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AUSTIN (AP) – In 1989, Bo Pilgrim, an East Texas chicken plant magnate, strolled the floor of the Texas Senate and dispensed $10,000 checks to nine members in an effort to stop a worker’s compensation bill from passing.

The scandal, dubbed “Chickengate,” was shocking but legal.

But the chicken man’s brazenness — what he called campaign contributions, many Texans saw as bribes — ruffled enough feathers to usher in a rare era of good government reforms.

Lawmakers would soon pass laws prohibiting themselves from accepting donations inside the Capitol and creating the Texas Ethics Commission, an independent body with investigative power, that would enforce the state’s campaign finance laws.

Three decades following its inception, the commission is toothless. Compliance of Texas’ ethics laws is largely voluntary. That’s because the agency relies on the Texas attorney general to enforce payment of fines for violations.

And under Ken Paxton, who himself owed $11,000 in ethics fines until recently, that has rarely happened.

A review by The Texas Tribune found that the number of politicians, lobbyists and political action committees that owe fines for breaking state campaign finance laws has exploded in recent years.

The Texas Ethics Commission issues the penalties for violations of state campaign finance laws, most often when entities fail to file required reports detailing their fundraising, spending or personal financial holdings. Those penalties could also be for infractions like spending campaign dollars on improper expenditures, failing to register as a lobbyist or using government resources to campaign.

Fines are the primary enforcement mechanism to ensure political actors follow the law. But when the fines go unpaid, the responsibility for forcing delinquent individuals and groups to pay up falls on the attorney general’s office, which can take them to court.

Since Paxton took office in 2015, the ethics commission has referred 2,500 unpaid fines to the attorney general for enforcement, the Tribune found. During that time, Paxton’s office has filed just 175 enforcement lawsuits, or 7% of the cases referred to it. Most occurred early in his tenure. After filing none in 2020 and 2021, the attorney general’s office brought 18 cases in 2022, 25 last year and just one so far in the first six months of 2024.

As enforcement has lagged, the number of delinquent candidates and elected officials has soared. In 2019, 327 filers owed $1.3 million in fines. Through June, 750 filers owed $3.6 million.

That trend is alarming in a state with few regulations in its political system, said Anthony Gutierrez of open government advocacy group Common Cause.

“Candidates are supposed to be telling Texans who they’re taking money from, what they’re spending money on,” Gutierrez said. “If any of that information is not being disclosed, it’s a big deal. It could be being kept secret for a reason.”

For years, the worst offender has been Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City. He owes $77,013 dating back to at least 2014. During that period, he’s been referred for enforcement by the ethics commission 20 times for missing deadlines to file campaign finance reports or personal financial statements. The attorney general’s office has sued him six times, seeking $34,500. Despite this, and a criminal conviction for barratry, he has been reelected five times and remains in good standing with the Democratic caucus. He reported maintaining just shy of $64,000 in his campaign account on the last report he did file, in February.

Reynolds did not respond to an interview request.

This year, Democratic Rep. Shawn Thierry, dogged by accusations that she had bankrolled her primary runoff campaign with Republican donors, did not file the campaign finance report due weeks before the May 28 election. The omission deprived voters in her Houston district of timely information about her financial backers while they mulled who to support in a race where her party loyalty was in question.

Thierry, who lost her race, said she missed the deadline because the aide in charge of the filing had a death in their family. When Thierry filed the missing report in July, 56 days late, it revealed that more than half of the $200,000 she raised came from donors or political action committees who traditionally support Republicans.

Thierry said she paid her $500 ethics commission fine, though the commission said she hasn’t.

Paxton himself until June was a delinquent filer whom the TEC has referred to attorney general’s office for enforcement. Unsurprisingly, Paxton’s office had not sought repayment from him.

He owed $11,300 for fines that piled up from filing three late reports. Paxton used his $2.4 million campaign account to pay the fines on June 25, after the Tribune had contacted his office seeking an interview about its process for pursuing delinquent filers on June 12, 14 and 17.

