write-in candidate

Precinct analysis: Hidalgo versus Mealer

PREVIOUSLY
Beto versus Abbott
Beto versus the spread

We’ve looked at the Governor’s race, in which Beto was the top Democratic performer. Now we’ll look at the next highest profile race, in which the result was a surprise to some people who didn’t connect Democratic performance at the top of the ticket with the other local races. Here’s the data for the County Judge race, in which Judge Lina Hidalgo won re-election by a close margin, though on a percentage basis it was slightly wider than her initial win in 2018. As with the first Beto post, I’m just going to dump all the data and will add my comments at the end.


Dist   Mealer  Hidalgo    W-I
=============================
CD02   77,665   46,669     21
CD07   53,108   77,625     29
CD08   46,156   45,668     17
CD09   23,451   71,374     29
CD18   46,492  107,792     46
CD22   13,292    8,076      2
CD29   33,392   66,220     27
CD36   70,392   41,817     24
CD38  170,772   87,662     46

CD02   62.45%   37.53%  0.02%
CD07   40.61%   59.36%  0.02%
CD08   50.26%   49.73%  0.02%
CD09   24.72%   75.25%  0.03%
CD18   30.13%   69.85%  0.03%
CD22   62.20%   37.79%  0.01%
CD29   33.51%   66.46%  0.03%
CD36   62.72%   37.26%  0.02%
CD38   66.07%   33.91%  0.02%

Dist   Mealer  Hidalgo    W-I
=============================
SD04   58,925   34,135     14
SD06   45,259   81,877     39
SD07  163,993   97,075     50
SD11   60,351   32,991     17
SD13   25,998   96,440     45
SD15   97,303  146,861     50
SD17   64,692   46,518     22
SD18   18,199   17,006      4

SD04   63.31%   36.68%  0.02%
SD06   35.59%   64.38%  0.03%
SD07   62.80%   37.18%  0.02%
SD11   64.64%   35.34%  0.02%
SD13   21.23%   78.74%  0.04%
SD15   39.84%   60.14%  0.02%
SD17   58.16%   41.82%  0.02%
SD18   51.69%   48.30%  0.01%

Dist   Mealer  Hidalgo    W-I
=============================
HD126  38,281   21,401     17
HD127  41,603   24,533      5
HD128  33,175   12,968     12
HD129  39,519   24,982     11
HD130  47,660   18,606     13
HD131   6,519   24,611     13
HD132  37,180   23,721      7
HD133  36,909   23,379     11
HD134  35,653   45,142     16
HD135  17,620   22,982      7
HD137   8,600   12,670      9
HD138  33,875   22,977      9
HD139  13,492   30,143     11
HD140   6,238   12,885      5
HD141   5,209   20,104     17
HD142   9,939   24,454      7
HD143   9,087   15,412      6
HD144  12,242   14,069      9
HD145  15,445   30,141     11
HD146   9,975   31,981     11
HD147  10,964   35,240     12
HD148  16,934   20,004      8
HD149  12,496   19,196      4
HD150  36,105   21,302     10

HD126  64.12%   35.85%  0.03%
HD127  62.90%   37.09%  0.01%
HD128  71.88%   28.10%  0.03%
HD129  61.26%   38.72%  0.02%
HD130  71.91%   28.07%  0.02%
HD131  20.93%   79.03%  0.04%
HD132  61.04%   38.95%  0.01%
HD133  61.21%   38.77%  0.02%
HD134  44.12%   55.86%  0.02%
HD135  43.39%   56.59%  0.02%
HD137  40.42%   59.54%  0.04%
HD138  59.58%   40.41%  0.02%
HD139  30.91%   69.06%  0.03%
HD140  32.61%   67.36%  0.03%
HD141  20.56%   79.37%  0.07%
HD142  28.89%   71.09%  0.02%
HD143  37.08%   62.89%  0.02%
HD144  46.51%   53.45%  0.03%
HD145  33.87%   66.10%  0.02%
HD146  23.77%   76.21%  0.03%
HD147  23.72%   76.25%  0.03%
HD148  45.83%   54.14%  0.02%
HD149  39.42%   60.56%  0.01%
HD150  62.88%   37.10%  0.02%

Dist   Mealer  Hidalgo    W-I
=============================
CC1    80,014  194,272     79
CC2   101,745  103,117     48
CC3   233,567  133,554     63
CC4   119,394  121,960     51

CC1    29.16%   70.81%  0.03%
CC2    49.65%   50.32%  0.02%
CC3    63.61%   36.37%  0.02%
CC4    49.46%   50.52%  0.02%

Dist   Mealer  Hidalgo    W-I
=============================
JP1    71,793  116,463     40
JP2    23,249   29,149     10
JP3    37,340   40,840     31
JP4   180,017  119,979     60
JP5   152,130  137,293     52
JP6     5,840   17,018      5
JP7    13,972   64,220     27
JP8    50,379   27,941     16

JP1    38.13%   61.85%  0.02%
JP2    44.36%   55.62%  0.02%
JP3    47.74%   52.22%  0.04%
JP4    59.99%   39.99%  0.02%
JP5    52.55%   47.43%  0.02%
JP6    25.54%   74.43%  0.02%
JP7    17.86%   82.10%  0.03%
JP8    64.31%   35.67%  0.02%

Hidalgo got 50.78% of the vote, which is 3.25 points less than Beto. She got 553K votes, which is 42K less than Beto. Mealer got 534K votes, 44K more than Abbott. Third party candidates accounted for over 16K votes in the Governor’s race, while the write-in candidate for County Judge got 241 total votes. I do not and never will understand anyone who thinks that writing in a candidate for County Judge could possibly be productive, but that’s not important right now.

For the most part, Hidalgo’s performance in each district is about what you’d expect in comparison to Beto. Generally speaking, she did a couple of points worse. The two glaring exceptions to this are HDs 133 and 134, both wealthy, well-educated, predominantly white districts that, in keeping with recent trends, are a lot more Democratic than they used to be. Hidalgo trailed Beto by six points in HD133 and seven in HD134. If I were the New York Times, I’d spend the next six months visiting brunch counters in those districts to talk to more-in-sadness-than-in-anger Mealer voters, who will turn out to have been almost uniformly Ed Emmett voters in 2018 but who will insist that they really wanted to support Hidalgo, they largely agreed with her on how she handled the pandemic and all, but for reasons they can’t quite articulate they just couldn’t. I’m sure it would be compelling reading, but I don’t have the staff or the budget for that. Plus, the idea of it makes me gag, so it’s just as well.

Anyway. The other notable thing is that with the lone exception of JP/Constable Precinct 5, Hidalgo still carried every district Beto carried. (I’m not concerning myself with fractional districts like CD08.) I was worried that if Hidalgo lost, there was a real chance Dems could lose not one but both of the Commissioners Court races as well. Looking at the numbers, it’s not an irrational fear. I’ll have more to say about those Commissioners Court precincts later, so let’s put a pin in that for now.

We have to talk about the many millions of dollars spent by various wealthy wingnuts against Judge Hidalgo and Democratic criminal court judges. We can’t say for certain how much all that spending affected the final outcomes, but it’s impossible to think it had no effect. What I wonder about is whether there will be much appetite for that kind of spending in future races. For sure, it’s hard to imagine much money spent on Republicans locally in 2024. Democrats haven’t lost a judicial race in a Presidential year since 2012, and haven’t lost a majority of judicial races in a Presidential year since 2004. In 2020, eleven Democratic judicial candidates were unopposed. I won’t be surprised if that number is matched or exceeded in 2024. I won’t speculate about 2026 – at the very least, Republicans will have four incumbents to try to defend, so they’ll want to do something – but I don’t see them having a $25 million budget. Maybe Judge Hidalgo will have an easier time of it as well.

I’ll have more to say about judicial races later. In the meantime, let me know what you think.

30 day campaign finance reports: HCC

Oct 18th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

PREVIOUSLY: HISD 30 day reports

As is usually the case, the HCC finance reports are not as interesting as the HISD reports, but review them we must, because these races really do matter. So here we begin.

Adriana Tamez, District 3
Brandon Cofield, District 3

Eva Loredo, District 8
Jharrett Bryantt, District 8
Victor Gonzales, District 8


Dist  Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
==========================================================
3         Tamez     16,550      1,168        0      20,092
3       Cofield      3,455      2,625        0         829
8        Loredo      8,035      3,520    7,000       7,598
8       Bryantt      3,800      1,817        0       2,800
8      Gonzales        250          0        0         250

The July reports are here. As noted with the HISD reports, incumbents not on the ballot do not need to file 20 day or 8 day reports. Reagan Flowers is unopposed, so she gets to skip it as well. Dave Wilson (heavy sigh) is technically unopposed, and I don’t see any reports for him in the system. I’m sure he has some past reports in the system, but I can’t see them. If he didn’t file a report in July, then we have no idea what he’s been up to this election, which ain’t great. As for Jim Noteware, he did file a 30 day report but had no money raised or spent.

Not much else to say here. None of these amounts are enough to make a difference. Tamez and Loredo have run before, with Tamez in office since 2014 and Loredo since 2010 so presumably they have some name recognition. But Bruce Austin was a four-time Trustee when Wilson snuck past him with the help of some dirty tricks, so best not to take anything for granted. My interviews with Tamez, Loredo, Flowers, and Bryantt are running this week, so give them a listen and know who you’re voting for.

I regret to inform you that Dave Wilson will be back on the HCC Board of Trustees

Sep 28th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

14 comments

From Campos:

Commentary was scrolling through the November 2 ballot for races in Harris County. I got to the HCC Trustee races and bam, I saw a Dave Wilson running in District 6. Running unopposed. The district is on the westside. Surely it had to be another Dave Wilson.

