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CD35

2022 primary results: Legislative races

Mar 2nd, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
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You might start with the Daily Kos rundown of races of interest, which includes all of the Congressional races worth watching.

One of those got an early resolution, as former Austin City Council member Greg Casar declared victory before 9 PM. He had a ridiculous early lead, and was at just under 60% when I wrote this. He was one of the candidates backed by national progressives, and they may go two for two, as Jessica Cisneros was just over 50%, up by about five points in her three-way race with Rep. Henry Cuellar. This one may go to a runoff, and it’s one we’ll all be sick of by the end of March if that happens. Whatever the case, she built on her 2020 campaign, likely with a bit of an assist from the FBI, and if she wins she earned it.

Other open Congressional seat races: Rep. Lloyd Doggett waltzed to an easy and crushing win in CD37. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, who moved from CD15 to CD34 to succeed Rep. Filemon Vela, was headed to victory there. In CD15, Ruben Ramirez led a more tightly packed field; it’s not clear who might accompany him to a runoff. State Rep. Jasmine Crockett was at around 55% in CD30 early on, and could win without a runoff. I generally like her, but stories like this one about a cryptocurrency super PAC supporting her really makes me scratch my head.

In the two seats that are currently targets for the DCCC, John Lira was in a fairly solid lead in CD23, while it appears that sigh Jan McDowell will be in a runoff in CD24. Derrik Gay, the best fundraiser and the candidate the DCCC has been backing, was in a tight race for second place. Lord help me. Claudia Zapata was in first place and headed for the runoff in CD21, Sandeep Srivastava was winning in CD03, and here in Harris County Duncan Klussman and Diana Martinez Alexander were basically tied in CD38, with a runoff in their future.

On the Republican side: Dan Crenshaw easily won against a couple of no-names in CD02, while Van Taylor was above 50% in his four-way race in CD03. Monica De La Cruz and Mayra Flores were above 50% in CDs 15 and 34, respectively, while Wesley Hunt was winning in the district that Republicans drew for him, CD38. Morgan Luttrell was above 50% in CD08. None of the incumbents who had challengers had any reason to sweat.

In the State Senate, Sen. John Whitmire had a 62-38 lead in early voting over Molly Cook in SD15. Cook lost the race, but I’d say she beat the spread, and if there’s another opportunity in 2024 she’s put herself in good position to take advantage of it. Morgan LaMantia and Sar Stapleton Barrera are one and two, neck and neck, for SD27; that will be a spirited runoff. Titus Benton was leading Miguel Gonzalez 51-49 with about half the vote counted in SD17.

House races of interest in Harris County: Harold Dutton had a 55-45 lead on Candis Houston early on. Alma Allen was headed to victory against two opponents in HD131. Jolanda Jones at about 45% in HD147, with a close race between Danielle Bess and Reagan Flowers for the other runoff spot. Chase West had a four-vote lead over Cam Campbell in HD132 in early voting.

Elsewhere in the state:

HD22 (open) – Joe Trahan was just short of a majority and will face Christian Hayes in the runoff.
HD26 (R held) – Daniel Lee defeated Lawrence Allen.
HD37 (open) – Ruben Cortez and Luis Villarreal in the runoff.
HD38 (open) – Erin Gamez won.
HD50 (open) – James Talarico, who moved over from HD52, won easily.
HD51 (open) – Lulu Flores won.
HD70 (open, new seat, R held, D pickup opportunity) – Too close to call among three candidates.
HD75 – Rep. Mary Gonzalez easily defeated her challenger.
HD76 (open, new D seat) – Suleman Lalani and Vanesia Johnson in the runoff.
HD79 (two Ds paired) – Rep. Claudia Ordaz Perez was leading Rep. Art Fierro.
HD92 (open, new seat, R held, D pickup opportunity) – Salman Bhojani won.
HD100 (open) – Sandra Crenshaw and Venton Jones headed for the runoff.
HD114 (open) – Too close to call among at least three candidates.
HD124 (open) – Josey Garcia won.
HD125 – Rep. Ray Lopez defeated his challenger.

On the R side, the main thing I will note is that former City Council members Greg Travis and Bert Keller will not be in the runoff for HD133.

Note that a lot of this is based on incomplete voting, so there may be some changes as of the morning. I’ll do some followup tomorrow.

January 2022 campaign finance reports: Congress

Feb 10th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

The filing deadline has passed, the primary lineups are set, and we have a new set of races and candidates to review. As was the case in the past two cycles, I’ll follow the contested primaries as well as the (fewer than before) November races of interest. I’ll drop the former once those contests are settled. The October 2021 reports are here, the July 2021 reports are here, and you can get the links to the previous cycle’s reports from there.

Dan Crenshaw – CD02
Robin Fulford – CD02
Van Taylor – CD03
Keith Self – CD03
Sandeep Srivastava – CD03
Doc Shelby – CD03
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Mike McCaul – CD10
Linda Nuno – CD10
Mauro Garza – CD15
John Villarreal Rigney – CD15
Ruben Ramirez – CD15
Roberto Haddad – CD15
Eliza Alvarado – CD15
Monica de la Cruz – CD15
Chip Roy – CD21
Scott Sturm – CD21
Robert Lowry – CD21
Claudia Zapata – CD21
Ricardo Villarreal – CD21
Troy Nehls – CD22
Jamie Kaye Jordan – CD22
Tony Gonzales – CD23
John Lira – CD23
Beth Van Duyne – CD24
Derrik Gay – CD24
Kathy Fragnoli – CD24
Jan McDowell – CD24
Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessica Cisneros – CD28
Tannya Benavides – CD28
Ed Cabrera – CD28
Willie Vasquez Ng – CD28
Cassandra Garcia – CD28
Abel Mulugheta – CD30
Jane Hope Hamilton – CD30
Jessica Mason – CD30
Jasmine Crockett – CD30
Colin Allred – CD32
Vicente Gonzalez – CD34
Mayra Flores – CD34
Greg Casar – CD35
Eddie Rodriguez – CD35
Rebecca Viagran – CD35
Lloyd Doggett – CD37
Donna Imam – CD37
Wesley Hunt – CD38
Duncan Klussman – CD38
Diana Martinez Alexander – CD38
Centrell Reed – CD38


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
02    Crenshaw     10,302,932  7,639,567        0  4,516,080
02    Fulford          49,692     15,595   15,595     34,097
03    Taylor        1,857,852    652,058  503,192  1,228,292
03    Self            165,608     58,297        0    107,321
03    Srivastava       59,699     49,257   25,000     10,441
03    Shelby                0          0        0          0
07    Fletcher      2,414,235    485,311        0  1,990,020
10    McCaul        1,413,600    643,881        0    777,453
10    Nuno                  0          0        0          0
15    Garza           504,584    162,893  663,201    387,578
15    V Rigney        151,025         26  151,000    150,999
15    Ramirez         108,280     34,054   12,250     74,225
15    Haddad          100,000    100,000        0          0
15    Alvarado         75,035     24,183   29,000     50,851
15    De la Cruz    1,539,153    921,051   13,000    625,607
21    Roy           1,240,412    651,863        0  1,052,131
21    Sturm            47,618     37,869        0      5,728
21    Lowry            39,725     36,227   27,325      3,497
21    Zapata           38,436     34,619        0      4,769
21    Villarreal       25,190     15,048   20,563     10,141
22    Nehls           670,482    322,270    5,726    367,417
22    Jordan                0          0        0          0
23    Gonzales      2,261,907    985,463        0  1,307,803
23    Lira            251,642    195,017        0     56,625
24    Van Duyne     2,035,203    731,839        0  1,371,774
24    Gay             208,661    165,886        0     42,774
24    Fragnoli         28,121     17,328   12,096     10,793
24    McDowell         11,183      5,632        0      5,550
28    Cuellar       1,853,133  1,056,272        0  2,347,334
28    Cisneros        812,072    320,983        0    494,058
28    Benavides        27,177     17,265        0      9,912
28    Cabrera         289,230    112,450  250,000    176,779
28    Ng              137,786     11,436   50,900    126,349
28    Garcia           85,601      2,742        0     82,858
30    Mulugheta       252,713     65,673        0    187,039
30    Hamilton        228,605    157,280    5,014     71,325
30    Mason           199,082    160,217        0     38,865
30    Crockett        101,281     21,094        0     80,186
32    Allred        2,213,564    621,340        0  1,751,646
34    Gonzalez      1,688,731    942,491        0  2,116,732
34    Flores          187,115    128,345        0     58,769
35    Casar           467,579    111,870        0    355,709
35    Rodriguez       251,472     31,134        0    220,338
35    Viagran          47,375      2,286        0     45,088
37    Doggett         635,901    360,138        0  5,476,237
37    Imam            210,983    110,414        0    100,518
38    Hunt          2,039,403    708,280        0  1,555,065
38    Klussman         17,865        385    7,000     17,479
38    Alexander        11,892      6,462        0      5,429
38    Reed             11,377        192    6,496     11,184

Some of these races have a lot of candidates, and in some of those cases I limited myself to people who raised a noticeable amount of money. Most but not all races have both Republicans and Democrats listed – the incumbent is listed first followed by other candidates from that party, if any. In the case of open seats like CDs 15 and 34, I listed the Democrats first since those are Democratic seats.

The two races that the DCCC has focused on as potential pickups are CDs 23 and 24. Leading candidates John Lira and Derrik Gay had raised respectable amounts so far, but if you look at the October reports you can see they didn’t add all that much to their totals. They spent more than they took in over the past three months, not terribly surprising given that they’re in contested races (Lira’s opponent didn’t report anything), but it means they’ll be starting way in the hole. If they don’t pick it up considerably in this quarter it won’t much matter anyway.

I’m a little surprised that State Rep. Jasmine Crockett hasn’t raised more in CD30, as she is the candidate endorsed by outgoing Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, but she was only an official candidate in that race for five weeks, so in that context she did pretty well. In the likely event of a runoff, we’ll see what her April report says. On the Republican side, I expected more from Keith Self, who was Collin County Judge and whose candidacy was fueled by the grievance of Rep. Van Taylor voting for the January 6 commission. I guess his buddy Ken Paxton is in no position to lend him a hand right now. Rebecca Viagran is the one San Antonio candidate in a district with two Austin heavyweights duking it out. You’d think that might be a good path to getting into a runoff, but her fundraising doesn’t reflect that.

Donna Imam had been running in CD31 as of the October report, but switched to the new CD37 when her old district became less hospitable. I expect she’ll join a long list of candidates who got their heads handed to them by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, but you don’t know till you try. All of the Dems in CD38 were late filers in the race, so they had less than three weeks to collect cash. If this were 2012, the eventual winner of that primary would struggle to raise more than about $50K over the entire year. This is not a race that Dems have any expectation of winning, but I’ll be interested to see if the nominee here can do better than their long-longshot counterparts from a decade ago. My theory is that after two exciting cycles and a fair amount of engagement and organization, there should be a higher base level of support for candidates like these. We’ll see how dumb that theory turns out to be.

I did not comment on the absurd fundraising total of Rep. Dan Crenshaw last time. I will do so this time: That’s a lot of money. Whatever else you might say about the guy, he’s a fundraising machine. Spends a lot of it, too – I don’t look at the report details, so I can’t say where it’s going. But anyone who can rake it in like that, you have to think he’s got his eye on a statewide run, maybe in 2024 if Ted Cruz makes good his threat to run for President again. He does have three primary opponents, who combined to raise less than $50K. He also occasionally says things that make the most rabid of Trump minions howl with rage, so the possibility exists that he could underperform against that collection of no-names. I would not expect it to amount to anything, but it might provide a bit of fodder for the pundits.

On primarying the quorum breakers

Jan 16th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Of interest.

Working Families Party, a political party and relative newcomer to Texas politics that backs Democrats aligned with their platform, aims to spend in the ballpark of half a million dollars this cycle, WFP Texas Co-director Pedro Lira told the Signal.

Much of that money will go to door-to-door canvassing.

“At the end of the day, when you can really connect with people face to face, that’s really what motivates people to get out to vote,” Lira said. “We’re trying to build a real base of working class people. You can’t do that without involving those people.”

[…]

In partnership with CWA and Texas Organizing Project, WFP is also bankrolling “Texans for Better Dems,” a new political action committee that will primary Democrats in the state legislature who returned from Washington D.C. to restore quorum, a move that caused a rift in the state party and led to the creation of the Texas Progressive Caucus.

“We were incredibly proud of the Democrats who fled the state to deny Republicans quorum. It’s exactly the kind of leadership that we need from our elected officials,” Lira said. “We were also just as disappointed to see some of those Democrats come back. And it’s because those Democrats gave Republicans quorum that bills like the abortion ban and the anti-voting legislation were able to pass.”

Lira said the PAC was created specifically to primary those Democrats.

This was a thing I wondered about, and had seen some speculation about a few months ago when the quorum was freshly broken and tempers were high. I tried to keep an eye on it during the filing process, but there was a lot to keep up on, and if any WFP-backed candidates were out there, they didn’t make their presence known in a way that was visible to me. Now that we’re well past the filing deadline, let’s revisit this.

The first question is who the potential targets would be. I did a little digging into who among the Dems were here during the quorum break in Special Session #1, and who came back during Special Session #2 to bring the attendance count to the required level – this was in response to a private question I was asked. Long story short, I trawled through the daily journals on the Texas Legislature Online site, and found enough record votes to mostly fill in the picture.

