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Texans no longer need to cut back on their electricity use to avoid stressing the electrical grid, according to the current grid conditions on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas website.

Consumers may return to normal usage of electricity after a week that stressed the grid — and Texans’ anxieties. The ERCOT website said: “There is enough power for current demand,” and an ERCOT spokesperson confirmed the power conservation notice expired at 7 p.m. Friday.

On Monday, the state’s grid operator warned that an unusual amount of power generation, primarily from natural gas-fired power plants, had gone offline at the same time as weather patterns produced little wind for turbines. For five days, ERCOT warned that the supply of power was running low as Texans increased their demand for electricity in hotter weather, and asked the public to reduce electricity use.

Approximately 12,000 megawatts of generation were offline Monday, or enough to power 2.4 million homes on a hot summer day. The majority of the offline generation was unexpected, the grid operator said, meaning something at a power plant malfunctioned or broke, and the plant was forced to partially or totally shut down.

The amount of generation that was down earlier in the week was several times what ERCOT typically expects for this time of year; Texas power plants are typically built to perform well during the summer heat. And, wind turbines were not generating as much power as the grid operators anticipated for the summer season. The combination of the two resulted in what ERCOT called “tight” grid conditions.

ERCOT officials could not provide details as to why so much generation was offline. At the same time, Texans used a record amount of electricity for early June. Power grids must keep supply and demand in balance at all times, which is why the grid operator asked consumers to cut back usage — the first of several emergency steps ERCOT takes to prevent customer outages.

Friday was also the day state regulators said they would begin lifting the utility moratorium, which means utility companies can begin to send customers disconnection notices. Disconnections can resume June 29 at the earliest.

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Beto O’Rourke is on the road again, trying to build public pressure on Congress to take action on voting rights while his fellow Democrats in the Texas Legislature take the fight to Washington, D.C., after killing Republicans’ priority elections bill in Austin.

Arguably the state’s best-known Democrat, O’Rourke has been crisscrossing the state since June 3 and plans to wrap up with a large rally Sunday at the Texas Capitol, which he hopes will send the loudest message yet to federal legislators.

It has been the most statewide travel for a political cause that O’Rourke has done since his blockbuster 2018 U.S. Senate campaign when he narrowly lost to Sen. Ted Cruz.

“I can’t get it out of my system,” O’Rourke said during the first stop of the tour in Midland. “I want to see the state again. I want to be with people.”

Buzz about a potential 2022 gubernatorial campaign has followed O’Rourke everywhere he has gone, but he has deferred a decision on the race until after the current battle over voting rights.

By the time of the Capitol rally, he will have visited at least 19 cities on his statewide tour, which he has titled “For the People: The Texas Drive for Democracy.” And the stops have not just been in the major Democratic cities but also places like Wichita Falls and Brenham, reminiscent of the go-anywhere spirit of his Senate campaign.

Like the state House Democrats who defeated the GOP voting bill by walking out of the chamber late last month, O’Rourke is using the national spotlight on Texas to urge Congress to pass the For the People Act, a far-reaching elections overhaul that would expand voter registration, end partisan gerrymandering and restore voting rights to felons who have finished their sentences. O’Rourke also supports passage of the narrower John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would require many changes to state election laws to go through “preclearance,” or federal approval.

O’Rourke said the two elections proposals in Congress are “mutually reinforcing” and “you need them both.”

The odds are stacked against O’Rourke, both at the state and federal levels. Gov. Greg Abbott plans to revive the state elections bill in a yet-to-be-scheduled special session. Senate Bill 7 would have placed new limits on early voting hours, banned drive-thru voting and tightened vote-by-mail rules.

Meanwhile, the For the People Act remains doomed without GOP support or the elimination of the filibuster, which requires at least 60 votes to advance legislation in the 50-50 chamber. O’Rourke has joined progressives in calling for the end of the filibuster, though the votes are still not there to do so.

O’Rourke is still hopeful things can change in Washington.