As a matter of policy, the ethics commission only refers cases for collection for fines that reach $1,000. The attorney general’s office strategy for collecting these delinquent fines is unclear. Paxton, First Assistant Brent Webster, Bankruptcy and Collections Division Chief Rachel Obaldo and Assistant Attorney General John Adams did not respond to requests for comment.

Paxton has sparred with the ethics commission in the past. He refused to allow the attorney general’s office to represent the commission in lawsuits filed by the conservative political action committee Empower Texans, which had contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Paxton’s campaign. As a result, the commission spent $1.1 million hiring outside counsel. It ultimately won the case.

Adrian Shelley, of left-leaning consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen, said the lack of enforcement of Texas’ ethics laws makes way for grave consequences for transparency in future elections.

“If I am a candidate for office and I want to conceal who I’m taking political donations from, the message the candidates get right now is there’s really no teeth in the agency,” Shelley said. “There’s really no risk to me in not filing my report before the election… there’s an incentive to game the system”

Of the 25 delinquent filers who owe the largest sums, an average of $29,029, the attorney general’s office has only filed suit against six. The largest fine-ower in this group currently in office and who has not been sued is State Board of Education Member Staci Childs, who owes $23,417. Reached by phone, Childs speculated that she has not ended up in court because she is actively working with the ethics commission to pay down her debt.

Texas has permissive campaign finance laws. It is one of just 11 states where donors can contribute unlimited amounts. They are also not required to disclose their occupations. Candidates and elected officials can spend these contributions on almost anything, including flowers for constituents’ funerals, overseas travel and office décor.

Ethics Commission Chair Randall Erben and Executive Director J.R. Johnson declined to comment. Both referred the Tribune to a self-evaluation report the commission prepared for the Legislature last year, which identified unpaid fines under the “major issues” heading.

The report suggested the Legislature could create non-monetary penalties for delinquent filers and give the ethics commission more enforcement power. Other states, including Missouri and Illinois, bar candidates from running for office until they have paid outstanding fines and are up to date on disclosure reports. The TEC report also noted that the outstanding fines, if collected, would supplement the state’s general fund.

Thirty-seven states have campaign finance regulatory bodies that can levy fines, according to an index created by the Coalition for Integrity. Large states including California, Illinois and New York allow enforcement on delinquent fines without involving their attorneys general — though New York also has a longstanding problem of politicians let off the hook.

The appetite for reform in the Texas Legislature is unknown. Reps. Reggie Smith, R-Sherman, and John Bucy, D-Austin, who are chair and vice chair of the House election committee, did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, chair of the Senate state affairs committee.

Gutierrez said allowing the ethics commission to file lawsuits on its own would be “a huge step,” towards restoring accountability to the state’s campaign finance system. Allowing the commission more independence, rather than having to rely on an elected attorney general, would help separate the body from political influence.

“It feels like any system where there’s a politician who’s subject to the laws and is also subject to enforcing the laws is just a flawed system,” Gutierrez said. “The ethics commission, as it exists today, just doesn’t have the powers it needs to enforce the laws on the books.”

DETROIT (AP) — Tesla’s second-quarter net income fell 45% compared with a year ago as the company’s global electric vehicle sales tumbled despite price cuts and low-interest financing.

The Austin, Texas, company said Tuesday that it made $1.48 billion from April through June, less than the $2.7 billion it made in the same period of 2023. It was Tesla’s second-straight quarterly net income decline.

Second quarter revenue rose 2% to $25.5 billion, beating Wall Street estimates of $24.54 billion, according to FactSet. Excluding one time items, Tesla made 52 cents per share, below analyst expectations of 61 cents.

Shares of Tesla fell about 8% in trading after Tuesday’s closing bell. The shares had been down more than 40% earlier in the year, but have since recovered most of the losses.

Earlier this month Tesla said it sold 443,956 vehicles from April through June, down 4.8% from 466,140 sold the same period a year ago. Although the sales were were better than the 436,000 that analysts had expected, they still were a sign of weakening demand for the company’s aging product lineup.

