Eva Guzman

Least-surprising headline of the week

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From the Chron: “GOP donor tied to Clarence Thomas has given Texas lawmakers $19M”.

The Texas billionaire in the middle of the controversy around U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has a long history in Texas politics, donating more than $7 million to mostly GOP causes over the last three years and more than $19 million over the last 20 years.

According to federal and state financial records, Harlan Crow, a Dallas real estate magnate, has donated more than $10.9 million to federal campaign committees and $8.4 million to state campaigns in Texas including to Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan.

Just last year, Crow donated more than $100,000 to Abbott, and he has given the three-term governor more than $316,000 since 2006.

But that’s not much compared with the $2.5 million he’s given to Texans for Lawsuit Reform over the last 20 years and the $800,000 he gave to Eva Guzman for her failed campaign for Texas attorney general against incumbent Ken Paxton.

Despite all his spending, Crow told the Dallas Morning News in an exclusive interview published Monday that he doesn’t consider himself a Republican megadonor.

“I have been a donor to moderate Republican individuals running for office, as well as groups that are involved in that kind of world to support more moderate Republican stuff,” Crow said.

I mean, “rich guy gives money to Republicans in Texas” is a tale as old as time, or at least of the last 40 years or so. It would have been real news if the only toy in his box was Clarence Thomas.

Uvalde school superintendent recommends firing Arredondo

Jul 21st, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

I suspect he’ll get his wish.

Uvalde school officials will decide the fate of district police Chief Pete Arredondo during a special meeting Saturday after Superintendent Hal Harrell recommended the police chief’s firing.

The meeting falls almost two months after Arredondo was among the first law enforcement officers to arrive at the scene of Texas’ worst school shooting.

Blame for the fiercely criticized response to the massacre — during which law enforcement waited more than an hour to confront the shooter — has largely fallen on Arredondo. The district placed him on administrative leave roughly one month after the shooting.

[…]

Much of Uvalde residents’ anger over the delayed response to the shooting has been directed toward Arredondo. In a school board meeting Monday, residents chastised school officials for not already firing Arredondo. They also criticized officials for what residents saw as slow attempts to improve campus safety.

Arredondo’s actions at the scene were also criticized in a Texas House committee report released Sunday, though the report also points to the failure of other agencies to respond appropriately. Arredondo was among 376 law enforcement officers from local, state and federal agencies on the scene. The responding officers, though, lacked clear leadership, basic communications and sufficient urgency to take down the gunman, the report states.

The consensus of those interviewed by the House committee was that either Arredondo — or no one — was in charge at the scene, which several witnesses described as chaotic.

In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Arredondo said he did not think he was the incident commander on the scene. Yet according to the school district’s active-shooter response plan, authored in part by Arredondo, the district chief would “become the person in control of the efforts of all law enforcement and first responders that arrive at the scene.”

See here and here for some background. I agree that Arredondo bears a lot of responsibility for the response – it’s mind-boggling that he didn’t think he was in charge, especially without having explicitly handed over command to DPS or Border Control or whoever – and I’d vote to kick him if I were on the Uvalde school board, but he’s hardly the only incompetent here. The report was clear that DPS and the other law enforcement agencies on site were part of the chaos, and we have previous and more recent reporting on DPS’s failures. Maybe someone should suggest to Greg Abbott that he do Steve McCraw next? But then Abbott would have to admit some responsibility as well, and we know that’s not going to happen.

On a more practical level, the “I didn’t think I was in charge here” issue is something that the Lege can and should address. It may be a matter of handing the issue off to a committee or an agency – ironically, DPS might be best suited for this – and then mandating that the process and its details be drilled into every current and future cop. Because Lord knows, until we actually get serious about curbing gun violence, situations like this will come up again. And we’ll have even less of an excuse for not knowing how to handle it. Texas Public Radio has more.

Now DPS is checking on its officers that were at the Uvalde mass shooting?

Jul 19th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I have one simple question about this.

The Texas Department of Public Safety is reviewing how 91 state troopers and Rangers responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting to determine if any violated policies or laws.

The agency’s announcement Monday that it had formed an internal committee for the inquiry comes nearly two months after an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 students and two teachers in Texas’ worst school shooting — and one day after a Texas House panel report found that 376 law enforcement officers from several agencies descended on the scene in a chaotic, uncoordinated response that stretched for 73 more minutes.

The DPS committee, formed last week, will also determine “where the department can make necessary improvements for future mass casualty responses,” according to a department statement.

“No additional information will be available until the committee has completed its full review of the department’s response,” the statement said.

See here for the background. My one simple question: Did DPS not already know how many of its officers were there on the scene? That seems like a very basic fact that they should have been aware of from the beginning. What else does DPS not know about what its officers are doing? I sure hope we find out when they release their committee’s report. They will release it, right? Right?

House committee report on the Uvalde massacre

Jul 18th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

The special State House committee that was tasked with investigating the response to the Uvalde mass shooting released its report yesterday. The report identified numerous failures, in law enforcement and in the school and in other systems, though it’s clear to me that they studiously avoided mentioning one particular type of failure. I’ll get there in a minute. First, the law enforcement failures.

The 18-year-old who massacred 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde on May 24 had no experience with firearms before his rampage began. He targeted an elementary school with an active shooter policy that had been deemed adequate but also a long history of doors propped open.

No one was able to stop the gunman from carrying out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, in part because of “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making” by nearly everyone involved who was in a position of power, a new investigation into the shooting has found.

On Sunday, a Texas House committee is releasing the most exhaustive account yet of the shooter, his planning, his attack and the fumbling response he provoked.

The 77-page report, reviewed by The Texas Tribune, provides a damning portrayal of a family unable to recognize warning signs, a school district that had strayed from strict adherence to its safety plan and a police response that disregarded its own active-shooter training.

It explains how the gunman, who investigators believe had never fired a gun before May 24, was able to stockpile military-style rifles, accessories and ammunition without arousing suspicion from authorities, enter a supposedly secure school unimpeded and indiscriminately kill children and adults.

In total, 376 law enforcement officers — a force larger than the garrison that defended the Alamo — descended upon the school in a chaotic, uncoordinated scene that lasted for more than an hour. The group was devoid of clear leadership, basic communications and sufficient urgency to take down the gunman, the report says.

Notably, the investigation is the first so far to criticize the inaction of state and federal law enforcement, while other reports and public accounts by officials have placed the blame squarely on Uvalde school police Chief Pete Arredondo, for his role as incident commander, and other local police who were among the first to arrive.

The report also reveals for the first time that the overwhelming majority of responders were federal and state law enforcement: 149 were U.S. Border Patrol, and 91 were state police — whose responsibilities include responding to “mass attacks in public places.” There were 25 Uvalde police officers and 16 sheriff’s deputies. Arredondo’s school police force accounted for five of the officers on the scene. The rest of the force was made up of neighboring county law enforcement, U.S. Marshals, and federal Drug Enforcement Agency officers.

The investigators said that in the absence of a strong incident commander, another officer could have — and should have — stepped up to the task.

“These local officials were not the only ones expected to supply the leadership needed during this tragedy,” the report said. “Hundreds of responders from numerous law enforcement agencies — many of whom were better trained and better equipped than the school district police — quickly arrived on the scene.”

The other responders “could have helped to address the unfolding chaos.”

The three committee members — Rep. Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock; Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso and former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman — said they sought to create a comprehensive account the Legislature can use to craft policies aimed at preventing future massacres. The trio also sought to present an accurate narrative to the public, in contrast to several conflicting and retracted accounts provided by other officials, including the governor and state police, in the seven weeks since the tragedy that have undermined residents’ trust in the ongoing investigations.

They dedicated the document to the 21 people killed in the shooting, and first unveiled their findings during a private meeting with Uvalde residents on Sunday.

“The Committee issues this interim report now, believing the victims, their families, and the entire Uvalde community have already waited too long for answers and transparency,” the report reads.

The report is not yet public, or at least it wasn’t when I drafted this post on Sunday. The chain-of-command failure seems like one for which there ought to be an objective solution, which could be mandated by state law or recommended via a state or federal agency. I mean, we all know there are going to be more of these mass shootings, so the least we can do – the very least we the public can reasonably expect – is that law enforcement agencies have their act together and know who’s in charge when this happens. It makes sense to me that the locals start out in charge, but there ought to be some mechanism and process for either handing that off to another agency or having it taken by them if the situation warrants. I’m no expert and don’t know what the best answer may be, but any idiot can see that what went down in Uvalde was absolutely unacceptable and must not be allowed to happen again.

The report also looked at the shooter, the ways he was failed as a child by those around him, and the warning signs he was giving off before the murders.

A year before the Uvalde school massacre, the gunman had already earned the nickname “school shooter” — a running joke among those he played online games with. He had also started wearing all black and making over-the-top threats, especially toward women, who he terrorized with graphic descriptions of violence and rape.

[…]

Salvador Ramos — who the committee is only referring to as “the attacker” so as to deny him the notoriety and fame he desired — also shot and wounded his grandmother, Celia Gonzales, before storming the school.

He was born in Fargo, North Dakota but moved to Uvalde as a child with his sister and mother, who struggled with a long history of drug use. A former girlfriend interviewed by the FBI said she believed the shooter had been sexually assaulted at an early age by one of the mother’s boyfriends but that she didn’t believe him.

Relatives described him as someone shy and quiet who was reluctant to interact with others because he had a speech impediment. When he started school, his pre-K teacher described him as a “wonderful student,” always ready to learn and with a positive attitude.

Then, something changed. He started falling behind in school but never received special education services, despite being identified as “at-risk” and having someone request speech therapy for him, according to the report, citing school records.

Family and friends told the committee he was bullied throughout the fourth grade over his stutter, short haircut and clothing. He often wore the same clothing day after day. One time, a girl tied his shoelaces together causing him to fall on his face, a cousin said.

Beginning in 2018, he was recording more than 100 absences a year, along with failing grades. But the report authors said it was unclear whether a school resource officer ever visited his home. By 2021, when he was 17 years old, he had only completed ninth grade, the report’s authors wrote.

When students started to return to school following the pandemic, he dropped out. Instead of trying to fit in, as he had done in the past, he grew more isolated and retreated to the online world. Uvalde High School officials involuntarily withdrew him on October 28, citing “poor academic performance and lack of attendance.”

[…]

Online, the report authors said, he started to show an interest in gore and violent sex, sometimes sharing videos and images of suicides and beheadings. He became enraged and threatened others, especially female players, when he lost games.

Privately, he wrote about his challenges connecting with others or feeling empathy for them, saying he was “not human.” His search history, the authors of the report wrote, suggest he was wondering whether he was a sociopath. His internet searches led to him receiving an email about obtaining psychological treatment for the condition.

Attacking women became a pattern. He was also fired from his job at a Whataburger after a month for threatening a female coworker. And later he was let go of his job at Wendy’s.

Despite losing his jobs, living at home allowed him to save money. By the end of 2021, when clues of his plans first surfaced, he ordered rifle slings, a red dot sight and shin guards, as well as a body armor carrier he wore the day of the Robb Elementary massacre. But because he was still 17 at the time, he wasn’t legally allowed to buy the weapons and at least two people he asked refused.

He started becoming fascinated with school shootings and increasingly seeking notoriety and fame on social media, the report said.

[…]

He confided in an older cousin who was also staying with their grandmother that he didn’t want to live anymore. But the cousin told authorities she thought she’d gotten through to him after a lengthy “heart-to-heart.”

Instead, Ramos began to buy more firearm accessories beginning in February, including 60 30-round magazines. As soon as he turned 18, on May 16, he started buying guns and ammunition. In the end he bought two AR-15-style rifles and thousands of rounds. In total, he spent more than $6,000, the committee found.

He had no criminal history nor had he ever been arrested. There was nothing in his background that kept him from owning the weapons. And while multiple gun sales within a short period of time are reported to the ATF, the committee report authors point out that the law only requires purchase of handguns to be reported to the local sheriff.

“Here, the information about the attacker’s gun purchases remained in federal hands,” they wrote.

Online, the shooter started to reference a timeline, foreshadowing his plans.

Emphasis mine. To me, the single biggest failure is that this guy was able to buy all this stuff, without which there could have been no massacre. Why should any minor be able to buy the paraphernalia he bought, and why should anyone at any age be able to buy AR-15s with thousands of rounds of ammunition? I’m not making a constitutional argument here, I’m making a moral one. I say we’d be living in a healthier and safer society right now if no one outside the military had access to such weaponry.

I don’t expect such a statement to be in a report like this, but the much milder suggestion that maybe limiting the sale of most guns and gun accessories to people over the age of 21 is an idea worth exploring would have been appropriate. The longer we refuse to take any kind of proactive steps to reduce mass shootings, the more extreme and extensive the reactive steps we will be forced to take to try to mitigate them. We can fixate all we want on the laxness of door-locking at Robb Elementary, or we can try to make it harder for people to stockpile weapons in sufficient quantities as to intimidate police departments.

Anyway. A brief summary of the highlights from the report is here. The House committee can write a report and make recommendations, but only the Governor can call a special session to pass laws that those recommendations suggest. Don’t expect much of a response from Greg Abbott et al.

UPDATE: Here’s one response: A Uvalde police lieutenant who led the department the day it was part of the fiercely criticized response to the worst school shooting in Texas history has been placed on administrative leave, according to Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin. We’ll see if DPS or any other agency sees similar fallout.

Uvalde video to be released

Jul 13th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

This is the right thing to do.

Rep. Dustin Burrows

The Texas House committee investigating the Uvalde school shooting plans to release video footage of the incident on Sunday, Rep. Dustin Burrows said.

Burrows, a Lubbock Republican and the committee’s chairman, said Tuesday that “we feel strongly that members of the Uvalde community should have the opportunity to see the video and hear from us before they are made public.”

Burrows will lead a private briefing for victims’ families in Uvalde on Sunday morning, allowing them to see the hallway video from a Robb Elementary School surveillance camera and discuss the committee’s preliminary report.

In the afternoon, the committee will release the video and report to the public and answer questions from reporters. It is making the video footage public over the objection of the Uvalde County district attorney, who had instructed the Department of Public Safety not to provide the video to the committee.

Since last month, the three-person committee, which also includes El Paso Democrat Joe Moody and former Republican state Supreme Court justice Eva Guzman, have interviewed more than a dozen witnesses behind closed doors including law enforcement and school workers.

Their report will be the second investigation into the law enforcement response of the shooting to be made public. Last week, the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, located at Texas State University in San Marcos, released its comprehensive account of police tactics during the shooting.

The Texas Tribune in June reviewed the hallway surveillance video, the only known footage capturing the entirety of the 77-minute shootout. It depicts police arriving to the scene quickly and approaching two classrooms where the gunman, an 18-year-old Uvalde resident, was shooting students and teachers. The officers retreat after being fired on and do not return for more than an hour, when several breach one of the classrooms and kill the gunman.

See here and here for some background. We know what we know now because of that hallway surveillance video, which basically destroyed the lie that we had initially been told about a brave and forceful law enforcement response. This is now DPS’ video that we’ll be getting, which they have said they’re willing to provide as long as the Uvalde County DA approves. I look forward to seeing what it will show us. The Chron has more.

