September, 2006:

So it turns out that contrary to prior reports, Rep. John Culberson is willing to participate in a debate. He’s just not willing to participate in a debate that involves his opponent, Jim Henley. The following is an email from Culberson’s office:

The Houston Club presents Congressman John Culberson (District Seven) U.S. House of Representatives and Charles C. Foster, President of Tindall & Foster, P.C. debate immigration issues so important to our city, region, and nation: The Rio Grande Great Wall; Guest Workers; Amnesty; Stiffer Criminal Penalties on Illegals and Employers; Do Nothing.

The non-members and the general public are invited to the luncheon and debate on Monday, October 2, 2006 at 11:30 am – 1:30 pm. $37.00 Reservations: 713-229-2215.

[…]

Mr. Foster heads the Immigration Law Section of his firm, has served as a principal advisor to President George W. Bush on U. S. immigration policy and is past National President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. The views of the nationally respected attorney differ sharply from those of Congressman Culberson.

Monday, October 2, 2006 11:30 am – 1:30 pm
The Houston Club
811 Rusk St. Tenth Floor – Texas Room
Luncheon Tickets: $37.00

Reservations: 713-229-2215

So, to recap: Culberson WILL debate if his opponent in the debate is not his opponent on the ballot, and if it costs money to get in the door. Culberson WILL NOT debate if his opponent in the debate is his opponent on the ballot, and the event is free to attend. Got that?

Sadly, I will not be able to make this event. But I will be glad to purchase an adult beverage of your choosing to anyone who does attend and manages to ask Rep. Culberson why this is an acceptable forum for him to debate but Rice University against Jim Henley is not. Let me know what happens.

Didn’t get to this yesterday, but I’m amused by this KTRK story about Martha Wong and the altered campaign signs.

Drive through District 134 and you can’t miss them. Signs are plastered around much of central Houston, including Bellaire and West University, but it’s what you’re not seeing that has some stirred up.

If you noticed the campaign signs, you may have also noticed a lot of red tape; not the usual government type, but the real deal — red tape over the word “Republican” on Martha Wong’s signs. The tape was put on by her own party. Why?

“We use one campaign sign when we’re running in the primary, and we use another sign when we’re running in the general,” said Wong. “It’s that simple.”

[…]

Gary Polland, former Harris County Republican party chairman, says this strategy is typical in a general election, especially in a swing district, where votes may be tight.

“The voters who will decide this election are independents, not Republicans or Democrats, and that’s why they don’t put their parties on their signs,” said Polland.

Political analyst Peter Roussel agrees. With the eroding of party loyalty, candidates don’t want to limit potential votes.

“Nowadays, most political signs don’t have a party affiliation on them anyway because the candidates are trying to appeal to the largest possible audience and independent voters,” he said.

Wong’s party also said those signs were old signs created for a primary election. The newer ones they had made up do not have a party affiliation on them. The election is November 7.

OK, that all sounds logical. Except for one thing: Martha Wong didn’t have a primary opponent. She would have known that fact since January 2, when the primary filing deadline passed. Are you saying that she’s been sitting on those outdated, only-for-a-primary signs since last year? If so, why deploy them at all for this general election? Surely with her $400K cash on hand, she could have afforded to buy a few new ones. She could have even been forward thinking and planned to save them for 2008, just in case. I mean, she’s not going to ask for those signs back after November, right? So why use them if their purpose is for a primary?

I think we know what the answer to that is. She didn’t give the matter any thought until she discovered a little too late that being identified as a Republican this year was not a good thing. And for whatever the reason, she decided that editing would be preferable to replacing. So much for that.

BOR has the video of the story if you haven’t seen it.

UPDATE: This is what I get for hitting Publish before I check the Chron.

Wong campaign manager Josh Robinson said the taped signs are leftovers from Wong’s first legislative race in 2002, when she was running in a newly created district drawn to elect a Republican. She defeated an incumbent Democrat.

Wong’s 2006 signs read: “Re-elect Martha Wong. State Representative, Dist. 134. Principled. Passionate. Persistent.”