For the first half of the year, Tesla has sold about 831,000 vehicles worldwide, far short of the more than 1.8 million for the full year that CEO Elon Musk has predicted.

The company’s widely watched gross profit margin, the percentage of revenue it gets to keep after expenses, fell once again to 18%. A year ago it was 18.2%, and it peaked at 29.1% in the first quarter of 2022.

Tesla said it posted record quarterly revenue “despite a difficult operating environment.” The company’s energy-storage business took in just over $3 billion in revenue, double the amount in the same period last year.

CEO Elon Musk, who has tried to portray Tesla as an autonomous vehicle, robotics and artificial-intelligence company, told analysts on a conference call that the company’s “Full Self Driving” system should be able to run without human supervision by the end of this year, although he acknowledged that his predictions “have been overly optimistic in the past.”

At present, “Full Self Driving” is being tested on public roads by some Tesla owners. The company says it cannot drive itself and human drivers must be ready to intervene at all times.

For many years Musk has said the system will allow a fleet of robotaxis to generate income for the company and Tesla owners, making use of the electric vehicles when they would have been parked. Musk has been touting self-driving vehicles as a growth catalyst for Tesla since “Full Self Driving” hardware went on sale late in 2015.

But in investigative documents, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it found 75 crashes and one death involving “Full Self Driving.” It’s not clear whether the system was at fault.

Later, Musk said he did not think approval by government regulators would be a limiting factor in deploying robotaxis. “If you’ve got billions of miles that show that in the future, unsupervised FSD is safer than humans, what regulator could really stand in the way of that?” he asked.

Musk told analysts he postponed the company’s August robotaxi unveil until Oct. 10 to make changes to improve the vehicle. He also said Tesla will show off a “couple of other things” at the event.

Musk said he expects Tesla to begin limited production of the Optimus humanoid robot early next year for use by Tesla. The robot already is doing work at a factory. In 2026, production would ramp up more to send robots to outside customers, he said.

Musk also said the company is on track to deliver its new more affordable vehicle in the first half of next year.

The company, he said, wants to wait until after the U.S. presidential election before deciding whether to build a new factory in Mexico. Republican nominee Donald Trump has threatened to slap tariffs on autos made in Mexico, so it wouldn’t make sense to build there in that case, Musk said. Musk has endorsed Trump.

Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein attributed the large stock drop to Tesla giving little new specific information on vehicles or tangible financial targets. “Maybe some investors are saying ’you know, we didn’t get more details from management,’” Goldstein said.

Although the next scheduled catalyst that could move the stock is now the robotaxi event in October, Goldstein said Musk could share details of new products on X, his social media platform. “Elon Musk could share details of Tesla’s progress,” he said. “That could be a catalyst for the stock on any given day.”

During the quarter, Tesla’s revenue from regulatory credits purchased by other automakers who can’t meet government emissions targets hit $890 million for the quarter, double Tesla’s amount of most previous quarters.

The company reported $622 million in “restructuring and other” expenses for the quarter, when it laid off over 10% of its workforce.

Tesla said in a note to investors that it’s between two major growth waves, with the next one coming through advances in autonomous vehicles and new models. But the company reiterated caution that its sales growth “may be notably lower than the growth rate achieved in 2023.”

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — State election directors from across the country voiced serious concerns to a top U.S. Postal Service official Tuesday that the system won’t be able to handle an expected crush of mail-in ballots in the November election.

Steven Carter, manager of election and government programs for the postal service, attempted to reassure the directors at a meeting in Minneapolis that the system’s Office of Inspector General will publish an election mail report next week containing “encouraging” performance numbers for this year so far.

“The data that that we’re seeing showing improvements in the right direction,” Carter told a conference of the National Association of State Election Directors. “And I think the OIG report is especially complimentary of how we’re handling the election now.”

But state election directors stressed to Carter that they’re still worried that too many ballots won’t be delivered in time to be counted in November. They based their fears on past problems and a disruptive consolidation of postal facilities across the country that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has put on hold until after the elections.