For the first special session, I identified the following Dems who were present in Austin: Ryan Guillen, Tracy King, Eddie Morales, John Turner, Abel Herrero, Terry Canales, and Leo Pacheco. (There’s one I can’t identify; I suspect it was Harold Dutton, but he shows up in the next session, so it doesn’t really matter.) Guillen is now a Republican, Pacheco has since resigned, and Turner is not running for re-election. According to the SOS Qualified Candidates page, none of the others have primary opponents.

For the second special session, we can add these legislators, who were either there from the beginning or who showed up while the quorum was still not established: Dutton, Art Fierro, Mary Gonzalez, Bobby Guerra, Oscar Longoria, Eddie Lucio Jr, Joe Moody, James Talarico, Garnet Coleman, Armando Walle, and Ana Hernandez. Lucio and Coleman are not running. Talarico is running in a different district, HD50, which is open now that Celia Israel is running for Mayor of Austin. Fierro was paired with Claudia Ordaz Perez in redistricting. Of the rest, only Dutton and Gonzalez have primary opponents, and Dutton was a target well before the quorum break issue. Gonzalez, who has had primary challengers in the past as well for other reasons, faces someone named Rene Rodriguez, about whom I could find nothing. If the goal was to primary these Democrats, it sure doesn’t look like that goal was achieved.

Now, the WFP may well be playing a longer game. As we know, there wasn’t much time between the passage of the new maps and the start of filing season. Maybe they decided it was better to wait until 2024, or maybe they decided to focus more on races like CD35 (they have endorsed Greg Casar) and CD30. Maybe they’ll back Ordaz Perez and David Alcorta, the other candidate in HD50. Who knows? If they intended to make a bigger splash than that, I’d say they came up short. We’ll see what happens after this election.

Rep. Martinez-Fischer sues over CD35

Dec 21st, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

One more federal redistricting lawsuit to add to the pile.

Texas State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer filed a lawsuit today challenging boundaries of the recently redrawn U.S. House District 35.

In the lawsuit, Fischer claims that the redrawn map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and that is discriminates against Latino voters.

“Redistricting is a political process, but it impacts the people who live in our community personally. Our representation in Congress determines not only the resources we receive, but also how quickly our needs are addressed and how they are prioritized,” Fischer said. “By denying Latinos in CD-35 the opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice, Texas has shortchanged our community of the representation it deserves and has willfully committed a Section 2 violation.

Congressional District 35 spans the I-35 corridor from Austin to San Antonio. The redrawn maps were approved by Governor Greg Abbott on October 25.

“The nature of redistricting is creating winners and losers. District lines change, incumbents gain new constituents, and communities are divided. This is inevitable. What should not be inevitable is the intentional discrimination against Latino, Black, and AAPI voters that we have come to expect from Texas Republicans in redistricting. That is why I am challenging the state of Texas over the loss of a Latino opportunity district in Texas Congressional District 35, in direct violation of Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

A copy of the lawsuit is here. It is focused entirely on CD35, with the main thrust being that this district went from one that was majority Latino and had more population in Bexar County to one that is not majority Latino and has more population in Travis County. The complaint is fairly straightforward and not too long, so go read it.

As noted by Democracy Docket, this lawsuit has been combined with the others, including the Justice Department lawsuit filed earlier this month. While TMF originally asked for there to be “a permanent injunction prohibiting Defendants implementing any future elections held pursuant to SB 6”, the combined plaintiffs have since agreed (with one exception) to not ask for preliminary injunctions that would prevent the 2022 primaries for taking place, per the Brennan Center. Per Michael Li, the plaintiffs are asking for an October 2022 trial date, with the state of Texas asking for November. The exception are the plaintiffs in the Sen. Powell lawsuit over SD10 (known as the “Brooks plaintiffs”, as the first person listed is Roy Charles Brooks), who are asking for a preliminary injunction that would at least delay the 2022 primaries, since Sen. Powell will almost certainly be voted out next year under the current lines. I think that covers everything for now. Texas Public Radio has more.

The filings I’m still looking for

Dec 13th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Today is Filing Deadline Day. By the end of today, we’ll know who is and isn’t running for what. While we wait for that, let’s review the filings that have not yet happened, to see what mysteries may remain.

Congress: Most of the potentially competitive districts have Democratic candidates in them. The ones that remain are CDs 22, 26, 31, and 38, though I have been told there is a candidate lined up for that latter slot. Of the rest, CD22 would be the biggest miss if no one files. I have to think someone will, but we’ll know soon enough.

For open seats, CD15 has five candidates so far, none of whom are familiar to me. CD30 has six candidates, with State Rep. Jasmine Crockett receiving the endorsement of outgoing Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. CD34 has six, with current CD15 Rep. Vicente Gonzalez the presumed favorite. CD35 has three serious contenders – Austin City Council member Greg Casar, former San Antonio City Council Member Rebecca Viagran, and State Rep. Eddie Rodrigues – and one person you’ve not heard of. CD37 has Rep. Lloyd Doggett and former CD31 candidate Donna Imam, in addition to a couple of low-profile hopefuls, but it will not have former CD25 candidate Julie Oliver, who has said she will not run.

Democratic incumbents who have primary challengers include Rep. Lizzie Fletcher in CD07 (I’m still waiting to see if Centrell Reed makes some kind of announcement); Rep. Veronica Escobar in CD16 (I don’t get the sense her challenger is a serious one); and Rep. Henry Cuellar in CD28, who gets a rematch with Jessica Cisneros, who came close to beating him last year. The Svitek spreadsheet lists some dude as a potential challenger in CD18 against Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, but so far no filing. Reps. Al Green, Joaquin Castro, Sylvia Garcia, Colin Allred, and Marc Veasey do not appear to have any challengers as of this morning.

Statewide: Pretty much everyone who has said they are a candidate has filed. Frequent candidate Michael Cooper and someone named Innocencio Barrientez have filed for Governor, making it a four-candidate field. Two Harris County district court judges, Julia Maldonado and Robert Johnson, have filed for slots on the Supreme Court and CCA, respectively. The Svitek spreadsheet lists potential but not yet filed contenders for two other Supreme Court positions but has no listings for CCA. The one potential candidate who has not yet taken action is Carla Brailey, who may or may not file for Lt. Governor.

SBOE: As this is a post-redistricting year, all SBOE seats are on the ballot, as are all State Senate seats. Dems have four reasonable challenge opportunities: Michelle Palmer is running again in SBOE6, Jonathan Cocks switched from the Land Commissioner race to file in SBOE8, Alex Cornwallis is in SBOE12, and then there’s whatever is happening in SBOE11. The good news is that DC Caldwell has company in the primary, if he is actually allowed to run in it, as Luis Sifuentes is also running. I would advise voting for Sifuentes.

There are two open Democratic seats, plus one that I’m not sure about. Ruben Cortez in SBOE2 and Lawrence Allen in SBOE4 are running for HDs 37 and 26, respectively. There are two candidates in 2 and three candidates in 4, so far. Georgina Perez is the incumbent in SBOE1 but as yet has not filed. If she has announced that she’s not running, I have not seen it. There is a candidate named Melissa Ortega in the race.

In SBOE5, the district that was flipped by Rebecca Bell-Metereau in 2020 and was subsequently made more Democratic in redistricting, we have the one primary challenge to an incumbent so far, as a candidate named Juan Juarez has filed against Bell-Metereau. I’m old enough to remember Marisa Perez coming out of nowhere to oust Michael Soto in 2012, so anything can happen here. The aforementioned Perez (now Marisa Perez-Diaz) and Aicha Davis are unopposed so far.

Senate: Nothing much here that you don’t already know. Every incumbent except Eddie Lucio has filed for re-election, and none of them have primary opponents so far. Lucio’s SD27 has the three challengers we knew about, Sara Stapleton-Barrera, State Rep. Alex Dominguez, and Morgan LaMantia. A candidate named Misty Bishop had filed for SD07, was rejected, and has since re-filed for SD04; I’m going to guess that residency issues were at play. There are Dem challengers in SD09 (Gwenn Burud, who has run for this office before) and SD17 (Miguel Gonzalez), but no one yet for SDs 07 or 08.

House: Here’s the list of potentially competitive districts, for some value of the word “competitive”. Now here’s a list of districts on that list that do not yet have a filed candidate:

HD14
HD25
HD28
HD29
HD55
HD57
HD61
HD66
HD67
HD84
HD89
HD96
HD106
HD126
HD129
HD133
HD150

I’m told there’s someone lined up for HD133. We’ll see about the rest.

All of the open seats have at least one candidate in them so far except for HD22, the seat now held by Joe Deshotel. There’s a name listed on the Svitek spreadsheet, so I assume that will be sorted by the end of the day.

Reps. Ron Reynolds (HD27), Ana-Maria Ramos (HD102), and Carl Sherman (HD109) are incumbents who have not yet filed. No one else has filed yet in those districts as well. Svitek has a note saying that Rep. Ramos has confirmed she will file; there are no notes for the other two. There is the possibility of a last-minute retirement, with a possibly preferred successor coming in at the same time.

Here is a complete list of Democratic House incumbents who face a primary challenge: Rep. Richard Raymond (HD42) and Rep. Alma Allen (HD131). Both have faced and turned away such opponents in the past. If there was supposed to be a wave of primary opponents to incumbents who came back early from Washington, they have not shown up yet.

Rep. James Talarico has moved from HD52 to the open HD50 after HD52 was made into a lean-Republican district. Rep. Claudia Ordaz-Perez, the incumbent in HD76, will run in HD79 against Rep. Art Fierro after HD76 was relocated from El Paso to Fort Bend.

Harris County: Again, nothing new here. Erica Davis has not yet filed for County Judge. County Clerk Teneshia Hudpseth is the only non-judicial incumbent without a primary opponent so far.

Far as I can tell, all of the county judicial slots have at least one filing in them, except for a couple of Justice of the Peace positions. George Risner, the JP in Precinct 2, Place 2 (all JP Place 2 slots are on the ballot this year) has not yet filed, amid rumors that he is mulling a challenge to Commissioner Adrian Garcia. Incumbent Angela Rodriguez in JP precinct 6 has not yet filed. No Dem challengers yet in precincts 4 or 8.

Other judicial races: Sorry, I don’t have the bandwidth for this right now. I’ll review it after today.

And that’s all I’ve got. See you on the other side. As always, leave your hot gossip in the comments.

Redistricting lawsuit #2 filed

Oct 28th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

This one focuses on just the Congressional map.

An organization affiliated with Eric Holder, who was attorney general in the Obama administration, has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the state’s GOP-drawn redistricting map for Congress on behalf of a Latino rights group and 13 Texas voters.

Filed Monday in an Austin federal court, the lawsuit claims mapmakers in the Texas Legislature improperly drew political districts in Senate Bill 6 that increased the power of white voters even though 95% of the state’s growth last decade was fueled by people of color.

That population growth made Texas the only state to gain two congressional seats after the 2020 census.

“Yet Senate Bill 6 appropriates those additional districts — and more — for white Texans,” the lawsuit argued. “Senate Bill 6 does so by packing and cracking communities of color along racial lines to ensure that those groups’ growing populations will not translate to increased political influence.”

Holder, chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said the congressional districts drawn by Republican lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott violate the Voting Rights Act.

[…]

The new lawsuit, filed Monday on behalf of Voto Latino and 13 voters, asks U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman to overturn the congressional districts and order a new map to be drawn that:

• Adds two majority Latino districts in South and West Texas, from the border region north to Bexar County and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

• Improves the voting strength of Latinos in Congressional District 23, which stretches along the border with Mexico from San Antonio to just east of El Paso.

• Adds a majority Latino or majority Black-Latino district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

• Creates another majority Latino or majority Black-Latino district in the Houston area.

The lawsuit also complained that Congressional District 35, which stretches from Austin to San Antonio along a narrow strip of Interstate 35, improperly combines far-flung Latino communities into a district with a Latino voting-age population of just under 48%.

A statement from Voto Latino is here, and a copy of the lawsuit is here. The National Redistricting Action Fund, a non-profit affiliate of the NDRC, did the filing. As noted, there is a separate lawsuit filed by MALDEF that challenges the legislative and SBOE maps in addition to the Congressional map. I assume that the NRDC and NRAF focused on the Congressional map because the NDRC’s mission is more of a national one. You know the drill here – the plaintiffs will have tons of evidence on their side, but unless there’s a new federal law to address this, SCOTUS ain’t gonna care. There’s also a chance this could delay the 2022 primaries, though again I would not bet on it. We’ll see what happens. Spectrum News has more.

October 2021 campaign finance reports: Congress

Oct 26th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Another three months have passed, and so we review the Congressional finance reports again. I fear these reports are about to get a lot more boring post-redistricting, but for now we will plow onward. The July 2021 reports are here, and you can get the links to the previous cycle’s reports from there.

