Texas Tribune
Brandon Herrera gains momentum against Tony Gonzales
by Matthew Choi and Renzo Downey, The Texas Tribune – 2024-03-25 17:40:01
SUMMARY: Brandon Herrera, a pro-gun influencer with 3.3 million YouTube subscribers, is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, the state's sole GOP House member who voted for gun safety legislation after the Uvalde school shooting. Motivated by Gonzales' stance on gun rights, Herrera is making his first political bid. Known as “The AK Guy,” his outspoken and controversial online presence includes dark humor and political incorrectness, which has offended many people across the political spectrum. Despite having no formal political experience, Herrera's grassroots campaign has gained traction. Gonzales, despite facing backlash for perceived moderate stances, still garnered substantial campaign funding, endorsements, and performed well in the primary. Yet without securing a majority, Gonzales now faces Herrera in a May 28 primary runoff. Herrera's online following and campaign contributions have boosted his candidacy, contrasting Gonzales' establishment support.
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WASHINGTON — Stepping out of a recent hearing in the Colorado Legislature to testify against a ban on semi-automatic firearms, pro-gun activist Brandon Herrera griped into a camera about how much he hates these kinds of things.
“I don't know why I signed up to talk to politicians,” Herrera said, speaking to his 3.3 million gun-loving YouTube subscribers. “I forgot how much I fucking hate doing that.”
He may soon have to.
Herrera, a 28-year-old influencer who made a name for himself online by selling reassembled military-grade weapons and defending gun owners' rights, is building momentum in his bid to oust U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales — the lone Texas Republican in the House to vote for gun safety legislation that passed in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting.
It's that particular vote that motivated Herrera's unexpected launch into politics.
“If you vote against our interests, if you vote against gun rights, if you vote against the Constitution, “ Herrera told a crowd of gun rights advocates last week in Denver, “we will challenge you, we will primary you and we will win. We will take your fucking job.”
Known for his politically incorrect online persona as “The AK Guy,” he is guns first, and politics second. His entire brand and fanbase surrounds promoting and sensationalizing guns on his YouTube channel where he explains gun history, trolls gun safety advocates, rates his favorite “gun fails” and shoots a variety of firearms.
His crassness and irreverence has offended many on the left and the right. He has no formal political experience and the most high-profile endorsement he has garnered so far is from Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who was reportedly scolded by GOP House leadership for campaigning against an incumbent.
Despite those hurdles, Herrera has managed to tap into right-wing ire against Gonzales — who is uniquely vulnerable this election cycle for his moderation on guns, as well as a handful of other policy positions Gonzales' took over the past two years that put him at odds with the state party.
Ahead of the March 5 primary, Gonzales, a San Antonian, appeared well armed to sail into a third term in the 23rd congressional district. His campaign had raised over $2.8 million before the primary — more than three times Herrera's haul — and had some of the deepest pockets in politics steadfastly backing him. The district stretches from San Antonio to El Paso and includes more of the border than any other Texas district.
But Gonzales had made enemies in his party's right flank — a conflict that showed its heft when he failed to secure an outright victory with only 45% of the vote. In 2022, Gonzales won the primary with 78%. It's Gonzales' first major challenge since getting elected to Congress and his first race since the Texas Republican Party censured him last year for policy positions the party deemed insufficiently conservative — including his vote on the gun safety bill. Now Gonzales will face off against Herrera in the primary runoff on May 28.
To many of Gonzales' primary challengers, getting rid of Gonzales was as much the goal as serving in Congress, and they are now all rallying behind Herrera.
“Guess what???? I'm still in this race to make sure you LOSE!!” third-place candidate Julie Clark, who garnered 14% of the primary vote, said on social media to Gonzales.
Gonzales' campaign did not make him available for an interview for this story.
The edgelord
Running for Congress was a surprise move to many of Herrera's followers. He made the announcement at a Young Americans for Liberty event in Florida last August. Though a San Antonio resident now, he had spent much of his life in North Carolina.