“I think Texas has done about all we can, including the very extraordinary step taken by the Texas state House Democrats who walked out at the 11th hour of the regular session,” O’Rourke said in an interview Thursday. “We’re gonna all do our best to stop whatever voter suppression bill comes through in a special session, but at this point, we really need the federal government.”

That is expected to be the main message of Sunday’s rally, which will also feature Julián Castro, the former 2020 presidential candidate, U.S. housing secretary and San Antonio mayor, as well as several of the state Democrats from the walkout. The rally starts at 5:30 p.m. Central on the south steps of the Capitol.

O’Rourke said he would like to use the event to give Democrats in Washington, D.C., an “extra push” as they prepare to vote next week on the For the People Act.

O’Rourke’s reemergence has given Texas Republicans fodder to further make a boogeyman out of him ahead of a potential 2022 campaign. Since O’Rourke’s road trip started, U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Amarillo, has emailed supporters multiple times mocking what he calls O’Rourke’s “Texas Drive For Voter Fraud” tour.

“Beto O’Rourke is traveling across Texas pushing Leftist talking points that run counter to what Texas is all about,” U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin said in a fundraising email Thursday. “He’s laying the groundwork for an all-out push to flip Texas blue next year.”

Amid the 2022 buzz, O’Rourke has sought to keep the focus on voting issues for now, and he said he was heartened by two developments in recent weeks. The first was state GOP lawmakers walking back two of the most controversial provisions in Senate Bill 7, a sign that Texans’ voices are getting through to the Republicans, O’Rourke said. The lawmakers said they will tweak parts of the proposal that had to do with the Sunday early voting window and overturning elections.

O’Rourke also pointed to the floating of a potential compromise earlier this week by U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has been the sole Democratic holdout on the For the People Act. O’Rourke argued that was due “in no small part” to the state lawmakers who visited Washington, D.C., this week to lobby members of Congress — including Manchin — for federal voting legislation before meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris.

O’Rourke praised the job that President Joe Biden has done so far in elevating voting rights as an issue, citing Biden’s recent speech in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the statement he issued in opposition to Senate Bill 7 a day before the walkout. Biden used the Tulsa speech to say he will “fight like heck” against GOP efforts to restrict voting, and he said in the statement on SB 7 that it was “part of an assault on democracy.”

But O’Rourke said Biden could do more to show how the debate has roots in former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 elections was stolen and the events that came after that, including the U.S. Capitol insurrection.

“I would like to see him go further, and I would like to see him bring this country together around this issue and connect the dots for all of us,” O’Rourke said.

While O’Rourke was thrilled to see the walkout by state House Democrats last month, he was deferential to the lawmakers on how they should try to stop the elections bill in the forthcoming special session. O’Rourke said they are “leading right now, and the last thing they need is advice from me or anyone else.”

“They have done so much so far,” he said, “and I’m confident they’re gonna do whatever it takes in any special session” to stop the legislation.

On Thursday, state Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, told CNN that breaking quorum again is on the table, saying “it’s no secret that that’s something that has been effective in the past.”

In addition to the voting rights fight, O’Rourke’s political future has been an open topic of discussion during the road trip, with audience members raising it as part of their questions to him, sometimes multiple times in one city. Elected officials have also brought it up along the way.

“This is truly a Democratic state, and we’re gonna make it that,” U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas, said during O’Rourke’s visit to her city. “They could gerrymander all they want to, but it will not keep us from getting registered and getting out to vote — and it will not keep us from electing Beto as governor.

“Now, nobody wants to talk about that right now,” she added amid cheers, “but I do.”

In the interview, O’Rourke reiterated what he has told countless interviewers in recent weeks: that he would not consider a 2022 run until he sees through the current battle over voting rights. He said “there’s just nothing more important” at the moment.

At the same time, he said he has “really enjoyed the way I have been serving over the last couple years.” That has included registering new voters and working with volunteers through his Powered by People group. Whether as a candidate or not, he said, he will continue “dedicating myself to public service.”