I texted my friend, HCC Trustee Adrianna Tamez and she confirmed it was the same Dave Wilson. How does this happen?

Adrianna also said there was a write-in candidate also in that race. It really doesn’t matter.

How does this happen?

You can see the candidates list here. None of the non-incumbents had filed a finance report for July, so they were below the radar. District 6 is currently held by John Hansen, who did not file for re-election. The write-in candidate is Jim Noteware, last seen as the losing plaintiff in a lawsuit over ballot language for the 2017 pension bond referendum. As I understand it, he didn’t fill out his candidate application correctly, and apparently there wasn’t time for him to fix it. You’ve heard me rant about that before, so just assume I did it again.

Noteware did manage to file for status as a write-in candidate, which just simply means that any write-in votes cast for him will be officially counted, as opposed to a write-in vote for “Mickey Mouse” or “Shelley Sekula-Gibbs”. The odds that he can win as a write-in, even against a sack of pestilence like Dave Wilson, are not good. Yes, I know, incumbent Trustee Eva Loredo won as a write-in back in 2009. The difference is that there were no other candidates in the race, so all she needed was literally one vote. (She got 532 votes, including one from me, out of nearly 11K ballots cast in the district.) Wilson will get a bunch of votes for being the only listed candidate. It’s possible that Noteware could beat him, but it would take a massive campaign to inform voters of why not to vote for Wilson as well as why and how to vote for Noteware. That ain’t happening, and so we will be stuck with the repulsive menace that is Dave Wilson for another six years. I’m sorry to have to ruin your Monday like this, but here we are.

PS – Yes, I know, this is a different district than the one Wilson won back in 2013. It’s also different than the one he ran for in 2019, having resigned from the office he held so he could establish residency in the other district. Our residency laws are meaningless, and Wilson doesn’t represent anyone but himself, so what does it matter what district he runs for? One warehouse is as good as the next. It’s all the same to him.

The fifty percent challenge

Jul 5th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

An interesting point from Amy Walters.

President Trump is at the most precarious political moment of his presidency. Or at least, the most precarious since the summer and fall of 2017 when, in the wake of Charlottesville, the failure to repeal Obamacare, and escalating tensions with North Korea, the president’s approval ratings were mired in the mid-to-high 30s. It was only the success of the tax cut bill at the end of 2017 that brought Trump’s approval ratings back into the 40s, where they’ve remained ever since.

Today, his overall job approval rating sits at 41 percent. Not as bad as 2017, but certainly a dangerous place to be this close to re-election. Of course, this has been a consistent pattern with this president. Like a hammer which only knows how to bash a nail, Trump has one speed. He has never been interested in broadening his base — only in mobilizing it and growing it by targeting and turning out as many Trump friendly non-voters as possible. In states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, where non-voters are more likely to be white and working class, the theory is that Trump can win by expanding the pool of Trump partisans, rather than trying to win back (or win over), more traditional and frequent voters.

As such, his ability to win re-election is centered on him being as close in his job approval ratings as his popular vote showing in 2016. The closer he sits to 46-48 percent job approval rating in October, the better chance he has to squeak out another narrow Electoral College win. But, when he gets much below 45 percent, his path to Electoral College victory gets more and more narrow.

[…]

Lots of folks short-hand the results of the 2016 election by highlighting Trump’s margin of victory over Clinton instead of his actual vote share. For example, hearing that Trump carried Iowa by 9 points sounds impressive, until you learn that he did so while taking just 51 percent of the vote. Clinton underperformed Obama’s 2012 vote share in more states than Trump over-performed Mitt Romney’s share of the vote. And, in 2018, GOP gubernatorial candidates in Ohio, Florida, and Iowa all took mostly the same percent of the vote Trump did in their states two years earlier. In Ohio, for example, Trump took 51.3 percent of the vote; two years later, Mike DeWine took 50.4 percent.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to understand if Trump’s vote share in 2016 was his ceiling, or whether he has room to grow.

Let’s take this idea and apply it to the data we have for Texas. Since the March primaries, in which Joe Biden effectively clinched the nomination, there have been ten public polls of our state:

UT/Trib, April 25
DT/PPP, April 29
UT-Tyler/DMN, May 3
Emerson, May 13
Quinnipiac, June 3
PPP/TDP, June 4
PPP/PT, June 23
Fox, June 25
UT/Trib July 2
PPP/Emily’s List, July 2

All of them included an approval question on Trump in addition to the horse race question, though in a couple of the polls I really had to hunt through the data to find that exact question. Here’s how the approval numbers for each poll stack up against the “vote for” numbers:


Poll    Approve   Vote
======================
UT/TT        49     49
DT/PPP       46     46
UTT/DMN      45     43
Emerson      46     47
QU           45     44
PPP          46     48
PT/PPP       48     48
Fox          50     44
UT/TT        46     48
PPP          46     46

Avg        46.7   46.3

With the exception of the Fox poll (in which the “disapprove” number was 48 for Trump), the approval number and the “vote for” number are very close. What that suggests, at least if you agree with Walters’ thesis, is that Trump seems to have a ceiling on his support, which in Texas you may recall was only 52.2% of the vote in 2016. Trump’s margin of victory in Texas in 2016 was as large as it was in part because a significant portion of the vote went to other candidates. That’s usually not the case in presidential races here, as we see from the past four races in Texas:


Non-two-party vote totals

Year    Total
=============
2004    0.67%
2008    0.85%
2012    1.45%
2016    4.52%

Of course, in the three elections before that, Ralph Nader (2.15% in 2000) and Ross Perot (22.01% in 1992, 6.75% in 1996) had a much bigger effect. My point here is simply that the “none of the above” options this time around are much less known and thus much less likely to draw significant levels of support. That makes Trump’s struggle to get near (let alone over) fifty percent in Texas that much more urgent.

Now just because people don’t like Trump doesn’t mean they won’t vote for him, or that they will vote for Joe Biden. Biden does better than Trump overall in approval numbers, and unlike 2016 when Trump won a large majority of the people who disliked both of the major party candidates, Biden is dominating that vote this year. Still, he has a lower overall “vote for” number than Trump does, and as folks like G. Elliott Morris document, there are many dimensions to this question, and the underlying basics still favor Trump in our state. The big picture is that we’re in a close race here, and it won’t take much more slippage on Trump’s part to make Biden a favorite. It also won’t take much of a bounce on Trump’s part to put him firmly in the driver’s seat. For now, it’s close, and it will likely stay that way.

After-deadline filing review: Houston area

Dec 11th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

There’s a lot to digest following Monday’s filing deadline, and as I’ve said I’m going to take some time and go over it in as much obsessive detail as you’ve probably come to expect from me. As a reminder, the filing info can be found here, with the caveat that it may not be fully complete. Only two Dem filers in CD03 are listed, for example, while the not-listed Tanner Do sure seems to have filed. This will all get fixed over the next couple of days, but let’s do keep that in mind.

Congress: Sima Ladjevardian’s entry into the CD02 primary was the main news here. She doesn’t have much online presence as a candidate yet, just a Twitter account with three tweets. I hope to have the chance to interview her, and if I do I’ll ask about this, but I get the sense this wasn’t just a late filing, but a late decision to run. That process is always fascinating to me. Anyone who runs against Dan Crenshaw is going to have to raise a lot of money, because he has a lot of money. She strikes me as the kind of candidate who is capable of that, which makes me wonder why not get started sooner? I understand, people have their own reasons for that, I’m just curious. She has three weeks till the next reporting deadline, we’ll see how she does.

Elsewhere, CD10 stayed at three candidates but CD22 now has five, as Chris Fernandez (mentioned in passing in this story and someone named Carmine Petricco whom neither Google nor Facebook can find entered. CD08 has two candidates, Laura Jones, who we knew about a month ago, and Elizabeth Hernandez, whom I cannot identify. If you know anything about any of these folks, please leave a comment.

As noted before, Rep. Al Green has an opponent in CD09, and Sheila Jackson Lee has six – count ’em, six – opponents in CD18. Three of them – Marc Flores, Bimal Patel, and Stevens Orozco – have been around campaigning for awhile, the other three are more recent entrants. And while it’s not a contested primary, I feel compelled to note that Rashad Lewis, who became the youngest person elected to Jasper City Council as a write-in candidate in 2017, then ran for Mayor earlier this year but fell short, is in for CD36. I’m going to want to interview him for November.

Legislative: SBOE6 has three candidates as before; I’ll be publishing interviews with them next week. In the Senate, as noted before Sen. Borris Miles has two opponents in SD13. Former Galveston judge Susan Criss and 2018 CD22 primary candidate Margarita Ruiz Johnson are competing in SD11. Carol Alvarado has SD06 to herself, while Jay Stittleburg (SD04) and Michael Antalan have clear paths to November.

The big news for the State House is that the HD148 primary is now a five candidate race: Anna Eastman, Penny Shaw, Emily Wolf, Adrian P. Garcia, and Cynthia Reyes-Revilla. Garcia was in the HD148 special election, and Reyes-Revilla finished out of the money in District H. I think it’s safe to say there will be a runoff in the primary, as there was in the special election. HD126 is a rerun from 2018, as Undrai Fizer and Natali Hurtado square off again. HD128, which was uncontested in 2018 (and is the reddest district in the county) has Josh Markle, who recently got a boost from Beto, and Mary E. Williams, whom I cannot find. HD134 has the three candidates you know, and HD138 has the two you know plus a repeat engagement from Jenifer Pool. HD129 (Kayla Alix), HD130 (Bryan Henry), HD133 (Sandra Moore, who ran in the 2018 primary), and HD150 (Michael Robert Walsh, whom I cannot conclusively identify) are all uncontested for March.

