6 OctOber 31 - NOvember 6, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Friday Night Votes Actor Connie Britton joins Allred on Dallas campaign stop. BY EMMA RUBY W hile one side of the Texas Senate race is be- ing haunted by a curse that has Texas sports fans begging the incum- bent candidate to keep his “sinister energy” away from their games, underdog Democrat Colin Allred appears to have “clear eyes and a full heart.” But the question remains, can he beat Cruz? Polling has shown that the race between Allred and Ted Cruz is nearly in a dead heat, and the Allred campaign is pulling out all the stops in an effort to elect the first state- wide Democrat in 30 years. Allred’s recent flex: Welcoming actor and political activist Connie Britton to the campaign trail during a Dallas phone banking event. Around these parts, Britton is probably best known for her acclaimed portrayal of Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights, but she has also starred in Nashville, American Hor- ror Story and HBO’s White Lotus, to name a few. Raised in Virginia, Britton calls Texas her “home away from home,” and has weighed in on the Lone Star State’s politics in elections past. In 2018, she endorsed Democrat Beto O’Rourke in the Senate race against Ted Cruz and Allred in his congres- sional campaign. Returning now to Texas, she said, is an opportunity to bring attention to the “com- mon sense” policies Allred is running on, like reinstating federal protections for abor- tion access. “I grew up in a time where it was not nearly this divisive. I have a lot of longstand- ing Republicans in my family and I don’t be- lieve that what we are seeing now in terms of extreme right thinking is really reflective of who any of us are, Republicans or Demo- crats,” Britton told the Observer. “[Allred, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz] are people who, I listen to them talk and I think, ‘Oh yeah, he’s saying things that I care about. And he looks like a person that I would re- spect and like a person with integrity.’ These are fundamental American values that we’ve lost sight of.” For months, Allred has held up reproduc- tive rights access as a cornerstone of his campaign, aligning himself with female vot- ers in the post-Dobbs era. The coalition “Women for Allred,” — chaired by his wife Aly Eber, Wendy Davis and plaintiffs from the Zurawski v. Texas case — has honed in on Cruz’s sudden silence on abortion during campaign rallies across the state. While Friday Night Lights ended in 2011, Britton believes her portrayal of a Texas mother, wife and community member, is one that many Texas women are able to see themselves in. She is someone who looks like, sounds like, dresses like and acts like a Texas woman — like a Texas woman who may not have voted for Allred in the past — and it’s part of what makes her a powerful messenger for the campaign. “I think that these laws that Ted Cruz has been enforcing in Texas are completely de- valuing women,” Britton said. “And if we’re not careful as women, we can just let that happen. It’s important for us to take this mo- ment and say ‘I have value. I deserve to have access to health care. I deserve to have a choice about what my family is going to look like. I deserve to not bleed out when I have a miscarriage.’” Lauren Miller from Dallas was one of the plaintiffs from the Zurawski v. Texas case, where 20 women and 2 medical practitio- ners sued the state after failing to receive care for medical complications during their pregnancies, who is campaigning with Women for Allred. Like Britton, Miller looks like the stereotypical Texas woman, with a family and a stable career, and yet she “still needed an abortion.” Speaking publicly about her experience of traveling to Colo- rado to receive potentially life-saving care is empowering both for herself and for female voters, she said. A Gallup survey taken earlier this year showed that more and more voters are iden- tifying as pro-choice, and abortion is rising in importance as a voting issue. Forty per- cent of pro-choice voters reported they will not even consider a candidate who does not share their stance on abortion, a wide breadth that Allred seems primed to scoop up. Still, the question “Will Texas turn blue?” seems to present itself every election cycle, just to fall short. “Just as a reminder for folks who are scared, maybe they’ve never voted for a Democrat before, nobody’s going to see who you vote for,” Miller told the Observer. “Your vote is safe. It is your own.” ▼ CITY HALL GET THE LEAD OUT INVESTIGATION INTO FAILED LEAD REMOVAL PROGRAM APPROVED AS PRIORITY FOR CITY AUDIT. BY EMMA RUBY D allas City Council unanimously ap- proved a city audit plan last week that prioritizes looking into a lead abatement program that should have ad- dressed hazards in residents’ homes. The lead abatement program is one of 13 areas prioritized in the Fiscal Year 2025 Audit Work Plan, which is conducted annually by the Office of the City Auditor to evaluate city services as recommended by the city council. District 13 Council Member Gay Donnell Willis and District 1 Council Member Chad West requested that the lead removal pro- gram be added to the audit last month, after a Dallas Morning News investigation re- vealed its overwhelming failure. The inves- tigation found that 90 homes had asked to participate in a federally funded city initia- tive designed to remove lead from homes, but only four received abatement and nearly 40 were ignored completely. Loucious Miller’s home was docu- mented as receiving $12,000 for abatement through the program, though he told the Morning News he is doubtful the full amount was spent as intended. During an Oct. 23 council meeting, Miller broke down in tears while speaking of his experience participat- ing in the lead abatement program. “Come see what the housing program has done to my house,” Miller urged the council. “I’ve been down here speaking to people trying to get help, and nobody wants to help me. Why?” The city audit is expected to answer questions about the challenges the pro- gram faced and whether Dallas’ experi- ence was comparable with peer cities. According to the Morning News report, Fort Worth has received waves of funding from the federal lead abatement program since 2005 and has completed work on 66 homes in 2023. Though COVID-19 tempo- rarily slowed down the program in 2020, 75 Fort Worth homes had lead removed in 2019. The audit will also examine whether other city grant-funded programs are lag- ging in execution. The Dallas Morning News reached out to a number of city officials at the time of the investigation, but few were able to speak to the lead abatement pro- gram’s status, much less what went wrong. One city official stated that the Dallas Hous- ing Department believed the grant to be “cumbersome to administer,” resulting in the program’s being dissolved. Courtesy Colin Allred campaign Actor Connie Britton spoke at a Colin Allred campaign stop in Dallas on Oct. 22, 2024. | UNFAIR PARK | Nathan Hunsinger Possibly more than 3,700 hours of work remain before the city gets some key answers. >> p8