His followers largely know him for his YouTube channel, which he said he first started in 2015 as “just some idiot kid making videos with guns.” Often clad in a T-shirt with brushed-back long hair, Herrera delivers monologues like a native of the internet: peppering his speeches with pithy one-liners and laughing when he knows he's pushing the envelope. He normally speaks from a gaming chair in front of a wall decorated with various firearms.
Popular videos include him testing guns that killed John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln and reviewing “the worst internet gun fails.” He once crashed a gun control rally and tricked anti-gun protestors into signing a petition supporting a pro-gun group, the Firearms Policy Coalition.
His gun-advocacy goes beyond his internet fame. He testified before Congress in a field hearing last year against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as overreaching its authority. He was invited to testify before the Colorado Legislature last week to defend access to guns as the state puts together new definitions and restrictions on assault weapons.
Prior to his internet fame, Herrera started a small firearm manufacturing business, from which he got his internet moniker, The AK Guy.
Herrera's flippant style has generated plenty of controversy. He joked about veteran suicide, saying: “I often think about putting a gun in my mouth, so I'm basically an honorary veteran.” That set off a firestorm of criticism, including from Texas' Border Czar Mike Banks who called the comment “sickening” on social media.
“I just can't even believe that someone would think that something like that is funny,” Clark, whose husband is a veteran, said in an interview before the primary.
“Special place in hell for scum and villainy who mock veteran suicide or shoot up a church,” Gonzales, who is a retired Navy master chief, posted on social media.
Herrera said that the veteran suicide joke was said in the company of veterans who use dark humor to cope with past trauma (Herrera himself is not a veteran).
“The military has failed veterans. The VA has failed veterans. Politicians have failed veterans. The last thing they have to rely on is dark humor,” Herrera said on the UnsubscribePodcast, which he helps host. “You want to take that from them? Fuck you.”
Herrera also mocked former President Donald Trump's son, Barron Trump, as “starting to become a meme” who is “like nine-feet tall.”
“Daddy is coming. Daddy is angry,” Herrera said, mocking the younger Trump.
As he runs for a seat in Congress, Herrera doesn't appear to be prioritizing friendships with his future colleagues. He joked that politicians were “diddling kids,” then cut himself off “before I'm found hanging from my ceiling fan.” In another video, Herrera joked, “It's going to be very awkward” when he reads the client list of Jeffrey Epstein — the deceased financier charged with sex trafficking — and sees that “several of the people on that list are my coworkers in Congress.”
Herrera has brushed off criticism as attempts to get him “canceled.” In an interview at a recent San Antonio campaign event, Herrera said that completely changing his tone would mean becoming a “sellout that people are afraid of their politicians being.”
“I'd rather lose for who I am than win for who I'm not,” he said.
Herrera also fielded concerns before the primary that he was a single-issue candidate with regard to guns. Bexar County GOP Chair Jeffery McManus, who supports Herrera, said at the San Antonio campaign event that he should be more vocal in his support of Trump and anti-abortion policy.
During the campaign event, Herrera also spoke at length about inflation and the border — the top priority across Texas Republican voters. It was colored, however, with his penchant to offend.
“You know, I saw a statistic that, last year, more fentanyl came across the southern border by weight than would be required to kill the entire population of the planet — or about 26 Austin feminists,” Herrera said to a burst of applause. “It's funny the way my mind works now after this whole thing, because I'm already seeing that headline tomorrow.”
Gonzales has no compunction skewering Herrera on social media, casting him as an uninformed carpetbagger who has no business running for Congress. Gonzales noted that Herrera voted in North Carolina for much of his life, calling him an “East Coast fake.” Gonzales' campaign set up a website highlighting objectionable comments by Herrera under the URL “brandonherrerafortexas.com,” including doubt that Trump could win the general election.
“Anti-Trump Brandon Herrera has trashed Donald Trump on numerous occasions. Perhaps Herrera has been too busy begging for clicks on the internet to notice, but Donald Trump is the GOP's presumptive nominee and the America First movement is stronger than ever. Herrera's anti-Trump remarks are a slap in the face to Republicans everywhere,” Gonzales wrote on social media.
