February 16, 2010

Early Voting Starts Today!!!

The Early Voting Period for voters in the Republican and Democratic Party Primaries started this morning at 7 AM.  The Early Voting will end on Friday, February 26^th and Party Primary Election Day will be on Tuesday, March 2^nd.

A candidate who receives 50% plus 1 vote will move on to the General Election Ballot in November.  In races where no candidate receives the 50% plus 1, the two with the most votes will be paired in a Party Primary Runoff Election that will be held on Tuesday, April 13^th.

This is a very important election cycle, these are difficult times and we face many problems and issues.  We want to elect leaders who understand business issues.

At the top of each party ballot, there are contested Party Primary Races for Governor – don’t know how anyone could have missed all the messages from those who are running to be Governor.

In Races for the Texas Senate, there are contested primaries in six senate districts in the Republican Primary and two senate districts in the Democratic Primary.  A total of five of the sitting Senators have an opponent in their Primary – they are Senator Deuell; Senator Ogden; Senator Shapiro; and Senator Averitt on the Republican side and Senator Uresti on the Democratic side.

 n the Texas House of Representatives, there will be 51 contested primary races – 41 on the Republican ballot and 10 on the Democratic ballot.  There are 23 incumbent state representatives that are facing a challenger in their party primary – 17 on the Republican side and 10 on the Democratic side.

We encourage everyone to vote early.  It is easy and usually can be done without having to wait in a line.
 

House Committee on Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Looking at the use of Arbitration

Committee members:
Hunter (Chair) – Corpus Christi
Hughes (Vice-Chair) – Northeast Texas
Alonzo, Branch, Hartnett, Jackson, Madden – Dallas area
Leibowitz – San Antonio
Lewis – Odessa
Martinez – the Valley
Woolley – Houston

On Wednesday, January 27, Chairman Todd Hunter’s committee held its first of two hearings on arbitration. The testimony was primarily of two stripes: (1) witnesses singing praises of arbitration in business-to-business disputes and (2) consumers (primarily buyers of new homes) offering personal, anecdotal stories of how arbitration failed them. Houston attorney David Peden and Fort Worth attorney Joe Canterbury testified for AGC-TBB.

General discussion points from the hearing are as follows:

• Business-to-business arbitration is liked and well thought of. It wasn’t attacked, and we expect it to be preserved.

• Consumer arbitration was attacked, particularly in the adhesion context (e.g., cell phone contracts, new home purchases) and pre-dispute new home buyer context.

• A potential issue exists involving an insurance appraisal process that operates like an arbitration, when carrier and insured disagree as to an appraisal.

• A problem identified in the business-to-business context is when some cases must be simultaneously litigated and arbitrated.

•  A problem identified in the construction context is when some parties on a project have arbitration clauses (contractors) while others do not (architects, engineers) and joinder issues.

• Potential Federal Arbitration Act changes and their preemption or Texas law.

•  Idea of requiring a stenographic record in an arbitration proceeding.

• Whether arbitration can be made to be quicker and less expensive, perhaps by going outside of Arbitration Assn. of America (AAA)’s framework.

•  Requiring more transparency regarding arbitrators and their qualifications.

• Creating opt-out provision for homesteads.

• Requiring bold print, first listing of arbitration clauses for consumers.

• Banning pre-dispute clauses requiring consumer arbitration for existing homes.

Chairman Hunter said an arbitration working group will be formed (of which AGC-TBB will be included) to sort through the above issues until the second and final interim hearing is held in the fall.