March 26, 2019

Newly powerful Grijalva prepares to challenge Trump administration

WASHINGTON – When Raúl Grijalva showed up on Capitol Hill for his first congressional portrait more than 16 years ago, he didn’t yet own a tie.

”They said, ‘Mr. Grijalva, we’ll take your picture tomorrow, when you have a tie,’ ” the Democratic congressman-elect told The New York Times in late 2002. So, he hustled to the local Men’s Wearhouse. ”I knew I was going to need one of those. I just didn’t know it was going to be that soon.”

Since then, the former Arizona community organizer has gotten more familiar with the ways of Washington.

Grijalva is now a powerful committee chairman in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he’s beginning his 9th term representing Tucson. At the helm of the Natural Resources Committee, Grijalva is leading the newly empowered House Democrats as they pursue an ambitious oversight agenda targeting the Trump administration.

Read more: https://www.azmirror.com/2019/03/22/newly-powerful-grijalva-prepares-to-challenge-trump-administration/

March 26, 2019

Ex-Forest Park manager says marketing payments to docs were just business expense

DALLAS -- A former surgery manager at Forest Park Medical Center on Monday told jurors who will decide her fate that she never suspected marketing payments could have been used as bribes or kickbacks for doctors and that she was simply following her boss's instructions.

Carli Hempel, a defendant in the Forest Park Medical Center bribery trial underway in Dallas, was sworn in as the defense team's first witness after government prosecutors wrapped up their evidence last week.

Hempel was the now-defunct hospital's director of bariatric services. She is accused of leading efforts to sell Medicare and Medicaid referrals from certain doctors to other hospitals for cash payments because Forest Park did not accept the federally insured patients.

In early 2010, Hempel sent an email to several co-defendants saying she had worked out a deal to sell Medicare referrals to another hospital for "$350 per lead," according to the indictment.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2019/03/25/ex-forest-park-manager-says-marketing-payments-docs-just-business-expense

March 26, 2019

Beto O'Rourke campaign announces location for El Paso rally

Beto O'Rourke has announced the location of his official campaign kickoff for president.

The previously announced event at 10 a.m. Saturday will be held in Downtown El Paso, at El Paso and Overland streets. It will be the first of three events the former Congressman from El Paso and Senate candidate will have across Texas on Saturday. He'll be in Houston that afternoon and Austin that evening.

"O'Rourke will lay out the priorities of his campaign and his unifying vision for the best way to move America forward," the campaign said in a release.

O'Rourke announced March 14 that he would run for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, joining an already crowded field. Shortly after announcing his run, he said he would have a formal event to launch the campaign in El Paso, but details of that event have trickled out since.

Read more: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2019/03/24/beto-rally-el-paso-location-announced-saturday-event/3262225002/

March 26, 2019

Texas Senate advances bill to shore up teacher pension fund

by Aliyya Swaby, Texas Tribune


The Texas Senate unanimously passed legislation Monday that is designed to make the Teacher Retirement System pension fund financially healthy and give one-time checks to retired teachers.

Senate Bill 12, filed by Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, would increase how much the state, school districts and current teachers contribute to the pension fund over the next six years. For the first two years, the changes will cost the state about $555.1 million in general revenue. About $195 million of that money would go toward giving retirees one-time additional checks next fiscal year of up to $500.

The money for the bill would come from the Senate's supplemental budget, which the upper chamber unanimously approved last week.

"This plan is far more cost-efficient than simply attempting to contribute one-time contributions of cash every so often," Huffman said.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2019/03/25/texas-senate-advances-bill-shore-teacher-pension-fund/

March 26, 2019

Border Patrol closes West Texas checkpoints as influx of migrants strains resources

by Julian Aguilar, Texas Tribune


It’s unclear when the highway checkpoints in the El Paso sector of the U.S. Border Patrol will reopen after the agency closed them over the weekend and reassigned agents to help deal with an influx of undocumented immigrants.

The closure was first reported by Texas Monthly over the weekend. An agency spokesperson said Monday that the move is temporary.

“The United States Border Patrol (USBP) continues to apprehend illegal alien families and unaccompanied children in steadily increasing numbers. To process and ensure appropriate care for those in custody, resources including personnel have been diverted from other border security priorities,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “This is intended as a temporary measure. Checkpoints are integral to USBP’s border security mission.”

The El Paso sector covers more than 260 miles of the international boundary and encompasses El Paso and Hudspeth counties, as well as all of New Mexico.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2019/03/25/border-patrol-closes-West-Texas-checkpoints-influx-migrants/

March 26, 2019

Debate over Texas abortion bill prompts tears, frustration and a boycott from Democrats

By Cassandra Pollock and Arya Sundaram, Texas Tribune


A Texas House committee's attempt to consider a bill regarding "the rights of a living child born after an abortion" boiled over Monday, leading to tears from the committee chairman, frustration from Republicans and a boycott by Democrats that delayed the hearing for a few hours.