“Our signs were depleted quicker than we expected,” Robinson said, so the campaign distributed some old signs that were in storage.

I smell baloney here. For one thing, I’ve done a lot of driving around HD134 these past few weeks, and I see a heck of a lot more Cohen signs than I do Wong signs. (I actually see more Jim Henley signs than anything else, but that’s a different story.) Second, it still doesn’t explain why taping over the word “Republican” is a better idea than either leaving it be for the relatively small number of affected signs or just telling people to wait a few days till more signs have been received. I mean, c’mon, how can a well-funded campaign like Wong’s run out of signs? They’ve been pretty free and easy about putting them in vacant lots. Why not let those sit signless for a few days while fulfilling the extravagant demand from real voters for signs in their yards?

Admit it, Josh. You goofed and you got caught. End of story.

Another round of Zogby Interactive polls, for which BOR has the Governor’s race summary. Basically, it’s still Perry leading but in the danger zone at 33%, Bell in second but back a bit at 22%, Friedman farther back at 19%, and Strayhorn with her best showing in recent memory at 15%. The main curiosity here is that the sample stretched over six days; usually polls are three-day affairs. The time frame (September 19-25) covers some of the Kiny Friedman dustup and some of the time that Chris Bell had an ad running. (I can’t seem to escape Strayhorn ads these days. One of her promos just about took over a page on Chron.com that I was trying to read yesterday. If there’s anything I hate more than popups, it’s ads that drape across the screen and force you to click a box to close them. Please, please, somebody tell me that Firefox 2.0 can block that crap. The release notes don’t say.)

Also of interest is the Senate result, which puts KBH ahead of Barbara Radnofsky by a 53-30 margin. This is a significant variance from last month, where Zogby pegged it as 48-39, and brings it much more in line with Rasmussen’s polling – their August data point was 58-32. Makes me wonder if Zogby’s sample is a little different this month, and if so which one is the outlier from their perspective. Also makes me wonder if the movement in each poll is related.

Anyway, it’s nice to see polling frequency increase as we get closer to the election. I expect we’ll see more SUSA and Rasmussen results soon, too. The more data, the better.

Big Time Dick Cheney is coming to town to help Shelley Sekula Gibbs’ futile write-in campaign.

The national Republican Party has joined the fight to replace former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, donating more than $100,000 to the Republican candidate’s write-in candidacy and sending Vice President Dick Cheney to a Houston fundraiser for her next week.

Although the party has yet to deliver anywhere near the $3 million once claimed by state GOP Chairwoman Tina Benkhiser, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee confirmed Wednesday that the group had donated $99,465 to assist the campaign of GOP candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.

Cheney is scheduled to appear in Houston on Oct. 4.

Perhaps he can expand on Shelley’s remarks to City Council yesterday. I’m sure he’ll have just the healing words for the situation.

It wasn’t on the independent expenditures report as of a couple of days ago, but I’m told that the $99K indicated in the story is going to the firm of Feather, Larson & Synhorst DCI. They sound like exactly the right kind of organization for Shelley:

FLS-DCI specializes in creating phony front groups to make it appear as if there’s a groundswell of support for its clients’ issues.

One of its most prominent front groups is Voices for Choices. This fake coalition of conservative groups is runing ads nationwide in support of AT&T’s key issues. AT&T, which has donated millions to the Republican Party and the Bush Campaign in 2004 – and whose general counsel served on Bush’s transition team, is one of FLS-DCI’s largest and most important clients.

Other FLS-DCI phony productions include Responsible Electronic Communications Alliance and Hands Off the Internet.

Hands Off The Internet was an astroturf group that opposed Net Neutrality earlier this year. You can read more about them here. Like I said, this is a perfect fit for Shelley.

Prior to this, back in August, the NRCC spent $21K on a poll in CD22. I’m not sure if that’s the infamous Baselice poll or another one whose results did not get released. According to this accounting, that money went to Public Opinion Strategies (search for Sekula to find the entry).

Anyway. Those of you who will be attending this event with Cheney, be sure to remember your face masks and bulletproof vests. The rest of you, read In the Pink for the funny.

