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AUSTIN – The Texas Tribune reports that key Texas lawmakers are reviving legislation that would require election officials to respond within set time frames to requests to explain “election irregularities” from certain party officials and election workers.

If the complainants aren’t satisfied, the bill would let them take their requests to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, which would have to decide whether to investigate further and conduct an audit.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who authored the bill, said it will help clear up “any misunderstanding” about elections.

But experts and local election officials said Texas already has policies in place that have increased election transparency and security.

The bill, they said, could instead undermine voters’ trust if election officials have to prioritize an influx of meritless complaints. The measure would also add to the burdens on election officials who are already contending with a flood of public records requests, questions from residents worried about election integrity, and voter challenges, while also trying to comply with strict election deadlines set by state and federal laws, experts said.

“It’s difficult to see how this is anything other than just a really cumbersome administrative process that’s just going to in a lot of ways throw sand in the gears of election administration,” said Daniel Griffith, senior director of policy at Secure Democracy, a nonprofit organization that produces research and analysis focused on voting and elections.

Bettencourt first filed a similar bill in 2021 and reintroduced it in 2023. Both times, it passed in the Senate but not the House. Senate Bill 505, which he filed last month, is identical to his 2023 legislation.

The bill would allow candidates, county party chairs, election or alternate judges — election judges are tasked with supervising polling locations — and leaders of political action committees to request that election officials “provide an explanation to election irregularities or violations of the law and to provide supporting documentation” of such.

Bettencourt said problems during Harris County’s November 2022 election prove such a measure is needed.

The county, home to Houston, is the state’s most populous. During that election, the county’s elections department failed to provide sufficient paper to two dozen of the county’s more than 700 polling locations. There were also reports of malfunctioning equipment at various locations, long lines and polling locations that had late openings.

Citing the problems, multiple losing Republican candidates challenged the results of that election. A judge ordered a redo of the election for one race. After that election, Bettencourt championed legislation that abolished the Harris elections administration department and returned election duties to the county clerk, an elected official.

Bettencourt said that for months after that election, county election officials “refused to answer questions.” The bill would help prevent that, he said. He also pointed to more recent incidents in Dallas County, another Democratic stronghold, involving false claims by Dallas County Republican leaders who said that the voting equipment had not been certified by state officials. Bettencourt said “miscommunication” between the party and the elections office fueled the problems, and he thinks his bill would help in situations like that.

“This sets up an organized structure for people to ask questions, get answers, and then if the answers aren’t suitable or not getting any answers they can go to the secretary of state,” Bettencourt said.

The latest bill is part of a legislative package — which includes other election measures, such as penalties for election officials who fail to comply with election laws and one that would prevent the distribution of unsolicited voter registration cards — supported and written by seven other Republican senators: Brandon Creighton, Joan Huffman, Lois Kolkhorst, Mayes Middleton, Tan Parker, Angela Paxton, and Charles Perry. Several have been members of the Senate State Affairs Committee.

The committee discusses and helps decide which election legislation moves forward in the Senate chamber.
Bill requires election audits, fines in certain cases

According to the legislation, once party officials or election workers submit a request, election officials would have 20 days to respond. If that person isn’t satisfied with the response, the bill states, they can ask for more information. The election official at that point would have 10 additional days to respond further.

Then, if a requester is still not satisfied, they “may issue a request to the secretary of state for an audit of the issue.” Such a request for an audit must include copies of communications and responses provided by the election official.

The secretary of state will then determine if the information provided “sufficiently explains the irregularity identified,” the bill says. If the secretary of state concludes it isn’t, that office must “immediately begin an audit of the identified irregularity at the expense of the county or other authority conducting the election.”

The secretary of state’s office is already required to audit the elections of four counties that are randomly selected every two years. Elections in Harris County have been audited twice recently by the agency.

The Secretary of State’s Office declined to comment on the legislation.

In a fiscal note about Bettencourt’s 2023 bill, the Secretary of State’s Office anticipated multiple audits would require “substantial document review and analysis, labor ­intensive work, and travel to the applicable locations.” In addition, according to the fiscal note, the office would need six additional full-time employees.

Bettencourt told Votebeat a new cost analysis would have to be done next year as the bill moves through the legislative process.