At issue was House Bill 16, filed by Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano. The bill would require doctors to care for a baby who survives an abortion procedure. It was scheduled to be heard by the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee at 8 a.m. but was put on hold after four Democrats and one Republican didn't show up.

Leach said state Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-Dallas, missed because of a flight delay. The four Democrats, meanwhile, signed onto a statement saying that they would not “join this charade,” apparently referring to Leach’s anti-abortion proposal.

“While some members of the Texas Legislature insist on attacking as well as offending women directly and indirectly, we will not join this charade by participating in this political grandstanding on issues which are already codified in Texas and Federal law,” read a statement signed by state Reps. Victoria Neave of Dallas, Julie Johnson of Carrollton, Jessica Farrar of Houston and Yvonne Davis of Dallas. “We refuse to offend our fellow Texas women, their families, and licensed physicians by wasting time on unnecessary legislation designed to intimidate and restrict women’s access to healthcare.”

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2019/03/25/texas-abortion-bill-hearing-delayed-house-democrats-skip-meeting/

March 26, 2019

Texas House Bill Introduced To Protect Mental Health Providers Using 'Conversion Therapy'

NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Banned by legislators in many states, mental health providers who use ‘conversion therapy’ will be protected if Texas state Rep. Scott Sanford (R-McKinney) has his way.

Sanford filed a bill this month to protect mental health providers who engage in practices motivated by their “sincerely held religious beliefs.”

Considered controversial by many in the medical field, conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of trying to change an individual’s sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual using psychological or spiritual interventions.

HB 4357 defines “mental health provider” to include the following:

a behavior analyst
a chemical dependency counselor
a licensed professional counselor
a marriage and family therapist
a nurse
a physician
a psychologist
a sex offender treatment provider
a social worker
a special officer for offenders with mental impairments; or
another person licensed by the state to provide professional therapy or counseling services

Read more: https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2019/03/22/texas-house-bill-introduced-to-protect-mental-health-providers-using-conversion-therapy/?fbclid=IwAR25gU2qKR5QeTmVhOb2AbphyEcetHykjAXvUm35W4xHEKkqUAo0MtxWqCY

March 26, 2019

Texas Senate kicks off fight over religious exemptions

Opening what promises to be one of the most contentious fights of the 2019 legislative session, a Senate committee on Monday approved a bill to give state-licensed professionals — including doctors, lawyers, pharmacists and barbers — broad protection for actions taken according to their religious beliefs.

Opponents said the bill, and more than a dozen similar measures that have not yet been acted upon, would give religious people, particularly conservative Christians, the power to discriminate against gay, lesbian and transgender people as well as anyone they don’t want to do business with or serve.

But supporters of Senate Bill 17 — including its Republican author, Sen. Charles Perry — said the protections are needed to ensure that licensing agencies do not discriminate against religious professionals by forcing them to do something that violates their beliefs.

“Living our faith does not stop when we start to work,” Perry, R-Lubbock, told the Senate State Affairs Committee during Monday’s hearing on SB 17.

Read more: https://www.statesman.com/news/20190325/texas-senate-kicks-off-fight-over-religious-exemptions

March 26, 2019

Jimmy Kimmel Live: Trump Celebrating Mueller Report

March 26, 2019

Watchdog Organization Calls for (Another) Investigation into Failed Texas Anti-Abortion Group

A watchdog organization is calling for a federal investigation into the Heidi Group, a controversial Texas anti-abortion group that is now accused of lying on its new application for family planning funds. This comes just months after the state health agency canceled the Heidi Group’s multimillion-dollar contracts after the group served a fraction of the patients it pledged to treat. The state’s Office of the Inspector General is also conducting an investigation into more than $1 million in questionable spending.

The Campaign for Accountability, a left-leaning Washington, D.C., nonprofit that has tracked the Heidi Group since it was awarded $7 million worth of Texas women’s health contracts in 2016, sent a letter on Thursday to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requesting an investigation into alleged errors on the group’s application for funding under the federal Title X family planning program. The letter is a response to a Wednesday report from the Houston Chronicle that the Heidi Group is included in a Title X grant application by the Catholic, California-based Obria Group. The application also includes two other Texas crisis pregnancy centers: Midland Community Healthcare Services, and the Community Wellness Clinic of Conroe.

The application, submitted in January, “appears to inflate the number of patients seen by the Heidi Group clinic on a regular basis, identifies a former employee as Heidi Group’s top quality assurance officer even though she had left the organization eight to nine months before the organizations submitted the application, and fails to disclose pertinent information regarding the Heidi Group’s terminated state contracts,” wrote Alice Huling, counsel at Campaign for Accountability, in the Thursday letter.

Carol Everett, an anti-abortion activist and founder and CEO of the Heidi Group, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The organization told the Chronicle that it is looking into the alleged application error.

Read more: https://www.texasobserver.org/watchdog-organization-calls-for-another-investigation-into-failed-texas-anti-abortion-group/