Apparently, Shelley Sekula Gibbs has noticed the fact that she hasn’t been in the news much lately, not that this should surprise anyone. What surprises even me is the way she went about getting attention for herself.

Several City Council members walked out on Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs Wednesday, saying her rhetoric against a police policy on illegal immigrants exploited for political gain the death of an officer whose funeral they had just attended.

The symbolic move was the only time in recent memory that a group of council members left the chambers to protest a colleague’s comments.

[…]

Wednesday’s walkout occurred near the end of the weekly council meeting, when members get time to talk about issues of their choice.

Dressed in black after attending the morning funeral, most members offered condolences to the family of Rodney Johnson, who police allege was killed by an illegal immigrant he took into custody last week.

Johnson’s death has reignited debate about whether police should be able to ask people about their immigration status, an inquiry now prohibited by police policy unless the person has already been arrested on a serious misdemeanor or felony.

Several council members said they were proud that Houstonians had put that debate aside for the day as the city joined Johnson’s family in mourning his death.

When it was Sekula-Gibbs’ turn to speak, she said Mayor Bill White now had the chance to repeal what she calls the department’s “sanctuary” policy.

“I hope that you will use this opportunity to make this change that has been needed for many, many years,” she said.

At that, members of varying political stripes rose from their chairs and left the chambers. They returned after Sekula-Gibbs finished speaking.

“I was embarrassed to be in the room with somebody talking like that,” said Councilwoman Toni Lawrence, a Republican and one of the first to leave.

“There’s a lot of things I disagree with, maybe the way immigration is handled, federally, and this is not the time to make a comparison.”

Alvarado, a Democrat who has been on council since 2002, said she couldn’t remember another time when council members walked out on a colleague because of a comment. Some members left a meeting with former Mayor Lee Brown, but that move was a parliamentary tactic to keep the panel from voting on a contentious issue, she said.

[…]

White did not join the other council members when they exited the room during Sekula-Gibbs’ comments. When asked why, he said he was presiding over the meeting and filling out paperwork at the time.

“I’ll let other people judge whether they should make death a political issue,” he said.

Councilman Ronald Green, who spoke after Sekula-Gibbs, was applauded by his colleagues for denouncing her comments.

”You wouldn’t stoop so low to use this man’s memory to advance a political career that may or may not be going anywhere,” he said.

For shame. About the only way this could have been more dishonorable would be if she had concluded her remarks by singing her stupid jingle. Council Member Lawrence is correct: This was an embarrassment. If Shelley Sekula Gibbs doesn’t recognize that, she’s not just an unqualified candidate for Congress, she’s an unfit human being.

Well, you got your name in the papers, Shelley. I hope it was worth it for you.

I guess it’s good news for Kinky Friedman that after all this time, some people still think of him as a Celebrity Candidate, where the fact that he sometimes says funny things trumps the substance (or, as is often the case with Friedman, the lack thereof) of what he says. How anyone who has spent five minutes paying attention to Friedman and his unsubtle appeals to the Dan Patrick crowd might think that Ann Richards would have fallen for his baloney is beyond me. But just so we’re clear:

The Richards children – Cecile, Dan, Clark and Ellen – issued a statement saying Richards did not support Friedman.

“Ann Richards did not support Kinky Friedman for governor of Texas nor endorse him before she died. She was very concerned about this election. She always voted a straight Democratic ticket,” they said.

‘Nuff said.

Vince continues his interview series with the other Williamson County Democrat for State Rep, Jim Stauber, who’s running in HD20. Stauber has a tougher task than Karen Felthauser does, as HD20 was about eight points more Republican than HD52 in 2004. He still has all the same issues to pound on, and should also benefit from the better climate and Williamson’s blue trend.

Speaking of Felthauser, she was a featured candidate on the Democracy for America blog Tuesday. She definitely deserves some attention from the activist class, so hopefully this helped her raise her profile a bit. Eye on Williamson has the details.

Another email of interest:

The Rice College Republicans, Libertarians, Young Democrats, The N.A.A.C.P. and Rice Vote Coalition have invited Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Ms. Barbara Ann Radnofsky and Mr. Scott Jameson to a candidates’ debate at Rice University on October 7, 2006 at 7:00 p.m. in Keck Hall, room 100.

