Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Flood Lists Used for Political Purposes

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Last night a flood victim received a political Pro Pension Obligation Bond live land line phone call.  Somehow the pro pension bond people have a list of flood victims. The flood victim was told they needed to keep our promise to the first responders, the flood victim then hung up.

There is a concern that a FEMA flood list or a City of Houston list is being used for political purposes. The question is how the pro pension obligation bond campaign being run by Sylvester Turner got the list and who authorized it’s use. There are others collecting information on flood victims, including the City of Houston. Any number of organizations could have given the list to the pro pension obligation folks.

Using this list is obscene and I sure hope the tactic back fires on the pro pension bond campaign. Victimizing people twice or really three times when you include the amount of taxes squandered by the City of Houston is despicable.

Lt. Dan and Senator Huffman Sent Packing

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https://www.facebook.com/harriscountygop/videos/10159884636905112/

Lt. Dan and Senator Huffman speak in the beginning of the video and a series of votes on the resolution language begins at the 2:18.55 mark (or -21:29, depending on how your viewer works).

Dan Patrick and his political consultant Allen Blakemore were working the room when I arrived. I visited with a couple of folks trying to see if I missed anything.

Patrick definitely misread the room. I watched Lt. Dan speak with folks, making his point and moving on to the next person. Folks would nod in agreement and Patrick would move over to someone else. I knew Patrick and Huffman would not bother to stay until the resolution was heard, they didn’t. Of course, the Exec Committee would do what Dan said he did not need to stay. “I am Dan Patrick, and you know Hurricane Harvey was really bad and I am off to get an update from the Governor.” And then there was poor Senator Huffman who Lt. Dan left helplessly trying to explain all the good work of the elitist Republican establishment types. You know, the big government, pro-illegal immigration, C-Club contractor crowd – self-interest types. The folks who have completely messed everything up to date, those guys. Senator Huffman kept pointing over to her left at some of these folks. I am still convinced that Joan has noclue what her pension bill does or how it works. Her nails and hair looked good though.

The new number in cuts is now $2.54 billion in cuts from the unions, according to Senator Huffman. I am going to find the guy who can explain them to me. I am pretty sure I can’t go to Senator Huffman. Sly Turner says the number is $1.4 billion, he’s real liberal you know. Ole Sly used to tell folks it was $1.9 billion. I am pretty sure you would hear no number if their audiences contained both Republicans and Democrats.

The grassroots of the Republican Party had lost their way in the wilderness, but they found their way home last night. This was a big defeat for Dan Patrick who has lost his way too. I am tired of being upset with Dan and Joan. I just want them to find their way home or not. The grassroots of our local party is smart, and they figured out that they may not be able to afford to be friends with the police anymore. Dan and Joan don’t see this because the police pay them to hang out. It’s kind of like a neighbor who has joined a new country club and they only invite certain of their old neighbors to come hang out. Some friends are invited for their company while others are invited because they are expected to pay up and join. Of course, there are those that just can’t afford it.

Hurricane Harvey had suddenly re-prioritized the importance of good fiscal government. Government thinks they are the answer to everything, they are not. We are the can-do spirit that made Houston and Texas great. The politics of hurricanes is always interesting. The grassroots activists who are the Harris County Republican Party are fighters. A lot of folks in the room had been flooded out and had lost their homes and businesses. The last thing anyone wanted to hear about was pension bonds. Where are Kevin Shuvalov and Chris Beavers when you need them?

I would like to thank the Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee who voted against the pension obligation bonds. In case you don’t know there are 600 plus members. This was a big message and I appreciate it! Thank you! Special shout out to Rolando Garcia who spoke eloquently to defeat the proposal.  Again, congratulations to the men and women of the Harris County Republican Party.

I have never been more proud of you.