UPDATE: We didn’t have to wait until the weekend to get a preview of this video. Just reading the opening paragraphs is disturbing, so click with extreme caution. There is still more to come.

If committees are all we’re going to get, then let’s get something from the committees

Jun 5th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Not too much to ask, I hope.

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan on Friday announced the creation of a legislative committee to investigate the Uvalde shooting.

“The fact we still do not have an accurate picture of what exactly happened in Uvalde is an outrage,” the Beaumont Republican said in a statement announcing the committee. “Every day, we receive new information that conflicts with previous reports, making it not only difficult for authorities to figure out next steps, but for the grieving families of the victims to receive closure. I established this investigative committee for the dedicated purpose of gathering as much information and evidence as possible to help inform the House’s response to this tragedy and deliver desperately needed answers to the people of Uvalde and the State of Texas.”

The three-person investigative committee will have subpoena power for its investigation and will be led by state Rep. Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican who is an attorney. El Paso Democrat Joe Moody, a former prosecutor, will serve as the committee’s vice chair. Former Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman, who recently lost a bid to become the Republican nominee for attorney general, will also be a member of the panel.

Phelan said Burrows, Moody and Guzman have “decades of experience in civil and criminal litigation matters” that make them well-equipped to conduct the committee’s investigations.

The speaker’s latest announcement comes days after he voiced his support for ending the “dead suspect loophole” in Texas public records laws, which could impede the public’s ability to get answers about the police response to the shooting. Law enforcement agencies often use a statute in the law to shield from public release records related to incidents that don’t lead to a conviction, including in cases in which the suspect dies before a chance to prosecute.

“It’s time we pass legislation to end the dead suspect loophole for good in 2023,” he said on social media on Wednesday.

Better than its Senate counterpart, which is admittedly a low bar. I’d not heard of the “dead suspect loophole” before. I’m fine with closing it, but please don’t tell me it’s going to promote gun safety or reduce gun violence in any way. It’s worth doing on its own merits, and it would mean the Lege didn’t do absolutely nothing. It’s also an extremely small step to take, and we should not be close to satisfied with it.

I do hope this committee uses its subpoena powers, because good Lord there are so many things that still need to be explained.

The Uvalde school district police chief who led the response to last week’s shooting and made the decision to wait for reinforcements while the gunman and survivors were still in the building did not have a police radio when he first arrived on campus, possibly missing reports about the 911 calls coming from inside, according to news reports.

Pete Arredondo, police chief for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, instead used a cellphone to call a police landline to tell officers about the shooter, The New York Times reported Friday. Arredondo told his department that the gunman had an AR-15 but was contained, the Times reported, and to send backup and surround Robb Elementary School.

Arredondo’s decision-making has been widely criticized after it took more than an hour for law enforcement to breach the classroom where the gunman was holed up. Parents begged the dozens of officers outside the school to take action and tried to enter the school themselves. Some were physically restrained.

It was Arredondo who decided to not immediately confront the gunman, who killed 19 children and two teachers and injured 17 others, state law enforcement officials have said. Instead, Arredondo chose to wait for backup and equipment and to treat the gunman as a “barricaded suspect” rather than an active shooter, Steve McCraw, head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said last week.

Meanwhile, 911 calls from students trapped inside the classroom with the gunman were pouring in to local police dispatchers — including a student begging for police officers to show up. Those calls were routed to the Uvalde Police Department, which operates independently from the school district’s police force, Roland Gutierrez, the state senator who represents Uvalde, said Thursday.

Arredondo presumably did not know about the multiple 911 calls while he was on the scene. McCraw said Arredondo believed no children were in danger, possibly because he did not know any survived inside the classroom.

“Unless there was someone relaying him info, there was no way for him to know there were 911 calls coming from inside that room,” Gutierrez told TV news station WOAI on Friday.

Unbelievable, but at this point unsurprising. The problems go way deeper than one incompetent police chief, and while he deserves a lot of blame and needs to be made to answer a bunch of questions, scapegoating him doesn’t get us anywhere. Just again, don’t ever talk to me about “good guys with guns”. It was idiotic before, and it’s insulting now. Daily Kos has more.

2022 primary results: Statewide

Mar 2nd, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

That didn’t take long:

.
JUST IN: Beto O’Rourke wins Texas Democratic primary for governor, @NBCNews projects. http://nbcnews.to/36VOfa3

— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) 8:01 PM – 1 March 2022

Literally one minute after polls would have closed in El Paso. You can’t report any earlier than that. With the first very early batch of results posted on the SOS website, Beto was at 92.82% of the vote, so even though maybe ten percent of the votes had been counted, this seems like a pretty safe call.

Greg Abbott was cruising as well, with just under 70% in very early returns. The Trib says his race was called at the same time; I didn’t see anything on Twitter, but you know how that can go. At least one of his opponents was preparing to concede right out of the gate. Both Huffines and West were in the 10-12% range early on, which makes their attention-to-performance ratio pretty much a “division by zero” error.

Susan Hays was headed for a decisive win for Ag Commissioner on the Dem side, starting out with about 85% of the vote. All of the other Dem statewides look like they’re headed for runoffs. Mike Collier, Rochelle Garza, and Janet Dudding were the clear early leaders for Lite Guv, AG, and Comptroller. The Land Commissioner race was more jumbled, with Sandragrace Martinez and Jay Kleberg the initial frontrunners.

On the Republican side, Dan Patrick and Glenn Hegar easily turned away nominal opposition, while the crook Sid Miller was close to 60% against more substantial opposition. Ken Paxton and Wayne Christian were leading for AG and Railroad Commissioner, but both were in the low-to-mid 40s early on. Dawn Buckingham was at about 45% with three opponents who might be the one to face her in a runoff in the 12-15 percent range. Two Supreme Court incumbents, Evan Young (appointed to replace Eva Guzman) and Scott Walker, were in the mid-to-upper 50s against single opponents.

I found the Trib‘s results page to be faster than the SOS, and it had both Dems and GOP on one page. The only other matter of interest here for now is total turnout. I’m not going to get a handle on that before I go to bed, so let’s put that in the to-be-followed-up file.

Republican incumbents are probably going to win their primaries

Feb 15th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Take all primary polls with a grain of salt because polling in primaries is especially tricky. That said, here’s the most recent UT/Texas Tribune polling on the primaries, which also includes a general election gubernatorial matchup.

Republican incumbents in statewide office have significant leads in their upcoming primary races enroute to reelection, and Democrats are still struggling to boost public recognition of their candidates beyond the top of the ticket, according to a poll released Monday by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Politics Project.

The poll of 1,200 registered voters illustrates the significant advantage that Republican incumbents hold within their party after leaning further to the right during the state legislative sessions last year. Additionally, the poll found that surveyed voters were divided on GOP-touted issues like removing books from public school libraries, parental influence in education and restrictive laws on abortion.

Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton are head and shoulders above their competition in the Republican primaries, according to the responses from the 41% of surveyed voters who said they would vote in the Republican primary. Paxton, who is the most likely of the three to be pulled into a runoff, faces the most significant competition in his race.

On the Democratic side, former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was the choice for governor of 93% of the polled voters who said they would vote in the Democratic primary. But below O’Rourke on the ticket, a majority of voters said they had not thought enough about the down-ballot Democratic primaries to make an immediate choice between candidates, a sign that the party still has significant work to do to introduce its candidates to voters and disrupt the longtime Republican hold on the state.

In a hypothetical matchup right now between O’Rourke and Abbott — the leading primary candidates in their respective parties — the poll found that Abbott would win the race for the governor’s mansion 47%-37%. The 10-point predicted victory nearly matches the result of a 9-point win for Abbott when the same question was asked in a UT/Texas Tribune poll from November.

Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project at UT, said that it’s unlikely that either Abbott or O’Rourke will be able to mobilize partisans on the other side to vote for them in the current political environment. But given recent election results in Texas that have seen Democrats lose by margins smaller than 10 points, Blank said there is still potential for a shift in public opinion — either toward Abbott and O’Rourke — over the next couple of months leading into the general election.

“Looking at previous election cycles and knowing about O’Rourke’s ability to fundraise and generate earned media, I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that he’s not likely to chip away at that 10-point deficit,” Blank said. “The question just becomes: How much can he chip away at it?”

O’Rourke has an overwhelming lead in the Democratic primary with the support of 93% of polled voters. No other candidate received more than 2%.

Abbott is up against two challengers from his right — former state Sen. Don Huffines and former Texas Republican Party Chair Allen West. In the poll, Abbott received the support of 60% of the respondents who said they’ll participate in the Republican primary, while West and Huffines received 15% and 14%, respectively.

[…]

Forty-seven percent of likely voters said they would pick Paxton, 21% picked Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, 16% picked former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman and 15% picked U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler. The hotly contested battle has spotlighted both ethics and commitment to conservatism, with many of the challengers criticizing Paxton’s legal expertise in their bid to become the state government’s top lawyer.

Blank said that while Paxton has a slimmer poll lead than Abbott or Patrick, the conservative base that he has cultivated during his time in office has made him popular among the Republican primary electorate, which tends to lean further to the right than the broader conservative electorate.

“The fact that, despite all the troubles [Paxton is] facing legally and the presence of three high-quality challengers, he still finds himself close to the 50% threshold is a testament to his strength amongst the Republican primary electorate,” Blank said. “Bush and Guzman are explicitly in the race because of concerns about Paxton’s electability in the general election should he face further legal troubles. They see Paxton as wounded.”

Dan Patrick got 82% of the vote in the poll for the Republican Lt. Governor primary, against opponents I’m pretty sure you can’t name without looking them up – I know I can’t. On the Democratic side, Mike Collier and Rochelle Garza led for Lt. Governor and AG, respectively, but both totals include a significant number of people whose initial response was that they didn’t think they knew enough to say. Like I said, take it with a grain of salt.

The poll data is here, and it has some questions about school library books, abortion, and voting access that add to the pile of data that says recent laws are farther to the right than the electorate at large, but as long as Republicans keep winning statewide there’s no reason to think that will change. As for the GOP primaries, I think Paxton may slip by without a runoff, but even if he doesn’t I’d expect him to win in overtime. And if there’s a higher power out there, he’ll be hearing from the FBI shortly thereafter. That’s my birthday wish, anyway.

Endorsement watch: Almost all of the big ones

Feb 14th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Sunday Chron was full of endorsements, which given the timing and the edition is what you’d expect. Most of them are not particularly remarkable, and I’m not going to spend any time on their recommendations for Beto and Mike Collier on the Democratic side, or Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, or Eva Guzman on the Republican side. Everyone except Collier is obvious, and Collier is both a good choice and the familiar one. Read them as you see fit, but I don’t expect you’ll take much away from them.

There were some other races with more interest, starting with the CD38 primary in which they tapped Duncan Klussman.

Duncan Klussman

Two years ago, Diana Martinez Alexander emerged as top vote-getter in a raucous six-member Democratic primary for a seat on the Harris County Commissioners Court. Now she’s asking party voters to entrust her with their hopes for picking up a seat in Congress, representing the new district Texas lawmakers created following the 2020 Census.

Alexander’s command of the issues facing the next Congress impressed us. So did her background as a teacher in HISD and fighter for causes near to the hearts of Democratic primary voters, as when she told us she’d make voting rights a top priority. “We have to make some progress in protecting our voting rights,” she said. “So that would be the number one priority, because we can’t have anything else if we don’t have a right to vote.”

But we believe it’s another candidate — former Spring Branch ISD superintendent Duncan Klussmann — who will give Democrats the best chance of winning in the fall.

When Texas lawmakers drew the new 38th Congressional District last year, they did so intending to give a Republican candidate the advantage, and the GOP primary field includes well-known and well-financed contenders. Democrats will need their strongest candidate to compete. Despite Alexander’s impressive showing in the March 3, 2020 primary, she lost the subsequent runoff to Michael Moore.

We believe Democrats stand the best chance in November with Klussmann, 58, on the ticket. His priorities are kitchen-table issues all voters worry about. He’d stress getting the supply chain moving, ensuring the Houston area gets federal support for flood mitigation and tackling rising inflation. “Some of us who were around in the 1970s remember when, when my parents were paying 12 percent, 14 percent interest on their mortgages,” he told us. “So we know how that can impact people’s lives.”

Coupled with his experience as superintendent for 18 years, Klussmann’s priorities could help him build broad consensus, something there is far too little of in Congress these days. But he knows fighting for the home team is important, too. He said he’d work to expand Medicaid for Texas and push universal pre-K.

My interview with Duncan Klussman is here and with Diana Martinez Alexander is here; as noted before, Centrell Reed declined the opportunity to be interviewed. Klussman is fine, well-qualified and knowledgeable, and can speak to the experience of being a former Republican, which can certainly be an asset. Lord knows, we’re going to need more people like that. If this election were in 1996, or even 2006, he’d be the strongest candidate on paper. I don’t know how much of an advantage his profile is now, given the shrinking number of crossover voters and potential for some Dem voters to be less enamored with that kind of centrism. I know and trust Diana Alexander and would be inclined to vote for her if I lived in CD38, but you have good options however you look at it.

One race I didn’t have a chance to get to was the SBOE4 race, which is an open seat as incumbent Lawrence Allen is running for HD26. The primary winner will be elected in November, and the Chron recommends Staci Childs.

Staci Childs

Voters have five options in the Democratic primary for the District 4 seat, but two candidates stood out to us as especially impressive.

Marvin Johnson, a former high school math teacher and chemical engineer who is a lecturer at North American University in Houston, had good ideas for how to improve schools, but he struggled with the narrow scope of authority granted to the state school board.

“What I see right now is not working,” he told us, adding that he was “disappointed” to learn how little say the SBOE has over how schools operate when he first filed to run. He’ll try to convince lawmakers and others to join his call to expand its responsibilities, should he be elected.

We’d rather see Democrats choose a candidate who promises to work full-time to improve school curriculum. We believe Staci Childs, a former teacher in Georgia, is that candidate. Though now a practicing attorney, she’s the founder of an education-related nonprofit called Girl Talk University.

We especially liked her ideas about how Texas’ use of TEKS standards — short for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills — is failing some kids and their schools. Often, she said, all that stands between a student and knowing what’s required is a specific gap in their knowledge left unfilled from a previous grade. A quick effort to identify and bridge that gap can quickly allow them to come up to grade level and pass, without the stigma of being held back.

“I don’t want to say remedial, because that has a negative connotation,” Childs told us. “But we need a serious plan to address the TEKS, since … they do not address these learning gaps.”

I will come back to this race for the very likely runoff, as there are five candidates.

Finally, two judicial endorsements. One is for a challenger, Kim McTorry.

Kim McTorrey

Judge Greg Glass has decades of experience as a criminal lawyer in Harris County, but he’s fallen short of expectations on the 208th Criminal District Court bench. We recommend voters give his challenger, Kimberly McTorry, a defense attorney and former prosecutor, a chance to win the seat in the general election.

While we recognize how difficult bond decisions can be for judges, particularly when the right to bail is enshrined in the Texas Constitution, in the case of Deon Ledet, a twice-convicted ex-felon, it is clear Glass made an egregious mistake.