Dan Crenshaw – CD02
Van Taylor – CD03
Keith Self – CD03
Lance Gooden – CD05
Kathleen Bailey – CD05
Charles Gearing – CD05
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Morgan Luttrell – CD08
Mike McCaul – CD10
Vicente Gonzalez – CD15
Monica de la Cruz – CD15
Chip Roy – CD21
Troy Nehls – CD22
Matthew Berg – CD22
Tony Gonzales – CD23
John Lira – CD23
Beth Van Duyne – CD24
Derrik Gay – CD24
John Carter – CD31
Donna Imam – CD31
Colin Allred – CD32
Rochelle Garza – CD34
Lloyd Doggett – CD37
Wesley Hunt – CD38


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
02    Crenshaw      8,166,421  5,789,903        0  4,229,232
03    Taylor        1,440,084    348,042  518,792  1,114,539
03    Self                  0          0        0          0
03    Srivastava       25,770     23,560   25,000     27,210
05    Gooden          323,801    340,897        0    435,438
05    Bailey          191,055     41,210  175,000    149,844
05    Gearing         204,350     49,993        0    154,356
07    Fletcher      2,036,541    300,422        0  1,797,215
08    Luttrell        737,201     72,489        0    664,712
10    McCaul        1,064,632    378,327        0    694,038
15    Gonzalez      1,323,008    553,704        0  2,139,796
15    De la Cruz      980,432    565,849   13,000    422,088
21    Roy             970,732    506,014        0    928,301
22    Nehls           472,116    200,570    8,700    290,751
22    Berg            125,028    107,807    5,100     17,221
23    Gonzales      1,672,722    545,202        0  1,158,878
23    Lira            209,147    138,544        0     70,602
24    Van Duyne     1,542,073    519,647   20,000  1,090,836
24    Gay             146,454     68,596        0     77,857
31    Carter          607,121    320,931        0    486,595
31    Imam            113,582     17,346        0     96,186
32    Allred        1,885,946    453,968        0  1,591,400
34    Garza           200,134     55,741        0    144,393
37    Doggett         400,081    252,958        0  5,352,597
38    Hunt          1,026,844    203,946        0  1,046,839

Some new names on the list this quarter, Sandeep Srivastava in CD03, Kathleen Bailey in CD05, and Rochelle Garza in CD34. Charlie Gearing had originally announced as a candidate in CD05 but has since switched to HD114 after the final Congressional map drew him out of CD05. Other now-former candidates for Congress include State Rep. Michelle Beckley and Manor mayor Larry Wallace, who suspended their campaigns in CDs 24 and 10 respectively after concluding those districts were too inhospitable to a challenge.

That’s why I said that these reports may be pretty boring from here on. These districts were not drawn to foster competition. A quick look at the 2018 and 2020 electoral data, which is now available, tells the story. Only CD15, in which Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez may run for CD34 instead, and the ever-popular CD23 are reasonably close to even. The Republicans intended to make the last two cycles the exceptions, and at least at first glance they appear to have succeeded. We’ll get some new map optimism in 2022, and we may see that the dynamism of the state’s population plus the continued effects of the Trump debacle will change the perception of some districts, but all that remains to be seen.

In the meantime, we’re mostly looking at primary races. Rep. Van Taylor in CD03 is lousy, but because he voted for the January 6 commission, he’s drawn a pro-insurrection opponent. Keith Self is the former Collin County Judge and a longtime crony of Ken Paxton – indeed, the ongoing effort to screw the Paxton special prosecutors out of their pay was initiated by Keith Self. If Rep. Gonzalez does shift to CD34, we’ll need someone to try to hold onto CD15, which I tend to think may not be that big a deal, but will likely be uphill. Rep. Lloyd Doggett is the big dog in CD37, but former CD25 candidate Julie Oliver has filed there, and could make things interesting. There are now multiple Dems looking at CD35, and I’ll be very interested in seeing their reports in January. We still don’t know if Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson will run again in CD30. I’m sure a few more incumbents on both sides will draw a challenger or two.

And that’s where we are today. Filing season is almost upon us, and I expect we’ll see some interesting names pop up here and there. Someone in Houston is going to file for CD38 as a Democrat, if only because it’s now the shiniest prize out there for a Dem. I’m hoping we’ll find that the 2020 numbers in these districts overstate Republican strength and thus make the 2024 elections more attractive, but that’s wishing and hoping right now. We’re not going to see the kind of money raised for Congressional races in Texas that we have seen these past four years. My advice would be to spend your political donation dollars on our statewide candidates, especially for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General. We’ve more than proven we can raise money for Democratic candidates in Texas. We just need to be strategic about it.

Comings and goings

Oct 21st, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Rep. Lloyd Doggett will run in a new district again.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett

Longtime U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, has decided to run for reelection in Texas’ 37th Congressional District, opting to vie for one of Texas’ two new congressional districts — a bright-blue seat concentrated in Austin — rather than his current district, which reaches down to San Antonio.

Doggett announced the decision Sunday in an email to supporters and then shared it in person Monday outside Bryker Woods Elementary School in Austin.

“Nobody, me included, has any entitlement to public office, but Bryker Woods does issue reports cards,” Doggett said, “and I’m ready for my neighbors to grade my service in Congress and my devotion to the families of this city.”

Doggett currently represents the 35th Congressional District, which runs from Austin down along Interstate 35 to San Antonio. The proposed 37th District is far more compact, contained almost entirely within Travis County, home to Austin. Both are currently safely Democratic districts — and likely to remain so after redistricting.

[…]

Doggett also survived the last round of redistricting by switching districts, changing to the 35th District, which was new at the time. It was drawn to be a Hispanic-majority district, and Doggett faced a primary against then state Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio. But Castro ultimately ran for the San Antonio-based 20th Congressional District after its Democratic incumbent, Charlie Gonzalez, announced his retirement.

Doggett’s chances of reelection in the new district are high. He has served in Congress since 1995 and a built a massive campaign war chest, totaling $5.4 million as of Sept. 30.

Doggett’s decision to run in CD-37 means there will be an open seat in CD-35.

Potential Democratic candidates for the 37th District have included state Rep. Gina Hinojosa of Austin and Wendy Davis, the former Fort Worth state senator and 2014 gubernatorial nominee who unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, last year.

Doggett was first elected in what was then CD10. In the DeLay re-redistricting of 2003, he moved to what was then CD25, then into CD35 as noted. I’m just going to leave this here:

Someone needs to start a project to track down everyone who has been continuously represented by Lloyd Doggett since 1995.

Rep. Doggett may or may not get some real competition for CD37. I’d make him a heavy favorite against pretty much anyone. As for CD35, that will likely draw a crowd.

Progressive firebrand and Austin City Council Member Greg Casar is likely to run for Congress in Texas’s 35th District, he told the Texas Observer in an interview.

“It’s very likely that I’m running,” says Casar, who has formed an exploratory committee to examine a run for the district that runs from Austin to San Antonio. “The maps haven’t been signed into law yet, but shortly after they are, I will make things much more official.”

[…]

The prospect of a newly open seat in a heavily Democratic majority-minority district sets the stage for a potential primary battle.

State Representative Eddie Rodriguez, who’s served in the Legislature since 2003, is reportedly “taking a hard look” at a run for the 35th; his southeast Austin state House district sits almost entirely within the new 35th boundaries. Also, longtime San Antonio Representative Trey Martinez Fischer requested that lawmakers draw him into the 35th, indicating that he may also run. Claudia Zapata, a progressive activist in Austin, is currently the only officially declared candidate. Casar’s home and his north-central council district are in the 37th, right along the border with the 35th.

That story is all about CM Casar, and you can read it if you want to know more about him. I’m mostly interested in the name game at this point.

Moving along, we will have a new open State House seat in Bexar County.

State Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, who bucked his party on a number of major issues this year, announced Wednesday he will not seek reelection.

In an email to constituents, Larson said he was following through on legislation he has repeatedly introduced that imposes a term limit of 12 years on any elected official at the state level.

“As a strong proponent of term limits, will follow the limits we previously proposed in this legislation,” Larson wrote.

Larson was first elected in 2010 to represent House District 122 in the San Antonio area.

He had been increasingly expected to pass on a 2022 reelection campaign as he grew disillusioned with his party and potential GOP candidates lined up for his seat. Larson was the only Republican to oppose the GOP’s priority elections bill that led House Democrats to break quorum this summer. He also was the only Republican to vote against legislation that Republican supporters argued would crack down on the teaching of critical race theory in Texas classrooms. More recently, he filed a long-shot bill during the current special session to provide rape and incest exemptions for Texas’ new near-total abortion ban, despite previously voting for it.

Rep. Larson, who had been targeted by Greg Abbott in the 2018 primary, was sure to draw challengers this primary as well. He’s also now got his 12 years in, which means he’s fully vested in the pension. That’s always a propitious time to pull the plug. As noted before the current HD122, which began the decade as the most Republican district in Bexar County, has moved sharply towards Democrats. It was also significantly changed in redistricting, and was made more red than it had been in 2020, but could still be competitive in the near future. Maybe if a more wingnutty Republican wins, that timetable could move up.

Also moving districts due to the new map:

State Rep. James Talarico, D-Round Rock, announced Wednesday he is moving to run for reelection in a different House district because his current district is being redrawn to be more favorable to Republicans.

Talarico said he would run in nearby House District 50, where the Democratic incumbent, Celia Israel, is not seeking reelection as she prepares to run for Austin mayor. He announced the new campaign with the support of the biggest names in Democratic politics in Texas, including Beto O’Rourke, Wendy Davis and Joaquin Castro.

Talarico currently represents House District 52, which is set to become redder in redistricting — going from a district that President Joe Biden won by 10 percentage points to one that Donald Trump would have carried by 4. HD-50, meanwhile, is likely to remain solidly blue after redistricting.

[…]

Whether Talarico can avoid a competitive primary for HD-50 is an open question. Earlier Wednesday, Pflugerville City Councilman Rudy Metayer announced he was exploring a run for the seat. Metayer is also the president of the Texas Black Caucus Foundation, and he released a list of supporters topped by two of the state’s most prominent Black politicians, state Sens. Borris Miles of Houston and Royce West of Dallas.

HD-50 is more diverse than the district Talarico, who is white, currently represents. In a series of tweets announcing his new campaign, Talarico prominently highlighted how he “call[s] out White supremacy on the floor,” a reference to his outspoken advocacy against Republican legislation aiming to restrict the teaching of “critical race theory” in Texas classrooms.

Talarico was part of the over 50 House Democrats who broke quorum this summer in protest of the GOP’s priority elections bill, though he was part of the first several to return, causing friction with some in his own party.

See here for more on Rep. Israel. I have to think that HD52 will still be attractive to someone on the Democratic side; that person may have a harder time of it than Rep. Talarico, but a 4-point Trump district is hardly insurmountable, and I’d bet on further change in a Dem direction. As for Talarico, I’ll be very interested to see how big a deal his coming back in the first wave from the quorum break is in his primary. I’m sure the subject will come up.

Closer to home:

State Rep. Dan Huberty, R-Houston, announced Tuesday he will not seek another term to the Texas House.

Huberty, who has represented House District 127 since 2011, said in a statement that “it is time for new opportunities in life.”

“I have thought long and hard about this decision,” Huberty said. “It’s been an honor to represent the people and communities of District 127 at the Texas Capitol, and I’m proud of the work our team has accomplished.”

During the 2019 legislative session, Huberty helped spearhead reforms to the state’s school finance system, which included $6.5 billion to improve public education in the state and pay teachers, plus $5.1 billion to lower school district taxes.

Huberty said Tuesday that his “interest in and passion for public education remains at my core” and said he believed that the school finance reform legislation from 2019 “will have a lasting impact for the school children of Texas for a long time to come.”

Another fully-vested-in-the-pension guy. Funny how those things work out. Rep. Huberty, like several of his colleagues, is one of those increasingly rare serious-about-policy types, who has done some good work with public education. As his district remains pretty solidly Republican, at least in the foreseeable future, the best we can hope for is someone who isn’t a total clown emerging from the Republican primary. Say a few Hail Marys and toss some salt over your shoulder.

And speaking of Republicans with policy chops, this was not unexpected but is still bad.

Amarillo state Sen. Kel Seliger, a Republican who often butted heads with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and was known to be a key swing vote for his party, will not seek reelection.

“After thoughtful consideration and with the reassurance of my family, including my new very vocal granddaughter, I have decided not to be a candidate for re-election to the Texas Senate,” Seliger said in a statement. “I am forever grateful for my family, supporters, staff, and those who. have worked on my behalf since 2004. Thank you for placing your trust in me as your Texas State Senator.”

Seliger said he will serve out the remainder of his term, which ends in January 2023. He has represented Senate District 31, which covers the Panhandle, South Plains and the Permian Basin, since 2005. Prior to that, he served four terms as mayor of Amarillo.

In the Legislature, Seliger was known as an advocate issues of public education, higher education and local control. He led the Senate Higher Education Committee for three sessions between 2013 and 2017. But as parts of the Republican Party in Texas shifted toward support of private school vouchers and against policies passed in Democrat-leaning municipalities, Seliger was often criticized for not supporting those stances and derided as a “liberal.”

[…]

As recently as Monday, Seliger was still breaking with Republican leadership in what he said was deference to his constituents. He was one of the only Republicans in office who openly opposed legislation to ban employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccines, saying the proposal, pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott, was “anti-business.” Earlier in the 30-day special session, Seliger was the sole GOP vote in the Senate against a bill that would clear the way for party officials to trigger election audits. Seliger reportedly said he opposed the legislation because it is an “unfunded mandate of the counties, and I’m opposed to big government.”

