In the November 2019 election, voters in Harris County, Texas could vote at any polling location, not just the polling place assigned to their precinct. This change was designed to make it easier for more people to participate in the electoral process. In order to promote the program, the Harris County Clerk brought in our friends…
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Last week, we released a new study, Serving Veterans After Hurricane Harvey, with our partners at Combined Arms examining the impact of Hurricane Harvey on the Gulf Coast veteran population. Texas is home to nearly 1.5 million veterans and many felt the direct impact of the storm. Yet, two years later, we still needed to answer…
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It’s a tough time of year for homeowners in Houston. In November, a letter arrives from the Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector with next year’s property tax bill. Some people pay their taxes every month with their mortgage. Others, like me, end up writing a big check in January. But there’s some relief. The Harris County…
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We recently did a webinar with Jamey Caruthers, senior staff attorney at Children At Risk, about how to use data to fight human trafficking. Human trafficking is a huge problem in Texas, especially in Houston, and Children At Risk is leading the charge in helping to write and pass laws that increase penalties for perpetrators while…
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Counting people is vital to our democracy. Every ten years, the US government has a constitutional obligation to conduct a census that counts everyone living in the United States. This count determines how many Congressional representatives each state receives, the levels of Federal funding for state and local governments and federal programs, and serves as…
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There’s a new spin on hackathons, and it doesn’t involve technology. In the last month alone, Houston hosted two policy hackathons. They got people thinking creatively about our government and the laws they write. On March 5-6, Polithon and Young Invincibles held a policy hackathon about student debt. They brought together a few dozen people between…
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MobilityHouston is a website that crowdsources transportation policy ideas from Houstonians. The goal is to help lawmakers create smarter, more comprehensive transportation policies. They do it with a specific focus on mobility and a broad community engagement strategy. So Far, Policymaking is Offline Houston’s lawmakers have to get smart on a range of issues before they write the laws. They…
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Update: February 20, 2017 Beginning March 1, 2017 marijuana will be effectively decriminalized in Harris County. The DA estimates this will save $25 million a year. Congratulations to DA Kim Ogg, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, and everyone involved in this swift policy change. Back in February 2016, Texas Lyceum published the results of a survey that…
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Updated May 29, 2017. Last week, the Texas Legislature published bills filed by our newly elected House and Senate members. The Texas Legislature only meets for six months every two years. These bills are the raw materials for potential new state laws. You can browse the publicly available data here. I wanted to get a better…
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Today, Mayor Parker announced the launch of the Performance Improvement Portal, a City website that provides insight into how the City measures its departments and responds to citizen requests. The website also promotes open data and civic innovation projects (think hackathons, writeathons, and community challenges). We were really excited to work with the City on…
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