Among the Harris County incumbents, Reps. Alma Allen (HD131) and Harold Dutton (HD142) have four challengers, with CM Jerry Davis in HD142 being the biggest threat to either of them. Reps. Garnet Coleman (HD147) and Hubert Vo (HD149) each have two opponents, Reps. Jarvis Johnson, Senfronia Thompson, and Shawn Thierry have one, and Reps. Gina Calanni, Jon Rosenthal, Gene Wu, Armando Walle, Ana Hernandez, Mary Ann Perez, and Christina Morales are unopposed. Thierry’s opponent, as noted before, is Ashton Woods, who had run in At Large #5.

Elsewhere, Rep. Ron Reynolds (HD27) did pick up a primary opponent. I’ve been hard on Reynolds since his misdemeanor conviction, and I stand by everything I said. He’s now served his sentence, and I’m not aware of any further legal issues. I’m not quite ready yet, but assuming nothing else happens we are going to need to consider extending him the same grace we’re willing to give others who have served their sentences and deserve a clean slate, at least as far as voting and holding office is concerned. The infamously now-open HD26 has the four candidates we already knew of. Eliz Markowitz remains the candidate in HD28, and there are solo Dems running in HD03 (Martin Shupp), HD15 (Lorena McGill, the 2018 candidate), HD23 (Jeff Antonelli), HD24 (former Chron reporter Brian Rogers), HD25 (Patrick Henry), HD29 (Travis Boldt), and HD85 (Friend-of-Dos-Centavos Joey Cardenas).

Harris County: The main races – DA, County Attorney, Sheriff, Tax Assessor – you know about and nothing new has happened. There’s plenty of action in the two HCDE At Large races – Position 5 now has two candidates (Erica Davis, Paul Ovalle) and Position 7 has four (David Brown and Andrea Duhon, the two we knew about originally, and Bill Morris and Obes Nwabara). Also, too, I have not seen anything to indicate that Josh Flynn has resigned his spot as he runs for HD138 on the GOP side, so there’s that. Willie D is now listed in the primary for Commissioners Court Precinct 1, which doesn’t make sense but maybe something changed. If so, that’s a three-candidate race. There are six candidates for Precinct 3, the four you’ve heard of (Michael Moore, Diana Alexander, Kristi Thibaut, Morris Overstreet) and two you haven’t (Zaher Eisa and Erik Hassan, who is now calling himself Erik “Beto” Hassan, which, no). Alan Rosen did indeed file for Constable in Precinct 1.

That’s all I have the energy for now. I’ll keep going with this tomorrow.

Sorry, Willie D

Sep 29th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I think you need better lawyers, dude.

Willie Dennis

William Dennis, the former Geto Boys rapper known as “Willie D,” is planning to a host a campaign fundraiser Friday for his City Council bid, but election officials say voters won’t be able to cast ballots for him Nov. 5.

Dennis’ campaign for Houston City Council’s District B seat ostensibly ended about a month ago, when he missed a late-August deadline to file as a write-in candidate. He did not file an earlier campaign form that would have secured him a spot on the ballot.

Dennis was surprised Thursday when a reporter told him voters would not be able to support him on the Nov. 5 ballot. He said he interpreted the law differently and was planning to run as an “open write-in candidate, which means that I don’t have to be on the ballot.”

County election officials, however, said there will not be a write-in choice for District B because no candidate submitted the required declaration form.

“District B does not have a write-in option, so, therefore, no one would be able to vote for him,” said Teneshia Hudspeth, a spokeswoman for Harris County Clerk Diane Trautman, who administers elections in Harris County.

Dennis said he and his attorney would seek clarification from election officials Friday.

“We’re going to talk to the city attorney first thing in the morning,” Dennis said.

[…]

Below the “Willie D For District B” invite is an important reminder: “Remember to click the Write-In button on the ballot and write-in Willie ‘Willie D’ Dennis.”

That button will not exist, per the county officials.

Even if voters could write his name in, the Texas Election Code stipulates that those ballots would not count.

“In an election for city officers, a write-in vote may not be counted unless the name written in appears on the list of write-in candidates,” the law says.

Dennis said he and his lawyer were looking at a preceding portion of the same chapter that says: “Except as otherwise provided by law, if the name of the person for whom a voter desires to vote does not appear on the ballot, the voter may write in the name of that person.”

See here and here for the background. That second link, among other things, notes that there is a write-in candidate certified for District D. You can find the chapter of the Elections Code that covers write-in candidates here. It’s true that in the introduction to this chapter, it says what Dennis’ lawyers cite. But – and I know that I Am Not A Lawyer, but this is really super simple – that bit about “except as otherwise provided by law” means “unless there is a specific law addressing the subject in question”. And following that are entire subchapters about write-in candidates for state and county offices, and write-in candidates for city offices, both of which specify that you have to file a declaration that is then certified by the local elections administrator, by a certain deadline. Willie D didn’t do that, so therefore his write-in candidacy doesn’t count. You really don’t have to be a lawyer to understand that.

So when can one be a write-in candidate and not have to worry about filing paperwork? Elections not covered by this chapter would include school boards, MUDs, and whatever other local government entities there may be that aren’t state, county, or city. I’m sure there are plenty of other lawyers in Houston that could have explained this to Willie D.

UPDATE: Willie D has conceded.

Willie D’s campaign for city council ended before it could even begin.

The former Geto Boys rapper, whose full name is William Dennis, said Friday he was effectively dropping out of the District B race after acknowledging that voters wouldn’t be able to support him in the Nov. 5 election. Dennis had declined to file paperwork with the city that would have put him on the ballot or qualified him as a write-in candidate.

He was set to officially kick off his campaign with a fundraiser Friday night until a reporter called Thursday asking about the ballot woes. Dennis said Saturday he didn’t know yet how much money they raised at the event, but he planned to redirect the funds toward flood victims and a local church.

He made the announcement he would end his campaign Friday in an Instagram video.

Willie D had chosen not to file because of questions about a past felony conviction. I agree with him that the law in question should be amended and that people like Willie D who have served out their sentence should be allowed to vote and to run for office. I hope Willie D will turn his attention to lobbying for this change in the Legislature.

Bonus commentary on 2019 lineup

Aug 22nd, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

11 comments

There was a lot of last minute activity at Monday’s filing deadline, as there usually is. Probably more so this year, as approximately ten percent of Houston adults are running for office this November. The point here is that the news stories and other available sources at the time had a lot to do to keep up with it all, and those of us who follow them now recognize there were things we missed the first time around. So, after another review of the Erik Manning spreadsheet and the City of Houston 2019 election page, here are some semi-random observations about things I didn’t note or comment on the first time around. I’ll run this down race by race.

Mayor: Mostly, I’m going to point out the filers and non-filers that are worth mentioning for one reason or another. The usual reason is going to be because my reaction to the late filers was along the lines of “oh, Lord, not that person again”. Exhibit A is Kendall Baker, who has cluttered up multiple ballots since the 2007 special election in At Large #3. Most recently, he ran in HD137 as a Republican in 2016, and in District F in 2015. Baker wasn’t a late filer – he had a June finance report – but as I prefer to think pleasant thoughts I’d forgotten he was in the race. He was one of the anti-HERO loudmouths who has his own problems with inappropriate behavior.

District B: Willie D did not file, so we will have a maximum of one Geto Boy on Council.

District C: Kendra Yarbrough Camarena did not file. She instead filed for the special election in HD148. Erik is tracking those filings in his spreadsheet as well. Yarbrough Camarena appears to be the first official entrant in this race. And don’t worry about District C, there are still thirteen candidates for that office.

District D: Andrew Burks rises from the ash heap to run again. Can you still be a perennial candidate if you once won something? My ruling is Yes. Burks served one action-packed two year term in At Large #2 from 2011 to 2013 before being defeated by David Robinson. I was wondering about how the term limits charter amendment would apply to him, and I found the answer, in Article V, Section 6a: “Persons who served a single term prior to 2016 who are not serving in City elective office in 2015 and thus not subject to subsection (b), shall be eligible to serve one additional four-year term in the same City elective office.” So there you have it.

District F: Adekunle “Kay” Elegbede is listed as a Write-In Candidate. Obviously, this means he will not appear on the ballot, so what does it mean? Here’s the applicable state law. Basically, this means that any write in votes for this candidate will actually count (as opposed to write-ins for, say, “Mickey Mouse” or “Ben Hall”), and there’s no filing fee.

District J: Jim Bigham, who ran against Mike Laster in 2015 did not file. He did not have a finance report, so no big surprise.

District K: Republican Gerry Vander-Lyn, who ran in the special election that Martha Castex-Tatum won, and one other person filed. Neither will provide much of a challenge to Castex-Tatum, but their presence means that no one is unopposed this cycle.

At Large #1: Ugh. Yolanda Navarro Flores, defeated by Zeph Capo in 2013 from the HCC Board, is back. In addition to her ethical issues while on the HCC Board, she was also pals with Dave Wilson. ‘Nuff said.

At Large #2: Apparently, it really isn’t an election without Griff Griffin. I had honestly thought he’d gone away, but no. The funny/scary thing is that he could easily wind up in a runoff with CM Robinson.

At Large #4: Anthony Dolcefino also jumps out of District C into this race. There are now 11 candidates in AL4, so it’s not like he landed in that much smaller a pond.