Prosecutors initially sought to have Ledet held without bail even though he hadn’t been charged with a capital crime, arguing he’d twice previously been convicted of a felony. A magistrate judge set bail at $40,000 initially; Glass subsequently agreed to a request from Ledet’s lawyers to reduce his bail to $20,000. Ledet immediately violated the terms of his pre-trial release, and when two Houston police officers showed up at Ledet’s home to serve an arrest warrant, he allegedly shot and killed Officer William Jeffrey.

Glass, 73, told the editorial board his decision to reduce Ledet’s bond was a mistake. “I really feel sorry for Officer Jeffrey’s family, it’s a horrible thing what happened,” Glass said. “If I could change it, I would.”

[…]

McTorry, 34, would bring a balanced perspective to the courtroom, having practiced on both sides of the docket. While she has only recently begun handling second-degree felonies as a defense attorney, we believe her trial experience as a Harris County prosecutor, where she handled thousands of felony and misdemeanor cases, makes up for that relative lack of experience.

“I believe in restorative justice, I believe in criminal justice reform, but I also believe that a judge should be equally as compassionate about the victims of crimes as they are about those who are accused of crimes,” McTorry told us.

My Q&A with Judge Glass is here. I have one in the queue for McTorry that will run tomorrow.

The Chron also went with an incumbent, Judge Frank Aguilar in the 228th Criminal District Court.

There are those who believe Judge Frank Aguilar of the 228th District Court in Harris County is too quick to side with prosecutors’ arguments in court. But in a county whose criminal court judiciary turned over en masse four years ago, and where concerns about rising crime and lax bond decisions are widespread, we aren’t persuaded that Democrats would be wise to part company with a judge in their party with a tough approach to crime. Whether Aguilar wins or his opponent criminal defense lawyer Sam Milledge II does, the party’s nominee can expect that question of how judges handle bond in violent cases to be central to the November general election.

Those considerations aside, however, we believe Democrats should vote for Aguilar, 64, because he’s spent his first term on the bench learning to be a better judge — training the voters have paid for. His docket clearance rate has been 99 percent for cases in the previous 90 days, about average for all judges, and 86 percent for the previous year, a little better than average. He has about 10 percent fewer cases pending than average.

My Q&A with Aguilar’s opponent Sam Milledge is here; I never got a response from Judge Aguilar. I find this endorsement a bit amusing, since they considered Aguilar the poster boy for why electing judges is bad, a sentiment they extended to after the election. Maybe all that gnashing of teeth was a bit over the top, eh? I know they have an all new crew doing these screenings now, but it still raises my eyebrows a bit that they didn’t come close to acknowledging their previous reservations about the incumbent.

So, as of the start of early voting, the Chron has managed to do nearly all of the endorsements they set their sights on. I haven’t tracked the Republican side closely, but on the Dem side the main omissions I see are Attorney General and five Criminal District Courts. I know they’re not doing county courts and JP races, I’m not sure if they’re doing civil/family/juvenile district court – if they are, add all of those to the tab. I’ve got judicial Q&As queued up through Friday; I don’t expect to receive any more responses at this point, but if I do I’ll add them in. Now go out there and vote.

We’ll probably never know who Ken Paxton’s big campaign donors are

Jan 29th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

He has no interest in telling us, and there’s basically no mechanism to make him.

Best mugshot ever

Attorney General Ken Paxton recently announced a hefty $2.8 million campaign haul, showing the competition he can still raise big bucks while under FBI scrutiny.

But where most of the money came from is a mystery.

Paxton has yet to name all his campaign donors, despite a deadline last week that required disclosure.

Among the missing are those who paid up to $50,000 to rub elbows with Paxton and former President Donald Trump at a fundraiser in December. Entry to the private reception, held at Trump’s swanky Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, started at $1,000.

Paxton’s campaign blamed technical issues for the delay and promised to file an update once fixed. But the campaign has not said when and a spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Lax state ethics laws give Paxton little incentive to move quickly, open government advocates said. The fine for turning in his campaign finance report late is a flat $500, no matter whether it is tardy by a day or a month.

“Texas has the weakest, most corruption-prone campaign finance system in the country,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause Texas. “It is striking that our top law enforcement official can’t manage to meet our extremely low disclosure requirements.”

All statewide candidates had to file reports by midnight Jan. 18 that detailed their fundraising and spending in the second half of 2021. The accounts offer a glimpse at campaigns’ financial health heading into the final stretch before the March 1 primary.

Three Republicans are vying to oust Paxton in what many see as the marquee GOP primary race. Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, former state Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman and U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert all posted seven-figure fundraising hauls last week.

Paxton did too. But his report came a day late and named the donors who gave just $652,000 of his $2.77 million total. Details dropped off for contributions made after mid-October.

The report is notable because Paxton’s fundraising was dwindling in late 2020 after several top staffers accused him of abusing the office to help a campaign donor and the FBI began investigating. Paxton has denied wrongdoing, but his GOP challengers say the scandal makes Paxton unfit for office and leaves the post vulnerable to Democratic flip.

Paxton’s fundraising fortunes seem to have shifted last summer when Trump endorsed his bid for a third term as attorney general. The fundraiser at Trump’s club on Dec. 9 reportedly netted Paxton’s campaign a whopping $750,000 – more than he reported raising in the months of July, August and September combined.

Those donors should be disclosed in Paxton’s campaign finance report. Only people who write checks or give cash worth less than about $90 don’t have to be named.

Staff for the Texas Ethics Commission, which oversees campaign finance reporting, have been in touch with Paxton’s campaign, general counsel J.R. Johnson said in a statement. But Johnson said he is “unaware of any planned date for an updated filing.”

Not really much to add here. Paxton doesn’t care about not following the rules, he knows there’s nothing anyone can do to make him follow the rules or enforce any consequences, and he figures that basically no one will care. He’s shown us who he is at every opportunity, and then goes looking for more. John Coby has more.

Joy Diaz

Nov 10th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

A bit of “potential candidate” news is tucked into this story about the current state of the Democratic statewide slate.

Joy Diaz

If Democrats had a mantra, it would probably be something like “diversity and inclusion.”

So it’s kind of strange that since jockeying in Texas began for positions on the party’s 2022 statewide ballot, nearly all of the focus has been on white men. You might argue that there’s some diversity within that group: One of the white guys is in his late 40s, one is in his late 50s, and two recently crossed into their 60s.

For the record, we’re talking about Beto O’Rourke, who’s 49 and expected to someday officially announce he’s running for governor; 59-year-old Joe Jaworski, a former mayor of Galveston who’s running for attorney general; and the two 60-year-olds, Mike Collier, who wants a rematch with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Matthew Dowd, the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat who also wants to take on Patrick.

[…]

But a more diverse statewide field appears to be shaping up on the Democratic side. On Monday, Brownsville lawyer Rochelle Garza dropped plans to seek an open South Texas congressional seat that was redrawn to give Republicans an edge and announced she was joining the race for attorney general. Dallas civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt, who is Black, has been running a low-key race for AG since July. Merritt has not been chasing headlines, but he has assembled a somewhat impressive list of small donors to his campaign.

And on Wednesday, a newcomer teased out vague plans about entering the political arena. Broadcast journalist Joy Diaz, who since 2005 has covered politics and public policy for Austin’s public radio station, said she could no longer mask her biases while “covering the issues of race and inequality.”

In a story posted on her station’s website, Diaz said she plans to run for office. She didn’t say which office, but a handful of Democratic operatives said she’s been putting out feelers for a possible run for governor.

If that holds, it would pit her against O’Rourke — assuming he runs — and certainly test his strength both among Hispanic Democrats and across the party’s base. In the 2018 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, before he transformed into the money-raising machine he would become in the general election contest against Ted Cruz, O’Rourke vastly underperformed in several heavily Hispanic border counties against little-known opponent Sema Hernandez.

Statewide, O’Rourke’s margin of victory in the primary was a bit better than 60-40, which might be considered modest for someone who at the time was a three-term congressman running against a political novice.

Here’s the story. Hard to say much more until such time as she gets more specific, but if she does run for something then I welcome her presence. I will also welcome Beto’s presence when he finally makes it official.

I’d like to address the last two paragraphs as well, since Beto’s performance in the 2018 primary has been a regular talking point even though he did just fine in all those counties in the general election when it really counted. Did you know that in the 2018 Republican primary, George P. Bush and Sid Miller, both incumbents running for re-election, did worse than Beto in their own primaries? Miller got 55.65% against two no-name candidates (well, okay, one was Internet legend Jim Hogan, the 2014 Democratic nominee for Ag Commissioner), while Bush got 58.22% against three candidates, two no-names and former Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson. Beto got 61.81% in a three-way race that included Sema Hernandez. That was his first statewide run, while again those guys were incumbents. Somehow, that never gets mentioned, possibly because the “Anglo Dem underperformed against a no-name Hispanic in South Texas” angle is always sexy.

Also, since this story also mentions a couple of non-Anglo Republicans running for Attorney General (P Bush and Eva Guzman) and Ag Commissioner (James White), I’ll note that if you go farther down the Dem ticket there’s more diversity as well. Austin attorney and community organizer Jinny Suh announced her candidacy for Land Commissioner back in September. We’re still a few days out from the start of filing season, and I fully expect there will be plenty more candidates that we’re not currently talking about to make themselves known.

The Republican AG primary just got bigger

Sep 17th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The more, the more miserable.

Rep. Matt Krause

Attorney General Ken Paxton just got another Republican primary challenger, but this time it is someone who has been close to him for years: state Rep. Matt Krause.

The Fort Worth lawmaker and founding member of the House Freedom Caucus says he is running as the “faithful conservative fighter,” hoping to bring a similar conservative ideology to the position that Paxton is known for — but without the legal troubles that have dogged him for most of his time in office.

“I think Texas needs — and wants — an attorney general who can give his or her full focus to the job,” Krause said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

[…]

Krause is the third serious primary opponent to announce against Paxton. The field already includes Land Commissioner George P. Bush and Eva Guzman, the former justice on the Texas Supreme Court.

Krause said he is “not sure either one of them could win a primary.”

But the most remarkable aspect of his candidacy may be that unlike Bush and Guzman, Krause has been a friend of Paxton and political ally. They served in the Legislature together from 2013-15, and Krause endorsed Paxton early in the 2014 primary for attorney general.

Whatever. Krause is the most Paxton-like of the other candidates, but as a State Rep he will have the least name recognition among them, and if you don’t think that matters in a statewide primary, you haven’t been paying attention to recent primaries. Krause doesn’t have much money – the Trib story says he had about $100K on hand in his July filing – and that’s the fastest route to getting voters to know who you are. He’s giving up a seat he won by nine points in 2020 – it was eight points in 2018, and 20 points in 2020, before Tarrant County took its big step towards Democrats – which makes me wonder if he’s not confident about his future post-redistricting. He may also just think he’s the only one that can beat Paxton, and that in turn may be a reflection of the belief that Paxton is a weak link for the Republicans.

Along those lines, and coincidentally just before Krause’s announcement, the Chron profiles the two Dems who seek to oust Paxton, or whoever does that in the Republican primary.

Two candidates are so far vying for the Democratic nomination: Joe Jaworski, 59, a mediator and former Galveston mayor, and Lee Merritt, 38, a nationally recognized civil rights attorney.

Both of the Democrats have emphasized the need to bring integrity back to the attorney general’s office. It’s a line of attack that Paxton’s Republicans challengers are putting front and center, as well.

“Of course, I was saying that before George Bush was, but I welcome his perspective,” Jaworski said. “I mean, of all offices, for Christ’s sake, the attorney general’s office needs to be above reproach.”

[…]

If elected, Jaworski said he plans to push for policies that increase voter access to the polls, support the Affordable Care Act, expand Medicaid and legalize cannabis. Jaworski, like Merritt, says the attorney general’s office is wasting tax dollars on investigating rare voter fraud cases.

“We don’t have a voter fraud problem; we have a Ken Paxton problem,” he said. “He is using this as an ideological pivot for his base and to justify whatever few prosecutions he can muster.” Jaworski said Paxton should instead be doing more to address gun violence, adding “people are actually dying in those instances.”

Both Merritt and Jaworski have said they would create a civil rights division within the office.

Merritt, though he entered the race this summer, almost a full year later than Jaworski, has wasted no time fundraising. In the last reporting period that spanned July 7 to Aug. 6, Merritt raised more than $285,000, more than any Republican in the race, including Paxton.

Over the same period, Jaworski raised about $30,000, while Bush raised about $158,000 and Guzman raised $193,000. Paxton raised about $39,000, but the incumbent maintained the most cash-on-hand by millions at last count.

Merritt rose to prominence in recent years for taking on high-profile police accountability cases and representing families of Black Americans killed by police, including George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Atatiana Jefferson and Botham Jean. If elected, he would be the state’s first Black attorney general.

In 2017, online magazine The Root named Merritt the eighth-most-influential African-American between ages 18 and 45 in the U.S, three spots ahead of Beyoncé.

Having worked on criminal justice reform issues with attorneys general in other states, even Republicans such as Chris Carr of Georgia, Merritt said he could see a stark contrast between the work they were doing and what little Paxton has done.

For instance, Carr in May signed a law repealing the “citizen’s arrest” that was used as a defense in the fatal shooting of Arbery. Meanwhile, Merritt said, he sees Paxton’s office regularly allowing law enforcement to keep video evidence of police abuse of force outside of public view.

“It was that frustration of: The most basic responsibility of the attorney general is to uphold the constitution and protect life, liberty and property,” he said about his decision to jump in the race. “And we have an attorney general who has been completely asleep at the wheel, and people are dying.”

There’s more in the story about Jaworski, but he’s familiar to me, so I included more about Merritt. Both would be a vast improvement, and not just over Paxton. Who I still think is the favorite to emerge on the GOP side, almost certainly in a runoff. We’ll see what the next campaign finance reports look like.

P Bush slightly outraises Paxton

Jul 19th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Meh.

Land Commissioner George P. Bush kicked off his attorney general campaign by outraising the incumbent, fellow Republican Ken Paxton, and another primary challenger, former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman. But Paxton has more money saved up for the battle than both of his opponents.

According to campaign finance reports released Friday, Bush raised $2.3 million over the last 10 days of June, while Paxton took in $1.8 million and Guzman collected $1.1 million. The campaigns had announced those figures earlier in the week, making clear Bush would be the fundraising leader for the period.

The filings that came out Friday, though, showed Paxton with a clear cash-on-hand advantage — $6.8 million in reserves. Bush reported $2.7 million in cash on hand, while Guzman disclosed $611,000.

[…]

In the GOP primary for attorney general, Paxton’s top donors included the Republican Attorneys General Association and Midland oilman Douglas Scharbauer. Each donated $250,000.

Bush got some of his biggest contributions in installments of $100,000 each from Dallas oil mogul Trevor Rees-Jones, Woodlands lawyer Arnulfo Eduardo Treviño Garza and H.H. ‘Tripp’ Wommack Ill, the CEO of a Midland oilfield services company.