 

Paul Simpson’s Billion Dollar Pension Obligation Bonds

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Mayor Sly Turner, Lt. Dan, and Senator Joan Huffman celebrating their great billion dollar bond victory at the GRB. Picture was taken before Sly Turner sued over SB4

The first thing voters must know about the one billion dollar pension bond on the November ballot is where the money is going. The money is going to fund the DROP accounts of retired police officers and municipal employees for the City of Houston. This is largest bond in City of Houston history and none of it goes for Harvey relief!

The DROP stands for the Deferred Retirement Option Plan. The Texas Legislature created these accounts in 2001, which allow city police and municipal employees to retire after twenty years without really retiring. DROP allowed employees to accrue the retirement pay while being paid their normal salary in a separate account collecting eight percent interest. It was a pretend retirement. There were several bills that morphed into the system we have now. Mayor Sylvester Turner, as a state representative, carried every one of the bills. This irony should not be lost here. Not one dime of this money goes for any Harvey relief

Most police officers who have been in the system since 2001 have over one million dollars in their DROP accounts. Many officers have several million dollars in their DROP. Understand that this DROP account is in addition to their retirement benefits of 95 percent salary and medical benefits for the rest of their lives. This is why the City of Houston has an eight billion dollar unfunded pension liability and why we are compared to Chicago and Detroit. Voters are now being asked to make millionaires out of city employees.

The bond proceeds are divided between police and municipal employees: 750 million for police and 250 million for municipal employees. Obviously, there are a lot of police officers in the program. This billion dollar bond is just for this group of retiring officers and taxpayers can expect skyrocketing property taxes and more bond proposals in the future.

There is a group within the Republican Party, led by Paul Simpson, promoting this nonsense. Make no mistake, Paul Simpson is a big government establishment Republican, which is the reason the party was crushed in the last election cycle. Paul Simpson is not acting alone and his political consultant, Kevin Shuvalov, is being paid to promote Mayor Sylvester Turner’s billion dollar “kick the can down the road” bond deal. Shuvalov just happens to be a consultant to Joe Straus. You can bet that plenty of funds are fixin’ to flow into Paul Simpson’s coffers from both Sylvester Turner and the unions who are desperate for post-Harvey Republican support for this bond.

Lt. Dan and Senator Whitmire showing the love at the Capitol with the new HPOU President

Once again, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a longtime recipient of [police] union support, is carrying the water for the pension bond election. Patrick’s political consultant, Allen Blakemore, worked with Turner in 2001 and was the lobbyist for the HPOU at that time. Blakemore facilitated Mayor Sylvester Turner’s billion dollar bond proposal through the Senate long before education and property tax reform went down in flames in the House. Lt. Dan and his consultant have been delivering for the unions since he was first elected to the Texas Senate and this year is no exception. While good people in our community are flooded out of their homes, Patrick, Turner, et al. are trying to make millionaires out of city workers.

Expect to see Lt. Dan (with a special appearance by Senator Joan Huffman and crew) representing recipients of union largesse at Monday night’s Harris County Republican Party’s Executive Committee Meeting. Maybe Sly can ask Lt. Dan about the rainy day fund when he is in town. Lt. Dan can ask the mayor about all the nasty things Turner and the Houston City Council said about the Republicans when Houston filed suit over SB4.

This is being done for the love of money.

Don’t Lose Sight of November’s Pension Plan Election

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With the chaotic end to the regular session and the tension in the special session lots of ink, time, energy, and focus has been in Austin. That’s well and good, but it poses a significant challenge for Houston. With the attention focused on Austin, the needed scrutiny for the November election on pension reform and spending cap increase has been pushed to the back burner. The vote will have a far larger impact on Houstonians than anything that happens in Austin this special session.

Before turning reasoning on the vote, I will give credit where credit is due. Mayor Turner could have pushed the pension plan through without a vote. He took the high road and agreed to let it go to the voters. For that, he deserves credit.

It’s important to recognize that the spending cap will need to be increased/lifted if pension reform is approved. Approving the plan without increasing the spending cap will be disastrous. The city has released a “sustainable pensions” web page which promotes the plan. The information there is presented in the light most favorable to the city. The Urban Edge has published an analysis which gives a more neutral assessment.

