Capital Metro falls off the track'
Last week, Capital Metro released an update on the MetroRail system that was originally scheduled to open in early 2008. The opening was delayed for the fourth time this March, when the Federal Railroad Administration cited Capital Metro and its contractor Veolia for 22 safety violations.
The company has not scheduled a new opening date since, though it promised to announce a new date in May. Instead, the May update read, “Capital Metro is committed to opening the MetroRail line when it is ready.”
Now the company assures us that “Capital Metro will announce an opening date when the entire rail system is demonstrated to be operating in a consistent, reliable and safe manner,” according to the June update.
Capital Metro is a public transit provider owned by the city of Austin. It also owes the city millions of dollars, according to the Austin American-Statesman, and recently took out a $10 million loan from J.P. Morgan. Since 2002, Capital Metro’s reserves have shrunk from $200 million to less than ten million.
Every time the company pushes back the start of the MetroRail, it costs the city millions.
While the new rail system needs to be consistent, reliable and especially safe, that should not come as a surprise to Capital Metro. It is unacceptable for Capital Metro to come up more than a year late — and tens of millions of dollars short.
A bill authored by Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, was signed into law earlier this month, and will adjust the composition of the Capital Metro Board so that fewer politicians serve on it. In addition, one member of the board will have at least a decade of executive experience, while another will have a decade of financial or accounting experience.
Perhaps the new board will govern Capital Metro more effectively. Regardless, the city of Austin must have more oversight of the company it owns. The city must demand to know the reason behind every delay and every dollar spent.
— Jillian Sheridan for the editorial board
Perry and his lobbyists
Gov. Rick Perry has shifted his focus to his re-election campaign. In a move that appears geared toward the upcoming gubernatorial election, Perry named former lobbyist and political consultant Ray Sullivan as his new chief of staff. Sullivan will replace Jay Kimbrough on July 1, though Kimbrough will remain a senior advisor. Perry said, “This session’s achievements are a real tribute to the leadership of Jay Kimbrough,” according to the Austin American-Statesman.
But Perry didn’t agree with at least one of this session’s “achievements.” SB 2468, which would have limited the revolving-door policy that allows on-and-off lobbyists like Sullivan to be a part of gubernatorial staffs, was vetoed by Perry. The bill would have kept any former government officer from a county of 3.3 million or more people from lobbying at his or her former place of work for two years. In other words, the bill would result in fewer officers-turned-lobbyists at the Capitol.
The veto may be one of his last legislative moves as governor this term, as Perry’s appointing of a career political strategist as his chief of staff implies that he may be done governing for this session. Instead, Perry appears to be putting his re-election efforts ahead of state issues by making this key switch in personnel, despite an approaching special legislative session.
A former Perry campaign aide, Sullivan has served as a lobbyist to several corporations as well as a campaign advisor to George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and, interestingly enough, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Even with his extensive lobbying background, Sullivan’s selection isn’t much of a surprise — at least 17 former Perry aides are now or have been lobbyists, according to the Dallas Morning News.
As part of Perry’s administration, Sullivan’s salary comes from taxpayer money. Taxpayers are unwillingly funding lobbyists and advisors who are essentially in charge of Perry’s re-election campaign.
The dubious hiring of a campaign consultant as a state servant in the midst of a special session undermines the duties of a governor. Equally unsettling, Perry’s selection affirms fears of a looming nine-month-long Republican primary leading up to the next gubernatorial election.
— Jeremy Burchard for the editorial board
The Supreme Court preserves equal rights, for now
The United States Supreme Court’s decision on a case that could have essentially gutted the historic Voting Rights Act of 1965 was handed down Monday, in what many court observers say is the most important case of the current term.
The court ruled 8-1 that Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No.1, a wealthy political unit in northern Travis County, could opt out of a long-standing preclearance requirement created to impede racial discrimination in areas of the nation with an undeniable history of bigotry in voting rights.
Since it was passed, Section 5 of the act made nearly every political entity in the South submit to the U.S. Justice Department any changes they wished to make to the their existing voting procedures, including the moving of polling places.
According to the court’s opinion, Southern states will still have to get their election code changes approved by the Justice Department, but individual counties, cities and school districts can now ask a court to bail them out of the preclearance requirement. To be granted exclusion from the requirement, the district in question must prove its voting records have been clean of discrimination for at least a decade.
The court’s decision more narrowly tailored the act’s application, but stopped short of completely overturning Section 5, the core of the legislation — a move civil rights groups dreaded as they faced a recently bolstered conservative majority on the court.
If it overturned Section 5, the court would have altered how the nation viewed equality in voting rights and would have put in jeopardy many of the overlooked pockets of the South where masked discrimination still occurs.
Instead, the court rightly decided to leave the larger constitutional questions to a later time, acknowledging that legislation as historic and fundamental to American democracy as this act should not be quickly overturned.
Many of those in support of upholding Section 5 feared that the court might be persuaded too much by what are seen as the act’s most recent products, including a sizable increase in minority voter registration in the South and the election of the nation’s first black president.
We would make a grave mistake, however, in assuming that the act’s future is secure for another half-century or so. Most legal observers concede that though it passed up the chance to overturn or more fundamentally alter the act, the court may not be willing to take such a cautious approach the next time a similar case reaches its docket.
— Roberto Cervantes for the editorial board