I feel pretty confident that Barbara Ann will be there, and I’d expect the Libertarian dude to show up as well. Will KBH make like her fellow Republicans and duck out? Her track record so far is not encouraging.

As with my State Rep candidate interviews, I’m just about done with my Q&As with local county candidates. Today i have the last of the Fort Bend Democratic contenders, Farhan Shamsi, who is running for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3.

1. Who are you and what are you running for?

My name is Farhan Shamsi. I am running for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3 of Fort Bend County.

2. What kind of cases does this court hear?

The Justice of the Peace court is the “Peoples’ Court” as it deals with the most basic community issues. The cases heard in this court are both civil and criminal. These cases include traffic court, juvenile court (including truancy and alcohol/drug issues), small claims up to $5,000, and landlord/tenant issues, such as evictions. The administrative duties include issuing marriage licenses and performing marriages, as well as serving as the coroner by investigating deaths.

3. What are your qualifications for this job?

I have lived in the western part of the Greater Houston area for more than thirty years, and I have seen this area grow and change with time. I have been involved in community issues since my youth, and continue to work on these issues as an adult both professionally and personally.

I am the executive director of an outpatient substance abuse clinic. My career has been spent intevening in the lives of those afflicted with drug addiction, mental health ailments, and mental retardation; these experiences have led me to work with various law enforcement and criminal justice systems on issues dealing with these populations.

My professional experience with the issues facing the JP court is extensive, but I also have deep ties the community in general: I have been involved with many organizations in the community including the Parent/Teacher Association, School Board forums, and I have been asked to advise various elected officials and candidates on the community issues. With the growth of population and diversity in Fort Bend County, I feel that my unique experiences dealing with minority issues, at-risk youth, and substance abuse can be used to bring a better understanding in the community.

4. Why do you believe you would do a better job than the incumbent?

The current Justice of the Peace has chosen not to run again for this position. I want to build on the achievements she has made in the court by bring a bigger focus on youth. As the youth are the future leaders of our community, I would like to offer juveniles who stay out of trouble an incentive program by rewarding them for good behavior. Our youth need to be recognized for their good behavior and accomplishments. For those juveniles who do end up in trouble, they will get a dose of tough love. The JP court must be a sobering experience for kids, not merely an introduction to a life in and out of the criminal justice system. Along with making sure that the juveniles learn from their mistakes, I want to add a program like the award winning Teen Court that Judge Joel Clouser uses in Precinct 2.

5. Why is this race one we should care about?

Although this race is listed at the bottom of the ballot, I feel that it should be the first item to be voted on in the election. Precinct 3 is the fastest growing Precinct in Fort Bend County and it has the largest number of voters in the county. If we can make our community, Precinct 3, a safer, more secure and friendlier place to live, the whole county can benefit.

6. What else do we need to know?

The time has come for more people to get involved in the community in which they live. Developing the youth into positive role models by being good citizens is the first step in bringing family values back to our county.

Thank you, Farhan Shamsi. Here are all my previous interviews with Harris and Fort Bend countywide candidates:

Richard Garcia – Interview
Leora T. Kahn – Interview
Chuck Silverman – Interview

Bill Connolly – Interview
James Goodwille Pierre – Interview
Albert Hollan – Interview
Neeta Sane – Interview
Rudy Velasquez – Interview
Veronica Torres – Interview

The Lone Star Project sums up the career of Rep. John Carter, debate ducker par excellence.

Historically, Texas Members with leadership potential begin to distinguish themselves by their second term in office. Both Charlie Stenholm and Martin Frost were already recognized as rising stars in the House by their second terms. The same is true for Jim Turner, Max Sandlin and even “hard right” Republican ideologues like Dick Armey and Tom DeLay himself. Carter entered his second term with some promise as a new member of the Appropriations Committee, but concludes his term as an abandoned DeLay follower who has drawn attention to himself only long enough to make embarrassing public statements on issues ranging from voting rights to child predators.

