Houston Mayoral Candidates Discuss The Arts

The first major forum in Houston’s 2015 campaign season may have been all about the Arts, but it was lacking in drama.

Candidates hoping to replace Houston Mayor Annise Parker tested the waters of election season on some previously untested issues for local politics.  Rebecca Elliott of the Houston Chronicle has the story…

Houston’s mayoral candidates were full of praise for the city’s arts scene Wednesday, when they appeared at a forum together for the first time, though most said they would not support raising taxes or allocating new city funds to support arts and culture.

The forum hosted by four city arts groups – Houston Arts Alliance, Houston Museum District, Theater District Houston and Miller Outdoor Theatre – featured seven of the candidates vying to replace term-limited Mayor Annise Parker and kicks off a series of similar interest-specific events leading up to November’s election.

The relatively conflict free event at the Asia Society Texas Center drew a standing room only crowd. It opened with statements from each of the candidates, who then went on to answer three arts and culture-related questions.

The first addressed the city’s recently implemented cap on arts funding from hotel occupancy tax revenues, about 19 percent of which are set aside to fund city arts organizations. Two years ago, City Council passed an ordinance capping the city’s arts and culture spending through this revenue stream, prompting criticism from some of the grantees.

Four of the seven candidates – former congressman and City Council member Chris Bell, former mayor of Kemah Bill King, businessman Marty McVey and state Rep. Sylvester Turner – said they do not support the cap. The other three – City Council member Stephen Costello, former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia and 2013 mayoral runner-up Ben Hall – did not come out directly in favor of the limit but said they would want to further review it once in office.

The H.O.T. tax was a big topic of debate, though none of the candidates went into much detail about what it actually is.  For every hotel room night rented within the city of Houston, a percentage of taxes paid for the room go to support state and local arts, culture and tourism efforts.  Many in the arts community (especially those that rely on funds from the tax mechanism) feel that the maximum 19% of the tax revenue spent on Arts and Culture should be adjusted to a higher level.

Here’s a percentage breakdown of Houston’s Hotel Occupancy Tax (H.O.T.)

Another chief point of debate concerned current Mayor Annise Parker’s Arts and Culture Plan… an as yet undefined set of directives for how to foster growth of the city’s Arts community.  Given that the physical plan doesn’t exist yet, it’s no surprise that candidates couldn’t commit one way or the other.

But once an actual plan is put forth to Council, this is a question well worth revisiting with the Mayoral candidates, and those running for City Council.

All in all, there wasn’t much firm commitment in this first forum for the candidates.  They discussed how much the like art, and want to support it if elected.  But very few stark differences were realized on Wednesday night.  The only clear winner from Houston’s first ever Arts Forum was the Arts community itself.  Even if concrete solutions aren’t on the table just yet, at least the community knows that it has a voice in local government.   We know that if enough of us care about the future of the Arts in Houston, area politicians will have to pay attention.

The ‘runner-up’ for who won tonight’s forum?  All of the candidates.  They had a chance to test out their speaking skills in front of an attentive audience, while not having to approach more divisive campaign issues that surely lie ahead.

It will be nice to see how the discussion continues, and what ideas are realized from the coming Cultural Plan.

Oh and 1 added bonus… we even got to discuss the forum (and other fun topics) on today’s Houston Matters show.  So be sure to check that out as well.

Hillary Clinton Talks Voting Rights In Houston

Speaking on the campus of Texas Southern University, Former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton caused something of a firestorm in Houston Thursday.

The storied politician was at TSU to receive a first of its kind award… the Barbara Jordan Public Private Leadership medal, which was established to honor the monumental legacy of Texas’ first African-American female elected to the Texas Senate and to Congress.  Barbara Jordan was also the first African-American woman to deliver the keynote address at major party’s National Convention.

With Jordan’s storied legacy before her, Clinton took to the podium to further her own achievements, and speak on the issue of Voting Rights.  Here’s more on the speech from CNN

Hillary Clinton accused four potential GOP presidential rivals by name of being “scared of letting citizens have their say” as she called Thursday for every American to automatically be registered to vote.

Clinton told an audience at the historically black Texas Southern University that she supports the concept of signing every American up to vote as soon as they’re eligible at age 18, unless they specifically opt out. She called for expanded access to polling places, keeping them open for at least 20 days and offering voting hours on evenings and weekends.

For the first time in her campaign, she attacked her likely opponents by name as she laid into four GOP governors — Texas’s Rick Perry, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, Florida’s Jeb Bush and New Jersey’s Chris Christie — telling them to “stop fear-mongering about a phantom epidemic of voter fraud.”

“All of these problems voting just didn’t happen by accident,” she said. “And it is just wrong — it’s wrong — to try to prevent, undermine and inhibit Americans’ right to vote.”

The candidate’s remarks were an important shift to the Left on the whole Voting Rights conversation, which has long been dominated by the policies in place in Republican-controlled states seeking to do anything but ensure the rights of every citizen to vote.  As Clinton pointed out, Texas is one of the nation’s worst offenders when it comes to Voting Rights discrimination.

After lambasting her competitors, Clinton went on to talk about how communities must work together to create a successful prosperous nation.

“America was built by people that knew that our common interests are more important than our self interests.”

Beyond her concern for Voting Rights, Clinton definitely had a complex agenda for today’s speech. For one, she’s working hard to put the infamous “Obama coalition” back together from 2008. Talking about the erosion of voting abilities is a sure fire way to get noticed in the minority community.

But as an added bonus, Clinton’s big speech happened to be on the same day as former Texas Governor Rick Perry’s announcement that he too is running for President, amongst a slew of other Republican candidates.  Whether by accident or not, it’s fair to say that Clinton’s appearance was well-timed to steal a little Texas thunder on Perry’s big day.

Whatever the additional factors at play, Thursday’s event was an indication that Hillary Clinton is off to a very good start in rebuilding the historic coalition that put Obama into office seven years ago.  For sure, she now has some friends at Texas Southern University, but there’s still more consensus building to do.

Monica Rojas of The Daily Cougar has more on the event.

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Hillary Rodham Clinton speaking at Texas Southern University. June 4th, 2015.