Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Houston Area Leadership Vacuum: The Texas Supreme Court as Mayor Parker's Nanny.

In the battle over HER Ordinance, the Parker Administration has to be getting tired of getting their hats handed to them by the Texas Supreme Court.

Texas Supreme Court says City erred on HER Ordinance ballot Language. Mike Morris and Katherine Driessen. Chron.com

The justices, writing in "yet another mandamus proceeding concerning the City of Houston's equal rights ordinance," said the city charter is clear in requiring that voters be asked to vote for or against the ordinance. Parker had instead argued it was proper to vote for or against repealing the measure, and the council approved language with that approach Aug. 5.
The judges did allow the words: "Houston Equal Rights Ordinance" to remain in the ballot language, which makes sense.  I would object to HERO (or, HER Ordinance, which I use) since that is clearly political in nature.

What remains to be seen is how the Parker administration reacts to this ruling.  Although I'm unsure what wiggle room they have.  It's fairly clear that they need to re-work the ballot language to comply with the court's order.  Will they try (again) to do something squirrely?