Guzman’s donor list was led by Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the tort reform group that backed her quickly after she launched her bid. She got $200,000 from TLR, as well as $100,000 from its founder, Dick Weekley.

On the Democratic side of the race, the candidates include Joe Jaworski, a Galveston lawyer and former mayor of the city, and Lee Merritt, the well-known civil rights attorney from North Texas.

Jaworski raised $452,000 during the first half of the year, according to his latest TEC filing, and ended the period with a balance of $525,000. Merritt did not officially announce his campaign until Tuesday — after the period covered by the latest reports — though he has had a TEC account open since early June and reported $100,000 in donations from Real Justice PAC, a national group that mainly works to elect progressive prosecutors at the local level.

See here for some background. It’s better to outraise than to be outraised, but 1) the difference isn’t that much, 2) as noted, Paxton still has a lot more cash, and 3) nobody has nearly enough to make a big splash in our super expensive state. Bush and Paxton each held their own, no one landed a heavy blow, and Guzman still has to prove she can bring it. As for the Dems, as long as Paxton is in the race they get the benefit of being Not Ken Paxton. It will be nice for them to bring in more, but as with Presidential years it’s the top of the ticket that drives most of the action.

Eva Guzman raises a few bucks

Jul 15th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

It’s not bad, but she’s gonna need a lot more than this.

Eva Guzman, one of the 2022 Republican primary challengers to Attorney General Ken Paxton, raised more than $1 million in her first 10 days as an announced candidate— and has garnered the support of some of the state’s top GOP donors, according to her campaign.

Guzman, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, raised $1,051,723 between when she declared her campaign on June 21 and the end of the fundraising period on June 30. Perhaps more notably, though, are the donors who fueled the haul and are backing her against the incumbent, who also faces a primary challenge from Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

According to a list provided by the Guzman campaign, she has gotten support from top Texas GOP contributors including Dallas real estate developer Harlan Crow, Dallas billionaire businessman Robert Rowling, Dallas investor Tom Hicks Sr. and El Paso developers Woody Hunt and Paul Foster. Other names include Drayton McLane, Jan Duncan and Dick Weekley, whose influential tort-reform group, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, quickly endorsed Guzman after she announced her campaign.

The list of supporters also includes Harriet Miers, the White House counsel under former President George W. Bush, George P. Bush’s uncle.

[…]

But Paxton still maintains support among major Texas GOP donors. The host committee for a recent Paxton fundraiser in Dallas included heavyweight names such as textiles mogul Arun Agarwal, hotelier Monty Bennett and biotechnology entrepreneur Darwin Deason.

And Guzman starts the primary as the underdog, at least according to one recent survey. In the Dallas Morning News/UT-Tyler Poll from late June, Guzman registered a distant third in the primary, getting 4% of the vote to 34% for Bush and 42% for Paxton.

Raising a million bucks over ten days is definitely better than raising less than a million bucks over ten days. It’s a nice, round number, which gives it some cachet. But look, Paxton had over $5.5 million on hand as of his January report (neither he nor P Bush have pre-announced their June totals yet); Guzman had $133K in her Supreme Court SPAC treasury in January. He won’t be out-fundraised, and as we have discussed before, both he and Bush have a large name recognition advantage on Guzman. You may not be aware of this, but Texas is a big state, with a lot of media markets, and it costs a lot of money to advertise successfully statewide. In that context, a million bucks ain’t much. Also, a million bucks from a handful of moneybag donors is not the same as a million bucks in thousands of small donations from a broad range of actual voters. Guzman has done well generating earned media, and I’m sure some number of Republicans are looking for an alternative to their scandal machine of an AG. She’s got a long road ahead of her, that’s all I’m saying.

Lee Merritt officially joins the AG race

Jul 14th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

We now have a contested Democratic primary for Attorney General.

Lee Merritt

Lee Merritt, the nationally known civil rights attorney, is officially running for Texas attorney general as a Democrat.

Merritt is set to launch his campaign at a 9 a.m. news conference outside the Texas Capitol in Austin, with an emphasis on the voting rights battle that prompted state House Democrats to flee the state Monday.

“Texas Republicans have launched an all-out assault on voter rights and civil liberties,” Merritt said in a statement, adding that incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton and other GOP leaders are “blatantly attempting to turn back progress in the Lone Star State using the familiar tactics of voter suppression, divisive rhetoric and corporate money.”

“This campaign is a response from the people of Texas,” Merritt said.

[…]

In addition to voting rights, Merritt’s camapign said it would focus on “fixing Texas’ failing power grid, reigning in soaring property taxes, ending mass incarceration and challenging gubernatorial overreach.”

Merritt joins Joe Jaworski, a Galveston lawyer and former mayor of the city, in the Democratic primary against Paxton. The incumbent has his own competitive primary, featuring challenges from Land Commissioner George P. Bush and Eva Guzman, a former justice on the Texas Supreme Court.

Merritt announced his intent to run in March, with a promise to make a formal announcement later. Joe Jaworski has been in the race for awhile, and of course there’s the Republican side of things. It will be interesting to see how Democratic interest groups line up for this one. I know Jaworski, I have not yet met Merritt, but he’s got a great resume and I’m eager to hear what he has to say. It’s good to have some contested primaries among good candidates on the Democratic side, as that will generate some much-needed attention. Good luck to Lee Merritt and Joe Jaworski, and may the best candidate win.

James White to challenge Sid Miller

Jul 1st, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Should be interesting.

State Rep. James White, R-Hillister, announced Wednesday that he is running for agriculture commissioner, marking the first major primary opponent for incumbent Sid Miller.

“The combination of my proven conservative record, experience on agriculture issues, and commitment to integrity and ethics makes me the right candidate to steer this crucial agency back in the right direction,” White said in a news release.

The announcement made official a move White had been teasing since he announced earlier this month that he would not seek reelection to the Texas House after six terms in office. The only Black Republican in the Legislature, White chairs the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee. He previously served on the Agriculture and Livestock Committee.

Miller considered running for governor in 2022, challenging fellow Republican Greg Abbott, but announced earlier this month that he would instead run for reelection as agriculture commissioner. Miller won a second term in 2018 after facing two primary challengers and prevailing with 56% of the vote.

Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment on White’s candidacy.

In his announcement, White offered thinly veiled contrasts with Miller over his personal controversies over the years, which include spreading fake news on Facebook and using taxpayer dollars for two trips involving personal activities, including getting a medical injection in Oklahoma called the “Jesus Shot.” The Texas Rangers investigated the trips, and Travis County prosecutors eventually opted against bringing criminal charges.

Former President Donald Trump could play a role in the race. Miller is an enthusiastic ally of Trump, and an news release announcing White’s campaign cast him as an “early supporter of … Trump, serving as an advisory board member for Black Voices for Trump.”

For his part, White has received support from House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, and other colleagues in the House, who have urged him to run for agriculture commissioner.

See here and here for the background. This will be another test of the idea that a “normal” conservative candidate can oust a high-profile grievance-mongering performance artist with a deeply problematic record. The three-candidate AG race is the other example of this. White’s challenge is a little different, for two reasons. One is that James White starts out with low name recognition, while Sid Miller is pretty well known (for bad reasons, to be sure, but it still counts). Compare that to the Ken Paxton challengers – both P Bush and Eva Guzman have won statewide more than once, and while neither is universally known they both start out at a much higher level. This is a big hurdle for White to overcome. It’s certainly possible for a State Rep to win a statewide primary – Sid Miller himself is an example of that – but taking out an incumbent is a new frontier. Keep an eye on the fundraising – if White posts a big report in January, that might tell us something.

On the other hand, Ken Paxton can point to a lot more accomplishments that a Republican primary voter will like than Sid Miller can. He certainly lost some big cases in court, but he has plenty of wins, and has led many multi-state coalitions against the federal government and now against Google. I have no idea what actual things Sid Miller has done as Ag Commissioner, other than the barbecue scale situation, which I kind of thought was okay but which ruffled some feathers. To be fair, what an Ag Commissioner does is usually not of great interest to us urbanites, but I follow the news pretty closely and I can’t think of anything offhand. He’s got the evil clown bit down pat, and that may well be enough for him. White can and surely will talk policy and will be able to credibly say that Miller hasn’t done much of anything, but it’s not clear to me that will matter.

Anyway. I expect at this time that both Ken Paxton and Sid Miller will survive their challenges. I may revise that opinion later, and it’s clear that some people see an opportunity, but I’m betting on the house until I see a reason to do otherwise.

White said in the news release that Texas “needs competent, statewide leaders.”

Everyone’s waiting on Beto

Jun 24th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

16 comments

Pardon me while I brew myself a cup of tea and stare meaningfully out the window.

Beto O’Rourke

Texas’ Republican statewide primaries are heating up as challengers emerged in recent weeks for both Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. But for all the Republican maneuvering, Democrats are remaining quiet about primary plans.

Texas Democrats are in a holding pattern as they plan for the 2022 cycle for two main reasons. First, the party establishment is waiting on former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke to announce whether he will run for governor.

Secondly, and crucially, incumbents and potential candidates across the state are awaiting the release this fall of new district maps to decide whether they’ll retire, run for reelection or consider a statewide bid. The new maps will come from the decennial redistricting process where lawmakers redraw the boundaries of the state’s congressional, legislative and State Board of Education districts.

“There’s a lot of planning and strategizing behind the scenes,” said Royce Brooks, the executive director of Annie’s List, the Texas Democratic women-in-politics group. “Whatever Beto decides to do is the domino that affects everybody.”

[…]

Beyond O’Rourke, there is some chatter that former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro or U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro might make a run for governor. Otherwise, the field of potential candidates are a mix of current and former state legislators.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo remains a much pined-for candidate, particularly among female Democratic operatives, but so far she has not expressed interest in running statewide next year.

And there are some Democrats who have announced runs for statewide offices, but few are well-funded. Two candidates that have earned the most notice are Mike Collier, who ran for lieutenant governor two years ago and is making another run, and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski, who is running for attorney general.

[…]

In a traditional election cycle, candidates tend to roll out their campaigns over the spring and summer of the off-year, but this year potential candidates are still watching and waiting for the new district maps.

The entire Texas election calendar could also be moved back, due to the delayed census amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the ripple effect on reapportionment and the Texas Legislature’s ability to draw maps.

Some statewide Democratic candidates could emerge after the maps are finished. If a Democratic incumbent finds themselves in a carved up district where he or she has no chance at reelection, the notion of running statewide — still an incredible challenge for Democrats — actually could be an easier lift than reelection.

See here for the previous update. I would say that one race has “heated up” on the Republican side, and that’s the race for Attorney General, where the opportunity to challenge a guy who’s been indicted by the state, is being investigated by the FBI and sued by several former top staffers who accuse him of being a crook, and also facing a State Bar complaint for filing a frivolous and batshit crazy lawsuit to overturn the Presidential election, would normally be seen as an obvious thing for anyone with ambition to do. The entry of a low-wattage one-term former State Senator into the gubernatorial primary is in my mind no different than Steve Stockman’s 2014 primary challenge to Sen. John Cornyn, but your mileage may vary.

I’m as big a fan of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo as anyone, but I say there’s a zero percent chance she runs statewide in 2022. There’s no evidence to suggest that this is something she wants to do. My personal belief is that she wants to finish the job she started as County Judge, and only then will she consider something different (which may be retiring from politics). I could be wrong, and if Democrats do break through in 2022 and President Biden carries Texas in 2024 then it’s certainly possible Judge Hidalgo could be one of presumably many Dems to throw a hat in for 2026, but the very composition of this sentence should be acting to cool your jets. I will be extremely surprised if she does something other than run for re-election in 2022.

The prospect of someone who loses out in redistricting running for something statewide is one I hadn’t really considered before. It didn’t happen in 2012, mostly because there wasn’t anyone for the Republicans to screw out of a seat that year, given how they beat anyone who was beatable in 2010. Republicans will have more targets this time, though they are also operating on much tighter margins, but I could see a legislator who gets left without a winnable district deciding to run for something statewide. If nothing else, it’s a good way to build name ID and a donor base, and puts you in the conversation for next time. It’s all too vague and theoretical now to toss out any names, but this is something to keep an eye on.

Oh, and before I forget: Please don’t make us wait too long, Beto.

Sid Miller running for re-election

Jun 22nd, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

The Governor’s race will have one fewer malicious jokers in it.

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller announced Monday he would seek reelection, putting to rest speculation that he could challenge Gov. Greg Abbott for the top elected position in the state.

“I really have the best and most rewarding job in the world,” Miller said in a statement. “That’s why, after listening to the advice of supporters, friends and my team, I have decided that I can best serve Texas by continuing this important work.”

“Today I am announcing my campaign for reelection as your Texas Agriculture Commissioner,” he said.

[…]

In May, the Conservative Republicans of Texas political action committee had cut a video ad to recruit Miller to run against Abbott, declaring: “He was right on Trump, he’ll be right for Texas.” Miller appeared to be pondering the decision, announcing weeks later that he was running for statewide office but not saying for which position.

“I’m convinced that our current governor cannot get reelected in the general election,” he said on a podcast with Sery Kim, a former congressional Republican candidate.

Earlier this month, Trump endorsed Abbott.

[…]

That backlash from the right wing of the Republican Party has led former Dallas State Sen. Don Huffines to challenge Abbott. Allen West, the chair of the Republican Party of Texas, is also expected to run for statewide office after his resignation as party chairman becomes official next month. West has not said what office he will seek.

Miller did not name Abbott in his reelection announcement but said that he felt a special obligation to use his bully pulpit to “hold other elected officials accountable.”

Whatever. Miller’s assertion about Abbott’s re-election chances are interesting and wishful, but they can’t be trusted because he’s not a reliable source. It would have been interesting, in the way that a freight train derailing and crashing into a warehouse filled with manure would be interesting, for Miller to have challenged Abbott, but that was not to be. We’ll need to beat him ourselves.

In news from that other primary that we have to pay attention to:

Eva Guzman, the Republican former justice on the Texas Supreme Court, officially began her campaign against embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday, pledging to bring “honor and integrity” to the office as well as an extensive legal background that could set her apart from another primary candidate, George P. Bush.

“I’m just what Texas needs because I have the experience, the proven integrity, the conservative values,” Guzman said in an interview, adding that she has shown she can “put together winning teams” — a reference to her distinction as the highest vote-getter in Texas history at the time of her last statewide race.

[…]

Guzman made her bid official in a roughly two-minute video during which she talks about growing up in Houston’s East End, going from “humble beginnings to the Texas Supreme Court” and working to secure justice for families like hers. She says she is running for attorney general “to protect our border, to ensure elections are fair, to fight the overreach of the federal government and to alway support the police who keep us all safe.”

She quickly picked up a major endorsement from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the powerful tort reform group that supported Paxton for attorney general in the 2014 and 2018 general elections. The chairman of the group’s PAC, Richard J. Trabulsi Jr., said in a statement that Guzman “has the breadth of legal experience and the personal and professional integrity that we must require of our state’s highest legal officer.”

