Name: Texas is facing a wave of event cancellations after GOP governor ended mask mandate
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Texas is facing a wave of event cancellations after GOP governor ended mask mandate

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--At least four organizations canceled conferences or conventions in Austin, citing health concerns after Texas ended its statewide mask mandate earlier this month. The cancellations cost the Hilton Austin hotel $350,000 in revenue, according to Austin Convention Enterprises, a city-created corporation that owns and manages the hotel."These were rooms that were already on the books, and largely what we saw was fallout, ironically, from the governor opening the economy," said Joe Bolash, Hilton Austin general manager, during a March 16 Austin Convention Enterprises board meeting. "It was groups that were not comfortable returning to a fully opened economy where there was no mask mandate in place."Gov. , pointing to fewer COVID-19 hospitalizations and cases in the state. Public health experts and political opponents lamented the move, saying it was too soon before the majority of the state was vaccinated against the virus or even eligible for a shot.Jimmy Flannigan, ACE president and former Austin City Council member, said these cancellations are the latest blow to the hospitality industry in Austin, which has already suffered severe losses due to the coronavirus pandemic.Flannigan declined to share the names of the organizations that canceled the events. However, he said three of them "had relationships in the medical field" and were concerned with "the message that medical groups might be sending" if they hosted events in Texas."This is the worst possible time for any part of the hotel industry to be [losing] business," Flannigan said. "We're at the very first few upticks of the recovery of the hotel industry and tourism, which is both important to the hotels themselves, and to the many, many, many jobs that those hotels create in Central Texas."Flannigan said consumer sentiment and confidence in their safety heavily impacts business."Nothing will help the return of the economy more than the prevention and the public health requirements to arrest the spread of this virus," he said. "And I hope that the governor lifting the mass mandate ends up not being a horrible decision as it relates to the health of Texas."Abbott did not immediately respond to a request for comment.On Thursday, the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology announced it was canceling the in-person portion of its annual conference that was to be held in Austin due to the end of Texas' COVID-19-related precautions.Conference organizers were working with Hilton Austin, the JW Marriott Austin and Fairmont Austin, but it's unclear if it is one of the four events that ACE said were canceled.Devin Jopp, CEO of the organization, said in an interview that it's already a challenge planning safe events during the pandemic, but the masking mandate ending "felt like the rug being pulled out from underneath us." He said there was no way an organization dedicated to preventing the spread of infectious diseases could risk bringing its members to a state without a mask mandate."The policies that Gov. Abbott moved the state into just created a condition we couldn't work around," he said. "We think it was premature, and I would say that goes with a lot of other sentiment out there."The event was to be held partially online and scaled back from its usual projected attendance of 6,000 to 1,000 due to the pandemic.Greg Casar, an Austin City Council member, said the lack of a mask mandate isn't just driving business from the state, but it is putting pressure on public-facing workers, including those in the hospitality industry, to enforce mask-wearing in businesses."Greg Abbott didn't help the economy when he lifted the mask rule, he only helped the virus," he said. "That's clearly bad for workers, but it's bad for business, too. And you can see that clearly with the cancellation of these conferences."Even after Texas ended its mask mandate, . In response, Texas Attorney General filed a suit demanding that local officials end the mandate. A final hearing to decide the case will be Friday.Both Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown have said even if the mask orders are shot down in court this week, they are glad they were able to keep the mask mandate in the meantime, allowing more residents to get vaccinated.Casar says the city will continue pursuing ways to keep masks on Austin residents."We will not stop doing everything we can to protect health and safety. So even if our mask rules get taken down, we will continue to try to find other ways to require masks," he said. "We will continue to work to make sure that everybody wears a mask or that every business requires masks."Disclosure: Steve Adler, a former Texas Tribune board chair, and Fairmont Austin have been financial supporters 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 .… then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire and uncovered White House efforts to . We’ve revealed , and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by . And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.Raw Story is independent. Unhinged from corporate overlords, we fight to ensure no one is forgotten.We need your support in this difficult time. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us.,or … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we believe in the power of progressive journalism — and we’re investing in investigative reporting as other publications give it the ax. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire and uncovered White House efforts to . We’ve revealed , and efforts to harm workers exploited by . We need your support to do what we do.Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. ,orReport typos and corrections to: .Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is denying open records requests to turn over his communications during the fatal January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.Paxton was one of the leading proponents of the "Big Lie" of election fraud that incited the insurrection and had traveled to DC to rally Trump supporters seeking to overturn the election results. On MSNBC on Friday, Lauren McGaughy of The Dallas Morning News detailed the newspaper's efforts to obtain the documents.  "Do you have any reason to believe he might have deleted the messages, or do you know those messages actually exist?" MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin asked.    "That's a concern of ours," McGaughy replied.  "You know, the agency, Ken Paxton's agency controls the public records releasing for the entire state," she explained. "So everything from police departments to the governor's office, if they want to withhold a record from the public, they have to go to Ken Paxton's agency and ask."  "And because we have received some concerning information releases from that office -- this isn't just about his records. it's about the public's access to records across the board -- we did try a test balloon to see whether we believed we could prove that there might be some deletion of records by Paxton. We actually texted his personal cell phone and then we filed a records request for that text and we were told there were no records responsive. And when we followed up and said, 'But we know there's a text message that -- since we sent one ourselves,' the agency said that unsolicited and unwanted messages were not subject to the records retention schedule, which was very concerning to us."  Watch:  Ken Paxtonwww.youtube.com    Former President Donald Trump is already working behind the scenes to set the stage for the 2022 primary election. He may not be making a return to the White House in 2022 but he is reportedly working to make sure he manages Republican lawmakers whoAccording to a report published by Politico, the former president who is set to retire at the end of his term. The publication reports that on Wednesday, March 24, an "Apprentice"-style meeting took place at Trump's luxurious Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach, Fla. The publication reports that the four Senate seat contenders—including former Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandel, former Ohio Republican Party Chair Jane Timken, tech executive Bernie Moreno, and Mike Gibbons, the investment banker who co-chaired Trump's Ohio fundraising group—traveled to the luxury golf club to attend a fundraiser for Trump's former White House aide Max Miller, who has entered the Senate race to unseat Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio.)  The meeting scene that played out behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago is being similar to the boardroom scenes highlighted on Trump's former TV show "The Apprentice." The Senate candidates spent their time competing for the former president's support. In addition to being compared to the boardroom-style game show, one person familiar with the media also insisted that it was more akin to "The Hunger Games."  According to Talking Points Memo, one person noted that "the Ohio Republican Senate hopefuls were thrown into an unexpected and awkward showdown for Trump's support ahead of next year's midterm elections." The meeting began with Trump asking each candidate about the status of their campaigns. Each candidate had the opportunity to highlight the strong points of their campaigns.  At one point, former Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel bragged about "crushing" Timken in the preliminary polls while Gibbons highlighted the support she has received due to serving as Ohio's Republican Party chair.  Mandel responded: "Mr. President I only know two ways to do things: either not at all, or balls to the wall. I hired a bunch of killers on my team. I'm a killer, and we're going to win the primary and then the general."  Gibbons pointed out his history of contributing to the fundraising efforts for Trump's presidential campaign while Moreno noted that his daughter previous work with the former president's re-election campaign. The latest report underscores the extent of Trump's efforts to take down the Republican lawmakers who voted in favor of his impeachment. President Joe Biden on Friday slammed a voter suppression bill from Georgia Republicans that Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) signed into law on Thursday."It's an atrocity," Biden told the assembled press on the White House lawn. "The idea -- you want any indication that it has nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with decency -- they passed the law saying you can't provide water for people standing in line while they're waiting to vote? "You don't need anything else to know that this is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting," he continued.  "You can't provide water for people about to vote? Give me a break," he said.   Biden's off-the-cuff remarks came after an official White House statement released on Friday.  "In Georgia we saw this most historic demonstration of the power of the vote twice – in November and then again in the runoff election for the U.S. Senate seats in January. Recount after recount and court case after court case upheld the integrity and outcome of a clearly free, fair, and secure democratic process," the White House said. "Yet instead of celebrating the rights of all Georgians to vote or winning campaigns on the merits of their ideas, Republicans in the state instead rushed through an un-American law to deny people the right to vote. This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience."  "This is Jim Crow in the 21st Century. It must end. We have a moral and Constitutional obligation to act. I once again urge Congress to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to make it easier for all eligible Americans access the ballot box and prevent attacks on the sacred right to vote," the statement said.  Watch:  atrocitywww.youtube.com &nbsp;TrendingLatestVideos&nbsp;&nbsp;Copyright © 2021 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | | | For corrections or concerns, please email corrections@rawstory.com.CloseCopy link

--At least four organizations canceled conferences or conventions in Austin, citing health concerns after Texas ended its statewide mask mandate earlier this month. The cancellations cost the Hilton Austin hotel $350,000 in revenue, according to Austin Convention Enterprises, a city-created corporation that owns and manages the hotel."These were rooms that were already on the books, and largely what we saw was fallout, ironically, from the governor opening the economy," said Joe Bolash, Hilton Austin general manager, during a March 16 Austin Convention Enterprises board meeting. "It was...

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Reese Oxner

The Texas Tribune

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Texas is facing a wave of event cancellations after GOP governor ended mask mandate

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