Carroll G. Robinson
Right-leaning Texas Supreme Court might be empowering Governor Abbott’s excesses
Carroll G. Robinson
We Need A Harris County Public Safety Summit
In the next few months Harris County Commissioners Court will be appointing a new sheriff once current Sheriff Ed Gonzales is confirmed by the United States Senate to lead Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Hopefully, we make history in Harris County and get the first Black Sheriff in county history. Regardless of who Commissioners end up selecting, I want to encourage them to have the new sheriff convene a countywide Public Safety Summit with all law enforcement agencies across the county-Sheriff’s office, Constables, city police departments, Metro’s police department and the police department of all school districts, colleges, universities and community college systems, Texas Rangers, U.S. Marshall and FBI-to discuss and implement a comprehensive coordinated strategy to help reduce crime all across the county including in every city in Harris County.
Crime and criminals know no boundaries and all law enforcement agencies across our county are being funded by local taxpayers. Artificial boundaries should not stop Harris County law enforcement agencies (and certified Texas Peace Officers) from working together in a much more unified manner to better protect all Harris County residents no matter which city they live in or where in unincorporated Harris County they live.
We are not going to reduce crime in Houston or Harris County unless all of law enforcement works together. No one city or the county or school district or college can do it all alone.
Harris County law enforcement agencies must expand on the Homeland Security Fusion Center model to help increase crime prevention, arrests and clearance rates. This effort must also include shared access to security cameras and in the coming years a joint law enforcement command center similar to TranStar and consideration of a countywide or regional public safety district.
We have to try new ideas to fight crime in our community and better coordination and greater use of artificial intelligence (A.I.) powered technology must be a part of the conversation. Harris County, local law enforcement leadership and our state legislative and congressional delegations must all help lead and contribute to this effort.
Right now, what taxpayers want, need and deserve is results, not people we are paying telling us what is not their responsibility.
We deserve a new Sheriff who will build on what has been done right, but who will also be unafraid to offer leadership in new ways.
To the County Commissioners and Judge Hidalgo: please pick someone for Sheriff who will be able to do more than just operate the county jail.
______
BY THE WAY: It may be hot outside right now, but remember the Texas electric grid failed us in the cold. It will get cold again, in Texas. Even worse, we have already been warned by Republican Governor Greg Abbott that the electricity grid may also fail us all during the heat of these summer months. Why isn’t Governor Abbott standing up for Texans to oppose increases in our electric bills? #WeDidn’tBreakTheGrid…The PUC and ERCOT did. Now ERCOT wants us to believe that Texas needs a 60 Point Plan to #FixTheGrid. That’s Crazy. The Texas Coalition of Black Democrats has a One Point Plan to Fix The Grid: FIRE Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton. #BeatAPP. That’s the plan to #FixTheGridandFixTexas.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
Carroll G. Robinson
GOP voter-suppression disgrace —Why I am not going to Austin today
I am not going to Austin today, Saturday, June 10, 2021, to testify against the State Senate voter suppression bill because it won’t make a difference to Republicans. I also don’t believe that Democratic state lawmakers should have returned for the Special Session to allow Republicans to even have the opportunity to pass all the bad bills that Governor Abbott has recommended be passed.
For me, there is no acceptable middle ground on the bills that Republicans want to pass. My only goals are to kill those bills, elect a Democratic majority in the legislature and elect Democrats to statewide offices. To achieve these goals in 2022, Democrats in the legislature must once again leave. They must not let Governor Abbott hold them hostage because he vetoed legislative funding. Abbott did it and they need to let him pay the political price for doing it. Democratic donors and labor unions can (and must) help take care of the state employees that may have to go on unemployment during this fight for the future of our state.
Republicans are not only going to pass legislation to suppress our right to vote, they are also going to pass bills to whitewash the teaching of history in our state, make health care options for women harder to obtain, discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community and take Texas taxpayers’ money to build a wall at the border rather than use that money to fix the grid and improve health care and broadband access in rural communities.
It is not too late for Democrats, in the Legislature, to once again bust the quorum and leave.