Herrera shot back that Gonzales voted to create the bipartisan committee to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The committee eventually referred Trump to the Justice Department for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump's campaign did not respond to a request for comment on his involvement in the race.
Getting into a gun fight
Gonzales voted for the bipartisan gun safety bill in 2022 with Uvalde on his mind. The vote was held one month after Texas' most deadly school shooting which resulted in the deaths of 19 elementary school children and two teachers.
He was one of 14 Republicans in the House to vote with Democrats to pass the bill but no other Texas Republican supported it except for Sen. John Cornyn, who had a leading role in negotiating the legislation. Cornyn also faced backlash in Texas for working on the bill, though he sailed to reelection in 2020. The bill provided federal funding for state and local violence prevention efforts including the implementation of red flag laws. Gonzales used the bill to bring millions of federal funding to Uvalde.
Herrera, for his part, has said red flag laws are unconstitutional and that law enforcement should be held accountable for its botched response to the Uvalde shooting.
Despite his support for the gun safety legislation, Gonzales has a history of defending the Second Amendment, and said he doesn't support weapons bans or universal background checks. He told CNN in January: “I do not support anything that infringes upon the Constitution or, or prevents those from having due process.”
Still, disdain for Gonzales runs deep among the GOP's right flank over his gun vote. It was a main pillar of the Texas Republican Party's censure against Gonzales last year. The party also took issue with his votes supporting gay marriage protections, against a hardline rules package negotiated to make Kevin McCarthy House speaker and against U.S. Rep. Chip Roy's border security package. Gonzales eventually worked with Roy to get another hardline border security bill passed.
Clark, as then-chair of the Medina County Republican Party, first launched the censure motion against Gonzales, alleging he doesn't represent the conservative values of the district. Despite her previous misgivings about Herrera's humor, she endorsed Herrera and said she would do everything in her power to keep Gonzales from office.
It's a sentiment echoed by the other challenger candidates.
Victor Avila, a former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations agent who also ran in the primary, said he would support whoever was running against Gonzales in the runoff. He also appeared at the San Antonio campaign rally for Herrera.
“From the very beginning, when I met Brandon, we knew that we weren't challenging each other. The challenge was Tony Gonzales,” Avila said at the event. “We disrupted and dismantled this district in the right way.”
Even before the other primary challengers rallied behind him, Herrera proved himself a formidable candidate, fundraising over $827,000 before the primary mostly through individual contributions.
Despite his relentless gun advocacy, he was able to come in second in Uvalde County with 28.34% of the vote — almost two points more than his district-wide percentage. After the shooting, many of the victims' families advocated for Texas to raise the legal age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle, like the one the gunman used at the school.
Herrera may get most of his donations from out of state, but he insists that Gonzales is the one who's out of touch with his district.
“We've been going around all over the district to the little towns that a lot of — that Tony doesn't go to, the towns that are, I think, most negatively impacted by border issues and things, towns like Alpine, Fort Davis, Eagle Pass, just all these little towns that get overlooked for Bexar County or El Paso,” Herrera said.
Gonzales' campaign hits back that he has visited every county in the district and won a plurality in all of them. Gonzales has a record in delivering on hyperlocal issues in the sprawling district. Don McLaughlin, who was mayor of Uvalde during the Robb Elementary shooting, praised Gonzales for bringing federal aid money to the city in school safety grants.
In Brewster County, where Gonzales did worse than his district-wide average, County Judge Greg Henington said Gonzales had visited the county many times and has been easily accessible to him. Henington credited Gonzales for securing funding for Marathon School in the county.
“If I do need him for something or advice on what's going on in Washington, I have not had any issues with him. He's been responsive to me,” Henington said. Henington stressed that he could not endorse in the race as a nonpartisan official.