Eye on Williamson has the rest. Poor John Carter.

The countdown clock for State Rep. Gene Seaman is ticking along as a constituent who is a Republican and a former supporter has filed an ethics complaint against him.

The complaints were filed Thursday by Jay Masterson, 63, a Republican who now is supporting Seaman’s Democratic challenger, Juan Garcia. She claims Seaman’s $1,000-a-month rental payments for the condo since 1999 amounted to using political contributions for personal gain and to purchase real property, in violation of the code. The roughly $500 a month he paid in condo association/homeowner association fees also violates the code, according to one of Masterson’s complaints.

Seaman’s office faxed a copy Friday of a May 4, 1999, letter from the Ethics Commission to the Caller-Times that says it is permissible for Seaman to pay rent to his wife as long as the condominium is his “wife’s separate property.”

[…]

What Masterson says she wants reviewed is whether Gene and Ellen Seaman have separate property. Masterson and lawyers contacted Friday and Monday say the condo most likely is community property – unless the Seamans can prove otherwise – because they have been married for 50 years.

In a required 2005 personal financial statement, Seaman says he is a real estate developer and owner, financial planner and insurance agent. The statement lists Ellen Seaman as a housewife.

Texas law presumes that everything owned during marriage is community property, said Ann Coover, a local lawyer, board certified in family law.

“Unless the parties involved can show evidence that the funds paying for a particular asset were a gift, inherited or owned at the time of marriage, it is presumed to be community property,” she said.

If Gene Seaman provided his wife with the funds to buy the condo, it would constitute a gift and would be viewed as community property, lawyers said.

Property also can be separated contractually after marriage, lawyers said. The contract, called a partition and exchange agreement, must be in writing, signed by both partners and notarized, lawyers said.

Monday, Seaman’s spokesman Mac McCall said there is no written property separation agreement between the Seamans. Ellen Seaman paid cash for the condo with her own “personal income and assets,” McCall said. He declined to disclose Ellen Seaman’s source of the money.

“It’s a personal matter of a private citizen,” he said.

I’m sorry, but that’s a really weak explanation for a case where the facts just don’t look too good. Remember, the Seamans also received two homestead exemptions, for which they have since paid $11K in back taxes. If they didn’t know what they were doing, their household finances are awfully disorganized. This story isn’t going away, and it’s not going to do anything for Seaman’s image in the meantime. Juan Garcia is already a great alternative, and he’ll become more appealing the longer this drags on.

Link via The Red State. Meanwhile, in other ethics news, Muse has a followup on the charges filed against State Rep. John Davis, and Juanita has a story about ARMPAC and the discount it gave itself on its conciliation agreement with the FEC. Check ’em out.

What do you do when your campaign signs identify you as a Republican in a year where that isn’t such a great thing to be? Why, you do a little ad hoc editing, of course. See? Duct tape really is the force that holds the universe together.

Now many campaign signs, including those of Ellen Cohen, don’t identify a candidate’s party. There is a version of the Wong sign that doesn’t include the Republican label at all – driving around the Rice area, I saw more with no mention of the word Republican than I did with it. What amuses me about this is that either those signs were done accidentally and then handed out anyway for whatever the reason, or the Wong campaign made a strategic change after realizing that the R wasn’t doing her any good. Whichever is the case, applying tape to the offending signs is funny. Guess Martha didn’t want to spend any of her sizeable war chest on replacements. She can always claim she’s just being fiscally conservative, I suppose.

UPDATE: At least Wong didn’t do this.

In addition to interviewing all of the Democratic candidates for State House in Harris County, I wanted to make sure I also spoke to the incumbent Reps who face Republican opposition. With today’s interview of Rep. Ana Hernandez, the incumbent in HD143, I’ve completed that task. Hernandez won a tough special election against a big field last November to fill the seat of the late Rep. Joe Moreno, for whom Hernandez had once worked. She did a nice job in the special sessions earlier this year, and is one of the growing number of bright spots for the Dems in the House.

Here’s the interview:

Link for the MP3 file is here. Rep. Hernandez also did a guest post for me earlier this month.

