Thumbs up, down
Cast your ballots, OTC is coming to town, and Austin lawmakers hit a new low.
Start off your Saturday by placing a thumb on your local voting machine and turning the dial to a “For” on Houston ISD’s Proposition 1. You can Google “Vote FOR Prop. 1” to see our reasoning in an editorial from earlier this week. Voters in Pasadena should also cast their ballots for Pat Van Houte in the mayoral election. Early voting continues through Tuesday and polling locations can be found on HarrisVotes.com.
If you’re in the market for, let’s say, an $800 million offshore oil rig and accoutrements, there’s excellent shopping beginning Monday when the Offshore Technology Conference opens at NRG Park. And with oil prices hovering around $50, favorable deals can be had. Attendance this year is expected to rebound after 2016’s decade-low 65,000. What we like about this conference is the optimism it spawns that permeates the city from hotels to restaurants to cab drivers. Even when the going is rough in the oil business, there’s belief that the next big strike is just one drill away.
On the eve of OTC, BP announced it discovered an oil field in the Gulf of Mexico below a salt dome that could contain $2 billion of recoverable black gold. Good on them, but we know you’re thinking what we’re thinking: Try not to have another Deepwater Horizon-style blowout.
We’ve hit a new low in Austin. That’s saying something considering Texas’ record on slavery, Jim Crow, women’s rights and caring for the poor. Our ire today is with Speaker Joe Straus and the Texas House. They opened a dangerous door this week by approving legislation that authorizes police to act as immigration agents and gives them the authority to discriminate against our black and brown brothers and sisters.
Senate Bill 4, also known as the “Sanctuary Cities Bill,” began with Gov. Greg Abbott proclaiming this faux emergency. It then took shape in the Senate before sailing through Straus’ House with the speaker looking scared and spineless.
An editorial on this issue fills this space tomorrow, but state Rep. Mary Gonzalez, D-Clint, put it best when she said she didn’t want to speak ever again to lawmakers who approved an odious amendment to the original bill.