According to Karl-T, San Antonio blogger (and fellow Trinity alum) Matt Glazer was really serious when he said awhile back that someone needs to step up and challenge State Rep. Frank Corte in HD122. Matt, I salute you, I encourage you, and when you have a website up I'll donate to you, but I want to warn you: From a Democratic perspective, this district sucks.
How bad is it? See for yourself (Excel spreadsheet). The best any Democratic candidate did in this district was 31.8%, achieved by Ralph Lopez in the Bexar County Sheriff race. I hate to say it, but there's a reason no one ever challenges Corte.
(On a side note, how is it that after the otherwise extremely effective 2001 Legislative Redistricting Board gerrymander of the State House districts, Bexar County - which leans slightly Republican at the statewide level - wound up with eight Democrats out of ten representatives? Okay, there were only seven after the 2002 election, but still. They've got two extreme GOP districts, 121 and 122, one lean-Dem district (Leibowitz's 117), and seven others whose 2002 statewides ranged from 54 to 64% Dem. Don't get me wrong here, I'm totally not complaining, just failing to comprehend how some of the Republicans in the 70%+ GOP HD121 and 122 failed to get allocated to some of these other slots.)
To answer Karl-T's question, HD122 mostly intersects Henry Bonilla's CD23, not Lamar Smith's CD21. There were about 87,000 votes cast there in the Presidential election, with 58,000 ballots from CD23 and 26,500 from CD21. It's all in the spreadsheet. The Jeffersonian has some other info on the district.
Like I say, Matt, I absolutely support your entry into this race, and look forward to profiling you for Texas Tuesdays. I just want to make sure you have the information you need to run the kind of race you hope to run. Good luck!
Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 19, 2005 to Election 2006 | TrackBackCase law and the Voting Rights Act protect districts that have minority incumbents; that's why the Bexar County districts ended up the way they did.
You cannot spread out the Republican turf in Bexar County to other districts because it diluted minority voting strength and made the plan subject to court challenge.
Frank Corte having an opponent will only make Corte work harder to turn out Republicans and that could hurt some Democrats running countywide. Bexar County is very competitive on a countywiude basis.
Cort having a Dmeocrat opponent will not beat Frank Corte and could hurt a Democrat running for a crucial court seat.
Case law and the Voting Rights Act protect districts that have minority incumbents; that's why the Bexar County districts ended up the way they did.
You cannot spread out the Republican turf in Bexar County to other districts because it diluted minority voting strength and made the plan subject to court challenge.
OK, but I'm not sure that explains HD117, where Ken Mercer knocked off Raul Prado in 2002, then lost to Leibowitz in 2004.
Frank Corte having an opponent will only make Corte work harder to turn out Republicans and that could hurt some Democrats running countywide. Bexar County is very competitive on a countywiude basis.
Cort having a Dmeocrat opponent will not beat Frank Corte and could hurt a Democrat running for a crucial court seat.
And the flip side of that is Corte not having a Dem challenger means none of the 30% or so of the Democrats in his district have much reason to bother getting out to vote, which in turn can affect countywide races just as much. I don't buy your argument.
Posted by: Charles Kuffner on July 19, 2005 10:28 PMOk, so here's what I remember from 2002, state leg. redistricting, and Bexar county. Before redistricting Bexar county had 11 reps... essentially all 8 Dem districts right now plus Corte's district, Joe Straus' district, and another R district that was represented by John Shields. Even though Bexar county is the third largest county in the state, we did not grow as fast as other county's did (or so said the leadership) so we lost one seat. Now initially, that was Mike Villarreal's seat. My local crush got his old district absorbed into 4 or 5 other districts (kinda like how Martin Frost, Jim Turner and some other guys got it done to them). Which was then when he decided to run against County Commish Paul Elizondo for a short time, but I digress.
Well the Justice dept. said the map diluted minority voting rights in Bexar so they restored Villarreal's district and took out John Shield's district. Which was fine since Shield's was running against Wentworth in a primary challenge for his state senate seat (something about him being a RINO). So basically, the fact that nearly 70% of the county is Latino/African-American/Asian/Native American/etc gets us 8 minority-majority districts out of 10. And we'd be a solidly Democratic county to begin with if we could just get our base vote here in Bexar to turn out proportionately to their demographics.
As far as Leibowitz' district is concerned, Raul Prado was/is a former city councilman who ran against Ken Mercer in '02. He probably had that district won, but a week before the election he was arrested for bribery/fraud charges for some of the stuff he did on City Council (Prado was really the tip of the iceberg as far as the recent string of corruption at SA's City Hall is concerned). So Prado lost to Mercer by 10 or 15 points. Which was really the only way that Mercer was going to win that race, although that district is probably the least Democratic to begin with, for the simple reason that our base doesn't turn out proportionately. So Leibowitz' win was really just us taking back a seat that was ours to begin with.
I also gotta say that I don't buy the argument that Glazer running will hinder county wide races. I don't think that statewide candidates who do put an office here in Bexar County spend all that much time knocking on doors or doing GOTV in HD 122. And if they're not doing it, then no one is. Plus we dont' know what Corte is like as a candidate. The man hasn't been challenged in a decade. Let's put Corte out there on the campaign trail, make a vigorous campaign of it, and make him defend his record. Who knows maybe we could get a straight voting R or two to stop and think about this race, maybe even vote for Matt should he/she decide to run. And if he/she does that then maybe, just maybe, these voters take a look at the other Dems running now that they've gotta go down the ballot and actually decide on each and every candidate. Or vice-versa. Because these guys are going to continue to vote for Corte if they're not given a choice.
Posted by: Cincinnatus on July 20, 2005 12:06 AM