At Large #5: I guess Eric Dick isn’t having any fun on the HCDE Board, because here he is. As per the Andrew Burks Rule, which I just created, I label him a perennial candidate as well. Note that HCDE Trustees are not subject to resign to run, so Dick may continue on in his current gig, as Roy Morales had done for most of the time when he was on the HCDE Board.

HISD II: Lots of people signed up for this one after all. The one name I recognize is Kathy Blueford-Daniels, who had run for City Council in District B previously. Here’s an interview I did with her back in 2011, and another from 2013. Rodrick Davison, the one person to post a June finance report, wound up not filing for the office

HISD IV: Reagan Flowers was a candidate for HCDE in Precinct 1 in 2012. I interviewed her at the time. I feel like she ran for something else since then, but if so I can’t find it.

Precinct analysis: Straight ticket voting by State Rep district

Nov 29th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

As advertised:


Dist    Str R   Str D  Str L  Turnout   Str R%	Str D% Str L%   Total
=====================================================================
HD126  24,093  19,491    269   56,336   42.77%  34.60%  0.48%  77.84%
HD127  34,178  19,157    312   69,198   49.39%  27.68%  0.45%  77.53%
HD128  29,034  12,583    221   52,737   55.05%  23.86%  0.42%  79.33%
HD129  29,064  19,883    342   65,816   44.16%  30.21%  0.52%  74.89%
HD130  42,728  17,471    355   77,175   55.37%  22.64%  0.46%  78.46%
HD131   4,777  29,161    139   42,617   11.21%  68.43%  0.33%  79.96%
HD132  27,287  26,561    343   67,466   40.45%  39.37%  0.51%  80.32%
HD133  31,498  19,758    335   72,795   43.27%  27.14%  0.46%  70.87%
HD134  27,315  30,634    395   91,273   29.93%  33.56%  0.43%  63.92%
HD135  22,035  22,541    301   56,778   38.81%  39.70%  0.53%  79.04%
HD137   5,701  13,487    148   24,730   23.05%  54.54%  0.60%  78.19%
HD138  18,837  18,746    288   49,297   38.21%  38.03%  0.58%  76.82%
HD139   8,132  28,811    205   47,936   16.96%  60.10%  0.43%  77.49%
HD140   4,254  15,577    116   24,114   17.64%  64.60%  0.48%  82.72%
HD141   3,234  23,341    130   31,872   10.15%  73.23%  0.41%  83.79%
HD142   6,857  25,315    158   40,734   16.83%  62.15%  0.39%  79.37%
HD143   5,895  17,220    156   29,283   20.13%  58.81%  0.53%  79.47%
HD144   7,365  11,849    154   23,861   30.87%  49.66%  0.65%  81.17%
HD145   7,433  17,922    220   33,558   22.15%  53.41%  0.66%  76.21%
HD146   5,983  27,257    183   44,246   13.52%  61.60%  0.41%  75.54%
HD147   7,384  34,054    282   56,014   13.18%  60.80%  0.50%  74.48%
HD148  11,270  21,910    351   48,976   23.01%  44.74%  0.72%  68.46%
HD149  11,660  20,469    211   39,778   29.31%  51.46%  0.53%  81.30%
HD150  34,046  21,560    352   71,783   47.43%  30.03%  0.49%  77.95%

HDs 133, 134, and 148 are the outliers, otherwise each district is in a band between 74 and 84%. For what it’s worth, HDs 134 and 148 were the two best State Rep districts for Gary Johnson in 2016; HD133 was fourth best, also trailing HD129, but nearly a point behind the top two. HDs 1334 was also the best district for Evan McMullin and tied for best for all write ins, while 134, 133, and 148 were numbers 1, 2, and 4 respectively for most undervotes for President in 2016. That all makes sense in context.

One other point to note here is one that reinforces the point I made before about the decline of the Republican Party in Harris County. The Democratic districts are very strongly Democratic. The Republican presence in them is tiny. The Republican districts, on the other hand, sure seem to have a decent number of Democrats in them; in the cases of HDs 132 and 135, more than the number of Republicans. This is very much a function of where the population growth is in Harris County, and as that population has increased, so has the Democratic share of that district, and the county as a whole. The Republicans’ problem in Harris County was and is too many Democrats. Straight ticket voting didn’t help them, but then nothing was going to help them. They have themselves, and their continued embrace of Trump and Trumpism, to blame.

From the “Many are called, but few are chosen” department

Aug 5th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Here are your non-standard choices for the November election.

Independent candidates

Candidates unaffiliated with a political party are allowed access to the general election ballot as long as they file the necessary paperwork and gather a certain number of signatures — depending on the office sought — from people who didn’t attend either the Republican or Democratic party conventions this year or vote in either party’s primary.

“It’s up to their personal campaign on how they want to portray themselves [but] when you’re an independent, you haven’t attended the convention of another party,” said Sam Taylor, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office.

Independent candidates were required to register with the appropriate office by June 21. This year, eight candidates are registered as independents — seven in congressional races and another vying for a state House seat. None are running for statewide office. Independent U.S. Senate candidate Jonathan Jenkins missed the filing deadline for the November ballot.

Here’s the full list of independent candidates:

Scott Cubbler in the 2nd Congressional District in the Houston area.

Benjamin Hernandez and Kesha Rogers in Houston’s 9th Congressional District.

Ben Mendoza in El Paso’s 16th Congressional District.

Kellen Sweny in the Houston area’s 22nd Congressional District.

Martin Luecke in Texas’ 25th Congressional District, which spans from Fort Worth to Austin.

James Duerr in Texas’ 27th Congressional District along Texas’ Gulf Coast.

Neal Katz, in Texas House District 6 in Tyler.

Write-in candidates

Five parties in Texas made an effort this year to get November ballot access — America’s Party of Texas, the Christian Party of Texas, the Green Party of Texas, None of the Above and the Texas Independent Party. However, none of the parties secured the nearly 50,000 valid signatures needed for ballot access this fall.

There’s a last-ditch effort these parties can utilize, however: filing a declaration of write-in candidacy. The window to file declarations opened on July 21 and will close Aug. 20, Taylor said.

As of Friday, Taylor said, only one candidate had filed a nominating petition: Samuel Lee Williams Jr. (who will appear on the ballot as Sam Williams). According to his campaign filing, Williams is running as a candidate for the Independent Party against Democrat Veronica Escobar and Republican Rick Seeberger in the race fill the U.S. House seat that’s being vacated by Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso.

But don’t be surprised if more write-ins file to get on the ballot over the next several weeks. Jan Richards, a Green Party of Texas candidate for governor, told The Texas Tribune she plans to send her paperwork to the secretary of state’s office in the final days leading up to the declaration deadline — but first she said she needs to collect the $3,750 needed to be eligible as a write-in. She said she wasn’t aware of other candidates in her party that planned on doing the same.

The Libertarians have a full slate, but that’s boring since they do that all the time. The number of official Independent candidates is a lot less than the number of people who originally expressed interest in being an independent candidate, which 1) is completely unsurprising, and 2) is another reminder that actually being a candidate requires a higher level of commitment and follow-through than talking about being a candidate. Sadly, the final list does not include Yvette “Will Rap 4 Weed” Gbahlazeh, but one presumes she has a ready way to console herself for that. The main effect any of these candidates are likely to have will be to make it that someone can win a race with less than 50% of the vote. This was a more common occurrence last decade, before the 2011/2013 redistricting, but it does still happen – Rep. Will Hurd in CD23 has won both his races with less than half the vote – but given the environment this year and the competitiveness in more districts than usual, anything is possible.

Independent candidates’ day

Feb 3rd, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Continuing with a theme, there are a lot of wannabe independent candidates for various offices, most of whom will never make it onto the ballot.

Dallas billionaire Ross Perot did it in 1992 and 1996. Satirist Kinky Friedman and Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn did it in 2006. They each got on the ballot as independent candidates in the November general election—Perot twice for president, and Friedman and Strayhorn as candidates for governor. None won, but they were on the ballot and votes for them got counted. This year, “Will Rap 4 Weed” and sixty-nine other people have given notice to the Texas Secretary of State that they intend to run as independent candidates for state and federal office this November.

But getting on the ballot as an independent in Texas is no easy task. A want-to-be candidate can’t just buy a spot; they’ve got to collect signatures on a ballot petition. For governor this year, valid signatures are required from a number of people equal to one percent of the total vote in the 2014 gubernatorial election—47,183 signatures from qualified voters. To make it even more difficult, the petition drives can only occur between the end of the major party primaries for the office the independent is seeking and a deadline of 5 p.m. on June 21. And the individual signing the petition cannot have voted in a primary or signed a petition for another candidate running for the same office.

“Texas is the only state that requires independent candidates to file a declaration of candidacy virtually an entire year before the general election,” said Richard Winger, editor of a national election-focused newsletter, Ballot Access News. Federal courts struck down similar laws in South Carolina in 1990 and in West Virginia in 2016, he said, adding that the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1983 decision noted that independent candidates with substantial support usually only emerge after the voting public know the names of the Democratic and Republican nominees. But Texas required independent candidates to file their intent to run for the 2018 election by December 11, 2017. “If the federal judges in Texas were of higher caliber, the Texas December deadline would have been struck down long ago,” Winger told me.

Nevertheless, the law remains intact along with its petition requirement.