His maverick streak led to frequent conflict with Patrick, a conservative firebrand who presides over the Senate. In 2017, Seliger voted against two of Patrick’s legislative priorities: a bill restricting local governments’ abilities to raise property tax revenues and another one providing private school vouchers. The next session, Patrick stripped Seliger of his chairmanship of the Higher Education Committee prompting a back and forth with Patrick’s office that escalated to Seliger issuing a recommendation that a top Patrick adviser kiss his “back end.” (Seliger ultimately apologized, but only for directing the comment at the adviser and not at Patrick himself.)

There used to be a lot of Kel Seligers in the State Senate, and in the Republican Party. Now they run the gamut from Joan Huffman to Bob Hall, and the next person to be elected in SD31 is almost certainly going to be on the Bob Hall end of that spectrum. We sure better hope we can beat Dan Patrick next year.

Finally, here’s a non-legislative vacancy that may have an effect on the House delegation in 2023.

The race for Bexar County judge is wide open as the 2022 election approaches.

Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff confirmed last week that he would not seek reelection next year. Wolff has served as the county’s leader since 2001. Local political scientists say they expect a packed Democratic primary, though the number of officially declared candidates currently sits at zero.

So far, only state Rep. Ina Minjarez has publicly announced interest in the seat; she tweeted that she was exploring a run after Wolff announced his decision not to run again.

“I’ve received countless calls from community members for me to consider running for Bexar County Judge; with today’s news I’ve decided to form an exploratory committee,” she wrote on Oct. 6.

Rep. Minjarez was the only legislator mentioned in that story, but County Judge is a pretty good gig, so others may check this out. Being a County Judge is also a decent stepping stone to higher office, if that’s on one’s path. I will keep an eye on that.

With the mapmaking done, I expect we’ll start to hear about more people getting in, getting out, and moving over. And the January finance reports are going to tell us a lot. Stay tuned.

Down to the wire for Congressional redistricting

Oct 18th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Time is running out in this session. Of course, there’s always the next session shudder.

A redraw of the state’s congressional map to include a decade of population growth could be headed to last-minute backdoor negotiations after the Texas House made a series of changes to the Senate’s proposed boundaries.

The House approved the congressional map on a 79-56 vote early Sunday, leaving in place district configurations that largely protect incumbents while denying Hispanics control of either of the two additional seats the state earned based on the 4 million new residents it gained, according to 2020 census results. Half of the new residents were Hispanic.

But the House late Saturday tweaked the Senate-approved map so that two Black Democratic members of Congress in the Houston area would not be pitted against each other. The chamber also amended the map to just barely restore the Hispanic-majority electorate of a Central Texas district stretching from Austin to San Antonio that the Senate plan had shrunk.

Early Sunday morning, the Senate rejected those changes and requested what’s known as a conference committee, made up of members of both chambers, to hash out the differences. That deal would require an additional vote by each chamber before this third special session ends Tuesday.

[…]

Throughout the evening, Democrats warned of “blatant legal defects” that undermine the electoral strength of voters of color in choosing their representatives in Washington, D.C. At times offering vague reasoning for their opposition, the House’s Republican majority repeatedly rejected their bids to rework the map and create additional districts in which voters of color could control elections.

A failed proposal to create such a district for Hispanics in western Dallas County grew particularly contentious as state Rep. Jacey Jetton, R-Richmond, spoke against the proposal, noting it would reduce the Hispanic population in a neighboring Democratic district.

In response, state Rep. Rafael Anchía, the Dallas Democrat who had offered the proposal, questioned why Republicans would object to the new district while signing off on a configuration that instead draws some of those Hispanics into a massive rural district with almost surgical precision.

Under the plan Republicans approved, the 6th Congressional District — which stretches across seven mostly white rural counties to the south of Dallas — extends a finger northward into Dallas County to capture Hispanic neighborhoods. That engineering simultaneously boosts white voters’ control of the district while stranding Hispanic voters who in the past were concentrated enough to influence election outcomes.

“You really have to try hard to deny Latinos in North Texas the ability to select that candidate of their choice, but that’s what’s baked in this plan,” Anchía said.

[…]

In reconfiguring the Austin-area districts, the Senate had brought the share of Hispanic eligible voters in the 35th Congressional District down from 52.6% to 48%. House Republicans voted to give Hispanic voters a marginal majority by bringing them up to 50.5% of eligible voters in the district, which is currently represented by longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett.

In that same amendment, Republicans also upped the percentage of Hispanic eligible voters to exactly 50% in CD-27, a district that runs from the Gulf Coast up to Central Texas. But the seat would likely remain under Republican control, giving Donald Trump a hypothetical 20.5-percentage-point margin of victory at 2020 levels of support. The district is currently represented by Republican Michael Cloud of Victoria.

Democrats voted against those changes because they also served to further boost Republican performance in neighboring CD-15, which is anchored in Hidalgo County. The Senate reconfigured that district to flip it from one that Joe Biden narrowly carried to one that Trump would’ve won by 2.6 percentage points. Under the House’s changes, Trump’s margin of victory increases to 4.6 percentage points.

The CD-15 incumbent, U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, has said he would move to run for reelection in the reconfigured CD-34, which was unexpectedly close in 2020 but was shored up as a safe Democratic seat. But it appears he will be able to stay put, thanks to a Democratic amendment passed Saturday that would draw his residence into CD-34.

Save for exceptions like CD-15, the GOP appeared to prioritize incumbent protection over aggressively running up the party’s numbers in the congressional delegation. But the map does in fact give Republicans a bigger edge, increasing from 22 to 25 the number of districts that would have voted for Donald Trump in 2020. The state’s current delegation consists of 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats.

See here and here for the background. I expect that the conference committee will produce a final map that will get approved in time, which would at least have the benefit of lessening the need for yet another special session. That’s all up to Greg Abbott of course, and if there’s some other dumbass wingnut thing he wants to do to fake looking tough for Republican primary voters, he can do it. Having Congressional maps in place would mean he doesn’t have to, for whatever that’s worth. This map is trash, but we know the courts will rubber stamp it, so the Republicans have no need to care. Pass it and get out of town, it’s the best we can hope for.

Once again with female Congressional candidates

Aug 9th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

This is another post that was drafted in the Before Times, specifically right after the March primary. I went through the runoffs and assessed all of the races that could or would contain a female candidate or incumbent against a male opponent or open seat with a retiring male incumbent, mixed in the likelihood of said female candidate winning, and presented a range of possibilities for the number of female members of Congress in Texas in 2021, a number that now stands at six. That’s six female members of Congress out of 36 total – five Democrats (out of 13 total) and one Republican (out of 23). With the lineups for November settled, let’s do a quick review, then you can click on to see what I had written originally.

First of all, the next member of Congress in CD24 will be a woman, either Democrat Candace Valenzuela or Republican Beth Van Duyne. It would be nice to say that this means the number of women in Congress from Texas will go up, but Rep. Lizzie Fletcher could lose her race to Wesley Hunt, which would leave us at six as before. I think as things stand right now Fletcher is a clear favorite to win, but we have to allow for the possibility.

Other than Van Duyne, the only Republican running in a competitive district is Genevieve Collins in CD32 against Rep. Colin Allred, who like his fellow freshman Fletcher is the favorite to win but could lose if things go poorly from here. CD24 is one of the more Dem-leaning seats that are currently held by Republicans, but since it’s Republican-held I’d say it has slightly better odds of staying red than CD07 or CD32 have of flipping to red. Republicans can add up to two women to their caucus, and they can subtract one from the Democratic caucus, but I think the single most likely outcome is that Rep. Kay Granger remains the only Republican woman in Congress, and Rep. Lizzie Fletcher gets another term.

If that’s the case, then Dems will add at least one woman to their caucus, but given the bigger picture it’s nearly impossible to imagine that it would be one and only one. I can’t envision a scenario in which Candace Valenzuela wins but Gina Ortiz Jones does not. Wendy Davis is a notch behind those two, and then a little further behind we have Sima Ladjevardian, Lulu Seikaly, Julie Oliver, and Donna Imam. A gain of two Democratic women feels like the single most likely possibility, followed very closely by a gain of three. Four or more is more remote, but not at all out of the question.

That’s the nickel summary. More recently, The 19th wrote about this from a national perspective, with a focus on Republican efforts to recruit more and better female candidates for Congress. They all pretty neatly avoid the Donald Trump-shaped elephant in the room, but that’s their problem. Read on for my original post, which included all of the candidates who are now out of the race or who are running for seats that are not competitive.

(more…)

After-deadline filing review: Congress

Dec 12th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
7 comments

Let’s continue our walk through the filings. I’m going to take a look at some of the interesting Congressional races, skipping over the ones we just looked at.

CD01: It’s still not remotely competitive, but I once again want to salute Hank Gilbert for fighting the good fight against the preposterous Louie Gohmert. Seriously, if you saw a character based on Gohmert in a TV show or movie, you’d be complaining about what an insulting and outdated stereotype of a Texan he was. If only. Anyway, Hank’s candidacy is a reminder that good people do exist everywhere, and that Louie Gohmert is also complicit in Trump’s Ukraine-related crimes.

CD03: In the end, Tanner Do did file, joining Sean McCaffity and Lulu Seikaly. Not a top tier race, but on the radar.

CD17: Rick Kennedy is running again. He’s joined in the primary by David Jaramillo and William Foster. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pour one out for Chet Edwards.

CD21: It’s Wendy Davis and Jennie Lou Leeder, and that’s it. I’m actually a little surprised no one else jumped in, though the way Davis has been crushing it at fundraising, as well as her name brand, it’s not that surprising.

CD23: Basically, it’s Gina Ortiz Jones and a bunch of people who have not established much of a presence in the race. I do not understand why Rosey Abuabara has not filed a finance report. Liz Wahl, the first person connected with CD23 this cycle, did not file.

CD24: We’re familiar with the main players in this group – Kim Olson, Candace Valenzuela, Crystal Fletcher, Jan McDowell, John Biggan. I still feel like we could have won this seat last year with a stronger nominee. As long as we avoid that mistake this time, we should have a great shot at it now.

CD25: Julie Oliver and Heidi Sloan, and that’s it. Another not-top-tier race, but still one to watch.

CD31: All five of the people mentioned here, plus one more, filed. I would really like to see at least one of them post a strong Q4 finance report.

Incumbents: We know about the challenges to Reps. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee, and of course the Henry Cuellar/Jessica Cisneros matchup is the marquee attraction. Other incumbents who face primary opponents: Joaquin Castro (CD20, two opponents), Eddie Bernice Johnson (CD30, three opponents), Marc Veasey (CD33, one opponent), Filemon Vela (CD34, two opponents), and Lloyd Doggett (CD35, one opponent). I do not expect any of them to have any trouble. All other Dem incumbents are unopposed in March.

Other races: None of these outside-the-Houston-area districts are competitive, but they all have contested primaries anyway: CDs 12, 13, 14, 26, 27. They contain a mix of new and repeat candidates. Godspeed to them all.

Next up, state offices (may break that into two posts), and judicial races. Let me know what you think.

Who might be next to retire from Congress?

Dec 3rd, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

We may see some more exits in the coming years, some voluntary and some not.

Rep. Mac Thornberry

Retirement talk is generally speculative until an incumbent makes an official announcement.

But many Republican operatives bet that U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, the most senior Republican from Texas in Congress, could make the upcoming term his last. That’s because Thornberry, currently chairman of the Armed Services Committee, is term-limited out of being the top Republican on that committee, in 2021. Thornberry’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Beyond a severe loss of power in Washington, there are potentially bigger problems ahead for Texas Republicans. Every Republican incumbent from Texas who successfully ran for re-election saw his or her margins shrink over Democrats from contested 2016 races. Some of these numbers should not be troubling. For instance, U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Tyler, won his race this year by 46 points, rather than 50 points in the prior cycle.

But five GOP incumbents – [Mike] McCaul and U.S. Reps. John Carter of Round Rock, Kenny Marchant of Coppell, Pete Olson of Sugar Land and Roger Williams of Austin – saw their 2016 margins shrink this year to single digits. These members will likely have to work harder for re-election in 2020 than ever before, and those battles will take place in suburban stretches of Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston that have become increasingly hostile to the GOP.

[…]

The 2018 results could well prove to have been a fluke, brought on by the coattails of outgoing U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke who ran the best Democratic statewide campaign in a generation in his unsuccessful bid against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. But anxiety is high among members and their aides that Texas can no longer sustain so many GOP incumbents – particularly after political maps gets redrawn during redistricting in 2021. Members with an eye on retirement might well wait to see the outcome of the redraw before deciding whether to call it quits.

The East Texas seat of U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath, is another possible vacancy to watch, though not related to his future re-election prospects. With an increasingly higher profile as a member of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and a past career as a federal prosecutor, Ratcliffe has emerged as a contender to be Trump’s next U.S. attorney general to replace the current acting AG, Matthew Whitaker.

As the story notes, the delegation has been pretty stable. In 2012, after the last round of redistricting and with four new seats added, there were only eight new members. Three were in new seats, of which one (Roger Williams, CD25) was in the district Lloyd Doggett abandoned to run in the new CD35. Of the other four, two defeated incumbents: Pete Gallego knocked off Quico Canseco in CD23, Beto O’Rourke knocked off Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary for CD16. Only Randy Weber in CD14 and Joaquin Castro in CD20 succeeded members that had retired. Between then and this year, Reps. Ruben Hinojosa (CD15) and Randy Neugebauer (CD19) retired, and the now-convicted Steve Stockman (CD36) left to pursue a doomed primary against Sen. John Cornyn in 2014. This year was a bonanza for new faces, and there’s a decent chance we’ll have a few more over the next two cycles.