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Two years ago, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wanted it to be known that he was prepared to buck his party on one of its sacred issues: guns.

In September 2019, he gave an interview to the Dallas Morning News in which he said was “willing to take an arrow” and go against the National Rifle Association by pushing for Texas to extend background checks to gun sales between strangers.

But Patrick’s outspoken advocacy did not last long, and the next legislative session ended last month without any progress on the cause.

For the past year, Patrick has refused to answer questions about whether he still supports the stronger background checks. On Thursday, at a San Antonio news conference where Gov. Greg Abbott signed a series of bills from the session expanding gun rights, Patrick was asked directly, but he would not state his position.

“People want people who have a right to carry a gun to be able to access a gun and carry that gun to defend themselves, and all of us, including the NRA — all of us — want those who shouldn’t have a gun to not have a gun, pure and simple,” Patrick said.

Asked more directly if he no longer supported the proposal for stranger-to-stranger background checks, Patrick asserted he had answered the question.

Patrick was seated alongside Abbott, state House Speaker Dade Phelan and Wayne LaPierre, the longtime leader of the NRA.

Patrick’s comments to the Dallas Morning News came at a time when gun violence was front and center for Texans. A month earlier, the state was rocked by the back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa that left 30 people dead and dozens more injured.

Patrick indeed invited the NRA’s wrath with his comments. At the time, the group issued a statement criticizing Patrick and his “gun control proposals,” saying they “would resurrect the same broken, Bloomberg-funded failures that were attempted under the Obama administration.”

Abbott was not as outspoken about such background checks back then, but he acknowledged the loophole as a problem.

“Right now, there is nothing in law that would prevent one stranger from selling a gun to a terrorist, and obviously that’s a danger that needs to be looked into,” Abbott said after meetings he had called to figure out policy solutions following the El Paso massacre.

Abbott ultimately recommended that the Legislature “consider ways to make it easy, affordable and beneficial for a private seller of firearms to voluntarily use background checks when selling firearms to strangers.”

Asked why a bill to allow stranger-to-stranger background checks did not pass this session, Patrick said, “There was not a bill filed to my knowledge, so that’s why it didn’t get passed.”

But there was at least one bill filed this session to institute such background checks — Senate Bill 163 by Sen. César Blanco, D-El Paso. The legislation, however, went all but nowhere, getting referred to the State Affairs Committee in early March and never receiving a hearing.

Furthermore, when the Senate was debating a bill early last month to allow permitless carry of handguns, Blanco introduced an amendment to mandate background checks for private firearms transfers. The amendment failed.

In any case, Democrats say if Republicans really cared about strengthening background checks — especially Patrick, who has a tight grip on Senate Republicans — they would have made it happen.

“When leadership wants something, they make sure a bill is filed,” Rep. Diego Bernal, D-San Antonio, tweeted Thursday in response to the news conference, which featured the signing of the permitless carry bill. “They didn’t. They did this instead.”

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On this week’s TribCast, Matthew speaks with James, Alexa and Erin about Gov. Greg Abbott’s border wall plans, the state power grid and Democrats pushing for voting legislation in Washington.

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Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday named Lori Cobos, a government and utilities lawyer, to an interim seat on the Public Utility Commission, the agency that oversees the state’s power grid, as well as its water, wastewater and telecommunications utilities.

Cobos has spent the last two years heading the Office of Public Utility Counsel, the state agency charged with representing residential and small commercial consumers in utility proceedings.

As the OPUC’s chief executive, she is also an ex-officio board member of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator. Cobos fills a term previously held by Chairman DeAnn Walker, who resigned in March in the aftermath of the February power outages.

Cobos’ term will only last until Sept. 1, at which point Abbott could re-appoint her or make a new nomination.

Cobos is the governor’s third nomination to the PUC after all of the previous commissioners resigned in the aftermath of February’s deadly power outages.