The issue of Texas’ statutory requirements for getting on the ballot as an independent have come up before, most recently in 2016, but that ship appears to have sailed. Author RG Ratcliffe kindly put together this compendium of no-label hopefuls, and believe it or not there are a couple of names I recognize. Lori Bartley, running in CD18, was the Republican candidate in my Congressional district in 2016. There must be something enticing about that prospect here, because there are two other indies seeking a spot on the ballot alongside her. Scott Cubbler, running in CD02, was one of thirteen write-in candidates for President –
anyone can be written in, but one must register with the SOS to have those votes be officially counted – in 2016. A grand total of 314 people did so. He was also a classmate of mine in college, and I guess I may have to satisfy my curiosity and ask him what he thinks he’s getting out of this experience. Anyway, the list of potential indies is there if for some reason you need it. None of them are official till they turn in their petitions, and please note that if you choose to sign one of their petitions you cannot vote in a primary, lest you render your signature void. Happy trails, y’all.

Precinct analysis: None of the above

Dec 7th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

We have been told that this was a year where many people were unhappy with the two main choices they had for President. We looked at Presidential numbers in Harris County before, and now we’re going to look again, at write-in candidates and at undervotes.


Dist McMullen  All WI  McMullin%  All WI%
=========================================
HD126     354     417      0.57%    0.67%
HD127     444     521      0.60%    0.70%
HD128     152     192      0.25%    0.32%
HD129     364     446      0.52%    0.64%
HD130     479     554      0.59%    0.68%
HD131      63      87      0.14%    0.19%
HD132     398     461      0.57%    0.67%
HD133     425     517      0.56%    0.68%
HD134     627     707      0.69%    0.78%
HD135     268     316      0.44%    0.52%
HD137      89     100      0.32%    0.36%
HD138     234     293      0.45%    0.57%
HD139     113     135      0.21%    0.26%
HD140      36      47      0.13%    0.17%
HD141      22      42      0.06%    0.11%
HD142     141     150      0.31%    0.33%
HD143      32      46      0.10%    0.14%
HD144      39      56      0.14%    0.20%
HD145      64      80      0.18%    0.21%
HD146     234     267      0.48%    0.54%
HD147     164     179      0.28%    0.31%
HD148     283     324      0.58%    0.66%
HD149     117     145      0.27%    0.33%
HD150     505     596      0.66%    0.78%


Dist     None   Total   None %
==============================
HD126   1,349  63,214    2.13%
HD127   1,480  75,620    1.96%
HD128     909  60,656    1.50%
HD129   1,307  71,355    1.83%
HD130   1,501  83,009    1.81%
HD131     899  47,459    1.89%
HD132   1,285  70,519    1.82%
HD133   1,914  78,173    2.45%
HD134   2,313  93,167    2.48%
HD135   1,111  61,619    1.80%
HD137     590  28,027    2.11%
HD138   1,049  52,787    1.99%
HD139   1,056  53,829    1.96%
HD140     637  28,652    2.22%
HD141     726  39,243    1.85%
HD142     819  46,243    1.77%
HD143     663  34,279    1.93%
HD144     601  28,120    2.14%
HD145     753  35,918    2.10%
HD146     936  50,081    1.87%
HD147   1,205  59,489    2.01%
HD148   1,083  49,819    2.17%
HD149     973  44,955    2.16%
HD150   1,463  78,180    1.87%

The first table documents the votes for Evan McMullin, who drew by far the most votes among the thirteen certified write-in candidates, which means the thirteen whose votes were actually counted. The second column is for all write-in votes for the given district. There were 6,510 total write-in votes, with McMullin receiving 5,647 of them. To put that in some perspective, Ralph Nader received 1,716 write-in votes in 2004, for 0.17% of the vote. McMullen had 0.43% of the vote, a hair less than half of Jill Stein’s 0.90% share.

Not surprisingly, McMullin drew most of his votes in heavily Republican districts. That’s no doubt because McMullin ran as a viable alternative for Republicans who were unhappy with Trump, and because there were more Republicans in those places. The two districts that stand out here are HDs 128, the only Republican district where McMullin finished below his countywide percentage, and 146, the only Democratic area where he outperformed the overall number. My guess for HD128 is that the voters there were just happier with Trump than voters elsewhere. As for HD146, I got nothing. Feel free to speculate about that in the comments.

The second table is for undervotes, which is to say the people who did not vote in the Presidential race. As you might imagine, that is usually the race that has the lowest undervote rate. This year, the undervote rate in the Presidential race was 1.99%; the next lowest rate was in the Tax Assessor’s race, where 3.47% skipped it. County judicial races were around five percent. Before I talk about the rates in each district, here’s how the Presidential undervote compared to other years:


Year   Undervote   Under%
=========================
2016      26,622    1.99%
2012      15,381    1.28%
2008      17,185    1.45%
2004      20,692    1.90%

Gotta say, I would not have expected 2004 to have had that many undervoters. I don’t see much of a pattern here. HD128 again demonstrated its satisfaction with the candidates by having the lowest undervote rate, but the districts that gave McMullin the most support did not necessarily have high undervote rates. Both Democratic and Republican districts above average and below average. Maybe you see something there, and maybe if I went down to the precinct level I’d see something, but right now I don’t. It just is what it is.

I’m going to take a crack at Fort Bend and Dallas Counties next week. As always, let me know what you think.

McMullin will “appear” on the ballot

Sep 26th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

To the extent that a write-in candidate “appears” on the ballot, anyway.

Will not be on the ballot

Texas voters will be able to vote for former CIA operative Evan McMullin for president in November.

The Texas secretary of state’s office on Friday certified McMullin, who is running as an independent, as a write-in candidate for the general election. McMullin, a former chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, said on Twitter that his campaign had “resolved the misunderstanding” with the state over his application.

As part of the approval process, McMullin was required to submit written statements of consent from 38 presidential elector candidates. But one of the electors originally submitted by McMullin was deemed ineligible. He was certified after submitting a replacement elector.

Raise your hand if you knew this was the process. Now put your hand back down, because I don’t believe you. At least we now have an answer to the question that no one was asking, namely “What do Evan McMullin and Robert Morrow have in common?” Also, too, I presume this means that McMullin is no longer pursuing a lawsuit to be allowed to get on the ballot as an independent. Google has no news about Souraya Faas, the candidate who actually did file such a lawsuit, then apparently lost interest in it. As such, I think it’s safe to say that the lineup is now set. I will note that there were over 13,000 write-in votes for President cast in 2008, with the vast bulk of them going to Ralph Nader and Chuck Baldwin. I will be very impressed if Evan McMullin can approach either of their totals.

Independent candidate lawsuit update

Aug 31st, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

There’s already been a lawsuit filed by a wannabe independent candidate for President seeking to get on the ballot in Texas, but not by that guy you might have heard of.

Will not be on the ballot

It’s still up in the air whether Evan McMullin, a former CIA agent who declared his presidential candidacy this month, will make it on the ballot here.

The deadline to file to run as an independent in Texas, and turn in petitions signed by nearly 80,000 voters who didn’t vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary elections was in May. The deadline to file to run as a write-in candidate was earlier this month.

McMullin, of Salt Lake City — who has gotten his name on ballots in a handful of states including Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota and Utah — has indicated he may sue to get on the Texas ballot.

His political strategists have suggested that a legal challenge might find success in Texas, since the deadline to file as an independent this year fell before Democrats and Republicans knew who their general election candidate would be.

McMullin campaign staffers didn’t respond to requests for information about whether a court challenge in Texas is moving forward.

Texas election officials say they have not received a lawsuit from McMullin. But they did send him a letter letting him know he was not certified as a write-in candidate.

“Our office did not receive the required 38 presidential elector candidate forms from active voters,” according to the letter written by Keith Ingram, director of elections for the Texas secretary of state’s office. “Please be advised that your name will not be on the ballot.”

McMullin’s staff is still sending out emails to potential supporters saying, “It’s never too late to stand for what is right.”

Another lawsuit to get a presidential candidate on the Texas ballot is proceeding for now.

Souraya Faas of Florida sued Texas and Secretary of State Carlos Cascos in May claiming that state restrictions “on independent presidential candidacy and ballot access violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.”

“Souraya Faas seeks the presidency of the United States and to give the voters a choice to vote for her as an independent candidate in Texas,” the lawsuit states. “Since she announced her candidacy, the presidential campaigns within the major political parties have devolved into unprecedented rancor.

“The front-runners for the major party nominations are viewed as unpopular and undesirable by a not insignificant number of party partisans and independent voters.”

Now Faas is asking the court to declare unconstitutional parts of the Texas election code that “deny equal protection for independent presidential candidates.”

“Texas’ statutory scheme imposes a greater burden on the rights of voters and independent candidates than other states,” her lawsuit states.

The case could be thrown out soon if Faas doesn’t submit documents showing why the case shouldn’t be dismissed, according to court records filed in the Southern District of Texas Houston Division.

See here for more on Evan McMullin and his talk about suing to get on the ballot in Texas. I hesitate to be more definitive than that, as we are near the statutory deadline for printing overseas ballots and he still hasn’t done anything more than make vague statements about maybe doing something. As for Souraya Faas, she’s apparently been in the race for awhile. Here’s some information on her lawsuit, which was filed back in May. Why she would be successful where Ralph Nader wasn’t is unclear to me, and that’s before we contemplate her apparent lack of submitting documents for her case. My guess is that in another week or two we’ll not hear anything from or about either of these two again.

We won’t have Robert Morrow to kick around any longer

Aug 28th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Valar morghulis, y’all.

Robert Morrow

The brief, zany tenure of Travis County GOP Chairman Robert Morrow came to an end Friday, as party officials made clear the conspiracy theorist abandoned his post by running for president and he accepted their conclusion without question.

Inside a nondescript office park in Austin, party officials convened reporters to lay out their case, saying Morrow’s application to be a write-in candidate for the White House, filed last week, “resulted in an immediate vacancy” at the top of the county party. Waiting in the lobby afterward was Morrow, wearing his trademark jester’s hat and carrying the “Trump is a Child Rapist” sign that had got him booted from a rally for the Republican presidential nominee Tuesday in Austin.