SCOTUS upholds Texas redistricting

Jun 26th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

Screw this.

Extinguishing the possibility that Texas could be placed back under federal electoral supervision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday pushed aside claims that lawmakers intentionally discriminated against voters of color when they enacted the state’s congressional and state House maps.

In a 5-4 vote, the high court threw out a lower court ruling that had found that lawmakers intentionally undercut the voting power of Hispanic and black voters, oftentimes to keep white incumbents in office. The Supreme Court found that the evidence was “plainly insufficient” to prove that the 2013 Legislature acted in “bad faith.”

The Supreme Court also ruled that all but one of the 11 congressional and state House districts that had been flagged as problematic could remain intact. The one exception was Fort Worth-based House District 90, which is occupied by Democratic state Rep. Ramon Romero and was deemed an impermissible racial gerrymander because lawmakers illegally used race as the predominant factor in deciding its boundaries.

The Supreme Court’s ruling, which keeps all but one of the state’s districts in place through the end of the decade, is a major blow to the maps’ challengers — civil rights groups, voters of color and Democratic lawmakers — who since 2011 have been fighting the Republican-controlled Legislature’s post-2010 Census adjustment of district boundaries.

[…]

Joined by the court’s three other liberal justices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor denounced the majority’s opinion as a “disregard of both precedent and fact” in light of the “undeniable proof of intentional discrimination” against voters of color.

“Those voters must return to the polls in 2018 and 2020 with the knowledge that their ability to exercise meaningfully their right to vote has been burdened by the manipulation of district lines specifically designed to target their communities and minimize their political will,” Sotomayor wrote. “The fundamental right to vote is too precious to be disregarded in this manner.”

In siding with the state, the Supreme Court tossed out claims of intentional vote dilution in state House districts in Nueces County and Bell County as well as claims that Hispanic voters were “packed” into Dallas County districts to minimize their influence in surrounding districts. The high court also rejected challenges to Congressional District 27 — where the lower court said lawmakers diluted the votes of Hispanics in Nueces County — and Congressional District 35, which the lower court flagged as an impermissible racial gerrymander.

But perhaps most significant on the voting rights front was the Supreme Court’s ruling that the state could be not be held liable for intentional discrimination of Hispanic and black voters.

See here and here for the background. The opinion is here if you have the stomach for it. You sure can accomplish a lot if you close your eyes and wave away evidence. I don’t know what else there is for me to say, so I’ll just refer you to Pema Levy, Ian Millhiser, Martin Longman, and Mark Joseph Stern. What Rick Hasen wrote five years ago sure looks prescient now.

Texas to appeal redistricting ruling

Aug 19th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Here we go.

If Gov. Greg Abbott calls a second special legislative session this summer, it won’t be for redistricting.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton revealed Friday that Abbott won’t ask lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map — found by a federal court this week to discriminate against Latino and black voters — in a fresh round of legislative overtime.

Instead, Paxton is appealing the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court and trying to keep the boundaries intact for the 2018 elections, according to his filings to a panel of three judges in San Antonio.

[…]

In his filings Friday, Paxton revealed a state plan to wriggle free of any consequences ahead of the 2018 elections. While asking the Supreme Court to overturn the lower court’s ruling that Texas intentionally discriminated against minority voters — the fourth such federal ruling this year — Paxton also requested an injunction that would protect Texas from needing a new map.

Barring a Supreme Court order, the San Antonio judges would approve new boundaries.

“Judges should get out of the business of drawing maps,” Paxton said in a statement. “We firmly believe that the maps Texas used in the last three election cycles are lawful, and we will aggressively defend the maps on all fronts.”

See here for the background. The state is playing for all the marbles here – if they don’t get a stay, and Rick Hasen thinks SCOTUS may not care to get involved at this time, then it will indeed being judges drawing the maps. The upside for the state is they get to keep the current maps, and then maybe get the discriminatory intent ruling(s) overturned down the line. The downside is judge-drawn maps, possibly delayed primaries for this year, and a return engagement with preclearance, which could extend into the next Presidential administration. No big deal, right? I’m sure the plaintiffs will contest the motion for a stay, so now we wait and see what SCOTUS chooses to do. In the meantime, assuming SCOTUS hasn’t put up a stop sign before then, everyone heads back to court on September 5 to fight over what new maps should look like. Michael Li and the DMN have more.

(On a side note, Li quotes from the state’s motion in which they say one reason why they will not call a special session to consider drawing new maps is because there wouldn’t be time to “hold protracted hearings involving interest groups”. Which is pretty frigging funny considering that they didn’t bother holding any hearings when they drew the current maps. Do you think Ken Paxton ever had shame, or do you think he had it surgically removed at some point?)

Court invalidates CDs 27 and 35

Aug 16th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

We are one step closer to having a new Congressional map.

Federal judges have invalidated two Texas congressional districts, ruling that they must be fixed by either the Legislature or a federal court.

In a unanimous decision Tuesday, a three-judge panel in San Antonio ruled that Congressional Districts 27 and 35 violate the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act. The judges found that Hispanic voters in Congressional District 27, represented by U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, were “intentionally deprived of their opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice.” Congressional District 35 — a Central Texas district represented by Democrat Lloyd Doggett of Austin — was deemed “an impermissible racial gerrymander” because mapdrawers illegally used race as the predominant factor in drawing it without a compelling state interest, the judges wrote.

The 107-page ruling — the latest chapter of a six-year court battle over how Texas lawmakers drew political maps — sets up a scramble to redraw the districts in time for the 2018 elections.

The court ordered the Texas Attorney General’s Office to indicate within three business days whether the Texas Legislature would take up redistricting to fix those violations. Otherwise, the state and its legal foes will head back to court on Sept. 5 to begin re-drawing the congressional map — which could shake up other congressional races when the boundaries are changed.

Here is a copy of the ruling, which was unanimous. Michael Li breaks down what this means.

* TX-27 (Farenthold) and TX-35 (Doggett) need to be redrawn – but we knew that already because the court found earlier this year that the configuration of the districts in the 2011 plan was unconstitutional and the 2013 plan made no changes to those districts.

* No further changes need to be made to TX-23 (Hurd) in light of the changes made by the court in the interim plan that then became the 2013 plan. (It is possible there still could be some changes in the Bear County portions of TX-23 as a result of the dismantling of TX-35 but nothing is required).

* No new opportunity district needs to be created in either the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The court’s ruling finds that claims under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act fail because African-Americans and Latinos are not politically cohesive and that any intentional discrimination was adequately remedied by the interim plan/2013 plan as a result of the creation of TX-33 (Veasey).

* No new section 2 district needs to be created in Harris County because African-Americans and Latinos are not politically cohesive.

* BIG FINDING: The court held that the 2013 plan, like the 2011 plan, was intentionally discriminatory. This ruling will play an important role when it comes time for the court to consider whether to put Texas back under preclearance coverage under section 3 of the Voting Rights Act.

From my layman’s perspective, this is a pretty good ruling for the state. CD23 remains intact (though it could be affected by the redrawing of the other two districts), and no new minority opportunity districts need be drawn. The ruling of intent to discriminate is the killer for them, though, as it could mean being put back under preclearance. All things considered, I figure this moves two seats to the Dems, with CD23 remaining a tossup. I suppose Greg Abbott could call another special session to draw a compliant map – they may need another one for the State House soon, too – but I don’t expect that. My guess is the state appeals in the hope of pushing the day of reckoning off into the future, if not winning outright. Stay tuned. The DMN, the Chron, and the Lone Star Project have more.

How the redistricting case could play out

Aug 6th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Michael Li games out how the Texas redistricting litigation may go from the anticipated court ruling to final resolution.

So, in short, Texans could end up with a new set of maps (drawn by the Texas Legislature or drawn by the court or drawn by the legislature and then tweaked/modified by the court). Or the whole process could be put on hold [until] the Supreme Court rules on whether there are underlying violations that require redrawing of the maps.

In any event, maps may not be final until early 2018. That would mean, at a minimum, that candidate filing deadlines for state house and congressional races will be moved (and potentially much angst for those thinking about running for those offices). Depending on how long it takes for the Supreme Court to rule, it is possible that the entire March 2018 Texas primary might have to be moved or, in the alternative, that the primary might be held in two parts – one part for congressional and state house races and one part for everything else).

I jumped ahead to the conclusion in Li’s piece. Go read the whole thing to see how he arrived there. Along the way, he cited this Upshot post about possible outcomes in the Congressional map.

Texas’ defense seems simple. How could it have discriminated in adopting a court-drawn map? The problem: Two of the districts found to be in violation in the April ruling were unchanged on the court-drawn map.

Short of victory, the best case for Texas Republicans might be a ruling confined to those two districts. It would probably cost them one seat in the Austin area, most likely the one belonging to Roger Williams.

But the challenge is far wider.

A third district was found to be in violation in April; it was altered on the temporary map, but only slightly. That district belongs to Will Hurd, already one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country. He won both of his elections by the margin of the high-turnout Republican suburbs of San Antonio, which were said to dilute the power of the district’s low-turnout Hispanic majority. Without those high-turnout Republican suburbs, Mr. Hurd’s re-election chances would look bleak, especially in what is already shaping up as a tough year for Republicans.

The April decision also left open the possibility that Texas might be required to draw an additional minority opportunity district — where the goal is to give racial or ethnic minorities the sway to elect the candidate of their choice — in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. If that happened, a Republican seat would need to be sacrificed here as well, most likely Joe Barton or Kenny Marchant, or perhaps the district held by Sam Johnson, who is not going to seek re-election.

What would “Armageddon” look like? Well, the likeliest version is the possibility that such changes to a few districts ripple across the map, endangering additional Republican incumbents.

The “Armageddon” scenario was reported on by the Trib in late May, which I blogged about here. The worst case scenario for the Republicans is a loss of six, maybe even seven, seats. That’s unlikely, but the low end is two seats, and that may not be much more probable. We won’t know what the scope may be for a few more weeks, when the court’s ruling comes down, and we may not know for certain until January or February. If you thought the 2012 primaries were fun, just you wait for 2018.

Big day for redistricting in court

Apr 26th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Tomorrow the questions of what happens next in the redistricting lawsuits begin to get answered.

Will Texas soon see new political maps that are friendlier to Latino and black voters and, in turn, Democrats? If so, who would draw them: the scolded Republican-led Legislature or the courts themselves? Will the maps land ahead of the 2018 elections?

A three-judge panel based in San Antonio will start wading through such questions on Thursday as lawyers for each side of the redistricting dispute return to court for a high-profile status conference.

“This hearing is a very important event in the sequence of what’s going to happen,” said Jose Garza, an attorney for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, a plaintiff in the case.

In a 2-1 March ruling, the San Antonio panel ruled that Texas lawmakers knowingly discriminated in drawing three of the state’s 36 congressional districts: CD-23, represented by Will Hurd, R-Helotes; CD-27, represented by Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi; and CD-35, represented by Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.

And last week the same judges found fault with the 2011 state House map, finding that lawmakers intentionally diluted the clout of minority voters statewide and in districts encompassing areas including El Paso, Bexar, Nueces, Harris, Dallas and Bell counties.

Each ruling matters mightily because, if they withstand appeals, they could ultimately land Texas — which has a well-documented history of racial discrimination in elections — back on a list of states needing outside approvalto change their election laws.

More immediate questions, however, surround what the rulings mean for the 2018 elections since new district lines could affect both voters and candidates. Already, one potential U.S. House candidate — former U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego — told The Texsas Tribune he would consider running again for Hurd’s CD-23 seat, but perhaps only under new boundaries.

[…]

Civil rights groups and other plaintiffs argue that 2011’s discrimination carried over to the maps currently in use.

Nina Perales, representing the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund in the lawsuit, suggests the case against the 2013 congressional maps is more straightforward partly because there are fewer districts in play and also because the court’s decision more clearly identified discrimination that carried over into the new maps. For instance, the boundaries of two of its districts — Farenthold’s 27th and Doggett’s 35th — are identical to those drawn in 2011.

“We get a better picture on the Congress decision about where the court thinks the map is still flawed,” Perales said. “We do not get a sense in the House opinion where the court thinks the 2013 map is flawed.”

See here and here for some background. There are a lot of questions for the court to address – Michael Li rounds up and summarizes the remaining disputes for the Congressional plan; there are no doubt at least as many issues still in contention for the State House plan – and not a lot of time to get something in place for the 2018 filing season, which begins in a bit more than six months. The plaintiffs had previously proposed a schedule that would have the state submit a remedial map by May 5, with a final decision in place by July 1. A similar schedule for the State House districts would mean a state-proposed remedial map by the beginning of June, with a final decision by early August. That actually gives the Legislature enough time to pass new maps if they want to, but with little room for delay. I can’t wait to see what the judges say.

State wants to appeal redistricting ruling

Apr 15th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

From Texas Redistricting:

The State of Texas filed a motion [Wednesday] afternoon with the three-judge panel in the Texas redistricting case, asking the panel to give the state permission to appeal the panel’s March 10 ruling on the state’s 2011 congressional plan (Plan C185) to the Fifth Circuit.

Texas told the court that it sought review of the panel’s decision that claims about the 2011 map had not been mooted by the state’s adoption of a new congressional map in 2013. Texas said that appeal to the Fifth Circuit, rather than the Supreme Court, was appropriate in this instance because the panel’s “Order is not final and does not grant or deny an injunction” and “is therefore ‘is one of the relatively rare situations in which a Court of Appeals is required to review the decision of a three-judge District Court.”