[…]

Guzman said her experience also extends to her ability to fight the White House in court. She said she “will be ready to sue the Biden administration on Day 1 to protect Texans, and I’ve actually been in a courtroom and I’ve actually argued cases … on the very issues” that could come up in pushing against the White House.

Former President Donald Trump has promised to make an endorsement in the primary, though it remains to be seen if Guzman’s candidacy alters his plans. Before Bush started his campaign against Paxton, Trump released a statement saying he likes “them both very much” and that he would make an endorsement “in the not-so-distant future.”

“I’m in a three-way primary,” Guzman said. “I welcome all the support I could get, including from former President Trump.”

See here for the background. I continue to believe that Guzman will have a hard time winning over the kind of slavering nihilists that populate a Republican primary, but the endorsement from TLR probably came as an unpleasant surprise to Paxton. Please observe that while Guzman would be a more competent and less criminal Attorney General than Paxton, that in no way means that she would be a good Attorney General. No one should feel any reason to vote for her.

Guzman to run for AG

Jun 15th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

8 comments

Certainly makes that primary more interesting.

Eva Guzman

Eva Guzman, the former justice on the Texas Supreme Court, has filed paperwork to run for state attorney general.

On Friday, Guzman, a Republican, filed what is known as a campaign treasurer appointment form with the Texas Ethics Commission, saying she is seeking the office of attorney general, according to a copy of the form obtained by The Texas Tribune. Her treasurer is Orlando Salazar of Dallas, the vice chair of the Republican National Hispanic Assembly.

“Eva Guzman has served Texas for over 22 years honorably,” Guzman’s political consultant, Justin Dudley, said in a statement to the Tribune. “She looks forward to putting her experience and know-how to work in a new role. The campaign will have a formal announcement soon.”

[…]

A Guzman run would complicate the Republican primary already underway between incumbent Ken Paxton and Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

Bush announced his campaign for attorney general on June 2, sharply criticizing Paxton over his legal troubles. The attorney general has been fighting securities fraud charges for most of his time in office, and he more recently came under FBI investigation for claims he abused his office to help a wealthy donor. He has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

It remains to be seen if Guzman’s candidacy would change former President Donald Trump’s plans to get involved in the primary. Before Bush launched his challenge to Paxton, Trump issued a statement saying he likes “them both very much” and that he would make an endorsement “in the not-so-distant future.”

See here for the background. As you know, I doubt Guzman’s viability in a primary that features two prominent Trump humpers, but we’ll see if I’m right about that. Guzman does have the benefit of not being either a crook or a dilettante, and in a normal meritocratic world that would be a big asset. In a 2022 Republican primary in Texas, that remains to be seen.

For what it’s worth, of the three candidates Paxton has probably had the hardest primary race, when he first ran for AG in 2014 and faced Dan Branch and Barry Smitherman for the nomination, eventually beating Branch in a runoff. He was unopposed in the 2018 primary. Guzman easily dispatched Rose Vela in 2010, and had a closer race in 2016 against a Some Dude named Joe Pool, who had a previous Supreme Court primary challenge to incumbent Jeff Brown in 2014, and finished third in 2012 against John Devine and David Medina. I don’t get the sense that either of those races was particularly taxing, but they were both contested. Bush had a token opponent (I will give you one dollar right now if you can name this person without looking it up), and thus has had the easiest path. Don’t know if any of this previous experience matters – whatever else one may say, we’re in a different environment now – but there it is.

Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman stepping down

Jun 8th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

Interesting.

Eva Guzman

Texas Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman is resigning from her post effective Friday.

She informed Gov. Greg Abbott of the decision in a letter sent Monday. The news was first reported by the Houston Chronicle.

“With utmost gratitude for the opportunity and gift of public service, I write to inform you that I am resigning from my office,” Guzman wrote in her letter to Abbott, a copy of which was obtained by The Texas Tribune. “It has been the honor of a lifetime to answer this high calling.”

Guzman, a Republican, was appointed to the post in 2009 by then-Gov. Rick Perry as the first Hispanic female on the court. She ran for a full six-year term the next year before winning reelection in 2016. Her second term would have ended Dec. 31, 2022.

Before Perry appointed her to the high court, Guzman served on the 309th District Court in Harris County and the Houston-based Fourteenth Court of Appeals.

[…]

In her letter to Abbott, Guzman did not state a reason for her resignation, fueling speculation that she may have aspirations to run for another office during the 2022 election cycle.

Her resignation will create a vacancy on the state’s highest civil court, which Abbott will be able to fill with an appointment. The court is currently occupied by all Republicans.

I’ll get to the Chron story in a minute, but first two things to note. One is that Guzman was the high scorer in the 2016 election, winning 4,884,441 total votes. That’s over 75K more than the next highest candidate (Debra Lehrmann), and 200K more votes than Donald Trump. She was the strongest Republican in Latino districts, which is not a surprise. If she is running for something else, she will be harder to beat than most. Two, note that at every step of the way – district court, 14th Court of Appeals, Supreme Court – she was appointed first, and ran for a full term later. She’s far from unique in this, of course, I just noted it in this story. The ability to fill judicial vacancies is an underrated power of the Governor’s office. One does wonder what all the incumbent Republican judges and justices who are ready to step down and take a higher-paying job will do when the Democrats finally take that office.

And it usually is for a payday, if it’s not for retirement, when a judge or justice steps down like this. In this case, as that Chron story notes, the speculation is that she wants to run for something else.

One race that Guzman could be contemplating began heating up last week: the Republican primary for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s seat. Land Commissioner George P. Bush — whose uncle, former Gov. George W. Bush, first appointed Guzman to the 309th District Court in Harris County in 1999 — opened up his campaign last week.

AG makes the most sense, at least in the abstract. I mean, she’s not going to run for Ag Commissioner. The question to me is, does she get into the “I Will Gladly Debase Myself For Donald Trump’s Endorsement” sweepstakes, or does she position herself as the non-Trump candidate, with actual accomplishments and conservative bona fides? This is where I admit I’m giving this speculation the side-eye. It’s hard to imagine, at this late date and with no record of sucking up to Trump in the past, that she could out-sycophant either Ken Paxton or George P. Bush. It’s also hard to imagine that there’s enough Republican primary voters who will prefer a non-Trump candidate in this – or almost any – race. I mean, you know who else didn’t do so well in that CD06 special election? Mike Wood, the anti-Trump Republican in that race, who got a whopping 3.2% of the vote. Eva Guzman would do better than that, but I see her as the odd person out in a three-or-more-way race. There’s no evidence that there’s a constituency for that kind of candidate, and as noted it’s awfully late for her to claim to be The One True Trump Candidate. Maybe I’m missing something – maybe she thinks the Lege will draw a Congressional district for her – but I don’t see how this makes sense. We’ll see if I’m right.

Precinct analysis: Comparing to 2012 and 2016

Dec 14th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

Introduction
Congressional districts
State Rep districts
Commissioners Court/JP precincts

I had meant to get to this last week, but SeditionPalooza took up too much of my time, so here we are. The intent of this post is to compare vote totals in each of the State Rep districts from 2012 to 2016, from 2016 to 2020, and from 2012 to 2020. The vote totals compared are from the Presidential and Railroad Commissioner races for each of these years, and for the Senate races from 2012 and 2020, as there was no Senate race in 2016.

President

								
Dist   12-16 R   12-16D   16-20R   16-20D   12-20R   12-20D
===========================================================
HD126   -3,207    5,285    6,100    9,611    2,893   14,896
HD127     -931    6,042    8,547   12,707    7,616   18,749
HD128      124    2,272    8,728    6,208    8,852    8,480
HD129   -3,226    5,992    8,844   11,033    5,618   17,025
HD130    2,216    6,749   14,229   13,325   16,445   20,074
HD131     -649    2,707    4,306    6,683    3,657    9,390
HD132    3,065   10,267   15,786   20,304   18,851   30,571
HD133   -7,791    8,688    5,592   12,018   -2,199   20,706
HD134  -10,938   15,346    6,692   17,904   -4,246   33,250
HD135   -2,571    6,505    6,664   11,473    4,093   17,978
HD137     -537    2,443    2,451    4,167    1,914    6,610
HD138   -2,804    6,451    6,537    9,433    3,733   15,884
HD139   -1,294    1,187    4,847    6,854    3,553    8,041
HD140     -733    4,416    4,146    1,855    3,413    6,271
HD141      222     -681    2,604    4,453    2,826    3,772
HD142      290    2,084    4,703    8,880    4,993   10,964
HD143   -1,042    3,226    4,500    1,495    3,458    4,721
HD144   -1,039    3,561    4,057    1,523    3,018    5,084
HD145   -1,291    5,594    5,310    5,088    4,019   10,682
HD146   -1,633     -884    2,459    6,864      826    5,980
HD147   -1,272    3,583    4,602    9,933    3,330   13,516
HD148   -1,489    8,544    5,634   10,180    4,145   18,724
HD149   -3,879    3,420    8,154    4,696    4,275    8,116
HD150      503    8,228   10,180   15,037   10,683   23,265
							
Total  -39,906  121,025  155,672  211,724  115,766  332,749

Senate

	
Dist    12-20R   12-20D
=======================
HD126    3,705   13,479
HD127    8,876   16,687
HD128    8,999    7,330
HD129    7,238   14,684
HD130   18,113   17,564
HD131    3,413    8,389
HD132   19,527   28,278
HD133    2,610   16,268
HD134    3,330   27,237
HD135    4,898   16,279
HD137    2,129    6,023
HD138    4,594   14,227
HD139    3,602    6,608
HD140    2,611    5,499
HD141    2,460    2,779
HD142    4,903    9,702
HD143    2,619    4,082
HD144    2,577    4,485
HD145    3,562   10,103
HD146    1,337    4,811
HD147    4,019   12,164
HD148    5,762   16,497
HD149    4,282    7,157
HD150   11,865   20,878
		
Total  137,031  291,210

RRC

								
Dist   12-16 R   12-16D   16-20R   16-20D   12-20R   12-20D
===========================================================
HD126   -1,676    3,559    4,735   10,131    3,059   13,690
HD127    1,006    4,180    6,933   13,217    7,939   17,397
HD128      989    1,200    7,749    6,681    8,738    7,881
HD129   -1,550    3,595    7,325   12,422    5,775   16,017
HD130    4,403    4,540   13,107   12,954   17,510   17,494
HD131     -465    1,814    3,419    6,824    2,954    8,638
HD132    4,638    8,171   14,267   19,768   18,905   27,939
HD133   -4,382    3,417    5,039   14,285      657   17,702
HD134   -5,177    6,106    5,497   23,976      320   30,082
HD135   -1,163    4,634    5,398   11,950    4,235   16,584
HD137     -132    1,538    1,929    4,571    1,797    6,109
HD138   -1,483    4,248    5,378   10,328    3,895   14,576
HD139     -551      -83    3,837    7,033    3,286    6,950
HD140     -321    2,969    2,874    2,855    2,553    5,824
HD141      181     -896    2,165    3,773    2,346    2,877
HD142      844    1,204    3,814    8,568    4,658    9,772
HD143     -550    1,586    3,148    2,910    2,598    4,496
HD144     -530    2,677    2,993    2,255    2,463    4,932
HD145     -531    3,369    3,983    7,142    3,452   10,511
HD146   -1,047   -2,256    1,853    7,402      806    5,146
HD147      104      536    3,510   11,837    3,614   12,373
HD148      665    4,416    4,945   12,352    5,610   16,768
HD149   -3,089    2,133    6,698    5,331    3,609    7,464
HD150    2,552    6,010    8,826   14,942   11,378   20,952
								
Total   -7,265   68,667  129,422  233,507  122,157  302,174

The columns represent the difference in vote total for the given period and party, so “12-16” means 2012 to 2016, “16-20” means 2016 to 2020, and “12-20” means 2012 to 2020. Each column has a D or an R in it, so “12-16R” means the difference between 2016 Donald Trump and 2012 Mitt Romney for the Presidential table, and so forth. In each case, I subtract the earlier year’s total from the later year’s total, so the “-3,207” for HD126 in the “12-16R” column for President means that Donald Trump got 3,207 fewer votes in HD126 than Mitt Romney got, and the “5,285” for HD126 in the “12-16D” column for President means that Hillary Clinton got 5,285 more votes than Barack Obama got. Clear? I hope so.

Note that there were 130K more votes cast in Harris County as a whole in 2016 than there were in 2012, and 320K more votes cast in the county in 2020 over 2016, which makes a grand total of 450K more votes in 2020 than 2012. Some districts grow faster than others, but as a general rule given the overall totals you should expect increases in each district to some extent.

I have left percentages and third party totals out of this discussion. As I have shown before, tracking changes in vote percentages can give a misleading view of whether the actual gap is growing or narrowing, and by how much. I also want to emphasize that in 2012, Harris County was very much a 50-50 proposition, and now it is very much not. Doing it this way help illustrate how and where that has happened, and by how much.

And yet, with all that said, I’m going to start with an observation about percentages. In 2012, Mitt Romney got 60% or more of the vote in eight State Rep districts – HDs 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 138, and 150. Ted Cruz, running for Senate against Paul Sadler, got 60% or more of the vote in ten State Rep districts, the same eight as Romney plus HDs 132 and 135 – yes, the same 132 and 135 that Dems won in 2018. I didn’t publish an analysis of the RRC race from that year, but a review of the spreadsheet that I created at the time confirmed that Christi Craddick, running against Dale Henry, got 60% or more of the vote in eleven State Rep districts, the same ten as Cruz plus HD134. In other words, every single Republican-held State Rep district in Harris County in 2012 was at least a 60% Republican district in the Railroad Commissioner race. Mitt Romney, it should be noted, just missed getting to 60% in HDs 132 and 135, and was over 57% in HD134, as was Cruz. (Let’s just say Cruz fell way short of that mark in 2018.)

You can see how much the vote totals shifted at the Presidential level from 2012 to 2016. Trump got nearly 40K fewer votes than Romney, a combination of crossovers, third-party and write-in voting, and just the gentle degradation of the Republican brand, as you can see by Wayne Christian’s reduced vote totals from Christie Craddick. Still, in 2016, Donald Trump scored 60% or more of the vote in three State Rep districts: HDs 127, 128, and 130. In 2016, Wayne Christian, running for RRC against Grady Yarbrough, scored 60% or more of the vote in four State Rep districts: the three that Trump got plus HD150. And finally, in 2016, Eva Guzman, running for State Supreme Court, scored 60% or more of the vote in six State Rep districts: the four Christian got plus HDs 129 and 133. HDs 132 and 135 were clearly competitive at the Presidential level – Trump won 132 by four points and 135 by two points; he also lost HD138 by a hair. He lost votes compared to Romney in 18 of 24 districts.

It is certainly true that Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular did better in 2020 than most people expected them to do – surely, they did better than I expected them to do. Trump gained 155K votes over his 2016 total, which put 2020 Trump more than 100K votes ahead of Mitt Romney. Even though Joe Biden gained 211K votes over Hillary Clinton, for a net gain of 56K, Trump had net gains on Biden in seven districts – HDs 128, 130, 140, 143, 144, 145, and 149, with the latter five being Democratic districts and four of the five being Latino. Still, Dems had a net gain from 2012 to 2020 in every district except HD128, and some of those gains were truly huge – just look at 133 and 134, for starters. And Trump’s gains in the Dem districts largely melted away by the time you got to the RRC race, with Chrysta Castaneda coming close to matching Jim Wright’s increases in 140, 143, and 144, and far exceeding him in 145. It’s hard to say from this what if any staying power the Trump gains may have, though Dems should be paying close attention to what happened there regardless.