The nomination also comes the same week that ERCOT asked Texans to cut back their electricity use to avoid outages. The PUC oversees ERCOT.

On Monday, the grid operator asked residents to reduce their electricity usage during peak hours through at least Friday due to “tight” power grid conditions; a number of power plants were inexplicably offline at the same time as weather conditions resulted in low wind power generation. Due to high temperatures, the state is also experiencing record early June demand for electricity.

ERCOT officials said outages for residents are unlikely this week. On Tuesday, ERCOT issued a statement that the grid “remains strong during record demand,” and a spokesperson told the Tribune that the situation “looks like it will continue to improve.”

While Abbott criticized ERCOT in the aftermath of the February power crisis, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick criticized the PUC and called on Abbott to shake up the agency. During this year’s regular legislative session, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 2154, which would alter the makeup of the commission, adding two seats for a total of five commissioners. Abbott has yet to sign the legislation.

Cobos has previously worked in several positions at the PUC, including as an adviser for two commissioners and assistant counsel to the executive director. She was formerly a private practice attorney specializing in Texas’ electric power industry.

Correction, June 17, 2021: A previous version of this story stated that Cobos filled a vacancy left by Arthur D’Andrea, who resigned in March. Cobos fills a term that ends in 2021, which was previously held by Chair DeAnn Walker.

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Immigration. The U.S.-Mexico border. Wall-building. Abortion rights. Voting rights. Election laws. The Second Amendment and gun rights. Critical race theory. Transgender athletes.

Do those sound like state issues, or national issues? When you hear that list — which is representative, but not complete — do you think of it coming from someone seeking a job in Austin, or a job in Washington?

It could be both, or neither. But it comes from Gov. Greg Abbott, who appeared two years ago as a centrist Republican trying to get property tax and school finance legislation through a Legislature that was marked by recent Democratic gains. This year’s much more conservative theme follows a 2020 election where Texas Republicans held their ground.

More importantly, it leads into a political year when Abbott will be seeking reelection with a Democratic president in office — usually a good sign for GOP candidates — and after this Republican Legislature draws a set of political maps that strengthen their hold on the majority in the Texas Capitol.

Add in persistent political whispering that Abbott might be considering a run for president in 2024, and that list of Texas issues being chased by the governor has national overtones.

Abbott has to survive reelection, a job that became considerably simpler with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who remains very popular with Texas Republicans and whose blessing is a signal to conservatives who might otherwise think of Abbott as the establishment candidate.

That’s a problem for potential challengers hoping to attack the incumbent as insufficiently conservative. Abbott has to defend his right flank, but between Trump’s support, his own popularity with voters and a campaign account balance that hit $37.9 million at the beginning of this year, he has less reason to fear the candidates from that part of the GOP. Allen West, former chair of the Republican Party of Texas; former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas; and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — who’ve either jumped into or hinted at joining the race for governor — don’t have many voters to woo if the Trump supporters stick with Abbott.

For the sake of conversation, let’s say the governor doesn’t face much of a primary challenge next year. And no solid prospects have taken shape, though actor Matthew McConaughey and former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke are lurking.

There might be competition ahead, but it’s not from the right wing of his own party.

Unless you’re thinking about that national race in 2024.

That more moderate Abbott of 2019 seemed open to some mild gun regulation after mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa that summer.

A year ago, after Houstonian George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police, Abbott consoled the dead man’s survivors: “I’m here to tell you today that I am committed to working with the family of George Floyd to ensure we never have anything like this ever occur in the state of Texas.”

All of that was before the 2020 election. And the 2021 legislative session was influenced more by that election outcome than it was by those earlier events. The session was marked by efforts to defend police funding and, with a notable exception regarding guns, to take the police side of the argument on legislative issues. The George Floyd Act didn’t pass, though a few of its provisions made it into other legislation.