Although the current situation in untenable, the plan has some problems that need to be addressed. The first, big, problem is that the plan only has a framework to stop unfunded liabilities from increasing. Don has written on the plan extensively, and he correctly points out that the corridor is not a lockdown solution.

Without a lockdown solution, the “risk sharing” is theoretical rather than ongoing. The city and pensioners had the option of shifting future employees to a 401k structure. This would have reduced the obligation going forward and made the problem manageable. Rather, they elected to go the corridor route. The corridor route would achieve the same goal IF it were a hard agreement without wiggle room. Rather than being a hard agreement it calls for negotiations should the investment return fall outside the boundaries of the corridor.

The second problem is that the plan assumes it will succeed and gives little wiggle room for error. The plan calls for reducing the rate of return to 7{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}. That’s great if the rate of return hits 7{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}. However, Houston Municipal Employee Pension System publication shows they have not hit that rate of return in the past 3, 5, and 10 year periods. It’s close, but not there. Individual year values have been much lower.

The pension bond requires a 5{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} rate of return in order to make debt service payments. Although the HMEPS hit that mark in the 3, 5, and 10 year periods it did not hit the mark every year. In those years the city will have to bridge the gap with general revenue.

Third problem is while the books allegedly will be open the transparency doesn’t regulate where the investments are. Municipal bond rates over time have been at 3.5{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} or slightly higher for the past decade.
With an assumed 7{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} rate of return along with a 5{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} rate needed to service the pension plan at least moderately aggressive investing is going to occur. Aggressive investments played a part in the current crisis. The plan lets everyone see the investments, but doesn’t place safeguards to ensure prudent investments.

These problems are significant and give pause as to whether the proposed plan is workable. Prudence calls for a no vote and tweaking the plan to ensure Houstonians aren’t left with a billion dollar obligation that isn’t backed by reform that have teeth to ensure the pension crisis is resolved.

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Legislative Session

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The 85th Legislative Session was different in many ways. Two things changed the narrative this session. First, Empower Texans successfully augmented the mainstream media with the conservative perspective. Social media is important and our friends at Empower Texans are mastering it. Michael Quinn Sullivan and Empower Texans covered the session well and kept viewers well informed on the progress of conservative legislation as it moved through the House and Senate. The weekly live broadcasts by Sullivan and Jim Graham of Texas Right to Life really enhanced this session and highlighted the defects in House leadership. Second, the Texas Freedom Caucus led the charge against liberal legislation and successfully thwarted Straus and his henchmen. Conservatism had a voice this session.

Houston conservatives lost this session with the passage of SB 2190 – the pension bill. Turner ran his bill through the legislature with the assistance of Lt. Dan, Senator Joan Huffman, and House members supported by the Houston Police Officer’s Union (HPOU). This bill may help HPOU in the short term, but at what cost? Our city and our firefighters were ignored this session. HPOU has 750 million dollars in bond proceeds in the bill to pay for their Deferred Retirement Option Plans (DROP). These DROP benefits often contain millions of dollars per officer in addition to their 95{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} retirement pay for life. Now you know why the City of Houston is 10 billion dollars in debt. There are a lot of officers wishing to retire and run out the door because they negatively view the shift in criminal justice policy (i.e., Kim Ogg as DA and Art Acevedo as Chief of Police). This November, Houstonians will vote on the bond and repeal of the property tax cap.

On a much lighter note, the Texas Freedom Caucus (TFC) kicked butt and proved much more fun to watch than the Houston Rockets. Jonathan Stickland made a name for himself this session and helped the conservative cause against Straus and his liberal policies. The caucus is composed of a group of freedom and liberty loving conservatives from around the state who waged a war with the liberal agenda (including some “Republicans”) all session. The TFC revolt was entertaining and important. This revolt led to some great floor fights between impassioned, true conservatives fighting with liberals over the policies that govern our state. I say great because the TFC push revealed the weak, false conservatives à la Straus henchmen.