To Tony's rescue
Shortly after the primary, House Republican leadership came out endorsing Gonzales. House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement that Gonzales has “gone above and beyond to keep the pressure” on the Biden administration on the border and called him “one of the hardest working members I have the pleasure of serving with.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik and Majority Whip Tom Emmer all issued similar statements.
Gonzales has also made moves to push back on being labeled a moderate, telling the Tribune last year that he would rather call himself “a conservative Hispanic. But many people call me many different things. And they're not all good.”
He was one of the leading advocates for impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas — an effort spearheaded by far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
He also signed onto a letter led by House Freedom Caucus leaders, including Roy, with whom he feuded over border legislation, threatening to vote against federal funding legislation that doesn't include hardline enforcement measures at the border. When a group of Texas Republicans sent out a similar letter in August, Gonzales did not sign on. Gonzales is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which sets federal funding levels for individual programs.
Still, he has a lot of backing from moderating forces in Congress. His top two donors are the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying and campaign organization that gives to members of both parties, and the No Labels Problem Solvers Political Action Committee, a group that promotes bipartisanship.
“We proudly endorse Rep. Tony Gonzales, as he has proven to be a strong supporter of the US-Israel relationship during his tenure in Congress. For example, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, he has worked to ensure that Israel has the resources it needs to defend itself against Hamas and other Iranian terrorist proxies,” AIPAC's political action committee said in a statement. The group said it would continue to support Gonzales into the runoff.
Gonzales also enjoys support for corporate interests, including Dell Technologies, Toyota and Devon Energy, all of whom gave $5,000, the maximum individual contribution per election.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also endorsed Gonzales after the primary, potentially paving the way for a Trump endorsement ahead of the runoff. Trump endorsed Gonzales before his competitive 2020 runoff, helping him beat Sen. Ted Cruz-backed rival Raul Reyes.
Herrera said Patrick's endorsement was “disappointing” though “I wish he really paid more attention to Tony's record.” Herrera pointed out that he worked on Trump's 2016 campaign and was hoping to secure his endorsement.
Still, Herrera takes pride in his grassroots operation. His YouTube following was a major force in his ability to get where he is now.
“I don't have any big shady corporate donors. I don't have any Super PACs. I don't have any of that stuff,” Herrera said in a YouTube video. “I have an army of militant pissed off autists who want to remind their politicians that they can be held accountable. And at the end of the day, that proved to be enough.”
— Renzo Downey reported from San Antonio.
Disclosure: Dell has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
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Ted Cruz files bill to protect IVF
by By Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 09:45:47
SUMMARY: U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Katie Britt have introduced the IVF Protection Act to safeguard access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) amid changing anti-abortion laws. The bill aims to make states ineligible for Medicaid funding if they ban IVF. This legislative effort follows an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that classified embryos as protected human life, prompting some IVF providers to pause services. The Texas Supreme Court may also consider a case impacting IVF. Cruz, seeking reelection against Democrat Colin Allred, emphasizes IVF's importance for families. Texas Governor Greg Abbott supports clarifying state laws to protect IVF, while Senate Democrats and House Speaker Mike Johnson diverge on federal versus state jurisdiction.
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U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is leading a charge to protect access to in vitro fertilization as conservative states scramble to figure out where IVF fits in the new anti-abortion legal landscape.
On Monday, Cruz and Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama, both conservative, anti-abortion Republicans, filed the IVF Protection Act, which would make states ineligible to receive Medicaid funding if they ban IVF.
This bill comes in response to a ruling from the Alabama Supreme Court earlier this year that said embryos are protected human life when it comes to the state's wrongful death statute. After that ruling, many IVF providers paused those services until the Alabama Legislature passed temporary protections.
The Texas Supreme Court is considering taking up a case that could “upend IVF in Texas,” experts say. A woman has asked the court to overturn previous court rulings that awarded her ex-husband their three frozen embryos in their divorce, arguing that Texas' new abortion laws require embryos to have the same rights as living children.