The Legislature’s big Second Amendment legislative achievement wasn’t new limits on stranger-to-stranger sales of guns, or tighter background checks of buyers. It was permitless carry, a feat of deregulation that allows most adults to carry handguns without permits or training. That bill — despite opposition by most law enforcement groups — was signed by the governor this month and will take effect Sept. 1.

The governor’s fresh echo of Trump’s call to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico is both a state and national play. Immigration and border security have been Republican voters’ “most important problem” over several years of University of Texas/Texas Tribune Polls. In the most recent poll, in April, 65% of Republican voters chose either immigration or border security as their top concern.

The governor has promised to revive restrictions on voting that failed in the final hours of the legislative session and is calling lawmakers into special session for that. Watch what else he adds to the agenda. Abbott has mentioned a bail bill that would make it harder for people to get out of jail while they’re awaiting trial, and also additional legislation to block teaching of critical race theory in public schools. Other state leaders are asking him to let them try to bar transgender athletes in public schools from competing in sports that match their gender identity.

The governor who was cautious in the legislative session before the 2020 election was unleashed by its results. He’s prepping for 2022 and beyond by dropping the “bread and butter” issues of two years ago and serving up what conservatives have been clamoring for.

Red meat.

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin 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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Members of San Antonio’s unhoused population will soon be able to seek shelter at a former Days Inn hotel on East Houston Street.

On Thursday, June 17, City Council approved a Department of Human Services pilot project that seeks to serve as a bridge for those chronically experiencing homelessness to permanent housing. 

The accommodations will include up to 45 rooms for those with “significant and multiple barriers to housing,” according to an agenda item statement from Thursday’s City Council meeting. During the meeting, the council approved a 12-month lease agreement for $1.17 million dollars with the downtown hotel, the Express-News reports.

“The City is committed to ensuring that homelessness in San Antonio is rare, brief if experienced, and non-recurring,” City Manager Erik Walsh says in a press release. “This pilot program is a great example of City departments and community agencies working together to support the most vulnerable in our community.”

READ MORE: San Antonio-area lake now ‘fully infested’ with zebra mussels, TPWD says

The program is part of the city’s COVID-19 Recovery and Resiliency Plan, and is in line with recommendations of the community’s five-year Homeless Strategic Plan. The total operating budget for the initiative is $2.9 million.

The hotel will be operated by SAMMinistries, an interfaith organization that focuses on homeless outreach. In addition to supervision, they will offer 24/7 case management and provide clients with substance abuse and mental health resources to help them further get their footing. 

“In alignment with the City of San Antonio’s Strategic Plan to respond to homelessness, SAMMinistries is excited to pilot this project as a bridge for the chronically homeless and highly vulnerable unsheltered into permanent housing,” says SAMMinistries President and CEO Nikisha Baker in a press statement.

 SAMMinistries, unlike some traditional housing organizations, provides low-barrier shelter, and will not penalize residents for substance use. However, substance use will not technically be permitted. 

Ultimately, the goal of the collaborative effort at the hotel is to “move clients into permanent housing as quickly as possible,” said Veronica Carrillo, the city’s coronavirus executive officer.

READ MORE: ‘I’m just stunned’: Texas leaders react to Abbott’s announcement about border wall

While the majority of city leaders are excited to kick off the project, Councilman Clayton H. Perry, the only council member to oppose the measure, says it’s not an efficient use of funding.

“Based on recent point in time counts, our homeless population is not growing in San Antonio and is remaining relatively stable; it would be better if the City finds efficiencies in the current funding allocated to homelessness rather than expend limited federal funds,” says Perry in a press statement. The Councilman also noted that there was no city benchmark comparison with other cities. 

Currently, a similar project is underway in Austin at a city-owned hotel called the Southbridge Center. On Thursday, the site welcomed in its first guests. 

The downtown San Antonio lease is set to begin on July 1, according to the Express-News. 

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A week after some high school graduates went viral for wearing a Mexican flag to graduation ceremonies in different parts of America, Lin Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” offered a little perspective about flags.

