One more week to go till the filing deadline. There’s already been a lot of activity, but there should be plenty more to come. A few highlights as we head into the last week for filing:
– An old familiar face wants back in.
Trey Martinez-Fischer
Former state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer announced Saturday that he is running for his old Texas House seat, setting up a primary battle with fellow San Antonio Democrat Diana Arévalo.
Addressing supporters in San Antonio, Fischer said he could not think of a more compelling reason to run than the election of President Donald Trump — and the forthcoming retirement of Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, a moderate Republican.
“We can hide and get out of the way, or we can stand and fight,” Fischer said. “I’m not very good at hiding, and I’m not very good at retiring.”
Fischer represented House District 116 from 2001 until he gave it up to run for Texas Senate in 2016.
TMF was a very good representative, who knew the House rulebook well and wielded it with considerable success. I don’t know much about Rep. Arevalo – it’s hard for a freshman to stand out, especially a Democratic freshman in this environment. I’ll be honest, if we could rewind the tape back a few months, I’d be pleading with TMF to run for Lite Guv. No disrespect to Mike Collier, but TMF is the opponent Dan Patrick deserves. We’ll see if the voters in HD116 want to bring him back.
– Like basically everyone, I expect Sen. Sylvia Garcia to be the next member of Congress from CD29, but some are not willing to concede.
Tahir Javed, CEO of Riceland Health Care in Winnie, late Friday released a statement saying he had officially filed papers with the Harris County Democratic Party to get into the growing Democratic primary.
“The American people are demanding change – at the federal, state and local level,” Javed, who is from Beaumont and who hosted a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in January 2016, said in a statement. “We need a real fighter in Congress, which is why I have filed to run.”
You know as much about Tahir Javed, who does not appear to have a campaign we presence yet, as I do. I’ve got the over/under for Sylvia at around 65% right now, but as they say, this is why we play the game on the field.
– There are now five candidates for Governor in the Democratic primary, according to the SOS candidate filings page. None of them a yet are named Jeffrey Payne, Andrew White, or Lupe Valdez. Of those five, one has won an election before, Cedric Davis, the former Mayor of Balch Springs; his campaign Facebook page is here. And now you know as much about Cedric Davis as I do.
– On the Republican side it’s pretty much dullsville, especially in Harris County. Other than the pissing contest in HD134, the most interesting race on that side is in HD128, where Baytown City Council Member Terry Sain is challenging first-term Rep. Briscoe Cain. Sain, whose entry in the race has been expected for months, is an old school Reagan Republican with a long record of public service, while Cain is an obsequious little twerp. You can probably tell which way my rooting interests lie, but this is something we should all care about. I don’t expect Terry Sain to vote with my interests more than a small percentage of the time, but I do expect him to take the job seriously, and to not act like an ignorant fool on the House floor. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Like I said, I expect there to be a lot more action this week. I’ll do my best to stay on top of it.