There would also be additional costs to county taxpayers if the secretary of state finds violations of election law. In such cases, the office would then be permitted to appoint a conservator to oversee elections in the county, at the county’s expense. And if county election officials do not remedy the violations, they could incur fines starting at $500 per violation, the bill states.
How Bettencourt’s bill would impact election officials

Election officials are already required to keep detailed documentation for nearly every step of the election process. Human error, technical problems, and minor irregularities occur during every election in some form, and officials are required to identify the issues and respond.

Election administrators answer to bipartisan election boards and commissions. They have to respond to questions from members of the counties’ commissioners court, who set the budgets for election departments. Election officials respond to public records requests submitted by members of the public, which also have to be fulfilled within a specific time frame by law.

And the law already allows the Texas secretary of state, who is the chief election officer, to report any legitimate evidence of illegality or malfeasance to the Texas Attorney General’s Office for investigation.

Nonetheless, in recent years, election officials across the state report contending with streams of requests from organized conservative activists who have claimed laws aren’t being followed, or the process is flawed. No matter what information they provide, they said they are sometimes unable to satisfy people.

That’s why some election officials said, as it stands now, the bill’s effort to increase transparency would instead create additional hardships.

During the March 5 primary election, Bruce Sherbet, the Collin County elections administrator, was also preparing for a city school district election happening in May and the primary runoff election that same month. The county had another election looming in June.

Sherbet said he can’t fathom how election officials could handle more requests for information in the midst of such election preparations.

He added that depending on the type and timing of requests, some documentation may not be available for public inspection, may need redactions, or simply may not exist.

“I can see it as an invitation for abuse and both parties could be a part of that abuse,” Sherbet said. “Where does it stop? And where do you have time to do the job that you have to do?”

For his part, Bettencourt said his intent is not to create more work for election officials. He said that’s why the bill limits who can submit the requests to individuals involved with the election, including election judges and alternate judges. Those are the individuals responsible for supervising polling locations.

Those categories, though, still include substantial numbers of people. During the Nov. 5 election 117 judges and 117 alternate judges worked in Collin County. The bill would allow all of them to submit requests at any point during the election, Sherbet said. “It’s going to cause bigger mistakes to happen, or noncompliance,” he said.

He’s also concerned that this could further undermine trust in the process. The complaints and requests made to election officials would also become public record. Voters would have access to all of them whether or not they have merit.

“It’s not building confidence at all. What it’s doing is further harming the confidence of the election that we’re trying to turn a corner and get back on track again from the 2020 election,” Sherbet said.

WASHINGTON – Politico is reporting that Senate Republicans have discussed elevating Sen. John Cornyn to chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, according to party officials, a move that would hand Cornyn a prized gavel as consolation for losing his GOP leader bid and could help induce him to run for reelection in two years. The complication, and almost certain deal-breaker: Cornyn would have to leapfrog the Republican next in line to chair the Intelligence Committee, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and Cotton has privately made clear to Cornyn he would claim the position. Likely ensuring Cotton’s ascension to the chair is the raw politics of last month’s Senate Republican leadership race between Cornyn and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). A select rather than standing committee, the intelligence panel’s chair is chosen by the majority leader. And Cotton supported Thune on the private ballot, according to a third Senate Republican, and now Thune is poised to reward him rather than the man he defeated. A spokesperson for Thune declined to comment.

Asked if he expects to claim the gavel, Cotton on Tuesday said, “No comment.” On Tuesday night, Cotton spokeswoman Caroline Tabler said: “Senator Thune has told Senator Cotton he’s taking over as chair. He is hiring staff, working with Senator [Marco] Rubio (R-Fla.) on the transition, and planning with Senator [Mark] Warner (D-Va.) for January confirmation hearings.” A Cornyn representative declined to comment. But I’m told the Arkansan has already started hiring staff and refused to be coaxed into letting Cornyn take the chair, which will be open because of Rubio’s appointment as Secretary of State. Cornyn approached Cotton to take his temperature about the post last month after the leader race, I’m told by a Republican senator, and Cotton responded by saying: “I’m going to be the chairman.” Cornyn said after his defeat in the leader race that he planned to seek a fifth term in 2026. Yet some of the Texan’s colleagues are more skeptical, in part because Cornyn could face a formidable primary challenge from state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

HOUSTON (AP) – A federal court on Wednesday affirmed a federal judge’s 2021 ruling imposing a $14.25 million penalty on Exxon Mobil for thousands of violations of the federal Clean Air Act at the company’s refinery and chemical plant complex in Baytown.