The motion said the redistricting plaintiffs opposed the request.

See here, here, and here for the background. And here’s the followup:

The three-judge panel in the Texas redistricting case has set oral argument for April 27 on the request of the State of Texas for leave to appeal the panel’s March 10 congressional plan ruling to the Fifth Circuit.

In that ruling, the court found that a number of districts in the state’s 2011 congressional plan were intentionally discriminatory and/or otherwise violated the Constitution or the Voting Rights Act. The state contends that disputes about the 2011 map were mooted by the Texas Legislature’s adoption of the court-drawn interim plan on a permanent basis in 2013. The plaintiffs sharply disagree, arguing that a number of districts in the two plans are identical and also that questions of discriminatory intent are relevant to whether Texas should be put back under preclearance review using the bail-in provisions of section 3 of the Voting Rights Act.

The court’s order setting oral argument directed that the plaintiffs respond to state’s request to appeal by Friday, April 21, and gave the state until Tuesday, April 25, to file a reply.

Basically, we’ll know more about where things are headed after the hearing on the 27th. And may I say, it’s such a pleasure to see Michael Li updating his blog again.

State files opposition to motion for new Congressional maps

Apr 2nd, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

From Texas Redistricting:

The State of Texas has filed its opposition to redistricting plaintiffs’ request for an order that would permanently block the current Texas congressional map and require a redraw of the map for the 2018 election.

The state told the court that any ruling on the injunction request was premature since the court had only ruled on the now superseded 2011 congressional map (Plan C185) and not the court-modified map (Plan C235) that Texas adopted as its permanent congressional map in 2013. Although portions of the maps are the same, including at least two districts that the court found violated the Constitution, the state said the court needed first to decide the rest of the claims related to the 2013 congressional map as well as weigh whether the state’s adoption of the 2013 map remedied findings that the 2011 map had been adopted with discriminatory intent.

The three-judge panel has not indicated whether it will hold oral argument on the plaintiffs’ injunction request.

See here, here, and here for the background. The plaintiffs’ motion included a schedule that would wrap everything up with an approved map by July 1, more than enough time for people to file for whatever district and mount a campaign. There are too many moving parts to know what may happen – remember, the court has not ruled on the legislative map yet – so we are back in the familiar position of waiting on the judges. In the meantime, Michael Li published potential alternate maps for CD27 and CD35, based on maps that had been previously filed during the 2011 and 2013 sessions. We could get an updated map fairly quickly because we are not starting from scratch, if indeed we are going to get a new map.

Motion filed to block current Congressional map

Mar 24th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
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From the Lone Star Project.

Moments ago the Plaintiffs in the ongoing Texas congressional redistricting case filed a joint motion asking the San Antonio Federal District Court for an injunction to block the use of the current congressional map during the 2018 mid-term elections.  The motion also suggests a schedule to adopt a new map for use in the 2018 elections.

On March 10, the three-judge Federal District Court in San Antonio with jurisdiction in the Texas case ruled that the congressional plan adopted by Texas Republican leaders in 2011 was intentionally discriminatory in violation the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.  The Court found violations in Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin and the DFW area.

The Plaintiff’s motion explains that the current congressional map retains many of the violations identified by the Court in the 2011 map; therefore, it should not be used in the 2018 election.  Plaintiffs wrote:

“Delaying entry of an injunction following this Court’s finding that the 2011 congressional plan was illegal and unconstitutional, and that elements of these violations persist in C235, would unjustifiably risk forcing Plaintiffs, and, indeed, millions of Texans to elect members of Congress under a legally invalid plan.”

The motion also lays out a timeline to configure a remedial map to use in the 2018 elections.  Texas Republican leaders are given until May 5, 2017 to submit a remedial plan to the Court. Plaintiffs will be required to respond to the state’s map by May 12, 2017.  An order confirming a final remedial map would be issued by July 1, 2017.

Lone Star Project Director Matt Angle released the following statement:
“Every Texan is harmed when statewide leaders engage in intentional discrimination, and no Texan should be subject to the results of an election conducted under an intentionally discriminatory congressional plan.

“The federal court in San Antonio has made clear time and again that they will protect the rights of Texans, and the plaintiffs have laid out a common-sense process to put a legal map in place.”

See here and here for the background. We’re going to need to get something going if there’s to be a chance to have a proper map in place for 2018. (And remember, this is just the Congressional map. We’re still waiting for a ruling on the legislative map, which may require the same process.) As the Trib notes, the state will oppose this motion, so that may draw things out further. We’ll see how it goes.

Court rules several Congressional districts were illegally drawn

Mar 12th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Bam!

Some of Texas’ 36 congressional districts violate either the U.S. Constitution or the federal Voting Rights Act, a panel of federal judges ruled Friday.

In a long-delayed ruling, the judges ruled 2-1 that the Texas Legislature must redraw the political maps it most recently used for the 2016 elections.

Specifically, they pointed to Congressional District 23, which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, takes in most of the Texas-Mexico border and is represented by Republican Will Hurd of Helotes; Congressional District 27, represented by Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi; and Congressional District 35, a Central Texas district represented by Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.

The 166-page ruling by the San Antonio-based district was the latest in a complicated case that dates back to 2011, and comes just two election cycles away from the next U.S. Census — when the state would draw a new map under normal circumstances.

In 2013, the district court found evidence that lawmakers intentionally discriminated when redrawing the boundaries. But the U.S. Supreme Court soon complicated the case when it struck down a key section of the Voting Rights Act that had forced Texas to seek permission before making changes to election procedures.

But that didn’t end the legal battle. The U.S. Department of Justice and other plaintiffs pressed on in the case, and Texas held elections using interim maps drawn by judges.

In its decision Friday, the court still found that “mapdrawers acted with an impermissible intent to dilute minority voting strength or otherwise violated the Fourteenth Amendment” of the Constitution.

“The Court finds that this evidence persuasively demonstrates that mapdrawers intentionally packed [concentrated certain populations] and cracked [diluted certain populations] on the basis of race (using race as a proxy for voting behavior) with the intent to dilute minority voting strength,” U.S. District Judges Orlando Garcia and Xavier Rodriguez wrote in the majority opinion.

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Jerry Smith of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals called the case moot under previous rulings, and he  sharply criticized the Justice Department.

Tale about a Friday news dump – I literally saw this on Facebook just before going to bed Friday night. We have been waiting forever for a ruling in this case. Note that this is only half of what we have been waiting for – there is still a ruling to come on the State House map, too. But for now, the status of the 2018 elections has changed. The Lone Star Project adds on.

The court singled out violations in the Corpus Christi region involving District 27 (Farenthold – R), in the South Texas/Border region involving District 23 (Hurd – R) and in the Austin to San Antonio region involving District 35 (Doggett – D). The Court also ruled that minority voters in the Dallas/Fort Worth area were illegally cracked under the 2011 map.

While it is too early to know exactly what changes will be made, it is fair to read the opinion as requiring that Hispanic voters put into Anglo-controlled CD27 in the current map must be returned to an effective Hispanic district, that Hispanic voting strength weakened in District 23 must be restored, and that District 35 in the Austin to San Antonio corridor will have to be modified to reunite minority voters in a far less fragmented district centered in Austin.

In Dallas/Fort Worth, the creation of District 33 (Veasey – D) in the current map may have resolved some of the blatant violations under the 2011 map; however, arguments will be made to repair remaining cracked Hispanic and African American neighborhoods in Dallas and Tarrant counties.

The ruling is a major victory for minority citizens and their advocates before the court. Minority advocacy groups including LULAC, NAACP, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus and citizen plaintiff groups led by Congressman Marc Veasey and State Representative Eddie Rodriguez had the courage to challenge the GOP map and the tenacity to stay with a long and difficult court battle. Their efforts have defended and protected the voting rights of thousands of otherwise disenfranchised Texas citizens. The Lone Star Project has been engaged in the Texas redistricting battle from the onset and will continue to provide support to key plaintiffs in this important effort.

We should expect the San Antonio Court to schedule a hearing soon to discuss the additional deliberations needed to fully resolve the case and to reach a final remedy. It is also likely that Governor Greg Abbott will refuse give up Texas GOP efforts to protect a discriminatory redistricting process and will direct state attorneys to explore appeal options.

I’d say it’s not “likely” that Abbott appeals, it’s a 100% gold-plated certainty. Rick Hasen quotes from the majority decision to explain what that “minority voters in the Dallas/Fort Worth area were illegally cracked under the 2011 map” means:

Plaintiffs have established a § 2 violation, both in terms of intent and effect, in South/West Texas. Plaintiffs have shown that seven compact majority-HCVAP districts could and should be drawn there that would substantially address the § 2 rights of Hispanic voters in South/West Texas, including Nueces County. Defendants’ decision to place Nueces County Hispanic voters in an Anglo district had the effect and was intended to dilute their opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.

Meanwhile, race predominated in the drawing of CD35, and Defendants’ decision to place majority- in Travis County was not to comply with the VRA but to minimize the number of Democrat districts in the plan overall. Plaintiffs have established a Shaw-type equal protection violation with regard to CD35. Plaintiffs also establish a Shaw-type equal protection violation with regard to CD23. In addition, Defendants’ manipulation of Latino voter turnout and cohesion in CD23 denied Latino voters equal opportunity and had the intent and effect of diluting Latino voter opportunity. Nueces County Hispanics and Hispanic voters in CD23 have proved their § 2 results and intentional vote dilution claims. The configurations of CD23, CD27, and CD35 in Plan C185 are therefore invalid.

Plaintiffs fail to proffer a demonstration plan accompanied by sufficient evidence to demonstrate that additional compact minority districts could be drawn in DFW or Houston, taking into account traditional redistricting principles and communities of interest. However, they are not precluded from raising § 2 results claims with regard to Plan C235 during the trial on that plan. Plaintiffs have proved intentional vote dilution through packing and cracking in DFW and also establish a Shaw-type racial gerrymandering claim with regard to CD26, but not CD6. However, they fail to prove intentional vote dilution in the Houston area, and fail to prove that mapdrawers acted with racially discriminatory purpose when drawing the districts represented by the African-American Congresspersons.

Well, okay, we’ll need to see a proposed remedy to understand what that means, but the bottom line is that four districts could be directly affected – CDs 23, 26, 27, and 35 – with ancillary changes to some number of adjoining districts. In a subsequent post, Hasen provides some extra guidance to this decision.

2. Bail in. It probably is not obvious to those not steeped in this area, but the big fight here is not about these particular districts (although that is important) but whether Texas gets put back under Section 5 preclearance for up to 10 years. That is possible under Section 3, the “bail-in” provision of the VRA which gives a court the ability to impose preclearance after a finding of intentional race discrimination. That finding is here, and the case is still going to go forward on that issue (as well as some other issues). Further, the finding of intentional race discrimination will almost certainly be relied on if, as I expect, the trial court in the Texas voter id case, finds intentional racial discrimination and orders bail in. So this is huge. (The caveat is how a Trump DOJ would enforce such rights if Trump is still in office. I’m not optimistic, and there’s no appeal of a DOJ decision to grant preclearance. Preclearance of post-2020 redistricting will depend on who wins the 2020 presidential elections.)

3. Race or party. I have been writing a lot about the race or party question: what to do about claims of racial discrimination when, as in the American South, race and party are so closely correlated. The majority approach, is subtle and sophisticated on this question, and seems to fall mostly on the party as a proxy for race (“party as race”) approach to the question. When you make it harder for minority voters to exercise political power for your own political reasons (such as protecting incumbents or your party), this counts as intentional race discrimination. Judge Smith takes the “race or party” approach, and he believes he knows what’s “really” going on: this is all about party, rather than race. It is either blind to the realities or ignoring the fact that these two criteria are really inseparable in Texas.

4. The remedy and what comes next. The trial court does not order anything to happen right now. The parties will fight about the remedy. Likely Texas will get a chance to redraw districts with some deference to Texas as to that which is not a violation. The parties will fight over the plans. And this will get dragged out. But presumably there will be new maps in place for the 2018 congressional elections, unless the Supreme Court intervenes. I fully expect Texas to try to get the Supreme Court to intervene in the interim. At most these lines would last 2 elections, and then we are back to a new round of redistricting. And this shows what is lost by preclearance. We’ve now had three elections that arguably should never have taken place under these lines.

There’s more, so read the rest. If this case proceeds from here as the post-2003 redistricting litigation did, we will get a bunch of November of 2018 special elections in these Congressional districts, with the possibility of special elections in some number of redrawn State House districts as well. If that doesn’t sound like your idea of fun, then you’re reading the wrong blog. Daily Kos and the Chron have more.

Romo to run in SD26

Dec 17th, 2014
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The race to succeed Sen. Leticia Van de Putte just got a little more interesting.

Sylvia Romo

Sylvia Romo

Sylvia Romo, former tax assessor-collector for Bexar County, on Tuesday morning entered the race to replace state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, bringing to four the number of candidates in the special election for Senate District 26.

For two terms in the 1990s, Romo represented Texas House District 125, which covers a swath of northwest Bexar County. She unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett in the 2012 Democratic primary for Texas’ 35th congressional district.

