families
in danger.
Commissioner Anne Howard brought up
the idea of fixing low water
crossings throughout the county.
There are still about a hundred
miles of substandard
roads and so that is another place
that we need to examine.
But not so fast.
Earlier this month a lawsuit was
filed against the Travis County
Commissioner's Court over how this
extra money would be spent.
The plaintiffs are newly elected
mayor of Lagovista Shane
Saum and former Austin mayoral
candidate Jeff Bowen.
They are being represented by Bill
Elshire, an attorney and former
Travis County judge.
I call it the fake disaster tax.
That's Elshire.
He says the county shouldn't use the
disaster tax exception for anything
other than projects directly related
to the July Flood.
If they wanted to do that, they
should have asked the voters for
agreement and not tried to misuse
this exception for the
disaster tax.
It is not a
provision that they can use to set
up a slush fund to
use for road improvement.
Som, the new mayor of Lagovista,
says recent changes to state law
will limit how counties can use
disaster-related tax revenue.
He points to House Bill 30, which
goes into effect in January.
And the legislature is closing what
this, what Travis County views as a
loophole. On January 1, they
wouldn't have been able to do this.
It kind of has the appearance that
you are sneaking it in at the
midnight hour before this goes away.
Travis County leaders did not agree
to an interview for this story.
In a statement, County spokesperson
Hector Nieto said the Commissioner's
Court carefully considered and
followed state law when adopting the
tax rate.
The statement says, quote, We
disagree with the allegations made
in the lawsuit and look forward to
defending our case in a court of
law, end quote.
The lawsuit asks the court to
restrict the county from spending
disaster related tax dollars on
projects unrelated to the July 5th
flood. But it's unclear how
people's property taxes would be
affected if a judge rules in the
plaintiff's favor.
Folks at the Travis County Tax
Office said they aren't aware of
another case like this one that
could provide some clarity.
And property tax bills have already
been sent out to Travis County
residents with the tax increase.
Those bills are due January 31st.
I'm Katy McAfee in Austin.
Thank you for spending part of your
Wednesday here with us.
This is Austin Signal.
We've got a chance for some
inclement weather headed our way
here in Austin and Central Texas
over the next few days.
Here to tell us more about what
we're expecting is Trey Schaar.
He is on editor here at
KUT News.
Trey, welcome to Austin Signal!
Thanks, Jerry. It's great to be
here.
I'm glad you're here.
You know, it really often feels like
we need a bunch of rain,
we never get it, and then boom, this
huge deluge of rain is coming our
way.
That seems to be the case this week.
What are the forecasts showing so
far?
Well, we're under a flood watch
starting at midnight tonight until
all the way until six o'clock Friday
morning.
And well, you know
how sometimes we'll get a cold front
moving through and there'll be a
line of storms that moves
in ahead of the front, along the
front a squall line.
It looks like what they're worried
about in this case is that a
front will stall out and we
could get training rain
that just like just keeps coming
usually from south to north.
Falling over the same areas.
And the weather service is saying
most spots are looking at one to
three inches, but with isolated
totals of six to eight.
So that definitely would cause some
runoff into creeks, streams,
rivers.
Even in those smaller rainfall
amounts, you could see some low
lying areas, low water crossings
fill up, minor street
flooding.
Probably not gonna be catastrophic,
but the possibility is
there. That's why they call it a
watch.
And that watch is affecting
the five counties in our listening
area here at KUT News, but
it also extends to some parts of the
Hill Country, right, that were
affected by the earlier flooding
this year.
Yeah, that's true.
The eastern counties are kind of not
in the area of concern, but
the hill country is basically
the I-35 corridors to the
west.
And in July, that was
a situation not all that similar
to this. That was a tropical
remnant low that
just was a rain bomb
and this
is almost certainly not
going to be that.
But there could be some flooding and
that's why they've got us under a
flood watch.
Speaking of flooding, it always
seems to be feast or famine,
and we could use that range surely
because the drought situation has
been worsening. I know we're
expecting an update tomorrow from
the drought monitor map, but what
has it been? What have you been
seeing? I know you follow that every
week for KUT News.
What have been seeing, and has it
been growing worse?
It has been getting worse.
We got some rain a few weeks ago,
but nothing since then.
And the map that comes out tomorrow,
it's probably going to show even
worse conditions because it will not
reflect the rain we're expecting in
the coming days because they collect
the data for that map on Tuesday
of every week.
Alright, we have been speaking with
Trey Schaar.
He is an editor here at
KUT News.
And Trey makes me sound great
every single day on All Things
Considered.
And just in my daily life, so Trey,
thank you for that, and thank you
appearing on Austin Signal.
We appreciate you.
It's an honor. Thanks.
And thank you out there
to you for listening to Austin
Signal.
We are a live radio show every
weekday afternoon from 1 to 1 30
here on KUT News.
And you can subscribe to us wherever
you get your shows.
There's more info about that at
KUT.org slash
Signal. Thanks to my buddy Trey
Schaar here.
Thanks to the Texas Newsroom's
Capital Reporter, Blaise Ganey.
Thank you to KUT's Travis County
Reporter, Katy McAfee.
And to Austin Congressman Lloyd
Doggett for talking to us here on
Austin Signal.
Rayna Sevilla keeps us sounding
good.
Jimmy Maas has been driving me
crazy, but I love him.
He's filling in for managing
producer Kristen Cabrera,
who should be back with us tomorrow.
We're looking forward to that.
I'm your host, Jerry Quijano, and
I will talk to you tomorrow same
time.
Thank you for tuning in.