The decision by a majority of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejects Exxon’s latest appeal, closing over a decade of litigation since the Sierra Club and Environment Texas sued the company in 2010.

“This ruling affirms a bedrock principle of constitutional law that people who live near pollution-spewing industrial facilities have a personal stake in holding polluters accountable for non-compliance with federal air pollution limits, and therefore have a right to sue to enforce the Clean Air Act as Congress intended,” Josh Kratka, managing attorney at the National Environmental Law Center and a lead lawyer on the case, said in a statement.

From 2005 to 2013, a federal judge found in 2017, Exxon’s refinery and chemical plants in Baytown released 10 million pounds of pollution beyond its state-issued air permits, including carcinogenic and toxic chemicals. U.S. District Judge David Hittner ordered Exxon to pay $19.95 million as punishment for exceeding air pollution limits on 16,386 days.

“We’re disappointed in this decision and considering other legal options,” an Exxon spokesperson said in response to the ruling.

Baytown sits 25 miles outside of Houston, with tens of thousands of people living near Exxon’s facility.

Exxon appealed and asked Hittner to re-examine how the fine was calculated, including by considering how much money the company saved by delaying repairs that would’ve prevented the excess air emissions in the first place. The company also argued that it had presented sufficient evidence to show that emissions were unavoidable.

In 2021, Hittner reduced the fine to $14.25 million — the largest penalty imposed by a court out of a citizen-initiated lawsuit under the Clean Air Act, according to Environment Texas. Exxon appealed again, challenging the plaintiffs’ standing to bring the lawsuit.

While a majority of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Hittner’s 2021 decision on Wednesday, seven members of the 17-judge panel also said they would have upheld the $19.95 million fine.

“The principal issue before the en banc Court is whether Plaintiffs’ members, who live, work, and recreate near Exxon’s facility, have a sufficient ‘personal stake’ in curtailing Exxon’s ongoing and future unlawful emissions of hazardous pollutants,” the judges wrote in a concurring opinion. “We conclude that the district court correctly held that Plaintiffs established standing for each of their claims and did not abuse its discretion in awarding a penalty of $19.95 million against Exxon to deter it from committing future violations.”

The Sierra Club and Environment Texas sued Exxon under a provision in the federal Clean Air Act that allows citizens to sue amid inaction by state and federal environmental regulators. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality rarely penalizes companies for unauthorized air emissions, a Texas Tribune investigation found.

“People in Baytown and Houston expect industry to be good neighbors,” Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, said in a statement. “But when companies violate the law and put health-threatening pollution into neighborhoods, they need to be held accountable.”

VICTORIA, Texas (AP) — A twin-engine propeller plane crashed onto a Texas highway and split in two Wednesday afternoon, damaging cars and sending four people to hospitals, authorities said.

The Piper PA-31 with just the pilot aboard crashed about 3 p.m. near a highway overpass in Victoria, some 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Houston, the Federal Aviation Administration said. A police video statement on Facebook said three vehicles were damaged and images showed the aircraft split at the fuselage with part of the wreckage resting atop a car.

Victoria Police Deputy Chief Eline Moya said three people had non-life threatening injuries, one was transported to an out-of-town hospital for higher level treatment, and the pilot was being evaluated.

“This is not something we see every day, but we are glad that people seem to be OK and they’re getting checked out,” Moya said.

The pilot’s name was not immediately released. The FAA said it would investigate the crash.

Tony Poynor said he was approaching an intersection when he started hearing the sound of a small plane engine very close to him.

“To the left of me you start seeing on the wall a shadow of this plane,” he said. “Then it passed over the top of my truck. And it’s still horizontal at this point, then about a quarter of a mile in front of me it starts to wobble.”

Poynor said that after the crash, he approached the plane and the pilot was conscious but Poynor was unable to get him out.

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that Tilman Fertitta, local billionaire and owner of the Houston Rockets, may be the next U.S. ambassador to Italy, CBS News reported Tuesday night. A spokesperson for Fertitta was unable to confirm the move, and CBS News said the Trump transition team declined to comment on the potential nomination. “Billionaire Tilman Fertitta, CEO of hospitality group Landry’s, Inc. and the owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, is Trump’s pick for U.S. ambassador to Italy, people familiar with the decision told CBS News,” the article read. A headline in that article noted that Fertitta was a “possible pick” for the post.