“I am truly humbled by the bipartisan support from our community that has encouraged me to run for state senator,” Romo said in a news release. “As a mother and proud grandmother, I will stand up for Texas families, support small businesses, work to create high-paying jobs, and fight to give our children the chance to succeed.”

Romo joins three other Democrats vying for Van de Putte’s seat in the Jan. 6 contest: San Antonio state Reps. Jose Menendez and Trey Martinez Fischer as well as Converse Mayor Al Suarez.

See here for the background, and see here for Romo’s official announcement. Romo’s entry basically guarantees a runoff. What that means is that if one of the State Reps running for SD26 is the eventual winner, the special election to replace him would probably be in early March, with a runoff if needed in early April. That’s getting pretty close to the end of the session, and it could have an effect on the Dems’ ability to block noxious Constitutional amendments from being put on the ballot.

Be that as it may, Romo is certainly a qualified candidate. I interviewed her in 2012 when she was challenging Rep. Lloyd Doggett in CD35. I thought she would have been a perfectly acceptable Congressperson, with perfectly acceptable views, I just never could get a good answer from her as to why it made sense to swap out Doggett’s seniority and track record in favor of her candidacy. Here, seniority isn’t an issue, but there is another issue that I at least would consider if I lived in SD26. Both Reps. Martinez-Fischer and Menendez are in their 40s. Romo is, I believe, 71. My general preference these days when given a choice between otherwise similar candidates is to put a premium on youth and future statewide potential. TMF and Jose Menendez both strike me as someone who could run statewide in the next four to ten years if given a bigger springboard. I can’t honestly say that about Sylvia Romo. I’m not saying this is a decisive factor. If the campaign shows her to be the best choice, then she deserves to win. But at least for me, it would be a factor. Whether that’s true for anyone else or not, we’ll see. The filing deadline is Monday the 22nd, with early voting to begin on the 29th.

On Gene Green and representing Latino districts

Sep 16th, 2014
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

I’ve been meaning to blog about this story about Rep. Gene Green and CD29 and how the Houston area has never sent a Latino to Congress, but I kept getting stuck and I finally decided I was overthinking it.

Rep. Gene Green

Rep. Gene Green

Two decades after local political leaders thought they had solved the demographic puzzle with a new “opportunity district” that is today three-quarters Latino, no Hispanic has represented it.

As of this election cycle, Houston remains the most Hispanic major metropolitan area in the country without a Latino elected to Congress, a distinction that could revitalize concerns about how historic the 1991 redistricting truly was. The dozen congressional lawmakers who represent Greater Houston’s 2.2 million Hispanics can say they are voices for the community, but Latino leaders worry that because none of them are of the community, Hispanics’ voice in Washington may be muffled.

“When people see the growth … where we’re at politically, I think more and more people are opining, ‘Hey, when are we going to do it?’ ” said Democratic consultant Marc Campos. “People are becoming a little bit more sophisticated about the demographics and what it means for our community.”

What it means is that potential Latino candidates, mollified with political savvy and dispirited by political incumbency, have demurred from challenging the non-Hispanic – Gene Green – who represents them in Congress, and according to some, has served his constituents well. But with each successive election, the path to reversing the trend seems increasingly daunting.

And it draws fresh attention to the challenge that animates community organizers, Democratic groups and even apolitical Hispanics who would like to see a more representative Houston metropolitan area, a lawmaker who can bellow into a megaphone in Spanish on the population’s behalf.

[…]

And every two years for the past 20, Hispanic voters in the 29th district have sent Green back to Congress. He does not speak Spanish, but political observers note how Green has shrewdly won over the Hispanic community by co-opting threatening Latino leaders and hustling to keep tabs on the community’s pulse. That has kept Hispanic challengers at bay.

“He’s a very smart politician and has done his homework in terms of coming home,” said Maria Jimenez, a longtime Hispanic organizer in Houston.

The district is rich with potential Latino candidates, such as Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia and state Sen. Sylvia Garcia and Rep. Carol Alvarado. Hispanic leaders say there is a steady drumbeat of chatter about a Latino challenging Green in a primary, but Green has hired many of these prominent Hispanics over the decades and has built personal loyalties that area Latinos are reluctant to violate.

There is also a harsher political reality: Everyone knows Gene Green.

“If there’s five people meeting in the civic club, I tell you: Gene Green is there,” said Armando Walle, a Hispanic state representative from Houston who once worked for Green. “He can continue to be a member of Congress as long as he wants.”

Green, 66, returns to the district every weekend when Congress is in session and has earned a reputation as a workhorse. Green maintains that is what matters in his district.

“It’s more of a service-oriented district. People want to know what you’re doing to help,” Green said. “I don’t think I’d get re-elected or elected if I wasn’t doing the job.”

That philosophy is echoed in Hispanic Houston, where activists say Green has represented Latinos well in Washington despite not being a member of their community. Politically, that representation means that Green has not created an impetus for change – even if the seat was designed with a Latino lawmaker in mind.

“If you have a good member of Congress that represents their district well, I think it really comes down to – who is clamoring for change?” asked Joaquin Guerra, political director for the Texas Organizing Project in Houston. “When you have a 20-plus congressional incumbent, obviously they seem to be doing something right.”

You should read the whole thing if you missed it the first time around, it’s worth your time. At this point I’d say the betting odds are on Rep. Green representing CD29 until he retires, which would then trigger a gigantic free-for-all to succeed him. You never know with politics, of course, so it’s possible someone could successfully primary him. Campos doesn’t think people will want to wait.

Having a Dem Latino or Latina in Congress from the H-Town area would be empowering to the community. What is missing is an articulate voice for us in Congress like on a day when the immigration issue is front and center. Who is going to argue with that?

I don’t buy into the notion that just because the local Latino leaders aren’t for something, it won’t happen. I can still recall the spontaneous immigration marches a few years ago that local Latino leaders were scrambling to lead.

I can picture a scenario where an articulate bilingual Latino or Latina leader steps up, grabs an issue and captures the attention of the community. That is certainly not racist, that’s politics. This discussion isn’t going away.

Sure, that could happen, and I agree that if it were to happen it would likely be a talented newcomer who can inspire people to pose a serious threat to Rep. Green. The problem is that that’s not sufficient. Look at the recent history of Democratic primary challenges in Texas legislative races, and you’ll see that there are generally two paths to knocking off an incumbent that don’t rely on them getting hosed in redistricting. One is via the self-inflicted wounds of an incumbent with some kind of ethics problems – think Gabi Canales or Naomi Gonzales, for example – or an incumbent that has genuinely lost touch with the base. In the past decade in Texas that has mostly meant Craddick Democrats, though one could argue that Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s win over Silvestre Reyes had elements of that.

What I’m saying is simply that there has to be a reason to dump the current officeholder. Look no further than the other Anglo Texas Democrat in Congress for that. The GOP has marked Rep. Lloyd Doggett for extinction twice, each time drawing him into a heavily Latino district in the hope of seeing him get knocked off in a primary. He survived the DeLay re-redistricting of 2003, then he faced the same kind of challenge again in 2012. His opponent, Sylvia Romo, was an experienced officeholder running in a district that was drawn to elect a Hispanic candidate from Bexar County. Having interviewed her, I can attest that she’d have made a perfectly fine member of Congress. But she never identified a policy item on which she disagreed with Doggett, and she never could give an answer to the question why the voters should replace their existing perfectly good member of Congress and his boatload of seniority with a rookie, however promising.

That’s the question any theoretical opponent to Gene Green will have to answer as well. You need to do that to convince the voters, but even before you get to the voters you need to do that to convince the people who write checks and the people and organizations that offer endorsements, volunteers, credibility, and other kinds of support. I’m not saying that could never happen – anyone can get complacent or can fail to recognize when the political ground has shifted underneath them – I’m saying it has to happen for said candidate to have a chance. In the meantime, I don’t think anyone is going to get rich betting against Gene Green.

The farm team

Apr 8th, 2014
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Roll Call takes a look at the Texas Democrats of the future.

Rep. Joaquin Castro

Rep. Joaquin Castro

Democrats rarely fielded competitive Senate candidates over the past two decades — the party’s three best performers in that time span received 44 percent, 43 percent and 43 percent — but that may change by the next midterm cycle. State and national Democrats are gearing up for a competitive Senate bid as early as 2018, when Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is up.

The first potential candidate names out of the mouths of most operatives are the Castro twins, San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro and freshman Rep. Joaquin Castro — though there are mixed opinions about which one is more likely to jump. Wendy Davis’ name comes up as well, should she comes up short in this year’s gubernatorial race, and the buzz in some Democratic circles is that Davis’ running mate, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, has as promising a political future as Davis.

Beyond those four, there is a second tier of candidates who could possibly run statewide but don’t quite yet have the same star power. It includes freshman Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who ousted eight-term Rep. Silvestre Reyes in 2012. He is young and attractive, but his geographic base is weak — El Paso is remote and actually closer to the Pacific Ocean than it is to the Louisiana border.

Democrats also named state Reps. Trey Martinez Fischer and Chris Turner as possible statewide contenders and pointed to Houston Mayor Annise Parker, albeit with caution. Parker is openly gay, and some say that while Texas is evolving on a number of issues, gay rights is not likely to be one of them in the immediate future.

We’ve discussed the 2018 election before. Based on her comments so far, I don’t see Mayor Parker as a potential candidate for the US Senate. I see her as a candidate for Governor or Comptroller, assuming those offices are not occupied by Democrats.

Among the future contenders for [Rep. Gene] Green’s seat, Democrats identified state Reps. Armando Walle, Carol Alvarado and Ana Hernandez, plus Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia.

There is perpetual scuttlebutt in the state that [Rep. Lloyd] Doggett is vulnerable to a Hispanic primary challenge. Other Democratic strategists discount that line of thinking, citing Doggett’s war chest and ability to weather whatever lines he’s drawn into.

Whenever he leaves office, Democrats named Martinez Fischer and state Rep. Mike Villarreal as likely contenders. Martinez Fischer could also run in Joaquin Castro’s 20th District if he seeks higher office.

As for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s Houston-based 18th District, state operatives pointed to state Reps. Sylvester Turner and Garnet F. Coleman, who could also run for Rep. Al Green’s seat.

Working backwards, Rep. Sylvester Turner is running for Mayor in 2015. That would not preclude a future run for Congress, of course, but I doubt it’s on his mind right now. I love Rep. Garnet Coleman, but I’ve never really gotten the impression that he has his eye on Washington, DC. Among other things, he has school-age kids at home, and I’m not sure how much the idea of commuting to DC appeals to him. The same is true for Sen. Rodney Ellis, whose district has a lot of overlap with Rep. Al Green’s CD09. Ellis has by far the biggest campaign warchest among them, which is one reason why I had once suggested he run statewide this year. Beyond them, there’s a long list of current and former elected officials – Ronald Green, Brad Bradford, Jolanda Jones, Wanda Adams, Carroll Robinson, etc etc etc – that would surely express interest in either CD09 or CD18 if it became open. About the only thing that might alter this dynamic is if County Commissioner El Franco Lee decided to retire; the line for that office is longer than I-10.

As for Rep. Gene Green, I’d add Rep. Carol Alvarado and James Rodriguez to the list of people who’d at least consider a run to replace him. I’m less sure about Sheriff Garcia. I think everyone expects him to run for something else someday – he’s starting to get the John Sharp Obligatory Mention treatment – but I have no idea if he has any interest in Congress. And as for Rep. Doggett, all I’ll say is that he’s shown himself to be pretty hard to beat in a primary.

Texas’ 23rd, which includes much of the state’s border with Texas, is the only competitive district in the state and turns over regularly. If Democratic Rep. Pete Gallego lost re-election and Democrats were on the hunt for a new recruit, one could be state Rep. Mary González.

Should 11-term Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson retire, Democrats said attorney Taj Clayton, along with state Reps. Yvonne Davis and Eric Johnson would be likely contenders for her Dallas-based 30th District.

State Rep. Armando “Mando” Martinez is also a rising star. But his local seat in the Brownsville-based 34th District is unlikely to open up any time soon — Rep. Filemon Vela, from a well-known family in South Texas, was elected in 2012.

The great hope for Democrats is that continued Texas redistricting litigation will provide an additional majority Hispanic district based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. State Rep. Rafael Anchia is the obvious choice for that hypothetical seat, along with Tarrant County Justice of the Peace Sergio L. De Leon.

And then there are a handful of Texas Democrats who stir up chatter but have no obvious place to run for federal office. Democrats put former state Rep. Mark Strama and Jane Hamilton, the current chief of staff to Rep. Marc Veasey, in this category.

Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Lily Adams, granddaughter of Ann Richards, is a respected political operative in Washington, D.C., and recently earned attention as a possible candidate talent.

I’m rooting for Rep. Gallego to win re-election this fall, but no question I’d love to see Rep. González run for higher office at some point. Taj Clayton ran against Rep. Johnson in 2012, getting support from the Campaign for Primary Accountability (which appears to be in a resting state now), along with Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who also appears in this story as someone to watch. Rep. Anchia is someone I’ve been rooting for and would love to see get a promotion. Mark Strama is off doing Google Fiber in Austin. I have no idea if he’d want to get back in the game – like several other folks I’ve mentioned, he has young kids – but he’s been mentioned as a possible candidate for Mayor in Austin before; if he does re-enter politics, and if he has an eye on something bigger down the line, that would be a good way to go for it. Lily Adams is 27 years old and has never run for any office before, but she’s got an excellent pedigree and has apparently impressed some folks. In baseball terms, she’s tearing up it in short season A ball, but needs to show what she can do on a bigger stage before anyone gets carried away.