The job of the Texas Legislature is to protect Texans and our tax dollars; It is not to discriminate against Black, Hispanic, low income, women, LGBTQ+ and younger Texans but that is exactly what Republicans are planning to do during this Special Session. Enough is enough. Democrats have to start fighting back as hard and as tough as Republicans are doing and the Texas Democratic Party needs to lead that fight.
It is not too late for Democrats, in the Legislature, to once again bust the quorum and leave. Nothing good is going to happen for the people they represent during this Special Session and they represent more than just the people who live in their district. After State House Democrats walked out to kill the voter suppression bill at the end of the Regular Session, they now represent all Texans and Americans fighting to protect and save our democracy.
For Texas Democratic state lawmakers, doing their job-at this moment in history-for those they represent in Texas (and all across our nation) demands that they, once again, bust the quorum and leave the Texas Capital.
Texas Democratic State lawmakers can save our nation; they can draw a line in the sand here, in Texas, against voter suppression, hate and discrimination.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
Carroll G. Robinson
Fourth of July —It’s Our Fight For Freedom
Tomorrow, we celebrate another Fourth of July. The fight for freedom in our nation however, did not end at Lexington and Concord nor did it end at Shiloh or Gettysburg.
Slavery, Lynchings, Water Hoses, Attack Dogs, Beatings, Bombings and Murders was the price that Black America had to pay for civil rights and the right to vote.
Now, Republicans in Texas and across our nation, want to once again take us back to the old days of counting the number of bubbles in a bar of soap, the number of beans in a jar and having to pay poll taxes to vote.
Just a few days ago the United States Supreme Court made it even harder to fight voter suppression by Republican state legislators.
A few weeks earlier Texas State House Democrats became the first Democrats, in our nation, to defeat a Republican voter suppression bill by walking out of the legislature and breaking the House quorum. Governor Abbott has now called a special legislative session that will begin on July 8th to once again try and pass the Republican voter suppression bill.
Some Democrats are now saying that it is too much of a burden for State House Democrats to leave the state and not go back to Austin to keep Republicans from passing their voter suppression bill. Some Democrats are also saying why fight because it is inevitable that Republicans will eventually pass their voter suppression bill before the general election in November 2022.
It’s hard for me to understand or accept that kind of defeatist attitude. To win, Democrats have to try. We have to stand united and fight back for as long as it takes. Freedom ain’t free and has always required sacrifice. If all Texas Democrats are no longer willing to sacrifice and fight together for the right to vote, what else really matters?
Leaving Texas does not require the same kind of sacrifice that was made by those who marched in the 1960s or sat at lunch counters or made Freedom Rides for civil rights and voting rights.
Texas Democrats, This Is Now Our Fight for Freedom.
State House Democrats must not go back to Austin on July 8th. They need to leave the state for as long as it takes to defeat the Republican voter suppression bill.
I am confident that Democrats, in Texas and across America, will donate to help State House Democrats and their staff with the finances they need to make this fight for as long as it takes. The Texas Democratic Party needs to start raining money now for this fight. Labor and the DNC must help supplement unemployment benefits for the state employees Governor Abbott has illegally fired.
If Democrats are unwilling to make this fight to defeat voter suppression in Texas, we are unlikely to hold on to our majority in Congress or win back the State House in Texas in 2022. If we don’t continue to fight for Black, Hispanic, young and low-income voters, how can we expect them to stand up and vote for us?
This is now our 1776 and time for our Democratic Declaration of Emancipation. This is our modern fight for freedom.
Let’s make the fight and win. Leave Texas or leave office so that we can break the quorum and break the back of Republicans push for voter suppression here in Texas.
As we celebrate the Fourth, let’s continue the historic fight for freedom.
God Bless Texas and America.
You can help make a difference in Texas right now. Donate today to The Texas Black Democrats PAC. Donate here >>>
Thank you and God Bless Houston. For constructive dialogue, you may contact me directly >>>
Hon. Robinson is the former Chairman, City of Houston Transportation, Technology and Infrastructure Committee; Former Vice Chairman, Houston-Galveston Area Council Transportation Policy Council (H-GAC TPC) and Associate Professor of Public Administration, Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs, Texas Southern University.
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