Almost as soon as the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in summer 2022 and allowed states to ban abortion, questions emerged about the legal status of IVF.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed announcing this legislation, Cruz and Britt said Republicans want to “protect both life and IVF.”
“IVF has given miraculous hope to millions of Americans, and it has given families across the country the gift of children,” Cruz said in a statement. “I'm proud to partner with Sen. Katie Britt to ensure that couples in Texas and across the country have the opportunity to be loving parents, by ensuring that IVF is fully protected at the federal level.”
IVF is “profoundly pro-family,” the pair wrote in the op-ed. “Our bill will honor and support families seeking to welcome a new baby into their lives through IVF.”
Cruz is up for reelection this year, facing Democratic Congressman Colin Allred, who has made Cruz's support for Texas' abortion laws a key part of his campaign. In a statement after the Alabama court ruling, Allred said Cruz had done nothing to protect IVF, and his “dangerous record” on abortion and fetal personhood issues puts Texas families “rights and freedoms at risk.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has expressed his support for IVF, saying he believes the Legislature will clarify state law to protect the procedure.
Meanwhile, in D.C., Senate Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to pass two bills to protect IVF access, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he believes this is an issue best left to the states.
Pointing out that 86% of Americans believe IVF should be legal, Cruz and Britt say this should be a bipartisan bill that protects “life, family and personal liberty.”
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Trump says Paxton would make good U.S. attorney general
by By Jasper Scherer, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 08:47:03
SUMMARY: Former President Donald Trump is considering Ken Paxton, Texas' Attorney General, for the role of U.S. Attorney General if re-elected. Trump commended Paxton's abilities and loyalty, highlighting his legal challenge to the 2020 election results and his support during Trump's impeachment defense. Paxton was impeached for bribery allegations but acquitted, with Trump claiming credit for the outcome. Recent polls show Trump leading President Biden in key states. Paxton's legal issues have diminished following the dropping of securities fraud charges, although federal investigations continue. If nominated, Paxton's Senate confirmation faces partisan challenges and opposition from notable Republicans.
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Former President Donald Trump said he would consider tapping Ken Paxton for U.S. attorney general if he wins a second term in the White House, calling his longtime ally “a very talented guy” and praising his tenure as Texas' chief legal officer.
“I would, actually,” Trump said Saturday when asked by a KDFW-TV reporter if he would consider Paxton for the national post. “He's very, very talented. I mean, we have a lot of people that want that one and will be very good at it. But he's a very talented guy.”
Paxton has long been a close ally of Trump, famously waging an unsuccessful legal challenge to Trump's 2020 election loss in four battleground states. He also spoke at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly U.S. Capitol riot in January 2021.
Paxton's loyalty was rewarded with an endorsement from Trump in the 2022 primary, which helped the attorney general fend off three prominent GOP challengers.
Trump also came to Paxton's defense when he was impeached last year for allegedly accepting bribes and abusing the power of his office to help a wealthy friend and campaign donor. After Paxton was acquitted in the Texas Senate, Trump claimed credit, citing his “intervention” on his Truth Social platform, where he denounced the proceedings and threatened political retribution for Republicans who backed the impeachment.
“I fought for him when he had the difficulty and we won,” he told KDFW. “He had some people really after him, and I thought it was really unfair.”
Trump's latest comments, delivered at the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Dallas, come after a series of recent polls have shown the presumptive Republican nominee leading President Joe Biden in a handful of key battleground states.
Paxton has also seen his political prospects rise in recent months, after prosecutors agreed in March to drop three felony counts of securities fraud that had loomed over Paxton for nearly his entire tenure as attorney general. The resolution of the nine-year-old case, along with Paxton's impeachment acquittal in the Senate last fall, has brought him closer than ever to a political career devoid of legal drama.
Still, Paxton's critics say he is far from vindicated. He remains under federal investigation for the same allegations that formed the basis of his impeachment, and he continues to face a whistleblower lawsuit from former deputies who said they were illegally fired for reporting Paxton to law enforcement. A separate lawsuit from the state bar seeks to penalize Paxton for his 2020 election challenge, which relied on discredited claims of election fraud.