Anyway, back to the percentages: In 2020, Donald Trump, John Cornyn, and Jim Wright scored 60% or more of the vote in two State Rep districts: HDs 128 and 130. The only statewide Republicans to score 60% or more in a third State Rep district were the statewide judicial candidates who did not have a Libertarian opponent – Jane Bland, Bert Richardson, Kevin Patrick, and David Newell – who also reached that level in HD127. I haven’t published the statewide judicial race analysis yet so you’ll have to take my word for it for now, but in any event I trust you see the pattern. This is what I mean when I say that Republicans just don’t have any spare capacity in Harris County, and that will present problems for them in redistricting. Look at the numbers in districts like 126 and 129 and 133 and 150 in 2020, and compare them to the numbers in 132 and 135 and 138 in 2012. Where do you think things are going to be in another couple of cycles?

I’ve thrown a lot of words and numbers at you, so I’ll wrap it up here. I hope this helps illustrate what I’ve been saying, about how Dem gains have largely come from huge steps forward in formerly Republican turf, and how there’s still very much room for Dems to improve in their strongholds. We need to keep building on our gains from this past decade as we proceed into the 20s. I’ll have a look at the statewide judicial races next. Let me know what you think.

Precinct analysis: Dallas County statewides

Feb 7th, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Last time we looked at the Presidential numbers in Dallas County legislative districts (plus CD32). Today we follow up with a look at the statewide races. I’m going to throw a lot of numbers at you, so please bear with me. First up is the Railroad Commissioner race.


Dist  Christian     Yarb  Miller  Salinas
=========================================
CD32    127,172  101,375  18,842    7,581
                        
HD100     8,888   29,754   2,224    1,870
HD102    26,577   24,667   4,356    1,754
HD103     9,440   24,092   2,323    2,243
HD104     6,795   21,811   1,415    2,490
HD105    21,041   21,678   2,461    2,002
HD107    24,459   24,691   3,268    2,185
HD108    40,389   28,190   7,223    2,151
HD109    10,701   50,748   1,679    1,563
HD110     3,889   28,975     880    1,441
HD111    11,869   42,162   1,717    1,816
HD112    26,793   22,698   3,217    1,838
HD113    26,209   24,396   2,578    1,841
HD114    32,625   27,279   5,409    1,757
HD115    27,967   25,420   3,680    2,024
                        
HD100    20.80%   69.62%   5.20%    4.38%
HD102    46.34%   43.01%   7.59%    3.06%
HD103    24.78%   63.24%   6.10%    5.89%
HD104    20.90%   67.09%   4.35%    7.66%
HD105    44.60%   45.95%   5.22%    4.24%
HD107    44.79%   45.22%   5.99%    4.00%
HD108    51.81%   36.16%   9.27%    2.76%
HD109    16.54%   78.45%   2.60%    2.42%
HD110    11.05%   82.35%   2.50%    4.10%
HD111    20.62%   73.24%   2.98%    3.15%
HD112    49.12%   41.61%   5.90%    3.37%
HD113    47.63%   44.34%   4.69%    3.35%
HD114    48.64%   40.67%   8.06%    2.62%
HD115    47.33%   43.02%   6.23%    3.43%

Three things to note here, all of which we’ll talk about some more as we go on. First, while Hillary Clinton carried all of the State Rep districts, Grady Yarbrough only led in eight of the fourteen. Yarbrough is a perennial candidate who doesn’t campaign and his numbers reflect that, but as you will see even many strong candidates didn’t carry any more districts than he did. Note also that while Wayne Christian led in the other six districts, he only achieved a majority in HD108. Other Republicans did do better than that, but this is another illustration of the dilemma I mentioned before for Republicans in Dallas County, which is that they have no votes to spare.

Second, note that while Democrat Victoria Neave knocked off Republican incumbent Kenneth Sheets in HD107 while Republican Rodney Anderson held on in HD105, Grady Yarbrough did slightly better in HD105 than he did in HD107. This too will generally be the case with other candidates, yet it was the (mildly) redder district that flipped. My conclusion is that Rodney Anderson was a better candidate than Kenneth Sheets, Victoria Neave was a better candidate than Terry Meza, or some combination of the two. It would be nice to have a fuller understanding of this going into 2018.

Finally, note the relatively large share of the third party vote in this race. As much as 12% of the total went to the Libertarian or Green candidate in some districts. Part of this is the extreme disaffection for the two major party candidates – Yarbrough is this generation’s Gene Kelly, while Wayne Christian is Sid Miller with better Facebook etiquette. Libertarian candidate Mark Miller received numerous newspaper endorsements, which no doubt helped boost him. The level of third party votes varies quite a bit from race to race, and we’ll talk a bit more about that as we go.

Here are the Supreme Court races:


Dist   Lehrmann  Westgrn   Glass    Munoz
=========================================
CD32    136,227  102,030  11,608    5,515
                        
HD100     9,622   29,867   1,738    1,555
HD102    28,692   24,769   2,722    1,256
HD103    10,115   24,388   1,739    1,933
HD104     7,139   21,763   1,137    2,476
HD105    21,837   21,577   2,057    1,736
HD107    25,827   24,628   2,362    1,830
HD108    43,691   29,108   3,997    1,455
HD109    11,323   50,358   1,645    1,335
HD110     4,116   28,791     839    1,435
HD111    12,539   41,839   1,530    1,622
HD112    28,047   22,614   2,491    1,392
HD113    27,111   24,122   2,219    1,596
HD114    35,843   27,324   2,817    1,196
HD115    29,448   25,472   2,719    1,503
                        
HD100    22.49%   69.81%   4.06%    3.63%
HD102    49.95%   43.12%   4.74%    2.19%
HD103    26.50%   63.88%   4.56%    5.06%
HD104    21.96%   66.93%   3.50%    7.61%
HD105    46.26%   45.71%   4.36%    3.68%
HD107    47.26%   45.07%   4.32%    3.35%
HD108    55.83%   37.20%   5.11%    1.86%
HD109    17.51%   77.88%   2.54%    2.06%
HD110    11.70%   81.84%   2.38%    4.08%
HD111    21.80%   72.73%   2.66%    2.82%
HD112    51.42%   41.46%   4.57%    2.55%
HD113    49.25%   43.82%   4.03%    2.90%
HD114    53.35%   40.67%   4.19%    1.78%
HD115    49.79%   43.07%   4.60%    2.54%

Dist      Green    Garza  Oxford   Watbry
=========================================
CD32    130,386  111,872   9,681    3,195
                        
HD100     9,098   31,667   1,346      603
HD102    27,292   26,989   2,276      779
HD103     9,617   26,609   1,344      562
HD104     6,939   24,174     910      475
HD105    21,416   23,553   1,617      578
HD107    25,163   26,846   1,875      719
HD108    41,235   32,649   3,355      917
HD109    10,993   51,813   1,206      602
HD110     3,976   30,197     622      377
HD111    12,188   43,599   1,118      562
HD112    27,383   24,343   2,060      735
HD113    26,743   25,820   1,772      658
HD114    33,687   30,279   2,377      773
HD115    28,258   27,857   2,217      709
                        
HD100    21.30%   74.14%   3.15%    1.41%
HD102    47.60%   47.07%   3.97%    1.36%
HD103    25.22%   69.78%   3.52%    1.47%
HD104    21.35%   74.39%   2.80%    1.46%
HD105    45.41%   49.94%   3.43%    1.23%
HD107    46.08%   49.17%   3.43%    1.32%
HD108    52.76%   41.77%   4.29%    1.17%
HD109    17.01%   80.19%   1.87%    0.93%
HD110    11.30%   85.86%   1.77%    1.07%
HD111    21.21%   75.87%   1.95%    0.98%
HD112    50.22%   44.65%   3.78%    1.35%
HD113    48.63%   46.95%   3.22%    1.20%
HD114    50.19%   45.11%   3.54%    1.15%
HD115    47.86%   47.18%   3.76%    1.20%

Dist     Guzman  Johnson  Fulton Chisholm
=========================================
CD32    137,660  104,318   9,866    3,111
                        
HD100    10,332   30,480   1,356      537
HD102    28,955   25,318   2,291      737
HD103    11,311   24,926   1,386      503
HD104     8,833   22,313     870      478
HD105    22,576   22,271   1,666      635
HD107    26,507   25,365   1,953      753
HD108    44,174   29,648   3,422      839
HD109    11,758   51,244   1,120      513
HD110     4,882   29,384     607      302
HD111    13,190   42,695   1,082      533
HD112    28,371   23,238   2,118      765
HD113    27,635   24,827   1,837      685
HD114    36,095   27,820   2,399      716
HD115    29,790   26,192   2,302      731
                        
HD100    24.19%   71.37%   3.18%    1.26%
HD102    50.53%   44.18%   4.00%    1.29%
HD103    29.67%   65.38%   3.64%    1.32%
HD104    27.18%   68.67%   2.68%    1.47%
HD105    47.88%   47.24%   3.53%    1.35%
HD107    48.57%   46.47%   3.58%    1.38%
HD108    56.57%   37.97%   4.38%    1.07%
HD109    18.19%   79.28%   1.73%    0.79%
HD110    13.88%   83.54%   1.73%    0.86%
HD111    22.94%   74.25%   1.88%    0.93%
HD112    52.06%   42.64%   3.89%    1.40%
HD113    50.26%   45.15%   3.34%    1.25%
HD114    53.85%   41.50%   3.58%    1.07%
HD115    50.48%   44.38%   3.90%    1.24%

Lehrmann and Guzman were the two top performers for the GOP, while Garza was the high scorer for the Dems. All three Republicans far outperformed Wayne Christian, with the difference being especially visible in the lower totals for the Libertarian candidates. Lehrmann and Guzman carried eight of the 14 State Rep districts, while Green managed to take only six against Garza, with HDs 102 and 115 coming within a point of being blue. In all three cases, HD105 was more Democratic than HD107.

What really stands out for me is the disparity in Green candidate totals. Add in the RRC race, and it it is quite apparent that the two best performing Green candidates were Latino/a. Each of the other races featured a major party Latina candidate, which likely exaggerated the effect further. I discussed this at a macro level before, so none of this should be too surprising. It’s just really fascinating to see it at a more granular level. The lesson I would draw from this for Democrats is that Latino voter engagement is more complex and multifaceted than we might think.

Last but not least, the CCA races:


Dist       Keel   Meyers      Ash  Reposa
=========================================
CD32    135,994  104,110   10,500   3,510
                        
HD100     9,656   30,633    1,571     733
HD102    28,668   25,212    2,434     839
HD103    10,290   25,247    1,644     808
HD104     7,418   22,993    1,149     844
HD105    21,920   22,480    1,841     787
HD107    25,897   25,482    2,241     831
HD108    43,510   29,495    3,644   1,039
HD109    11,235   51,414    1,297     624
HD110     4,138   29,786      757     465
HD111    12,539   42,891    1,279     711
HD112    28,187   23,120    2,240     844
HD113    27,147   24,944    1,994     806
HD114    35,595   27,826    2,537     771
HD115    29,577   26,015    2,399     875
                        
HD100    22.67%   71.92%    3.69%   1.72%
HD102    50.16%   44.11%    4.26%   1.47%
HD103    27.09%   66.46%    4.33%   2.13%
HD104    22.89%   70.96%    3.55%   2.60%
HD105    46.61%   47.80%    3.91%   1.67%
HD107    47.56%   46.80%    4.12%   1.53%
HD108    56.01%   37.97%    4.69%   1.34%
HD109    17.40%   79.63%    2.01%   0.97%
HD110    11.77%   84.75%    2.15%   1.32%
HD111    21.84%   74.70%    2.23%   1.24%
HD112    51.82%   42.51%    4.12%   1.55%
HD113    49.46%   45.44%    3.63%   1.47%
HD114    53.34%   41.70%    3.80%   1.16%
HD115    50.24%   44.19%    4.08%   1.49%

Dist     Walker  Johnson Strange S-Castro
=========================================
CD32    133,937  106,627   8,271    5,357
                        
HD100     9,277   30,966   1,183    1,214
HD102    28,067   25,890   1,955    1,223
HD103     9,909   25,425   1,171    1,486
HD104     7,067   22,888     805    1,708
HD105    21,553   22,789   1,379    1,348
HD107    25,519   25,883   1,615    1,470
HD108    42,970   30,333   2,947    1,471
HD109    10,910   51,776     931    1,013
HD110     3,931   29,745     558      939
HD111    12,141   43,230     907    1,224
HD112    27,643   23,689   1,744    1,320
HD113    26,878   25,260   1,469    1,343
HD114    35,066   28,487   1,968    1,199
HD115    28,851   26,763   1,847    1,373
                        
HD100    21.76%   72.62%   2.77%    2.85%
HD102    49.12%   45.31%   3.42%    2.14%
HD103    26.08%   66.92%   3.08%    3.91%
HD104    21.77%   70.49%   2.48%    5.26%
HD105    45.79%   48.42%   2.93%    2.86%
HD107    46.84%   47.50%   2.96%    2.70%
HD108    55.29%   39.03%   3.79%    1.89%
HD109    16.88%   80.11%   1.44%    1.57%
HD110    11.18%   84.57%   1.59%    2.67%
HD111    21.11%   75.18%   1.58%    2.13%
HD112    50.82%   43.55%   3.21%    2.43%
HD113    48.91%   45.97%   2.67%    2.44%
HD114    52.56%   42.70%   2.95%    1.80%
HD115    49.04%   45.49%   3.14%    2.33%

Dist    Keasler    Burns Bennett
================================
CD32    134,429  107,470  11,490
                  
HD100     9,518   31,274   1,710
HD102    28,210   26,096   2,677
HD103    10,127   26,011   1,752
HD104     7,392   23,511   1,392
HD105    21,842   23,012   2,081
HD107    25,630   26,129   2,509
HD108    42,923   30,705   3,834
HD109    11,114   51,813   1,564
HD110     4,079   30,030     975
HD111    12,540   43,238   1,523
HD112    27,901   23,798   2,531
HD113    26,940   25,409   2,401
HD114    35,129   28,774   2,620
HD115    28,999   26,874   2,791
                  
HD100    22.39%   73.58%   4.02%
HD102    49.51%   45.80%   4.70%
HD103    26.73%   68.65%   4.62%
HD104    22.89%   72.80%   4.31%
HD105    46.54%   49.03%   4.43%
HD107    47.23%   48.15%   4.62%
HD108    55.41%   39.64%   4.95%
HD109    17.23%   80.34%   2.43%
HD110    11.63%   85.59%   2.78%
HD111    21.88%   75.46%   2.66%
HD112    51.45%   43.88%   4.67%
HD113    49.21%   46.41%   4.39%
HD114    52.81%   43.25%   3.94%
HD115    49.43%   45.81%   4.76%

The main point of interest here is the third race, which featured a Libertarian but not a Green. Mark Bennett did better than one of the other Libs and about the same as the other, while Robert Burns did a little better than his fellow Ds; he probably absorbed a few of the votes than might have gone Green otherwise, but not too many. I don’t think there are any firm conclusions to be drawn here. And note again, HD105 was more Democratic than HD107.