Monica Evans, executive director of the District of Columbia Board of Elections, recounted how she never received her mail ballot for her own June primary. She ended up voting in person.

“We had, at last count, over 80 ballots that were timely mailed as early as May for our June 4 primary election,” Evans said, noting that her office could have accepted them as late as June 14, but they still arrived too late. “We followed up and we just kept getting, ‘We don’t know what happened. We don’t know what happened.’”

While former President Donald Trump has complained without foundation that fraudulent mailed ballots cost him a second term in 2020, mail-in voting has become a key component of each party’s strategy to maximize the turnout of their voters in 2024. Now Republicans, sometimes including Trump, see it as necessary for an election that is likely to be decided by razor-thin margins in a handful of swing states. Republicans once were at least as likely as Democrats to vote by mail, but Trump changed the dynamics in 2020 when he began to argue against it months before voting began.

Bryan Caskey, the elections director for Kansas who’s also the association’s incoming president, asked Carter to consider a hypothetical jurisdiction that has a 95% on-time rate for mail deliveries, which he said is better than what almost all states are getting.

“That still means that in the state that sends out 100,000 ballots, that’s 5,000 pissed-off, angry voters that are mad about the mail service,” Caskey said, adding, “Actual elections are being determined by these delays, and I just want to make sure that you’re hearing why we’re so upset.”

“It’s totally understandable,” Carter said. “The frustration is understandable.”

The association’s current president, Mandy Vigil, the elections director for New Mexico, said in an interview afterward that she appreciated that the service was at least willing to engage with the state officials, but that she’s concerned that there isn’t enough time before the general election.

“I think that we are at a place where we really need them to pay attention,” Vigil said. “You know, we’ve been voicing our concerns since last November. But we just aren’t seeing the changes as we’re working through our primary elections. And when it comes to November, like, we need to see a difference.”

Nineteen senators wrote to DeJoy last month asking the postmaster general about the service’s policies and plans to prepare for the 2024 election cycle. They pointed out how the first regional consolidation, in Virginia last year, led to delivery delays that led some local election officials there to direct residents to bypass the mail and place their primary election ballots in designated drop boxes. They noted that Virginia’s on-time delivery rate fell below 72% for fiscal 2024, or over 15% below the national average.

Other consolidations have been blamed for degraded service in Oregon, Virginia, Texas and Missouri. The consolidation has also created concern among lawmakers in Utah, where state law requires that ballots be mailed from within Utah, but the postal service now processes mail from some counties in Nevada after moving some operations from Provo to Las Vegas. The entire Minnesota and North Dakota congressional delegations wrote to DeLoy last month after an inspector general’s audit documented nearly 131,000 missing or delayed pieces of mail at six post offices over the course of just two days.

DeJoy paused the cost-cutting consolidations until January 2025 in the wake of bipartisan criticism, but lawmakers want a commitment that the resumption won’t lead to further delivery delays.

McKINNEY, Texas (AP) — At the start of every work day, construction worker Charles Smith puts on the essentials: hard hat. Safety glasses. A reflective vest. And a small, watch-like band for his wrist.

But rather than track time, its purpose is to ensure he doesn’t overheat while working during sweltering summer days in Texas. The wristband monitors his heart rate, core body temperature, stress level and more. If it detects signs of overheating, it warns him and his safety manager, advising Smith to rest and hydrate. The device serves as an early warning system to prevent heat-related injuries and illnesses.

The technology is one way that workplaces are setting up employee protections as summers grow hotter, longer and more extreme due to climate change. On Sunday, the Earth reached the hottest day ever measured, according to a European climate service group. And in the absence of federal heat rules for workers, which the Biden administration recently proposed, some employers in states without rules are taking it upon themselves to safeguard employees from extreme heat dangers.

“We can catch it before it happens,” said Seth Campbell, safety manager for the construction company Rogers-O’Brien, Smith’s employer, of monitoring signs of heat-related illnesses. Their team started using the technology last summer.

