Dallas Morning News Endorses Nathan Johnson

“We recommend in Texas Senate District 16, Democratic primary”

By Dallas Morning News Editorial

As part of a cynical redistricting effort undertaken with the goal to pack as many Democrats as possible into ever-tighter districts, Texas Republicans remade Senate District 16 representing Dallas and inner ring suburbs.

They’ve gotten exactly what they wanted, a struggle between two important Democratic voices in the Legislature that will leave one without an office.

Incumbent Sen. Nathan Johnson, 56, and state Rep. Victoria Neave Criado, 43, should not be political rivals. But such is the zero-sum state of politics now that they are engaged in a bare-knuckled primary fight.

The theme of the race, at least according to Neave Criado, is that Johnson isn’t sufficiently tough on Republicans. She’s the fighter, according to her campaign.

We don’t doubt she is a fighter, and Neave Criado has done important work on behalf of not just Democratic causes but causes that benefit people across the state, particularly women.

But primary voters need to be careful what the word fighter means because Johnson has quietly become one of the most effective Democratic legislators in Texas. He has worked tirelessly, strategically and across the aisle to advance a swath of matters that help Texas be a better state. And he has stood in the path of Republican overreach in ways that the public can’t always see.

In politics these days, fighter really means noisemaker. We don’t think that is what Neave Criado is. She’s a serious lawmaker. But when she contrasts her stance as a fighter against Johnson’s, that’s the only meaning it can have. Because Johnson fights constantly. His fights aren’t on social media or in self-aggrandizing floor speeches that fire up the base only to alienate the broader electorate and the Republican senators Democrats need if they are going to advance their causes even an inch.

Johnson personally authored 99 bills in 2021 and 175 in 2023. In a Legislature that is hostile to Democrats, he actually gets bills passed.

Neave Criado has focused on a single vote from Johnson that increases the penalty for human smuggling and operating stash houses as evidence that he somehow is backing a racial-profiling agenda. This is a political distortion and not reflective of what actually happened when the Senate voted nearly unanimously, with 10 of 12 Democrats in support, to try to crack down on the sort of human smugglers who leave people to die in tractor-trailers.

It’s unfortunate that Republicans are getting what they wanted out of this race, a mud fight between two gifted Democrats. We wish Neave Criado hadn’t taken the bait. Her political future is bright, but it’s now marked by targeting a Democratic senator who has worked to improve the grid, water availability, access to health care and any number of issues critical to our future.

We urge voters to look at Johnson’s record and return him to office.

Dallas Morning News Editorial. Dallas Morning News editorials are written by the paper's Editorial Board and serve as the voice and view of the paper. The board considers a broad range of topics and is overseen by the Editorial Page Editor.

Dallas Lawmaker on Why Texas' Property Tax Cut Deal Could Haunt Us

State Sen. Nathan Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, told the Observer about his concerns regarding the $18 billion package.

Texas homeowners may soon see relief on property taxes. Photo by Tierra Mallorca on Unsplash

BY Simone Carter

PUBLISHED August 29, 2023

Dallas Observer

Earlier this summer, many Lone Star lawmakers celebrated after the announcement of an $18 billion property tax cut deal. Now, the legislation’s critics say that not all that glitters is gold. 

In an op-ed published last week in The Dallas Morning News, state Sen. Nathan Johnson warned readers that the sizable cut will likely incur a “big bill” down the line.

Lawmakers had a $32 billion surplus to play with this session, paving the way for the $18 billion property tax slash. Johnson, a Dallas Democrat, pondered in the piece: “[G]iven that we’ve created a permanent obligation to buy down future taxes, how are we going to pay for it when there isn’t a massive surplus?”

Great question.

Although Johnson agrees that residents are in need of a break in property taxes, he thinks the package — all things considered — is “reckless” and “unconservative.”

Johnson told the Observer on Friday that he believes in “honest conversations and sincere politics.” But he feels that at times, politics tends to lean toward populism rather than sustainable, responsible policies.

To some extent, the tax cut deal may have relieved lawmakers of the burden of having to decide how to invest in the state’s physical and social infrastructure, Johnson said. He cited a lack of “sincere political process” as motivation for writing the op-ed.

Looking ahead, we shouldn’t anticipate a gargantuan surplus like the one we saw this year, Johnson said. For instance, much of the $32 billion surplus came from pandemic-era COVID-19 funds — a (hopefully) one-time deal.

Texas shouldn’t expect the state to benefit from a similar federal infusion in future sessions.

“I felt like we were making a commitment that is more popular than it is wise,” Johnson told the Observer of the package. “Not because of what we were doing, but because of the scale at which we were doing it.”

The way Johnson sees it, lawmakers could have delivered a smaller-yet-still-handsome property tax cut for homeowners and still have had billions left to invest in areas like public education, water, healthcare, affordable housing and prison system upgrades — investments that would generate untold returns both economically and socially.