Dan Huberty

The TFC revealed a number of local representatives who are weak on conservative issues. For example, a number of local representatives worked against Houston Fire on the pension bill. This list includes Jim Murphy, Dan Huberty, and other (current and/or former) clients of Allen Blakemore like Dennis Paul, John Zerwas, Kevin Roberts, and Mike Schofield. Blakemore’s tentacles are a sure sign of poison in the water. Thanks to these folks, Houstonians will need to hold on to their wallets with all their might!

I truly do not understand why Sarah Davis keeps up this charade. Davis does not have a conservative bone in her body. I bet that the Fox News Channel has been removed from all of the televisions in the Davis home. Please remember that the Harris County Republican Party, under the leadership of Paul Simpson, placed the entire countywide campaign on the shoulders of Davis. And Davis was all in with Devon Anderson (the DA who jailed a sexual assault victim). As you know, this experiment failed miserably.

Davis fought against every pro-life bill this session – and seemed to enjoy it! Simpson’s effort to keep Davis in office cost every Harris County Republican in 2016.

Briscoe Cain and Valoree Swanson were our local superstars this session. Both quickly aligned themselves with the TFC and became valued members of this merry band of rebel rousers. Throughout the session, I turned to Brsicoe to find out what was going on with particular items of interest. Valoree provided crucial support to pro-life bills and had a good session. The liberal media attacked both and now you know why – they were effective in moving conservative legislation. Importantly, both members voted against Turner’s pension bill.

Throughout the session Lt. Dan worked hard to position himself for a run against Governor Abbott. Yesterday, Governor Abbott proved that he can handle Lt. Dan when he named twenty issues for the July Special Session. Put your chin straps on because it will be a ride

Big Jolly will keep you informed throughout the summer.

Lt. Dan’s Pension Bill

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If you are a fiscal conservative, Monday May 1, 2017 will forever be known as Bloody Monday in the Texas Senate.

Never let it be said that Dan Patrick cannot move legislation. If you have a bill that makes multi-millionaires out of City of Houston employees and is promoted by the most fiscally liberal mayor in our lifetime, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is your guy. All of the campaign contributions from HPOU finally paid off like a slot machine making the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Houston Police Officers’ Union (HPOU) the kings of the Texas Senate. The faux conservative gig is up. Yesterday, Dan cashed in his conservative bona fides for Sylvester Turner and his big union buddies.

Lieutenant Dan was not alone in wrecking the finances of the City of Houston – he had accomplices. There is always Senator Joan Huffman who never fails to demonstrate her liberalism when it counts. Senator Huffman waived to all the Houston police officers in the gallery as she lined their deferred retirement option plan (DROP) accounts with her vote.

It is no secret that Sylvester Turner intends to lift the property tax cap in order to pay for all of this nonsense. When Turner lifts the tax cap, please send a love note to Lieutenant Dan for the pension Napalm bomb. We supposedly have a “conservative” legislature; however, Lieutenant Dan cannot make things happen on conservative issues like education and property tax reform. Lieutenant Dan should not captain a shrimp boat let alone preside over the Texas Senate.

Allen Blakemore, Lieutenant Dan’s political consultant, proudly displays on his website that he has also served as a consultant for HPOU. Finally, HPOU and SEIU’s political contributions to Dan, Joe Straus, and House Pension Committee Chair Dan Flynn have paid off like a million dollar slot machine.

The Greater Houston Partnership (GHP) and C Club joined in on Lieutenant Dan’s corruption of Houston finances. Both GHP and the C Club were somehow allowed to represent Houston taxpayers in the pension bill negotiation. This is like sending Bill Clinton to chaperone Miss USA contestants. I wonder if C Club member and Greater Houston Partnership Infrastructure Chairman Jim Dannenbaum participated in these negotiations. Or was he too busy dealing with the FBI?

Fiscally conservative Houstonians are without a voice in our Texas Legislature. As usual, Houston taxpayers are left holding the bag for the worst piece of legislation to come out of Austin in years. It is a sad day for Houston.

http://www.hpou.org/salary-calculator/