So that’s what we have so far. I’ll have one more post, with county races, next. Let me know what you think.

Precinct analysis: State courts

Nov 21st, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

We return to our tour of the precinct data with a look at the statewide judicial races. These tend to be interesting mostly as proxies for base partisan support, but there are variations that reflect qualities about the candidates. That’s what I’m going to focus on here.


Dist    Green    Garza   Guzman Robinson  R SJ Avg  D SJ Avg
============================================================
CD02  156,800  107,513  163,092  100,247   158,852   103,416
CD07  135,310  108,540  144,087   99,977   138,618   104,011
CD09   25,906  103,431   27,993  101,594    26,242   102,489
CD10   79,113   34,926   80,104   33,297    79,337    33,927
CD18   45,665  149,521   50,198  144,817    46,814   146,929
CD29   34,618   91,898   40,381   85,592    35,849    88,188
						
SBOE6 329,707  253,583  346,471  235,776   335,602   243,912
						
HD126  34,635   24,431   35,565   23,230    34,861    23,735
HD127  47,208   23,767   48,074   22,592    47,409    23,032
HD128  40,567   16,310   40,856   15,756    40,513    15,989
HD129  40,578   25,159   42,100   23,578    41,139    24,193
HD130  57,460   20,405   58,131   19,372    57,638    19,776
HD131   6,812   38,016    7,565   37,395     6,923    37,668
HD132  36,509   29,355   37,394   28,250    36,716    28,697
HD133  46,810   25,780   49,559   23,138    47,911    24,387
HD134  44,064   41,029   49,468   35,686    46,233    38,348
HD135  31,226   26,170   32,263   25,003    31,496    25,523
HD137   8,568   17,074    9,165   16,546     8,743    16,774
HD138  26,600   22,314   27,842   20,926    26,972    21,525
HD139  11,909   38,459   12,907   37,412    12,132    37,903
HD140   6,219   20,336    7,324   19,129     6,430    19,617
HD141   4,993   32,192    5,391   31,834     4,982    32,006
HD142  10,070   33,520   10,763   32,789    10,208    33,091
HD143   8,718   22,970    9,933   21,652     8,927    22,196
HD144  10,592   15,528   11,318   14,623    10,689    14,987
HD145  10,584   22,300   12,511   20,273    11,063    21,133
HD146   9,618   36,999   10,637   36,067     9,928    36,519
HD147  11,536   43,516   13,478   41,685    12,147    42,533
HD148  17,146   27,893   19,709   25,140    18,013    26,352
HD149  15,245   26,292   15,875   25,657    15,370    25,934
HD150  47,406   25,632   48,229   24,488    47,624    24,911
						
CC1    70,859  232,823   78,886  225,102    73,125   228,635
CC2   122,115  119,904  129,022  112,013   123,728   115,261
CC3   187,552  151,403  196,274  142,372   190,521   146,507
CC4   204,547  151,305  211,872  142,722   206,690   146,412


Dist    Green    Garza   Guzman Robinson    R Avg%    D Avg%
===========================================================
CD02   56.81%   38.95%   59.09%   36.32%    57.28%   37.29%
CD07   53.24%   42.71%   56.70%   39.34%    54.00%   40.52%
CD09   19.42%   77.53%   20.98%   76.15%    19.34%   75.55%
CD10   66.72%   29.46%   67.56%   28.08%    66.96%   28.64%
CD18   22.47%   73.57%   24.70%   71.25%    22.82%   71.64%
CD29   26.39%   70.04%   30.78%   65.24%    26.88%   66.12%
						
SBOE6  54.15%   41.64%   56.90%   38.72%    54.62%   39.70%
						
HD126  56.39%   39.78%   57.90%   37.82%    56.72%   38.62%
HD127  64.08%   32.26%   65.25%   30.67%    64.37%   31.27%
HD128  68.85%   27.68%   69.34%   26.74%    67.98%   26.83%
HD129  58.89%   36.52%   61.10%   34.22%    59.05%   34.73%
HD130  71.00%   25.21%   71.83%   23.94%    71.16%   24.42%
HD131  14.80%   82.57%   16.43%   81.22%    14.88%   80.97%
HD132  53.12%   42.71%   54.41%   41.10%    53.35%   41.70%
HD133  62.02%   34.15%   65.66%   30.65%    63.04%   32.09%
HD134  49.46%   46.05%   55.52%   40.05%    51.07%   42.36%
HD135  52.28%   43.81%   54.01%   41.86%    52.30%   42.39%
HD137  31.93%   63.63%   34.16%   61.66%    31.92%   61.24%
HD138  52.08%   43.69%   54.51%   40.97%    52.34%   41.77%
HD139  22.82%   73.69%   24.73%   71.69%    23.05%   72.01%
HD140  22.65%   74.05%   26.67%   69.66%    23.03%   70.25%
HD141  13.06%   84.21%   14.10%   83.27%    12.95%   83.21%
HD142  22.41%   74.60%   23.95%   72.97%    22.57%   73.18%
HD143  26.59%   70.05%   30.29%   66.03%    26.61%   66.17%
HD144  39.06%   57.26%   41.73%   53.92%    38.95%   54.61%
HD145  30.76%   64.81%   36.36%   58.92%    31.52%   60.21%
HD146  19.91%   76.58%   22.02%   74.65%    20.26%   74.54%
HD147  19.94%   75.21%   23.29%   72.05%    20.71%   72.50%
HD148  35.91%   58.42%   41.28%   52.65%    37.16%   54.37%
HD149  35.46%   61.15%   36.92%   59.67%    35.03%   59.11%
HD150  62.31%   33.69%   63.39%   32.19%    62.52%   32.70%
						
CC1    22.48%   73.86%   25.03%   71.41%    22.93%   71.70%
CC2    48.48%   47.61%   51.23%   44.47%    48.46%   45.14%
CC3    53.16%   42.92%   55.63%   40.36%    53.51%   41.15%
CC4    55.12%   40.78%   57.10%   38.46%    55.47%   39.29%

Justice Dori Garza

The figures above represent the races with Dori Garza and Eva Guzman, who were the top Democratic and Republican vote-getters among judicial candidates. Guzman was actually the high scorer overall, while Garza has the second-best Democratic total, trailing Hillary Clinton but topping Barack Obama in 2008. The other numbers are aggregates of all the Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals candidates, where “R SJ Avg” means “Republican statewide judicial average” and “D SJ Avg” is the same thing for Democrats. The percentages have been calculated to include the third parties, though I didn’t explicitly list them for the sake of saving space.

The differences in each district are small, but they add up. Dori Garza received 162K more votes statewide than Savannah Robinson, while Eva Guzman collected 124K more than Paul Green. As previously expressed for third party candidates, I believe being Latina was an advantage for both Garza and Guzman, as I suspect they got the votes of some people who didn’t have a strong partisan preference and were perhaps drawn to a familiar name in a race where they didn’t know anything about who was running. This advantage is not universal – I suspect if I looked around the state, the effect would be small and possibly even negative in places that have few Latino voters. You can certainly see a difference for Garza in HDs 140, 143, 144, 145, and 148 compared to other districts, where the gap between her and the average D is around four points. It also doesn’t hurt that Garza and Guzman were both strong candidates, who were widely endorsed and (at least in Garza’s case) ran actual campaigns. None of this mattered this year, but if this had been a year where the margin at the Presidential level had been two or three points instead of nine, this could have been the difference between a close win and a close loss. I don’t want to over-generalize here, as in any year there will be a high scorer and a low scorer, but it’s something to keep in mind when we start recruiting candidates for 2018 and 2020.

But also keep in mind the fact that despite getting nearly 300,000 more votes than President Obama in 2012, Garza only received 41.12% of the vote, which is less than what Obama got that year. This is because the Republican vote was up, too. Compare Garza’s race to the Supreme Court, Place 6 election in 2012. Garza outpolled Michelle Petty by 279K votes, but Paul Green outdid Nathan Hecht by 629K. Go back to 2008 and Supreme Court, Place 8, and it’s more of the same: Garza improved on Linda Yanez by 170K, while Green did 738K better than Phil Johnson. The preponderance of new voters in Harris County were Democrats. That was not the case statewide. That’s a problem, and we shouldn’t let Hillary Clinton’s performance against Donald Trump distract us from that.

A theory about third parties

Nov 15th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

11 comments

Before I get to that theory, have you ever wondered about the people who vote straight ticket Libertarian or Green in Harris County? I got to wondering about them, because that’s the sort of thing that I think about at times like this. Here are the total numbers of such people, grouped by Presidential and non-Presidential years, going back to 2000:


Year  Total votes  SP Lib  SP Green   Lib%  Green%
==================================================
2000      995,631   1,935     4,503  0.19%   0.45%
2004    1,088,793   3,343            0.31%
2008    1,188,731   4,017            0.34%
2012    1,204,167   4,777     1,759  0.40%   0.15%
2016    1,336,985   8,781     4,577  0.66%   0.34%

2002      656,682   1,159     1,399  0.18%   0.21%
2006      601,186   3,052            0.51%
2010      798,995   2,506     1,110  0.31%   0.14%
2014      688,018   2,922     1,180  0.42%   0.17%

“SP Lib” is the total number of straight party Libertarian votes, and “SP Green” is the same for the Greens. “Lib%” and “Green%” are the share of these straight party votes to all votes cast in the county. If you look at the election result pages on the HarrisVotes.com website, you will see that my percentages are lower than the ones shown there. That’s because they calculate the percentage of these votes as a share of all straight-party votes cast, not a share of all votes. I did it this way to see what if any trend there was for Libertarian and Green voting overall. For comparison purposes, 30.01% of all votes in Harris county this year were straight ticket Republican, with 35.35% of all votes being straight-ticket Democratic.

As you can see, in the Presidential years the Libertarians had been slowly ticking upwards, with a bit of a jump this year, though the trend is more erratic in the off years. The spike in 2006 is odd, because the Libertarian candidate for Governor received only 0.61% of the vote that year. If you wanted to vote outside the two-party box for Governor in 2006, you had plenty of choices. The Greens weren’t officially on the ballot in 2004, 2006, or 2008, so there’s less of a trend to spot. I’d say they do better in or right after a year where they have a Presidential candidate who gets some attention. Whether any of this will hold next year is not something I’m going to speculate about at this time. My mantra for the next twelve to eighteen months is “conditions in 2018 will be different than they were in 2014 and 2010”, and leave it at that.

That brings me to my theory, which applies to low profile races – not President, not Senate, not Governor, sometimes not other races. I’m limiting myself to statewide contests here, since that’s where you get most of the third party candidates that an individual voter sees. In my case, there was a Green candidate for CD18, a Libertarian for SBOE, and nothing else below the state level. I believe that in these races, which this year would be the Railroad Commission and the two state courts, voters for third party candidates can be broadly sorted into one of three groups. The first group is the party faithful, which as we have just seen is a relatively small cohort. There are probably a few more people who vote L or G as a first choice but don’t vote straight ticket, but that’s still a small group even in the context of just third party voters. Most of the people voting third party in these races aren’t voting third party as a matter of course.

So who are they? Group Two I believe is people who normally vote for Rs or Ds but who refuse to vote for their candidate in this particular instance. That may be because the candidate of their party is too/not sufficiently liberal/conservative for them, because that candidate supports or opposes a specific thing that is of great importance to them, because the candidate has ethical baggage, or because they just don’t like that candidate for some reason. In these cases, they don’t want to vote for the candidate of the other party, so a third party it is. Gary Johnson obviously got a lot of these votes in the Presidential race, but the downballot exemplar for this one was the Railroad Commissioner race, where Libertarian Mark Miller got a bunch of newspaper endorsements for being the most qualified candidate running.

The thing is, I don’t think there are that many races like that. I think in a lot of these races, people just don’t know anything about any of the candidates. So if you’re someone who (say) generally votes Democratic but aren’t that committed to it and you’re looking at a race for the Court of Criminal Appeals, you may say to yourself “well, I know I don’t want to vote for the Republican, but I don’t know who any of these other people are, so I’ll just pick one and move on”. These people are my Group Three.

What that says to me first of all is that both Republicans and Democrats are leaving some votes on the table in these downballot races by not doing a better job of getting their candidates’ names out there. That’s not much of a concern for the Republicans, who continue to win by double-digit margins, but it could eventually matter. I see this as an extension of a problem that Democrats are increasingly having in their primaries, where candidates like RRC nominee Grady Yarbrough have won races by a combination of pseudo-name recognition and random chance because no one knows who the hell these people are. I have many wishes for Texas Democrats going forward, and high on my list is for the party and the donor class to take these downballot primaries seriously.

One possible exception to this may be for Latino candidates. Look at the top votegetters for each party: Supreme Court candidates Eva Guzman and Dori Contreras Garza. My hypothesis is that Latino voters in a Group Three situation will choose a Latino candidate, even possibly one from their non-preferred party, instead of just randomly picking someone. Again, this is in races where none of the candidates are known to the voters, and thus there could be a different outcome if people had more knowledge. If we ever get to that point, maybe we’ll see that difference.

Finally, I believe my theory is consistent with the Libertarian candidate almost always doing better than the Green candidate does in these situations, for the simple reason that the Libertarian candidate appears on the ballot above the Green candidate. If it’s true that some people just pick a name after having moved past the first two candidates, then it makes sense that the first candidate listed after those two would get a larger share.

Anyway, that’s my theory. I could be wrong, and I doubt anyone other than me had given this much thought. I’ll get back to the precinct analyses tomorrow. Let me know what you think about this.

The Trump effect and the State Supreme Court

Oct 25th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Trib touches on a subject I addressed awhile ago.

Three Republican members of the Texas Supreme Court running for re-election are facing Democratic challengers who say they may have a chance in the solid-red state with Donald Trump at the top of the ballot.

Democrats point to recent polls that show Trump beating Hillary Clinton by just four points in Texas to explain a possible shift in Lone Star State politics. The Democratic National Committee announced plans in September to open headquarters in Houston to capitalize on the presidential race as a way to help down-ballot candidates.

But only one of the Democratic candidates for Texas Supreme Court — Dori Contreras Garza — has raised even close to enough money to be competitive. And even her bid is a long shot in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the court since 1994. The court has nine justices who are elected statewide to staggered six-year terms.

The rest of the story is a profile of the three races and the candidates in them. The premise about fundraising is more than a little ridiculous because in all four of the cases cited, the amount raised by the candidate in question was less than $100K, which is basically a drop on a sidewalk in August. I mean, that’s modest money for a district City Council race in Houston. It literally would have zero effect on a statewide campaign, which for these races is all about getting one’s name out before the voters. I guarantee you, nobody who isn’t a political junkie or personally acquainted with a given candidate will have any idea who they are.