If nominated, Paxton would need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. The chamber is narrowly divided along party lines, with Democrats holding a 51-49 majority. One of the most prominent Republican members, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, has been an outspoken critic of Paxton, while Paxton has openly entertained the idea of challenging Cornyn in 2026.
Paxton is not the only Texan Trump has floated for a high-profile spot in his potential administration. In February, he said Gov. Greg Abbott is “absolutely” on his short list of potential vice presidential candidates. Abbott has since downplayed his interest in the job.
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These Texans aren’t taking buyouts despite repeated floods
by By Emily Foxhall, The Texas Tribune – 2024-05-20 05:00:00
SUMMARY: Recent floods in Harris County, Texas, have devastated homes along the San Jacinto River. Tom Madigan, who owns multiple properties, quickly started repairs without knowing the Harris County Flood Control District aims to buy out such flood-prone properties. The region has a longstanding buyout program to remove homes from high-risk flood areas, with about 800 out of 2,400 targeted properties purchased. However, buyouts are voluntary and often insufficient for low-income residents. Despite the program, many choose to stay due to affordability and community ties, while others like Madigan remain skeptical of receiving a fair offer.
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HARRIS COUNTY — After the floodwaters earlier this month just about swallowed two of the six homes that 60-year-old Tom Madigan owns on the San Jacinto River, he didn't think twice about whether to fix them. He hired people to help, and they got to work stripping the walls, pulling up flooring and throwing out water-logged furniture.
What Madigan didn't know: The Harris County Flood Control District wants to buy his properties as part of an effort to get people out of dangerously flood-prone areas.
Back-to-back storms drenched southeast Texas in late April and early May, causing flash flooding and pushing rivers out of their banks and into low-lying neighborhoods. Officials across the region urged people in vulnerable areas to evacuate.
Like Madigan's, some places that were inundated along the San Jacinto in Harris County have flooded repeatedly. And for nearly 30 years, the flood control district has been trying to clear out homes around the river by paying property owners to move, then returning the lots to nature.
The recent floods show why buyout programs can be important. These spots typically flood first and worse. Gov. Greg Abbott reported that hundreds of rescues took place in the state while the floods destroyed homes. A man drowned and a child was swept away into the floods. One Harris County resident described climbing on top of his motor home as the water rose before first responders rescued him.
But the disaster and its aftermath also illustrate why buyouts are complicated to carry out even in Harris County, home to Houston, which has one of the most robust buyout programs in the country. The flood control district has identified roughly 2,400 properties as current buyout candidates around the San Jacinto; the district and county have bought about 800 of them.
Nearly all of the district's buyouts are voluntary. If an owner doesn't want to sell, the district can't force them out.
Buyouts make sense for some people who can't be protected from floods, said Alessandra Jerolleman, director of research for the Center on Environment, Land and Law at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
But buyouts might not provide lower-income people enough money to get somewhere safer, she said, and they could lose important support like child care from nearby family or neighbors.
“It's not as though it's a guarantee of reducing risks to that family,” Jerolleman said.
People who live near the river and who have endured repeated floods explained that they've stayed because it's affordable and, most of the time, peaceful. Where else would they be able to buy anything like it? Some said they didn't think the government would offer them what they consider a fair price to sell their land. Some didn't know the buyout program existed.
Madigan started buying homes more than 15 years ago in the unincorporated River Terrace neighborhood because they were cheap. On Tuesday, the Houston firefighter drank a Heineken and grilled hamburgers for his work crew outside his most damaged house, which he rents to his brother. Sodden rugs baked in the sun on the driveway.
Madigan said he might have taken a buyout if it was a reasonable offer — but he doubted it would be. He said he needed to get the properties ready again for his renters. “I can't wait,” he said.
Two blocks away, water had swept through a yellow house Madigan rents to a family with a teenage son. One of the workers fixing the property, 21-year-old Omar Reyna, watched the family throw out pretty much everything they had. Piecing together new laminate flooring with his dad, Reyna kept thinking about a trash bag of Teddy bears and stuffed toys he tossed out for them.