UPS recently equipped delivery drivers with cooling hats and sleeves that provide relief from heat — and increased access to ice, cold water and electrolytes for employees, according to its website. They have also added more cooling equipment to its vehicles and facilities, said vice president of global communications Genny Bowman in an email. That includes installing exhaust heat shields to lower vehicle floor temperatures, as well as fans in package cars and more fans in its facilities.

Some greenhouse companies, including Eden Green and Cox Farms, have said they adjust workers’ schedules to account for excessive heat, such as starting them earlier in the morning, breaking during peak heat, and returning in the evening as temperatures cool.

During June’s record-breaking heat wave in the Midwest and Northeast, an organization in Columbus, Ohio, prepared frozen towels and cold water for their workers to stay cool and hydrated.

And in some California warehouses, where indoor temperatures can reach above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (about 32 Celsius), employers have provided cooling vests with ice packs in them and bandanas that can get cool when wet, according to Tim Shadix, legal director for the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit dedicated to improving working conditions in Southern California’s warehouse industry.

Such measures can help keep workers cool and comfortable, but Shadix said they’re not enough to protect them from worsening heat dangers. “Under standard workplace safety practices, those are meant to be responses of last resort,” he said, “but when you’re addressing a hazard, including heat, you usually try to start with what’s most effective,” which can include installing air conditioning, slowing down the workplace schedule or providing more breaks.

Last summer, during a historic heat wave, the Texas-based Rogers-O’Brien launched a pilot program that gives workers the option to wear a heat sensor paired with a software called SafeGuard. If the worker’s heart rate or body temperature are too high, Campbell is among the people who receives an alert to check on them. He then assesses ways to cool them down, such as putting ice packs under their armpits.

“Last year we had two alerts and we were able to get that employee to the shade inside, get (them) plenty of electrolytes, and we didn’t have any clinic visits with anyone wearing the technology,” he said.

On really hot days coupled with intense physical exertion, Smith’s wristband has warned him and the safety manager that his body temperature and heart rate were high. It served as a signal to take a shaded break and drink water. And he did.

“The importance of it could stretch very far,” said Smith on a day of triple-digit temperatures. “Making sure that workers stay at levels where they could actually go home every night and see their families, making sure that workers are able to recover properly. I think it could be a great benefit to the industry and just about any other industry.”

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Pineda reported from Los Angeles.

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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) – A Texas woman who was a civilian employee of the U.S. Army at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years in prison for stealing nearly $109 million from a youth development program for children of military families.

Janet Yamanaka Mello, 57, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in federal court in San Antonio after pleading guilty in March to five counts of mail fraud and five counts of filing a false tax return.

Prosecutors say Mello, as financial manager who handled funding for a youth program at the military base, determined whether grant money was available. She created a fraudulent group called Child Health and Youth Lifelong Development.

“Janet Mello betrayed the trust of the government agency she served and repeatedly lied in an effort to enrich herself,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas.

“Rather than $109 million in federal funds going to the care of military children throughout the world, she selfishly stole that money to buy extravagant houses, more than 80 vehicles and over 1,500 pieces of jewelry,” Esparza said.

Defense attorney Albert Flores said Mello is deeply remorseful.

“She realizes she committed a crime, she did wrong and is very ashamed,” Flores said.

Flores said Mello has saved many things she bought with the money and hopes the items are sold to reimburse the government. “I don’t think the court gave us enough credit for that, but we can’t complain,” Flores said.

The defense has no plans to appeal, he said.

Prosecutors said Mello used the fake organization she created to apply for grants through the military program. She filled out more than 40 applications over six years, illegally receiving nearly $109 million, assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons wrote in a court document asking for Mello to be sentenced to more than 19 years in prison.

Mello used the money to buy millions of dollars of real estate, clothing, high-end jewelry — including a $923,000 jewelry purchase on one day in 2022 — and 82 vehicles that included a Maserati, a Mercedes, a 1954 Corvette and a Ferrari Fratelli motorcycle.

Agents executing a search warrant in 2023 found many of the vehicles with dead batteries because they had not been operated in so long, Simmons wrote.