The film adaptation of the 2008 Tony-award winner for Best Musical is about the hopes and dreams of a group of characters from the Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City. The story revolves around a young man who dreams of going back to a beach in the Dominican Republic, a place where his parents were born and where he visited as a child. Surrounded by a tight but changing community of friends and neighbors who came from different parts of the Spanish-speaking world, the story is told in Spanglish. The songs are also bilingual, with roots in American rap and hip hop as well as salsa and merengue.

The musical is, like so many of us who came from immigrant parents, a wonderful mix of two very different worlds.

At one point in the film, the song “Carnaval del Barrio” has the neighbors singing “alza esa bandera/alzala donde queira/recuerdo de mi tierra/me acuerdo de mi tierra/esa bonita bandera/tiene mi alma entera/y cuando yo me muera/entierrame en mi tierra!”

That sentiment is understandable for some, borderline treason for others. For many, the price of coming to America for a better life is letting go of the past and embracing a new way of life: new habits, new language, even a new flag. The thing is, it’s not so easy to give up so much of what defines you.

Some people have a harder time fitting in to a new life than others. That’s why immigrant communities form. America is better for this, too — the blend of different languages, music, customs and points of view makes us a richer, thicker nation. Fortunately, we have the freedom to make those choices in America. We might feel as if we’re more divided than ever, but those divisions are most troublesome when conformity is a demand rather than an option.

“Carnaval del Barrio” outlines how important those flags are to some people, and how flying those flags doesn’t signify allegiance to another nation or government, but instead of a deep desire to be recognized, to be seen. That’s why those grads wore flags on what might be the most accomplished moment of their young lives — the moment they walked across the stage.

Those of us who have the luxury of never having lived under another flag might not understand that, and those who have left a flag behind in favor of Old Glory might shake their heads in disapproval as well. That’s OK, because in America we have the freedom to disagree. The trick is having the vision to see each other’s experiences and the willingness to listen to each other’s opinions.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt when those hopes and dreams are set to Tony-award winning productions.

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With the news that President Joe Biden has just signed Juneteenth into law as a federal holiday, San Antonio is gearing up for their own celebrations of the day, which actually originated in the Lone Star State.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union Gen. Gorden Granger arrived in Galveston to tell enslaved Texans they were free two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and two months after Robert E. Lee and his Confederate army surrended.

RELATED: Downtown San Antonio park announces inaugural Juneteenth event

Recording history

A Juneteenth History Harvest will be hosted by the San Antonio African American Community Archive and Museum, which collects the family history and stories of Black San Antonians to be recorded, archived, and memorialized in the Texas A&M San Antonio Digital Library.

Attendees can bring bring memorabilia, including family documents, church programs, newspaper clippings, yearbooks, report cards, or other relevant historical items and record their family’s story in the museum’s sound booth.

The event will take place at Navajo Civic Center on June 19 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Festive parties

Thursday night starting at 6:30 p.m., The Future is Freedom: Juneteenth Celebration will begin at Hopscotch San Antonio. Local chefs, DJs, vendors, and activists will come together to make up the event that will donate all proceeds to The Texas Heat Wave Project and Corazon San Antonio.

On Saturday, the Alamo Beer Company will host the S.A. Juneteenth Block Party and Fair, complete with local community partners, vendors, and sponsors.

Reservations for the block party are free and available at SAAACAM’s website.

Coinciding with the Block Party will be the Juneteenth Festival at Comanche Park, starting at 11 a.m. Sights and sounds will include free concerts, a fish fry, health fair, kid’s activities, food booths, and gospel groups.

Baseball for a good cause

The San Antonio Missions will play the Northwest Arkansas Naturals in a Juneteenth fundraiser on Saturday to benefit the Texas Kidney Foundation and SAAACAM.

African American baseball players throughout the history will be celebrated. VIP tickets include a meet-and-greet with the South Texas league Negro League Players and an all-you-can-eat buffet.

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