He wondered if the parents had been saving the toys for another kid they might have in the future.
“The faster we get it done, the faster they can come back in here,” Reyna said.
Some people choose to live with the risk of flooding
The San Jacinto is the largest river in the state's most populous county. For years before Harris County's first floodplain maps were drawn up in the mid-1980s, people built homes near its banks. Even today, people can still build in the vast floodplain if the houses are high enough and have enough stormwater detention.
The flood control district tries to buy out homes in pockets of the floodplain that are deepest, said James Wade, manager for the district's property acquisition department. Those are places where engineers can't easily fix flooding problems.
Buyouts are meant to get people out of flood zones before their property floods again, not to help in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The process is slow: In some cases, it can take 18 months or longer to approve a buyout application, Wade said. The district pays owners the market value or pre-flood value for their house, determined by a third-party appraiser, plus moving expenses and a supplement to help them get into a house out of the floodplain, Wade said.
“It's a very equitable, fair program,” Wade said — but still some people don't want to leave.
Those who stay learn to adapt. They build homes on stilts. They monitor the river level and watch for releases of water from the Lake Conroe dam upstream. Some know intimately the routine of rebuilding: gut the house, clean it, put it back together.
The floor of 49-year-old Sean Vincent's house in the Forest Cove neighborhood in northeast Houston is 15 feet above the ground. Three feet of water flooded it when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017. This month, the floods reached five feet high on Vincent's property. He cleaned out his waterlogged ground-level shed with help from church members. On Tuesday, he was building new shelves for it.
But most of the time Vincent, who works in railroad traffic control, said he enjoys the space surrounded by tall trees with room for his three kids.
“It's just really not a major part of our life,” Vincent said of the flooding. “Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it's now happened to us twice in seven years … It's sort of a trade-off for us. And it is lovely out here.”
“Where are you going to go?”
Then there are those who stay because they don't see anywhere else to go.
Jack St. John, 67, a retired long-haul truck driver, moved to Northshore 43 years ago and has had to clean up after two floods. He worries any time flooding threatens, but the neighborhood's advantages keep him there: He has no water bill because he has a well. His taxes are reasonable. The neighborhood has a fish fry in the spring and a barbecue in the fall.
“You know, when you leave, where are you going to go?” he said. “What's it going to cost to buy into another place?”
Farther northeast, in the Idle Wild and Idle Glen neighborhoods, the floods forced some residents to sleep under tarps. On one largely forested street, boats were turned sideways or flipped upside down. A small building was lodged in the trees. A car was in the ditch.
For several years, Elvia Bethea, 68, has driven from her home in Humble to check on people and pets here, and pick up stray animals. On Tuesday, she and other volunteers gave John Gray, 50, bamboo yard torches to fight the many mosquitoes, plus two trays of chocolate-covered strawberries.
Gray said he couldn't afford to fix up his destroyed house. He earns a living printing labor law posters for businesses. His printers at home were destroyed.
Gray said he had never heard of the buyout program but would consider taking one.
“Who do I call?” Gray asked. “I don't have a clue.”
From the back of a white SUV, Bethea handed some hot dogs to Jose Tabores, 68, who lives on Gray's land in a trailer now filled with mud.
“I'm coming for dinner, remember!” Bethea teased him.
Nearby, 51-year-old Veronika Scheid had been sleeping in a wet tent. The flood washed the shipping crate she lived in down the road and into the trees — along with her and her neighbors' belongings.
At a low point, when Scheid was crying over all she lost, she found a pink-and-white beaded necklace with stitching in the shape of a “V,” like her name. At the end was a charm shaped like a house.
She was grateful the person who owned the land where she stayed hadn't taken a buyout. Otherwise she would have nowhere to go.
“At least we have this,” Scheid said.
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The post These Texans aren't taking buyouts despite repeated floods appeared first on TexasTribune.org.
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