“I’m in complete agreement with them because I’m running for president,” Morrow said of party officials’ conclusion. “It’s clear: You can’t be the president of the United States of America, or even run for president, and be the chairman of a political party, and I’m fine with that.”

It marked a relatively noncontroversial finish to Morrow’s controversial tenure, which was sparked by his surprise victory over incumbent James Dickey in the March elections. Alarmed by Morrow’s conspiracy theory-fueled bombast and disinterest in actually running the organization, party officials created a steering committee in June that handled many of the duties typically reserved for the chairman.

[…]

The writing was on the wall Thursday, when word got out that the secretary of state’s office accepted Morrow as a write-in presidential candidate. By the end of the day, the county party was getting backup from the state party, whose chairman Tom Mechler issued a statement affirming that Morrow became ineligible to serve as county chairman upon filing for president.

On Friday, Morrow did not exactly say whether he knew that when he applied to be a write-in candidate he was effectively resigning from the county party. “I knew in the back of my mind,” Morrow told reporters, “it might cause a problem.”

That’s a slight change from what Morrow had been saying on Thursday, when word of this development first came to light.

In a statement Thursday afternoon, state GOP Chairman Tom Mechler said Morrow “became ineligible to hold the office of Travis County Republican Chair” upon filing Friday to be a write-in candidate. Morrow told The Texas Tribune earlier Thursday he could not be ousted.

“They don’t have the grounds to do that, and anybody who says so is probably lying,” Morrow said. “The case law on this is probably extremely thin.”

[…]

A party spokesman declined to elaborate on the announcement, but a person close to the party said the news conference will likely be about Morrow’s fate. It was not immediately clear how the process of Morrow stepping down would unfold, and at least one party official cautioned that the party was still conferring over the issue.

The county party nonetheless has the support of Mechler.

“There is absolutely no place for rhetoric as distasteful as Mr. Morrow’s in the Republican Party of Texas,” Mechler said in the statement. “We are excited to move forward with the Travis County GOP and the new incoming Chair as soon as an election is held to fill the position.”

The bombastic Morrow fired back on Twitter by asking Mechler to perform a sex act on him. Morrow remained defiant as speculation built Thursday afternoon that an effort was afoot to see him out as chairman.

“If other people attempt to pull a coup like this, there will be trouble,” Morrow added. “The bottom line is the Texas voters, the Republican Party, have spoken.”

It’s hard to know what might have happened between Thursday and Friday to facilitate Morrow’s change of mind, probably because as Dave Barry once said about Lyndon LaRouche, where you and I have a brain, Robert Morrow has a Whack-a-Mole game. Be that as it may, this is a terrible loss for people who need some cheap, tawdry laughs in their political news consumption, a group in which I include myself. Also, too, did you know it only took 38 signatures to “appear” on the ballot as a write-in candidate for President, by which I mean “have the write-in votes that are cast for you included in the official count by the Secretary of State”? And that Morrow met that threshold, but Evan McMullin did not? I can’t wait to see if Morrow manages to exceed 38 actual votes this November; the low total among 2012 Presidential write-ins was 87, so I’d say he has a decent shot at it. We may never see his like again, that’s for sure. The Austin Chronicle has more.

Evan McMullin to sue for ballot access in Texas

Aug 18th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

7 comments

You know, that guy who recently turned up as the latest NeverTrump dreamboat? He wants on the ballot in Texas.

Will not be on the ballot

Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin, an ex-CIA officer and congressional policy wonk who launched his campaign last week to offer “Never Trump” Republicans a conservative option, faces a steep political challenge gaining enough support to affect the November election.

And by jumping into the race so late, McMullin will need to clear significant legal hurdles, as well. Filing deadlines for independent candidates in more than half of the states have already passed, and several more deadlines are fast approaching.

That will mean going to court — including in Texas, where an independent had to gather nearly 80,000 signatures by May.

“Our intention in Texas is to file a legal challenge, and we think that the great people of Texas will agree with us that there shouldn’t be artificial boundaries on the kinds of people that can run for president,” said Joel Searby, the campaign’s chief strategist.

Noting that Texas’ May 9 petition deadline — by far the earliest in the country — fell long before the Democratic and Republican nominating conventions, Searby argues that prospective independent candidates were unable to take into consideration the choices of the two major parties before deciding whether to run.

“There’s just so many restrictions on ballot access in Texas, and Texas is generally a very open and independent and free-thinking kind of place,” Searby said. “So we don’t think the people of Texas are going to want to keep that law.”

A general counsel is coordinating the campaign’s ballot access efforts across multiple states, Searby said, and the campaign has also been in touch with Texas lawyers. Garland attorney Matthew Sawyer, who worked on Texas business magnate Ross Perot’s Reform Party presidential run in 1996, has reportedly been involved with the effort. Reached by phone last week, Sawyer directed all questions to the campaign.

Ballot access experts are split on McMullin’s chances of winning a federal lawsuit. To Richard Winger, the editor of Ballot Access News and a longtime activist on the issue, McMullin’s case is a slam dunk, particularly in Texas.

“Texas is in a class by itself. The Texas deadline is impossible to defend,” Winger said. Pointing to the later deadline for independent candidates running for offices in Texas other than president, Winger contends there is “powerful evidence that the presidential deadline is unconstitutional, and that’s all he needs to show.”

But prominent Texas election attorney Buck Wood, who has represented several state-level candidates challenging independent ballot restrictions in the past, sees it exactly the other way.

“I don’t see any possibility of him getting on the ballot in Texas,” Wood said. “Just because you made your decision too late is not an excuse. You have to go back and say, even had we made the decision back then, it still would have been so onerous as to have been unconstitutional, and the chances of that are nil.”

The story recounts the process for getting on the ballot as an independent in Texas, and also notes that Ralph Nader tried and failed to sue his way onto the ballot in 2004 after coming up short in the signature-collecting process. My money’s with Buck Wood on this one, but I don’t really care one way or another. Nobody knows who Evan McMullin is – he basically got zero percent in that PPP poll – and he’s extremely unlikely to raise the kind of dough to become any better known to Texas voters. If I had to guess, I’d say that any votes he does get will come primarily at the expense of Gary Johnson, who is already an alternative for some NeverTrumpers who can’t bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton. McMullin could do what Nader ultimately did in Texas and file a declaration to be counted as a write-in candidate, but the deadline for that is Monday, and he doesn’t have a running mate yet as required. So, you know, tick tock tick tock. I’ll keep an eye on this because that’s what I do, but I don’t expect anything interesting to come of it. Link via Burkablog.

No indies

May 17th, 2016

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

Not in Texas and not for President, anyway.

Will not be on the ballot

[Last] Monday was the deadline for independent candidates for president to get on the ballot in Texas.

Nobody showed up.

The Texas Secretary of State’s office, which administers elections, closed its doors Monday afternoon with no applications. And they would have noticed, too: Independent candidates have to submit their names along with petitions from 79,939 registered voters who, like the candidates themselves, did not take part in either the Republican or Democratic primaries.

That’s a pile of paper.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s imminent nomination as the Republican Party’s candidate for president, there has been some chatter in conservative ranks about a third-party candidate more palatable to the GOP establishment.

It’s getting late for that. The general election is in six months, and state deadlines for filing are starting to come up on the calendar.

As the story notes, a would-be independent candidate could possibly sue to get on Texas’ ballot, following the example of John Anderson in 1980. That presumes that such a candidate exists and has the wherewithal to file and successfully argue a lawsuit. And that presumes that such a candidate would want to be on the ballot in Texas, which if one is aiming to be the “not Trump alternative that unhappy conservatives can support” one probably does. (Mark Cuban has already declined to be that candidate.) Time’s a-wastin’, that’s all I’m saying. One can also file as an official write-in candidate, which is to say a write-in candidate whose votes actually get counted, but one should keep one’s expectations low if one chooses that path. The high-water mark for a write-in candidate in any Presidential race going back to 1992 is 9,159 votes in 2004 by Ralph Nader, and it’s fair to say he was better known than your average write-in would be. It was also worth 0.12% of the vote, so just a little bit short of a majority. But hey, dream big.

Interview with Eva Loredo

Sep 22nd, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Eva Loredo

Of all the downballot races in odd numbered years, HCC Trustee elections have the greatest disparity between their importance and the amount of attention paid to them. The farce of Dave Wilson getting elected in 2013 is the lesson we all need to learn about that. There are two contested HCC races this year, both of which involve incumbents. Eva Loredo is my HCC Trustee, in District 8. A retired teacher and principal, Loredo won the strangest local election in my memory as an unopposed write-in candidate. See here, here, and here for the details of how that came to be. She’s running for re-election – officially on the ballot this time – against the person who would have been gifted the seat back in 2009. Here’s our conversation:

(Note: This interview took place before the most recent contretemps involving Dave Wilson.)

You can see all of my interviews as well as finance reports and other information on candidates on my 2015 Election page.

January campaign finance reports – HCC Trustees

Jan 28th, 2015

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

There are nine trustees on the HCC board. With them serving six-year terms, in a normal year three trustees are up for re-election; 2013 was an abnormal year, with two extra races to fill out unexpired terms. We are back to normal this time, so we have three races. As with HISD, at this time all incumbents that are up are currently expected to run for re-election, and no opponents have emerged at this early date. Here are the incumbents in question.