Here are all my previous interviews:

Gary Binderim – Interview
Glenn Melancon – Interview
Jim Henley – Interview
David Harris – Interview
Ted Ankrum – Interview
Shane Sklar – Interview 1, Interview 2
John Courage – Interview
Nick Lampson – Interview, Interview about space
Mary Beth Harrell – Interview
Bob Smither – Interview
Hank Gilbert – Interview
Joe Farias – Interview
Harriet Miller – Interview
Ellen Cohen – Interview
Diane Trautman – Interview
Rep. Scott Hochberg – Interview
Kristi Thibaut – Interview
Rep. Hubert Vo – Interview
Dot Nelson-Turnier – Interview
Sherrie Matula – Interview
Sammie Miller – Interview
Mark McDavid – Interview
Janette Sexton – Interview
Rep. Ana Hernandez – Interview

I’m sure you know about Shelley Sekula Gibbs’s “if wishes were horses” poll from a couple of weeks ago. I’ve now received word from the Nick Lampson campaign about their own poll, one that is (shall we say) a bit more reality-based. Here’s the scoop:

Vote for U.S. Congress

If the GENERAL ELECTION for U.S. Congress were held today and the candidates were: [ROTATE]

o Nick Lampson, the Democrat
o Bob Smither, the Libertarian

for whom would you vote or would you write-in another candidate? (IF WRITE-IN) Who would you write in?

LAMPSON                             43%
SMITHER                             10%
WRITE-IN (SHELLEY SEKULA GIBBS)     14%
WRITE-IN (OTHER: SPECIFY _______)    7%
(UNDECIDED)                         26%

That’s a lot of undecideds, which probably suggests there’s still a lot of people who don’t know any of the candidates. Note, however, that even if you assume Lampson has topped out, he’s still going to win. Shelley could get all of those votes, and she’d still lose. Bob Smither’s presence on the ballot makes a critical difference, as I’ve said all along. If the undecideds all represent non-votes for this race (I expect a fair amount of them will), Lampson would wind up with 58% of the actual tally, with Shelley getting 19, Smither 14, and others 9. Given that Lampson hasn’t been blanketing the airwaves yet (I assume, anyway – I’ve not heard of any TV or radio ads on his part), I’d say he has a fair amount of growth potential. A lot of this will come down to GOTV. Lampson is very well positioned for that. The question is not whether Lampson will get a majority of the actual votes cast, but if he will still have a majority after you include the undervotes. I believe he has a very good chance of doing that.

Oh, and how’s that $3 million of national money thing working out for Shelley? I quote from a CQPolitics interview with NRCC Chair Rep. Tom Reynolds:

On Texas’ 22nd District, where Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is waging a Republican write-in campaign against Democratic former Rep. Nick Lampson for the seat that former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay vacated in June:

Reynolds: “… What I’ve found – what seems to be the indication of Shelley and others – is that there’s a very keen awareness in [Houston-area] Harris County and the surrounding three counties that they know it’s a unique circumstance, there’s not a Republican on the ballot and that it would require a write-in. If it’s true that there is a keen awareness to that, it presents a good opportunity. It is a very good Republican seat. …

“We are going to watch it very closely. She’s developing a good campaign. The state [GOP] chair is involved. We’re definitely in consultation with that [campaign] to see how it evolves. … I have not written off that seat [just] because I don’t have a Republican candidate [on the ballot]. … It is something that is very much on our radar screen.”

Mmm hmm. To quote Weird Al Yankovic for a translation of Reynolds’ remarks:

The check’s in the mail (Hey!)
You’re beautiful
Don’t ever change
You know what I mean
My girl will call your girl
We’ll talk, we’ll do lunch
Or leave a message on my machine
So baby, won’t you sign
On the dotted line
Gonna make your dreams come true
The check’s in the mail
Would I lie to you?

Ahem. The poll memo is here (PDF). It doesn’t say, but I’ve been told the sample size was 400, which means the margin of error is 4.9%.

UPDATE: I stand corrected about Lampson running ads (thanks, Muse!) I still believe he will capture a decent share of those undecided voters, however.