Fertitta, who owns Landry’s Inc. and is the chairman of the University of Houston Board of Regents, has long been a major political donor to Republican candidates. While the 67-year-old restaurateur has also contributed to Democratic candidates, the vast majority of his recent donations were made to Republicans, according to Open Secrets. Last month, Fertitta joined President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk in South Texas to watch SpaceX’s sixth flight test of its Starship rocket. Fertitta is also chairman of the University of Houston system board of regents. Reached tonight, UH President Renu Khator said an ambassadorship would be “very” prestigious for UH. “I think it would be a huge honor for the university. I would be very happy for him.” Asked if this would prevent him from continuing as board of regents chairman, Khator said, “I hope not. I don’t think so.” The news of his potential nomination came just after the Houston Business Journal reported Tuesday that Fertitta had expressed interest in purchasing the New Orleans Saints.

AUSTIN – KXAN reports the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is behind on paying employees overtime pay, KXAN confirmed on Monday. One former employee said he’s been waiting around six months for hundreds of dollars he was never paid. The former employee, who wishes to remain anonymous, said he worked for TDCJ on and off for eight years. “[I feel] just used and taken for granted,” the former employee told Reporter Jala Washington. After quitting in October, the former employee said he grew frustrated with working conditions and pay issues. “My pay has been messed up several times, but this time, I’ve been waiting since May,” the former employee said. “They claim they’re short-handed and can’t get caught up.” A TDCJ spokesperson told KXAN all standard paychecks are being paid on time each month but said there’s a new time clock system that sometimes requires timesheets to be manually adjusted, leading to delays in additional pay.

According to TDCJ, it processes payroll for 31,000 employees across the state. The spokesperson said they’re now looking into how many employees are still owed money and how much the agency owes them. There’s no clear timeline on how long it’ll take to pay employees their additional pay still owed. KXAN spoke with Civil Rights Attorney Austin Kaplan about legal circumstances surrounding businesses not paying employees on time. “The short answer is this is not legal,” Kaplan said. “But the challenge that these workers face is there are significant loopholes in Texas law that make it super hard to recover.” Kaplan said Texas has two wage laws, but that they lack specifics. “There’s not that much clarity in terms of when you have to be paid by,” Kaplan said. “[In this situation with TDCJ employees], private attorneys can’t really get involved, because there’s no private cause of action that we can bring against a state agency in Texas.” Kaplan said employees would need to get the United States Department of Labor involved, which does offer free legal services. “It’s just that they’ve got to take the case, and it can take a while,” Kaplan said. Kaplan said there would be more protections for employees, if they were in a union, with a contract that TDCJ could not legally breach. “I’m really just expecting to take it as a loss,” the former TDCJ employee said. TDCJ said it is working on adding more staff to help with manual time adjustments that are contributing to pay delays.

AUSTIN (AP) – In Texas, health advocates often find themselves playing defense to encourage leaders to preserve the state’s relatively frugal public service offerings while also pushing for more.

That’s why a $300 million ask to lawmakers next year from the state’s notoriously tight-lipped social services agency — the Texas Health and Human Services Commission — to improve the agency’s complicated Medicaid application process has thrilled the state’s nonprofit policy groups.

If granted, it could mean more than 1,000 new workers and millions spent upgrading a decades-old computer system to make it easier for Texans to apply for Medicaid health insurance for adults and children, food stamps and other programs.

This move could allow vulnerable Texans to be enrolled in these critical programs in weeks rather than the months they’re experiencing now.

“That very much stands out for us,” said Peter Clark, spokesperson for Texans Care For Children, which advocates on behalf of Texas children and families and has put improvements to the state’s Medicaid eligibility system at the top of its list for state lawmakers when the Legislature convenes in January.

The agency-initiated request is a response to the incredible backlog of applications for Medicaid and food stamps after the federal unwinding of a pandemic-era policy that suspended the need for periodic renewal of benefits. Hundreds of thousands of Texans lost their Medicaid coverage because they didn’t get their renewal applications filed quick enough or they were procedurally removed from the program because of paperwork issues.

In its legislative appropriations request, the agency notes that federal rules require food stamp applications be reviewed within 30 days and Medicaid applicants within 45 days. Since 2019, that has not been the case.

As of Nov. 22, the wait time for a Medicaid application for an adult or child to be processed was 71 days and 131,869 applications were waiting to be completed. As of Dec. 5, the wait time was slightly improved at 59 days.