Adriana Tamez, District III

Dr. Tamez won one of those two special elections from 2013, to fill out the term of Mary Ann Perez, who stepped down after winning in HD144 in 2012. The candidate she defeated in the runoff was one of two supported by Dave Wilson, so that was extra sweet. (Speaking of Wilson, he nominated himself for Board President at the start of this year, but had to withdraw after no one seconded him. Then, to add insult to injury, Zeph Capo, who defeated Wilson’s buddy Yolanda Navarro Flores in 2013, was elected Board President. Sucks to be you, Dave.) Tamez was elected Board Secretary for this year.

Sandie Mullins, District VI

Sandie Mullins, formerly Meyers, is serving her first term on the Board. She was elected in 2009 without facing an opponent to fill the seat formerly held by now-State Rep. Jim Murphy. (Mills Worsham was named to replace Murphy in 2007 after his initial election in HD133, then Worsham ran for Council in 2009 instead of a full term on HCC.) Like Murphy and her ex-husband, HISD Trustee Greg Meyers, Mullins is a Republican, one of two on the board along with you-know-who. She is herself an alumna of HCC, and serves or has served on a number of other boards.

Eva Loredo, District VIII

Under normal circumstances, Eva Loredo would not be on the HCC Board. She didn’t file for the race in 2009, against incumbent Abel Davila. No one did, and on filing deadline day Davila was expected to run unopposed for re-election. Except that he decided at the last minute not to run, and instead his brother-in-law Art Aguilar filed. That led to a medium-sized crap storm, which led to Aguilar’s withdrawal. Loredo had by then submitted paperwork to be a write-in candidate, with some assistance from the late Sen. Mario Gallegos, and with no other candidate on the ballot, she won. She would be on the ballot this time.

As for finance reports, you may recall that as recently as 2011 it was damn near impossible to lay one’s hands on HCC Trustee finance reports. I claim a small measure of the credit for changing that situation. Be that as it may, the fact that these reports are now available online at this link doesn’t mean that they’re available in a timely fashion. Despite the fact that the city, the county, the school board, and the state all had theirs up within a day or so of the January 15 deadline, HCC still had nothing more recent than last July’s as of yesterday. So those are the totals I will include, pending them getting off their butts and updating this information.


Name           Raised    Spent      Loans    On Hand
====================================================
Tamez           7,150   15,392      7,000        610
Mullins             0    1,878          0     18,400
Loredo              0      492          0      2,004

Oliver          8,225    6,060          0      2,165

So there you have it. I’ve included the totals for Chris Oliver as well, since he is now running for Council. I’ll update all this in July, and ought to have my Election 2015 page up by then as well.

Endorsement watch: Congress

Oct 23rd, 2010

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Nothing to see here. Six contested Congressional races in Harris County – the 7th CD, in which there is a write-in candidate but no Democrat on the ballot, is not included – six recommendations for the incumbents. Had there been a credible Democratic challenger in CD07, it would have been interesting to see what the Chron would have done, given that they endorsed the challenger in 2008 after giving a decidedly un-ringing endorsement to the incumbent in 2006. (They do seem to like telling certain candidates to change who they are.) But we’ll have to wait till 2012 for that.

Endorsement watch: HCC trustees

Oct 28th, 2009

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

The Chron endorses in the HCC Trustee races, which even I had forgotten they hadn’t yet done.

In the westside District VI, Sandie Meyers is unopposed as the replacement for incumbent Robert Mills Worsham.

In District III, which stretches from near southeast Houston to Beltway 8, the Chronicle endorses one-term incumbent Diane Olmos Guzman , a public relations specialist and small business owner with a B.A. in journalism from the University of Houston.

I confess, I know exactly nothing about the District III race. I don’t recall seeing any endorsements being made in this one contested race by most of the usual endorsing organizations. Which, when you recall that these are for six-year terms that have no resign-to-run requirement, is a shame. Anyone have any thoughts about this one?

Outgoing District VIII incumbent Abel Davila embarrassed himself and HCC by leading constituents to think he was running for re-election to the central and eastside district, only to be a no-show at the filing deadline. His brother-in-law, Arturo Aguilar, filed instead but then dropped out of the race two days later.

Luckily, retired educator and community activist Eva Loredo had the foresight to register as a write-in candidate and is in position to pick up the pieces left by Davila and provide District VIII with a qualified representative.

That’s my district, which I hadn’t really realized till I got a mailer from Loredo over the weekend; I’ll have a scan of it up shortly. Your HCC Trustee district isn’t printed on your voter registration card – you need to find your registration online to see what district you’re in. She’s the first write-in candidate I’ve ever voted for, and may I say that’s a pain in the rear to do on the eSlate machine. Better than having to pay for a special election because there were no candidates on the ballot, though. I can’t wait to see how many votes she actually gets.

Interview with Progressive Coalition candidates

Sep 24th, 2009

by Charles Kuffner.

8 comments

(l-r) Donald Cook, Deb Shafto, Alfred Molison

I know I said I was finished with Council candidate interviews, but I wound up with one more, and will have two more HISD Trustee interviews to run next week as well. Today’s interview is a bit of a departure, in that it is with three candidates at once. They are Donald Cook, Deborah Shafto, and Alfred Molison, and they are running as the Progressive Coalition for Houston City Council. Cook is a candidate for At Large #1, Shafto for At Large #4, and Molison is running as a write-in candidate in District C. Their platform and priorities are a little different than the other candidates I’ve spoken to, so it was a very interesting change of pace. Give them a listen and see what you think.

Download the MP3 file.

PREVIOUSLY:

Karen Derr, At Large #1
Brad Bradford, At Large #4
Stephen Costello, At Large #1
Lane Lewis, District A
Lonnie Allsbrooks, At Large #1
Noel Freeman, At Large #4
Brenda Stardig, District A
Oliver Pennington, District G
Amy Peck, District A
Herman Litt, At Large #1
Natasha Kamrani, HISD Trustee in District I, not running for re-election
Alex Wathen, District A
Robert Kane, District F
Council Member Melissa Noriega, At Large #3
Jeff Downing, District A
Mike Laster, District F
Council Member Jolanda Jones, At Large #5
Mills Worsham, District G
Rick Rodriguez, At Large #1
Council Member Sue Lovell, At Large #2
Carlos Obando, At Large #5
Richard Sedita, District G
Jack Christie, At Large #5
Dexter Handy, District G
George Foulard, District G
Alma Lara, HISD Trustee District I
Anna Eastman, HISD Trustee District I
Linda Toyota, HISD Trustee District I
Council Member Ed Gonzalez, District H
Council Member Wanda Adams, District D
Council Member Anne Clutterbuck, District C

What happens now in HCC District 8?

Sep 9th, 2009

by Charles Kuffner.

10 comments

As we know, after the filing-deadline shenanigans in the HCC Trustee District 8 race, brother-in-law candidate Arturo Aguilar said he was withdrawing from the ballot. As I noted at the time, that meant there were no other candidates who had filed before the deadline for that office. The question is what happens in that race?

First, are we sure that Aguilar can withdraw? If this were an even-numbered year and a partisan race, the answer would be No, as that deadline would be 74 days before the election. However, in this kind of race, Section 145.092 of the Elections Code applies:

Sec. 145.092. DEADLINE FOR WITHDRAWAL. (a) Except as otherwise provided by this section, a candidate may not withdraw from an election after 5 p.m. of the second day before the beginning of early voting by personal appearance.

(b) A candidate in an election for which the filing deadline for an application for a place on the ballot is not later than 5 p.m. of the 62nd day before election day may not withdraw from the election after 5 p.m. of the 53rd day before election day.

That makes the deadline to withdraw this Friday, September 11. Let’s assume Aguilar does so, if he hasn’t already.

Now again, if this were a general election for state or county office, and given that Aguilar’s was the only name on the ballot, there would be a prescribed procedure for replacing him; basically, the chairs of the county Republican and Democratic Parties would choose a replacement nominee by whatever internal process they have. Note that this only applies in the event of an otherwise uncontested race – had there been more than one candidate, then no replacements are chosen and whoever else was nominated from the other parties would duke it out. This was the Tom DeLay story in 2006.

But this isn’t that kind of an election. Here’s what the law says about Aguilar’s withdrawal, in Section 145.094:

Sec. 145.094. WITHDRAWN, DECEASED, OR INELIGIBLE CANDIDATE’S NAME OMITTED FROM BALLOT. (a) The name of a candidate shall be omitted from the ballot if the candidate:

(1) dies before the second day before the date of the deadline for filing the candidate’s application for a place on the ballot;

(2) withdraws or is declared ineligible before 5 p.m. of the second day before the beginning of early voting by personal appearance, in an election subject to Section 145.092(a);

(3) withdraws or is declared ineligible before 5 p.m. of the 53rd day before election day, in an election subject to Section 145.092(b); or

(4) withdraws or is declared ineligible before 5 p.m. of the 67th day before election day, in an election subject to Section 145.092(f).

145.092(b) is what applies here, so Aguilar’s name will not appear on the ballot. So far, so good, but that’s only half of the question. I do not see any statute that specifies a replacement procedure in the event that a candidate’s withdrawal leaves nobody on the ballot. So, given that Aguilar was the only candidate that filed on time, what happens if he withdraws? I can think of two possible explanations, assuming my interpretation of the law is correct up to this point:

1. There is no election for HCC Trustee in District 8, because there are no candidates on the ballot. In this case, I presume that once Abel Davila’s term expires, a vacancy will then be declared and a special election will be set, presumably for the next uniform election date in May of 2010. Which, given the possibility a special election to fill KBH’s Senate seat at the same time, could make that one of the more interesting special elections for an otherwise obscure office ever held. You know that I think that possibility is highly unlikely, but it could happen, so I mention it here.