So, as is so often the case, these races will be determined by overall turnout. I’ve already shown how in a scenario where the margin between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is small, the chances that one or more downballot Democrats could be elected grow, as Democratic candidates have seen less of a dropoff in their vote total from the top of the ticket in recent years. I wrote that post after a poll came out showing Trump leading Clinton by six points. More recently, we have seen polls where Trump’s lead was two, three, and four points. That could be overstating how close the race really is, and it may well be that there are other factors such as a higher than usual share of Republicans who will support Clinton but not any other Democrat that will ensure the GOP statewide hegemony remains intact. But as I said in that earlier post, it is not crazy to think that a Dem could win statewide this year. And if one or more do, it won’t be because they raised $10K more than their opponents.

Endorsement watch: More courts

Oct 16th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron has a bunch of judicial race endorsements to make, beginning with the First and 14th Courts of Appeals.

1st Court of Appeals, Chief Justice: Sherry Radack

Both Republican incumbent Sherry Radack and challenger Jim Peacock strongly agree that service on this bench constitutes a great honor. That honor should go to Radack, 65, for another term, although Peacock came as close any challenger has to convincing us that the breadth of his experience as a litigator and the need for more philosophical diversity on the court would justify a switch. But ultimately, it’s hard for us to vote to unseat a sitting justice who is doing a good job, which Radack is.

Justice, 1st Court of Appeals,Place 4: Barbara Gardner

Plato imaged a world run by philosopher-kings, but Republican judge Evelyn Keyes is the closest that Houston gets. Our resident philosopher-judge, Keyes is a member of the prestigious American Law Institute, which helps write the influential model penal code. A graduate of University of Houston Law Center, Keyes also has a doctorate in philosophy from Rice University and a doctorate in English from the University of Texas. She’s penned numerous papers on legal philosophy, exploring the foundational underpinnings of our entire judicial system and arguing about the concept of justice itself.

Now Keyes is running for her third term – a “last hurrah,” she told the editorial board, before she is aged out under state law. If elected, Keyes will be forced to retire after four years of her six-year term and will be replaced by a gubernatorial appointment.

Justice, 14th Court of Appeals, Place 2: Kevin Jewell

This race for an open seat offers voters two very different candidates who would each bring great strengths in their own ways.

Republican Kevin Jewell, a graduate of the University of Houston Law Center, is board certified in civil appellate law and heads up the appellate practice at the Chamberlain Hrdlicka law firm. Jewell, 48, has spent his career practicing in appellate courts and his resume is practically tailor-made for this position.

Justice, 14th Court of Appeals,Place 9: Tracy Elizabeth Christopher

Justice Tracy Christopher is one of the “smartest, most reasonable judges” on this court. That’s not us talking – that’s her Democratic opponent, Peter M. Kelly, during a meeting with the editorial board. It is the kind of praise that should encourage voters to keep Christopher, a Republican, on the bench. A graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Christopher, 60, is board certified in civil trial law and personal injury trial law, and served for 15 years on the 295th Civil District Court before her appointment to this bench in 2009. She’s received stellar bar poll ratings, and we were particularly impressed by her insight as to how the state Legislature has overridden common law in Texas, especially in medical malpractice and other torts.

And for the State Supreme Court.

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 3: Debra Lehrmann

Justice Debra Lehrmann, 59, has spent six years serving on the Texas Supreme Court and before that she was a Tarrant County family court judge for 22 years. In that time she has acquired a reputation as a hardworking and respected jurist with a record of success dating back to her days at University of Texas School of Law.

Her Democratic opponent and former judge of the 214th District Court in Nueces County, Mike Westergren, says that there needs to be more balance on the all-Republican court. Lehrmann agrees but they differ as to the nature of the deficit. Westergren argues for more ideological balance, while Lehrmann maintains the justices need to continue to challenge each other.

Justice Dori Garza

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 5: Dori Contreras Garza

What is Republican incumbent, Justice Paul Green, doing wrong on the Texas Supreme Court? According to his Democratic challenger, Justice Dori Garza, not much.

She told the editorial board that she’s not running against Green personally, but instead to provide greater diversity on the court.

The first in her family to receive a college degree, Garza, 58, attended night school at the University of Houston Law Center and in 2002 was elected to the 13th Court of Appeals, which stretches from Matagorda County south to the U.S.-Mexico border. She’s been re-elected twice and in 2010 was one of three candidates recommended by the Texas congressional delegation to serve as a federal judge in Corpus Christi.

If elected, she’ll bring different personal and ideological perspectives to a court that’s been critiqued as leaning in favor of corporations and state authority at the expense of everyday Texans.

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 9: Eva Guzman

It took 100 pages for the Texas Supreme Court to explain that our state’s school funding system was constitutional, if imperfect. But Justice Eva Guzman’s passionate concurrence should light a fire under Texas politicians who may think that winning at the Texas Supreme Court absolves them of any duty to improve our public schools.

They endorsed challenger Barbara Gardner over incumbent Evelyn Keyes because Judge Keyes will have to resign after four years due to the mandatory retirement age of 75. The main thing about both of these endorsement posts is that they basically like all of the candidates. They have a couple of clear preferences, but no races in which they consider only one candidate qualified. Consider that another piece of evidence to suggest that our oft-maligned system of partisan elections for judges maybe isn’t as bad as its frequently made out to be. My Q&A for Dori Garza is here, and I’ve got Q&As lined up for Jim Peacock and Candance White, so look for them soon.

Media covers latest voting rights lawsuit

Jul 29th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Glad they finally noticed.

A group of Hispanic voters has filed a lawsuit challenging how Texas selects judges to its top two courts, arguing that statewide elections for the state Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals dilutes the voting strength of minorities.

The suit is the latest to allege the state’s election structure violates federal rules to protect blacks and Hispanics at the ballot box – and it is the most recent legal fight over whether at-large election systems in Texas unfairly hinder minorities.

Seven Hispanic voters, including the wife of a state senator from El Paso, are contending in the lawsuit that minorities for decades have been essentially shut out of the process of electing judges to serve on Texas’ two highest courts. The current system, they argue, violates the Voting Rights Act.

[…]

Richard Murray, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said Hispanics represent a huge swath of the state’s population growth but have reaped few political rewards in the process, especially when it comes to elections for the state’s top two courts.

“Now with a larger population and better political organization it might be a good time for an attack on the system,” he said, noting the timing of the suit could be politically advantageous for the Hispanic voters suing the state.

The lawsuit was filed last week; Rick Hasen noted it last Wednesday, and I blogged about it on Monday. The Trib also now has coverage, and they go into some additional detail.

Even the two Hispanics currently on the courts — [Supreme Court Justice Eva] Guzman and [CCA Justice Elsie] Alcala — were not originally elected to their seats. Both were first appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to fill vacancies. In fact, no Latino has ever been elected to those courts without first being appointed to their posts.

Guzman did not respond to a request for comment.

Alcala, who sits on the Court of Criminal Appeals, knows the optics could be better. Many of her cases involve Latino and African-American criminal defendants, but she’s the only person of color on her court.

“I don’t know if there’s a correlation, really, between the color of your skin and how you’re going to rule,” she said, but added: “I think that does cause people to perceive the court a different way.”

She does not take a position on the new legal challenge, but she did suggest another option for bolstering diversity among top judges: allow governors to appoint all them, with voters later deciding whether to retain them.

Perry appointed Alcala to the court in 2011. She won a new term in 2012 after running unopposed in the Republican primary.

“At the Supreme Court, a lot of minorities are appointed because the governor made a concerted effort to ensure there is balance.”

And on her court? She got lucky. “There just haven’t been vacancies,” Alcala said.

[…]

In 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Voting Rights Act could apply to elected judges — at least in state trial courts.

That decision was part of a long-running challenge to at-large judicial elections in 10 Texas counties. That convoluted legal saga sparked drama in Austin as two consecutive Texas attorneys general wrangled with Chief Justice Tom Phillips and district judges over how to handle the dispute.

“The political backstory in that case was fascinating, full of vintage Texas political intrigue and Capitol strategery,” Don Willett, a Texas Supreme Court justice since 2005, said in an email. The Republican justice, who has been mentioned by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump as on his short list for future nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, said he could not comment on the latest challenge to Texas judicial elections.

“But as a political matter,” he added, “It’ll be interesting to watch from a safe distance.”

The complaint cites Chisom v. Roemer, 501 U.S. 380 (1991), which is the case that ruled that the Voting Rights Act could apply to judicial elections; the Trib story links to Houston Lawyers’ Assn. v. Texas Attorney Gen. (90-813), 501 U.S. 419 (1991), which held that the Roemer case (which was about elections in Louisiana) applied to Texas as well. Just because the VRA could apply to judicial elections, and did apply in that case, doesn’t mean it will in this case. Justice Alcala is quite right that we don’t have to elect Supreme Court and CCA judges at all; we could rely on an appointment system. I’m not advocating for such a system, but it does show that there’s more than one alternative available if the system we have now is found to be problematic. I’m sure the plaintiffs will have responses to both of these points, as will the state. I look forward to seeing how it plays out.

On succeeding, and defending, Ken Paxton

Aug 17th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Ross Ramsay:

Best mugshot ever

While Ken Paxton fights to avoid convictions and jail time on indictments alleging securities violations — and to keep his job as Texas attorney general — a muted and unofficial conversation about who will succeed him is already underway.

[…]

That considerable legal predicament opens the conversation about whether Paxton can survive politically. Any felony conviction, whether it involves prison or not, would cost him his law license and probably whatever remains of his term. And that could set up an appointment of his successor by Gov. Greg Abbott — his predecessor as attorney general.

That leads to this: There is a political fluster underway that most people know nothing about.

Names of possible Paxton successors are floating around in Republican circles: Supreme Court Justices Don Willett and Eva Guzman; former Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson; current and former first assistants to the AG Chip Roy and Daniel Hodge; [Dan] Branch and [Barry] Smitherman, the two also-rans in last year’s Republican primary. It goes on, picking up Education Commissioner Michael Williams and state Rep. Jason Villalba of Dallas.

The people in the preceding paragraph have a few things in common. They are Republicans. They are lawyers. They are not openly campaigning for Paxton’s job. Some support Paxton and hope he emerges without a mark. And they make up a pretty good list of viable candidates for state office, whether it turns out to be this one or something in the future. They’re from different parts of the GOP, and the infighting, should an opening occur, could be fierce.

I hope Paxton digs his heels in deep and hangs on to run for re-election even if he’s been convicted. What does he care what a bunch of insiders and establishment figures think about his “effectiveness” or “ability to govern?” They’re not the ones who elected him in the first place, and they’re not the ones who are steadfastly supporting him against all comers and all evidence. Scott Braddock explains.

Employees of Tim Dunn’s Empower Texans, a self-proclaimed conservative group, have tried to make the case that Texas House Speaker Joe Straus is somehow to blame for the legal problems Paxton now faces.

As Quorum Report publisher Harvey Kronberg has pointed out, this alleged swindling of investors amounts to the same kind of shenanigans that helped give rise to the Tea Party in the first place back in 2008 following the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent Wall Street bailouts.

What’s gotten less attention is the company at the heart of the Paxton indictment, Servergy, received government economic incentives that are strongly opposed by Sen. Konni Burton, R-Colleyville, and others who claim to be as conservative as they come.

Sen. Ted Cruz – one of Paxton’s biggest supporters and the man who more than anyone put his political capital behind him in the GOP primary runoff against Rep. Dan Branch – regularly rails against government interference in the marketplace.

In his crusade against the Export-Import Bank, a top priority of many Texas employers, Cruz has called the Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar and has repeatedly used the word “cartel” to describe lobbyists who represent job creators in his home state and elsewhere.

At the time Paxton was rounding up investors for Servergy, allegedly without disclosing his financial interest in the firm, the company was getting government incentives to move to his hometown. Among the details of Paxton’s situation is the fact that Servergy received rental assistance from the City of McKinney so that it could relocate to North Texas from California.

[…]

Many of those same folks in the business community are understandably unaware of the way in which scorecards created and promoted by Empower Texans are reverse-engineered with the goal of aiding GOP politicians who have been adversarial toward Speaker Straus. Sen. Burton and AG Paxton have been beneficiaries of those tactics.

Paxton was also the recipient of at least $1.4 million in Empower Texans political money in the form of a $1 million loan and $400,000 cash as he ran for the Republican nomination.

As far as we know, Paxton is the only one of their allies who possibly gained from government economic incentives that went to a company from which he stood to profit financially.

If consistency or conservatism were the priorities of Dunn, his spokesman Michael Quinn Sullivan, and Sen. Burton they would likely be among the loudest critics of Servergy’s rental assistance.

But the name of the game for this particular cartel is control, not consistency.

Indeed, and that’s why I think any talk of who might succeed Ken Paxton is premature. Paxton knows where his bread is buttered. Until that support dries up, or until the voters actually do boot him out, I don’t believe he’s going anywhere.

Moody to run for Supreme Court again

Oct 12th, 2009

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Good news for Democratic statewide prospects.

A veteran state district judge who walked across Texas three years ago in pursuit of a seat on the state Supreme Court plans to go airborne next year for another shot at the high court.

Judge Bill Moody, of El Paso, plans to charter a blimp and make two daily stops in the state’s 70 most populated counties to grab the attention of voters. An amateur historian, Moody says no Texan has campaigned from a blimp before, although Lyndon Johnson created a buzz by using a helicopter during his 1948 U.S. Senate campaign.

The blimp idea came to Moody during a walk in the hot sun near the Johnson ranch east of Fredericksburg.

“I saw a blimp flying through the sky, and I said, ‘There might be an easier way to do this and to get out the message,’ ” he said Thursday from the state Capitol. “The blimp is important as a messaging tool.”

A Democrat, he hopes to break into the nine-member, all-Republican court.

Moody was the leading votegetter among Dems in 2006, collecting 1,877,909 tallies in a 51-45 loss to appointed Justice Don Willett. He collected a lot of newspaper endorsements along the way, which I believe helped him. Two Democratic judicial candidates from 2008 – Sam Houston and Susan Strawn – received a higher percentage of the vote than Moody did in 2006, so with his name ID and qualifications, he has a real shot next year.

Individual workers, home owners and consumers have lost nearly every case before the court when opposed by insurance and pharmaceutical companies, Moody said.

“These large political contributors have been so overpowering and loud in exercising their speech and influence before the Republican court that everyone else’s voices have been drowned out,” he said.

If you want to know who those big contributors are and who their beneficiaries were in the last election, read this report (PDF) from Texans for Public Justice.

According to Postcards (whose individual entry link is broken), Moody will run against Justice Paul Green. I don’t know yet who will run for the seat that was vacated by Justice Scott Brister, which has now been filled by Justice Eva Guzman of the 14th Texas Court of Appeals, but I’m sure someone will. For that matter, I’m sure someone will run against Guzman and whoever her appointed replacement is on the 14th Court in the Republican primary as well. And I know that whoever wins that latter primary will face Tim Riley, who ran against Tom DeLay in CD22 back in 2002, in the general election. I think that about covers it.

Eva Guzman

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