“The TIERS eligibility system has suffered significant neglect due to the exceptional demands of” the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency’s request to the Legislature states. “Fully funding this request provides the level of resourcing needed to keep up with routine demands, and allows (state tech workers) to address the backlog of modification requests targeting timeliness mandates and client experience.”

Each year, there are as many as 50,000 maintenance service requests for the enrollment system filed by staff members.

The legislative request document calls for at least 1,772 new positions, but agency officials have provided specifics on what else they would spend the rest of the $300 million. If the state approves the $300 million, it could receive an additional $100 million in funding, including from the federal government.

In the last year, the health agency employed more than 2,100 eligibility workers to help reduce the backlogs, reporting that more than 96% of eligibility workers are filled.

As a result of those efforts, the agency has eliminated the food stamp applications backlog last month, HHSC spokesperson Jennifer Ruffcorn said.
Why do Medicaid applications take so long?

When a Texan applies for Medicaid health insurance or food stamps, they can do so through the agency’s Texas Benefits website or the agency’s Your Texas Benefits app.

But miles away, a state worker has to take that applicant’s information and manually input all the data into an unforgiving 20-year-old computer system with the most bureaucratic of names: the Texas Integrated Eligibility Redesign System, or TIERS.

To say it’s a time-consuming process is an understatement.

“You remember The Oregon Trail, it’s like that,” said Diana Forester, director of health policy for Texans Care For Children, referring to the static, 1985 video game played via keyboard prompts.

When it was introduced as a pilot in 2003, TIERS was hailed as a system that would create cost savings. But from the start, there were snafus that forced the state to change contractors and pour an additional $56 million to fix some of the problems in 2006. An audit the following year found TIERS “cumbersome to use.”

Last year, the system’s flaws were made even more apparent for low-income Texans — children, the disabled and elderly — when Texas abruptly kicked more Medicaid recipients off the program faster than any other state after keeping them on continuously through the pandemic.

Forester, who worked for the state health agency for six years before becoming a health policy advocate in 2022, said using TIERS can be so tedious that workers must repeatedly type the same information in different places of what can be a 30-page Medicaid application for it to be successfully submitted.

The slow process is by design, said Anne Dunkelberg, who retired as health policy director for progressive policy group Every Texan earlier this year.

“Texas has many decades of making enrollment and renewal difficult,” she said.

The system forces caretakers to block out hours if not days to push an application into the system after gathering the required documents.

“It requires eternal vigilance,” Dunkelberg said. “We had some pretty bad statistics coming out of COVID. The time is ripe to upgrade some of the things to prevent losing so many eligible people, mostly kids, into the program.”
What applying for help looks like on the ground

As the deputy coordinator of Mercedes-based Texas RioGrande Legal Aid’s public benefits group, Bernadette Segura and her team help Texans, often Spanish-speaking, apply for Medicaid and food stamps.

“The delays are shorter, but there are still delays,” Segura said last week. “It’s taking (state health agency staff) forever to make decisions.”

Anyone applying for either benefits must prove they are either citizens or lawfully living in the United States by submitting birth certificates and verification of income, rent, utility bills and school enrollment for children who are old enough to attend.

Segura often hears from clients who have to resubmit documents multiple times because the state has said it hasn’t received them.

One client, a single father, waited more than a year after applying to receive food stamps, and it took an administrative appeal to do so, she said.

To apply for benefits requires a lot of patience, Segura said.

“You have to have a fully charged phone and a lot of time to stay on hold,” she said. It also requires a certain amount of tech savvy. If a Texas resident applies online from their phone, they have to know how to enlarge small print and know how to scan their documents into the application.

While they wait, many rely on local food banks, many of which also assist their customers with applying for food stamps.

Another impediment, Segura noted, is the fact that Medicaid and food stamp applications come in only Spanish and English. For those qualifying non-English speakers from the Middle East, Asia and Africa who need assistance, the language barrier can act as a strong deterrent, she said.

“There’s confusion based on an applicants’ level of English,” Segura said, who added she’d like to see applications available in Arabic, Chinese and Vietnamese. “There’s a need all the time for language translation.”

Forester, with Texans Care For Children, said the system can also pepper an applicant incessantly with confusing notifications. “It’s not user-friendly for an applicant,” she said. Go to any community center helping applicants and you’ll see “lines of families with a stack of notifications. Some contradict each other,” she said,

Applicants get overwhelmed and they can’t find out what the status of their applications is by logging in, she said.

“We don’t need more people,” Forester said. “We need better tech.”