2. The election takes place with no candidates appearing on the ballot, but with the option to write in a candidate’s name. According to Section 146.054, the deadline to file a declaration of write-in candidacy is “not later than 5 p.m. of the fifth day after the date an application for a place on the ballot is required to be filed”. I asked Hector DeLeon in the County Clerk’s office about this, and he confirmed my assumption that this means the fifth business day, and not fifth calendar day (which would have made the deadline 5 PM on Labor Day), in which case the deadline is 5 PM tomorrow, September 10. I presume Eva Loredo has filed her declaration of intent; I wonder if anyone else has.

I strongly suspect that option #2 is what will actually happen. I have a call in to the Secretary of State’s office to inquire about it. I’ll post an update when I get a response. Frankly, I don’t find either of these alternatives to be particularly appealing. The former allows for a real election, at the cost of up to six months’ vacancy of the office plus the financial cost of running the election, while the latter is basically a freak occurrence that will allow someone to be elected with a tiny minority of the total votes cast, but at least fills the seat in a timely fashion and saves the expense of a special election. Note here that since the deadline to file a declaration of intent to run as a write-in is Thursday, and the deadline to withdraw is Friday, we could theoretically wind up with a situation where there’s no candidate on the ballot and no write-in option. The only way out of that, as far as I can see, is scenario #1 above. There has to be a better way. Clearly, when Sen. Gallegos and his colleagues return to Austin in 2011, they’ll need to address this situation as well when they tweak the law to allow for an extension of the filing deadline when a to-be-unopposed candidate decides on the last day to not run.

So that’s my reading of this situation. If I’m incorrect about any of this, I hope someone will leave a comment and set me straight. As I said, when I hear back from the SOS, I’ll post an update.

Aguilar drops out of HCC Trustee race

Sep 5th, 2009

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I’m guessing the backlash for being a last minute candidate who also happens to be the brother-in-law of the suddenly-stepping-down incumbent must have been pretty strong, because Arturo Aguilar has decided to withdraw from the HCC Trustee race in District 8.

For all everyone knew, Abel Davila was planning to run for re-election to the Houston Community College Board of Trustees, which he serves as chairman.

That’s what he had told supporters and fellow officeholders, and that seemed to explain why he paid $30,000 for five prominent billboards featuring a photo of him and his wife, a Houston ISD trustee, along with the slogan “Partnering for Success.”

He had more than $50,000 in his campaign account as of the latest July accounting — a significant amount for a non-partisan, down-ballot race — and he had the support of other elected and community leaders.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the ballot. Davila never signed up. So when the deadline passed on Wednesday afternoon, the only candidate in the race for the District 8 spot was Arturo Aguilar, who submitted his ballot application 19 minutes before the cutoff.

Aguilar is the brother of Diana Davila, Abel’s wife. But Friday afternoon, the 34-year-old police officer said he is going to withdraw from the race. He did not explain why.

“It’s not in my best interest for me to run,” Aguilar said. “I don’t really want to say more than that. I will leave it as an open seat for those who are more interested.”

Oh, I think we know why Aguilar changed his mind. The rest of the story is quotes from State Sen. Mario Gallegos and the revelation of Eva Loredo as a write-in candidate, both of which I reported yesterday. What is not answered in this story is 1) does this mean Aguilar will not appear on the ballot; and 2) if so, can someone else be added, and under what procedures? I presume that if Aguilar’s name cannot be removed from the ballot that he intends to not take office, in which case there would be a special election to fill the seat. Perhaps some of Abel Davila’s no-longer-needed campaign funds can be used to help pay for that special election if that happens. Does anybody know what the relevant law is regarding who can be on the ballot for this situation?

The lineup, slightly revised

Sep 4th, 2009

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Here is the slightly revised final lineup for the City of Houston ballot this November. Note that a couple of candidates dropped off, including Donald Cook in At Large #1 and Alfred Molison in District C. I do not know what happened with Cook, but I have been told that Molison filed by petition rather than filing fee, and did not have the required number of petition signatures. Which was 65, by the way, not exactly an insurmountable task. Martha has more names of those who filed but didn’t qualify.

Beyond that, I’ll be very interested to see what happens in the HCC Trustee District 8 situation – in particular, if Eva Loredo get any traction as a write-in, which will require a visible and sustained push by elected officials and other leaders. I’m also wondering what will happen when Diana Davila is next up for re-election in HISD in 2011.

Finally, in case you haven’t seen it, take a look at Martha’s open letter to Isiah Carey of Fox 26 News. Carey copied Martha’s ballot list report from Wednesday night, right down to the formatting and introduction, without any attribution, thus passing it off as his work when it most clearly was not. John Coby and I called him out on this – I did so in Carey’s comments, first simply pointing out Martha’s post, then noting that the proper word for what he’d done is “plagiarism” after he’d decided that we were making a big deal out of nothing – but for whatever the reason, it’s clear he doesn’t get it, doesn’t care, or both. He even (before he deleted the post and tried to pretend it all never happened) claimed he’d actually gotten the information from Carl Whitmarsh’s list, conveniently overlooking the fact that 1) Whitmarsh had specifically credited Martha in the email he sent, and 2) it’s still stealing someone else’s work. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but I do know it was a lousy thing to do. All he had to do was say “Thanks to Muse Musings for the information” and provide a link. How damn hard is that? Coby has more.

All in the family, HCC-style

Sep 3rd, 2009

by Charles Kuffner.

7 comments

I noted last night and this morning that the HCC Trustee seat in District 8, which was left open at the last minute by Abel Davila, will be filled by his brother-in-law Arturo Aguilar. (Davila is married to HISD Trustee Diana Davila.) It turns out that Aguilar is not the only family member of an elected official who will be inheriting an open HCC Trustee seat. The candidate in District 6 is Sandra Meyers. Like Aguilar, a Google search for her yields basically nothing, but when I looked at her name this morning, I realized it rang a bell. Turns out, if you check the “About” page of HISD Trustee Greg Meyers, his wife’s name is “Sandie”. I have since confirmed that Sandie-wife-of-Greg Meyers and Sandra-soon-to-be-HCC-Trustee Meyers are one and the same. (Campos notes this as well; I figured this out before I saw his post.) And so she, like Aguilar, will walk into an elected position that has a six year term without being vetted by the public. Neither Meyers nor Aguilar has a campaign website I could find, and the Chronicle story that mentioned them was devoid of information beyond their names.

I’m sorry, but this stinks. Meyers, at least, was known to be a candidate before deadline day, and the seat she will occupy was known to be open for longer than that. I don’t know why no one else filed, but at least someone else had the chance. Aguilar got in under the wire when Davila pulled his last-minute retirement act. I have a problem with uncontested open seats, never mind ones that will be handed to the family members of current elected officials. That doesn’t serve democracy, or the interests of the constituents of those districts. And let’s not forget, the position of HCC Trustee has often been a stepping stone to candidacy for other offices. City Council candidates Mills Worsham (whose seat Meyers is getting) and Herman Litt are or were HCC Trustees. Yolanda Navarros Flores, who ran in the special election for District H, is a trustee. Jay Aiyer was a trustee before running for Council in 2005. Jim Murphy, who was succeeded on the Board by Worsham, won election as State Representative in 2006. With a six-year term and no resign-to-run requirement (something that State Sen. Mario Gallegos attempted to address this year), HCC Trustees get numerous opportunities to run for other offices without having to give up their existing gig.

I had a chat with Sen. Gallegos about this today. He was the one I’d heard talking about what had happened in District 8 last night, and to say the least he wasn’t happy about it. To sum up what Sen. Gallegos told me, he said he thought Davila had deceived his constituents and denied them the right to choose the trustee for themselves. He informed me he had no idea who Aguilar was – “I wouldn’t recognize him if he walked into my office right now, or anyone else’s,” he told me – even if Aguilar was Diana Davila’s brother (he is, I learned from another source) or Abel Davila’s sister’s husband. He noted that at least two other people had expressed an interest in filing for the seat, but decided not to run because everyone was supporting Davila. That support is now gone, and I can report that one of those people, a retired HISD principal and lifelong resident of Magnolia Park by the name of Eva Loredo, will file to run as a write-in candidate. I confirmed this with Ms. Loredo, so at least the people who are aware of her will have an option besides skipping the race. It’s better than nothing.

Finally, Campos and commenter JJMB in my earlier post note that something similar happened in HD132 back in 1992, when then-Rep. Paul Colbert stepped down on the day of the filing deadline, and now-Rep. Scott Hochberg, who worked for Colbert, filed in his stead. That was wrong, too, though at least Colbert and Hochberg weren’t related to each other, and the voters had to wait only two years to rectify the situation if they thought it warranted it. Hochberg, of course, is an outstanding State Rep, so the outcome was a good one. Maybe that’ll happen here, who knows? It just would have been nice for the voters to have a say in it, that’s all.

UPDATE: Just got a call from State Sen. Gallegos, who added that he has had a conversation with State Sen. Rodney Ellis, who is equally upset about what happened, and that the two of them plan to prefile legislation next November to allow for an automatic 24 to 48 hour extension of the filing deadline in the case of a non-partisan/non-primary election where an incumbent drops out or announces his or her retirement within 24 hours of the deadline. In other words, the next time this happens, filing for the office would be kept open for another day to allow other candidates to enter. He said a law like this already existed for primaries (Greg alluded to it in response to JJMB’s comment), and this would simply extend the concept to other elections. He said State Sen. John Whitmire was in Austin but he and Sen. Ellis would consult with him and get him on board as well. I think this is a great idea, and support its passage in the next legislative session.

UPDATE: Sandra Meyers’ website is SandieMeyers.com.

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