City Council joins the fight
Partisanship
Regarding “Council votes 10-6 to join suit challenging ‘sanctuary cities’ law (Page A1, Thursday), I applaud Mayor Sylvester Turner’s successful effort to get City Council confirmation of Houston joining the lawsuit against Senate Bill 4, the “Show Me Your Papers” law.
The vote was 10-6-1, perfectly corresponding with the partisan affiliation of council members on the officially nonpartisan body. This brought me some sadness.
City Council has long been a vestige of partisan fluidity, something that formerly graced the Capitol halls of Austin and Washington, D.C., but has now eluded them. Just a few years ago, council was graced by a liberal Republican and a conservative Democrat.
While partisanship has always been an important factor at City Hall, its importance is getting bigger. Former House Speaker Tip O’Neill may have said that all politics is local, but the antithesis is increasingly true.
Turner has done a yeoman’s job as mayor of being a consensus-builder. But when the fissures do occur, as they do with any mayor, they now seem to be originating among predictable lines. It has long been a labyrinthine occupation to precisely predict council votes. But I could have accurately predicted the vote count to join this lawsuit well in advance, as could anyone with the reading comprehension skills to discern a “D” from a “R.”
Noah M. Horwitz, Houston
Spending issue
Mayor Turner estimates a $250,000 legal bill to fight Senate Bill 4. First, when is the last time, or the only time, a lawyer ever correctly estimated legal costs? Secondly, why would our councilmembers vote to spend taxpayers’ money on an issue already being litigated and paid for by others? It’s just another instance of government wasting taxpayer money.
All indications point to our mayor and council asking taxpayers to go to the polls in the fall to remove the revenue cap that voters placed on them several years ago.
Our city leaders are going to make every effort to get the cap removed. They’ll talk about all sorts of negative taxpayer implications if it is not removed. I’m going to remember this “estimated” $250,000 tab our government stuck us with.
We don’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.
Mark Myers, Houston