Oh, well.

The $18 billion amount that state leaders came up with was based on a campaign promise, not sound economic analysis, Johnson said. Prioritizing politics over policy can lead to unsavory consequences.

“[O]ne day, maybe because of and maybe irrespective of our politics, instead of a surplus we will face a deficit,” Johnson wrote in his op-ed. “What then? Will we fire school teachers to pay for property tax reductions for homeowners?”

“I felt like we were making a commitment that is more popular than it is wise.” – State Sen. Nathan Johnson

Luckily, lawmakers can pull from the state’s rainy day fund when needed, Johnson said — something that they typically try to avoid. “But I would pull money out of the rainy day fund before I’d fire a teacher,” he told the Observer.

But even that well may eventually dry up.

“What if we pulled money out of the rainy day fund and then two years later we have a deficit?” he said. “At that point, you're looking at two possibilities: cuts to state services, which are already cut pretty close to the bone, or new taxes, which everyone abhors.”

The property tax cut deal didn’t include relief for renters, something that a Democratic-proposed plan would have done.

The Texas Democrats’ proposal was spearheaded by Dallas state Rep. John Bryant. In addition to helping renters and homeowners, it would have boosted teacher pay.

Speaking with the Observer in July, Bryant said that he thinks the property tax deal will prompt Texans to “be angry at the Legislature, that they didn't really address the problem of people being taxed out of their homes. Because they gave away so much money to ... corporations that are not faced with the same pressure that homeowners and renters are faced with."

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson is “supportive of any and all ways to lower property taxes,” a spokesperson for his office told the Observer on Monday. Johnson and City Council member Cara Mendelsohn wrote the governor in July urging him to sign the property tax legislation into law.

In June, during the city's inauguration ceremony, the mayor announced that property tax relief would be among his top three priorities. He wants Big D to be the city with the lowest tax rate in the region.

Mayor Johnson also noted in a newsletter on Sunday that the City Council had rejected an effort to lower residents’ property taxes. Instead, he wrote, members passed a tax rate ceiling that would potentially cost people more in city property taxes.

The mayor brought out a colorful toy boat during last Wednesday’s council meeting to illustrate that the city is “headed toward a fiscal iceberg.”

He’s urging Dallas residents to contact their city representative: “Together, we can turn this ship around and put Dallas on a path toward fiscal responsibility.”

Texas Wants to Know: How will our power grid respond to the summer heat?

By Baylee Friday and Chris Blake

Published July 22, 2023

NBC DFW

As the number of 100-plus degree days pile up and Texans continue to set new records for energy demand, it begs the question: Can our power grid keep up with our growing population?

"We cannot build power plants as fast as people move in here and buy new air conditioners, or keep old air conditioners limping along," former advisor to the chair of the Public Utility Commission of Texas Alison Silverstein said. "As new businesses show up here and expand their usage of electricity, they're more and more things that we have to juggle operationally to keep the power reliable."

Even though Texas' population surpassed 30 million last year, joining California as the only state with as many people, state Sen. Nathan Johnson (D-Dallas) said he wasn't overly concerned with the grid's reliability this summer.

"Among other reasons, renewable power has been very steady. The wind has been sufficient to keep our mammoth fleet of wind turbines going," he said. "The sun obviously is shining brightly, brilliantly, and with a great deal of heat. But that's also providing solar power, including at some peak demand times late in the day."

The Texas Senate, of which Johnson is a part, sent a pair of energy bills to the House that did not pass early in this year's session. Meanwhile, in early May ERCOT officials warned that demand could outpace supply this summer. But just a few weeks later, they reversed course and said they had confidence in the grid.

"I believe that the change in policy was political and they were putting a spin on the available story because the legislature was in session and they were being told by some of the politicians whom they report to that they wanted to hear messages that supported state bills about let's build more power plants," Silverstein said.

ERCOT declined an interview request for this episode but issued the following statement.

"ERCOT will continue to operate the grid conservatively, bringing generating resources online early to mitigate sudden changes in generation or demand. ERCOT will continue to use all operational tools available, including implementation of new programs, like the new ERCOT Contingency Reserve Service (ECRS), as well as executing previous sessions’ legislative reforms (like summer and winter weatherization inspections). Depending on weather conditions and generation output, we could see tight grid conditions periodically this summer. ERCOT will continue to monitor conditions and keep Texans informed."

While the debate on which kind of energy to generate and how to pay for it was up for debate, the need to become more energy efficient was not.

"You leave the house for more than four hours, turn your thermostat up four degrees, and you'll save a lot of electricity when you're not at home," said J.P. Dowling of Houston-based Reliant Energy. "One thing we recommend to everybody is get an annual fact check to make sure it's running efficiently. And that way your electricity bills will be lower, even as it's working hard to keep people in your home."

Listen to Texas Wants to Know in the Audacy app or wherever you get your podcasts.