Prosecutors said Mello was able to steal so much because of her years of experience, expert knowledge of the grant program, and accumulated trust among her supervisors and co-workers.

“Mello’s penchant for extravagance is what brought her down,” said Lucy Tan, acting special agent in charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation’s field office in Houston.

A co-worker and friend of Mello’s, Denise Faison, defended Mello in a letter to the judge.

“Janet Mello is a good, kind, caring and loving person that would do no harm to anyone,” Faison wrote. “Janet has so much more to offer the world. Please allow her to repay her debt to society by returning what she has taken but not be behind prison bars.”

DALLAS—The Texas Employment Forecast released by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicates jobs will increase 1.9 percent in 2024, with an 80 percent confidence band of 1.4 to 2.4 percent.
This is a decrease from the previous month’s forecast of 2.4 percent for 2024.
   
The forecast is based on an average of four models that include projected national GDP, oil futures prices, and the Texas and U.S. leading indexes.
Texas lost roughly 1,900 jobs in June on net, according to seasonally adjusted and benchmarked payroll employment numbers.
The state added 36,700 jobs in May, which was revised upward.

“Texas employment marginally declined in June due to job losses in the service sector as the state lost around 1,900 jobs. This offset the strong job gains in the goods-producing sector, which were led by a significant increase in construction jobs,” said Luis Torres, Dallas Fed senior business economist. “Texas employment growth has decelerated to 2.3 percent year to date as the labor market shows signs of cooling. Furthermore, the outlook for growth in the second half of the year dropped 0.8 percentage points compared with the first half. Slower employment growth, combined with decreases in the Texas and U.S. leading indexes lowered the forecast.”
Additional key takeaways from the latest Dallas Fed report:      

The forecast suggests 266,100 jobs will be added in the state this year, and employment in December 2024 will be 14.3 million.  
Texas employment shrank an annualized 0.2 percent month over month in June, while May growth was revised upward to 3.2 percent.    

The unemployment rate increased in nearly every major metro area, including Brownsville–Harlingen, Dallas–Plano–Irving, El Paso, Fort Worth–Arlington, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, Laredo and San Antonio–New Braunfels, according to seasonally adjusted numbers from the Dallas Fed.    

The rate remained unchanged in Austin–Round Rock.
The Texas statewide unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.0 percent in June.      

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials are investigating an incident in which a Southwest Airlines jet flew as low as 150 feet (45 meters) over water while it was still about 5 miles (8 kilometers) from its intended landing spot at the airport in Tampa, Florida.

The pilots skipped over the Tampa airport and landed instead at Fort Lauderdale, 200 miles (320 kilometers) away.

The July 14 flight followed a similar incident last month in Oklahoma City in which a Southwest jet flew at an unusually low altitude while still miles from the airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday that it is investigating the incident.

Southwest flight 425, which took off from Columbus, Ohio, reached its low point as it flew over Old Tampa Bay near the Courtney Campbell Causeway, according to Flightradar24. Three previous Southwest flights to Tampa passed the same point at about 1,225 feet (375 meters) in altitude, the flight-tracking service said.

“Southwest Flight 425 safely diverted to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on July 14 after the crew discontinued their planned approach into Tampa International Airport,” the airline said in a statement.

Dallas-based Southwest said it is in contact with the FAA “to understand and address any irregularities. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of our customers and employees.”

The FAA is still investigating a June 18 flight in which a Southwest jet triggered a low-altitude alert at about 525 feet (160 meters) above ground and 9 miles (14 kilometers) from the Oklahoma City airport. An air traffic controller reached out to that crew after getting an automated warning in the control tower. The plane circled the airport – a “go-around” – before making an uneventful landing.

In April, a Southwest flight went into a dive off the coast of Hawaii and came within 400 feet (120 meters) of the ocean before the plane began to climb. The National Transportation Safety Board is also investigating a Southwest jet that did an unusual “Dutch roll” and was discovered to have damage to its tail after a flight from Phoenix to Oakland, California. Investigators say the plane had been parked outside during a severe storm.