Anyway. Stuff like this is necessarily speculative, and that speculation about 2018 is necessarily dependent on what happens this year. If Democrats manage to beat expectations and score some wins, statewide hopefuls may find themselves waiting longer than they might have thought. If Democrats have a crappy year, by which one in which no measurable progress in getting out the vote and narrowing the gap is made, some of these folks may decide they have better things to do in 2018. As for the Congressional understudies, unless they want to go the Beto O’Rourke route and mount a primary challenge to someone, who knows how long they may have to wait. It’s entirely possible all this talk will look silly four years from now. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Precinct analysis: Congressional overs and unders

Mar 4th, 2013
by Charles Kuffner.
10 comments

To wrap up my look at 2012 versus 2008 results for all the new districts, here’s how the 36 Congressional districts compared.


Dist McCain    Pct  Obama08    Pct   Romney    Pct  Obama12    Pct  RIdx  DIdx
==============================================================================
01  178,520 68.85%   78,918 30.44%  181,833 71.49%   69,857 27.47%  1.04  0.90
02  150,665 61.78%   91,087 37.35%  157,094 62.93%   88,751 35.55%  1.02  0.95
03  165,158 61.46%  100,440 37.37%  175,383 64.16%   93,290 34.13%  1.04  0.91
04  180,772 69.71%   75,910 29.27%  189,455 73.95%   63,521 24.79%  1.06  0.85
05  137,698 61.79%   83,216 37.34%  137,239 64.49%   73,085 34.35%  1.04  0.92
06  148,503 57.03%  109,854 42.19%  146,985 57.87%  103,444 40.72%  1.01  0.97
07  140,692 58.73%   96,866 40.44%  143,631 59.89%   92,499 38.57%  1.02  0.95
08  171,408 73.02%   61,357 26.14%  195,735 76.97%   55,271 21.74%  1.05  0.83
09   44,520 23.42%  144,707 76.12%   39,392 21.15%  145,332 78.01%  0.90  1.02
10  148,867 56.17%  112,866 42.59%  159,714 59.06%  104,839 38.77%  1.05  0.91
11  184,238 75.90%   56,145 23.13%  182,403 79.10%   45,081 19.55%  1.04  0.85
12  161,030 63.61%   89,718 35.44%  166,992 66.77%   79,147 31.65%  1.05  0.89
13  189,600 76.88%   54,855 22.24%  184,090 80.16%   42,518 18.51%  1.04  0.83
14  139,304 57.03%  102,902 42.12%  147,151 59.32%   97,824 39.44%  1.04  0.94
15   61,282 41.84%   83,924 57.3%    62,883 41.48%   86,940 57.35%  0.99  1.00
16   58,764 34.59%  109,387 64.39%   54,315 34.44%  100,993 64.03%  1.00  0.99
17  135,738 57.95%   95,884 40.94%  134,521 60.29%   84,243 37.76%  1.04  0.92
18   45,069 22.89%  150,733 76.57%   44,991 22.81%  150,129 76.11%  1.00  0.99
19  168,553 71.22%   66,122 27.94%  160,060 73.55%   54,451 25.02%  1.03  0.90
20   80,667 40.64%  115,579 58.23%   74,540 39.59%  110,663 58.77%  0.97  1.01
21  178,531 56.42%  133,581 42.21%  188,240 59.76%  119,220 37.85%  1.06  0.90
22  142,073 60.45%   91,137 38.78%  158,452 62.11%   93,582 36.68%  1.03  0.95
23   95,679 49.27%   96,871 49.88%   99,654 50.67%   94,386 47.99%  1.03  0.96
24  152,453 58.41%  105,822 40.54%  150,547 60.42%   94,634 37.98%  1.03  0.94
25  153,998 56.05%  117,402 42.73%  162,278 59.89%  102,433 37.80%  1.07  0.88
26  166,877 64.18%   90,791 34.92%  177,941 67.59%   80,828 30.70%  1.05  0.88
27  133,839 58.95%   91,083 40.12%  131,800 60.46%   83,156 38.15%  1.03  0.95
28   65,066 40.97%   92,557 58.28%   65,372 38.65%  101,843 60.21%  0.94  1.03
29   41,843 37.04%   70,286 62.22%   37,909 32.99%   75,720 65.89%  0.89  1.06
30   47,144 21.07%  175,237 78.33%   43,333 19.64%  175,637 79.61%  0.93  1.02
31  135,601 55.80%  103,359 42.54%  144,634 59.36%   92,842 38.11%  1.06  0.90
32  147,226 55.05%  117,231 43.83%  146,420 56.97%  106,563 41.46%  1.03  0.95
33   40,290 30.64%   90,180 68.57%   32,641 27.09%   86,686 71.93%  0.88  1.05
34   58,707 39.06%   90,178 60.00%   57,303 38.28%   90,885 60.71%  0.98  1.01
35   62,764 35.47%  111,790 63.18%   58,007 34.59%  105,550 62.94%  0.98  1.00
36  165,899 69.45%   70,543 29.53%  175,850 73.05%   61,766 25.66%  1.05  0.87

The main thing that stands out is CD23, which went from plurality Obama in 2008 to a slight majority for Romney in 2012. That means that Rep. Pete Gallego joins State Rep. Craig Eiland and State Sen. Wendy Davis in the exclusive club of candidates who won in a district that their Presidential candidate lost. Not surprisingly, Rep. Gallego is a marked man for 2014. CD23 was one of the more strongly contested districts in the litigation as well as in the election, and it is likely to be modified further no matter what happens to the Voting Rights Act, so Rep. Gallego’s challenge next year may be different than it was this year. He’s clearly up to it, whatever it winds up being. Beyond that, the pattern witnessed elsewhere held here, as blue districts were generally bluer than before, while red districts were redder. Dems can still hope for (eventually) competitive races in CDs 06, 10, and 32, but the task is harder now than it would have been in 2008. As for CD14, you can see that the hurdle was just too high for Nick Lampson. Barring anything improbable, that district is unlikely to repeat as one featuring a race to watch.

One other thing I did in these races was compare the performances of the Congressional candidates with the Presidential candidates in their districts. Here are some of the more interesting results I found: 


Dist Romney    Pct  Obama12    Pct   R Cong   Pct%   D Cong    Pct      Winner
==============================================================================
02  157,094 62.93%   88,751 35.55%  159,664 64.81%   80,512 32.68%         Poe
06  146,985 57.87%  103,444 40.72%  145,019 58.02%   98,053 39.23%      Barton
07  143,631 59.89%   92,499 38.57%  142,793 60.80%   85,553 36.43%   Culberson
10  159,714 59.06%  104,839 38.77%  159,783 60.51%   95,710 36.25%      McCaul
14  147,151 59.32%   97,824 39.44%  131,460 53.47%  109,697 44.62%       Weber
20   74,540 39.59%  110,663 58.77%   62,376 33.50%  119,032 63.93%      Castro
21  188,240 59.76%  119,220 37.85%  187,015 60.54%  109,326 35.39%     L Smith
22  158,452 62.11%   93,582 36.68%  160,668 64.03%   80,203 31.96%       Olson
23   99,654 50.67%   94,386 47.99%   87,547 45.55%   96,676 50.30%     Gallego
25  162,278 59.89%  102,433 37.80%  154,245 58.44%   98,827 37.44%  R Williams
27  131,800 60.46%   83,156 38.15%  120,684 56.75%   83,395 39.21%  Farenthold
28   65,372 38.65%  101,843 60.21%   49,309 29.76%  112,456 67.88%     Cuellar
31  144,634 59.36%   92,842 38.11%  145,348 61.27%   82,977 34.98%      Carter
32  146,420 56.97%  106,563 41.46%  146,653 58.27%   99,288 39.45%    Sessions
35   58,007 34.59%  105,550 62.94%   52,894 32.02%  105,626 63.94%     Doggett
36  175,850 73.05%   61,766 25.66%  165,405 70.73%   62,143 26.57%    Stockman

You can mostly break this down into three groups. The first is the Overacheivers, the Congressional candidates that clearly drew at least some crossover votes. On that list are Reps. Ted Poe, Joaquin Castro, Pete Olson, Pete Gallego, and Henry Cuellar. Olson, one presumes, benefited from being opposed by LaRouchie nutcase Keisha Rogers. We’ll have to wait to see how he’ll do against a normal opponent, which one hopes will be this time around. Castro and Cuellas can point to their numbers as evidence for statewide viability someday, if and when they choose to make such a run. Gallego obviously had to be on this list, or he wouldn’t be Rep. Gallego. I guess the Republicans knew what their were doing when they tried to pull all those shenanigans to protect Quico Canseco, because he really did need the help. As for Ted Poe, I got nothing. He’s not a “moderate”, and he’s not a heavyweight on policy or in bringing home the bacon as far as I know, so I don’t have a ready explanation for his success here. Feel free to share your opinion in the comments.

The second group is what I’d call Tougher Than They Look. Notice how Republican incumbents in the least-red districts suffered no dropoff in support from Romney, while their Democratic opponents did? I’m talking about Reps. Joe Barton, John Culberson, Mike McCaul, Lamar Smith, John Carter, and Pete Sessions; you can also throw Democrat Lloyd Doggett onto the list. Whether by accident or design, these Republicans may be harder to knock off down the line if and when their districts get bluer. Culberson is the oddball in this group, because he greatly underperformed in 2006 and 2008. I suspect he benefited from redistricting, in particular from losing some inner Loop precincts, as well as the general trend away from crossover voting, but we’ll see if this was a one-time thing or not.

Finally, there’s the Underachievers, who lost crossover votes to their opponents. Ex-Rep Quico Canseco is the poster child, but Reps. Randy Weber, Blake Farenthold, and Steve Stockman keep him company. Weber may get a mulligan, since he’s unlikely to face an opponent like Lampson again. Farenthold’s presence is intriguing. He’s a ridiculous person, who won in a fluke year and who needed a lot of help in redistricting, but a look at this result suggests that he just might be vulnerable to the right opponent. If the Battlegound Texas folks want to try some things out on a smaller scale, let me suggest CD27 as a proving ground. Finally, Stockman shows that even in a deep red district, nuttiness has some limits. Too bad it’s not enough to affect a November election, but maybe there’s a chance that a slightly less mortifying Republican could win next March.

On Latinos not winning Latino Congressional districts

Feb 26th, 2013
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

I have a problem with this analysis by Nathan Gonzales, at least as it pertains to the three Texas districts included.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett

Even though a record number of Latinos are serving in the 113th Congress, Hispanic candidates are significantly underperforming in heavily Hispanic districts, particularly compared to other minority groups.

Nationwide, just 41 percent of congressional districts (24 of 58) with a Hispanic voting age population (VAP) of at least 30 percent are represented by a Hispanic member of Congress. In comparison, 72 percent of districts (32 of 44) with a black VAP of at least 30 percent are represented by a black member.

Why can’t Latinos get elected to Latino congressional districts?

[…]

In Texas’ 33rd, party leaders supported African-American state Rep. Marc Veasey over former state Rep. Domingo Garcia in a Dallas-area district that is 61 Hispanic and just 17 percent black. It helped that black voters outnumbered Latino voters in the primary, runoff, and general elections, according to analysis by the Lone Star Project. In Texas’ 34th, party leaders supported longtime Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D), even though his newly-drawn district is 59 percent Hispanic.

Another challenge is turnout. As the race in Texas 33 showed, the Hispanic percentage of a district’s population can overstate the strength of the Latino electorate, because Latinos don’t vote in the same numbers as other minority groups. In some cases, savvy Latino candidates don’t even run because they know the opportunity isn’t as good as it looks on paper.

[…]

But even when Hispanics dominate a district, sometimes it isn’t enough to secure a Latino victory. Nine districts with over 50 percent Latino VAP are represented by non-Latinos. Just two districts with a black VAP of at least 50 percent are represented by non-black Members.

For example, Texas’ 16th District is now represented by Beto O’Rourke after he defeated longtime Rep. Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary last year, even though the seat is 78 Hispanic.

Until Latino voters get more organized and start voting with more frequency, simply citing the population figures of a district can lead to misleading analysis.

Yes it can, and that leads to a second problem I have with this article, but first things first. The problem that I said I have with this is that nowhere does Gonzales take the individual candidates into account when discussing the outcomes in Texas. I’ve discussed two of these races before, so I’m going to quote myself. Here’s what I said about Rep. Doggett’s victory, which by the way was in CD35, not CD34.

The main reason for [Sylvia] Romo’s defeat is that she was up against a very strong opponent. It wasn’t just that Rep. Doggett had name ID and a ton of money, it was also that he had a long record of doing things that Democratic voters tend to like. Though he had to move to run in CD35, he was generally perceived – or at least generally portrayed – as the incumbent, and the first rule of beating an incumbent is that there has to be a good reason to fire that incumbent. Doggett’s voting record has no obvious black marks on it – none that Romo articulated, anyway – and there were no issues of personal behavior to exploit. Having interviewed Romo, I agree that she’s a perfectly well qualified candidate and I think she’d have made a perfectly fine member of Congress, but I don’t think she ever adequately answered the question why voters should choose to replace a perfectly fine sitting Congressperson with seniority, a good record, and a history of making Republicans mad enough to try twice to kill him off via redistricting.

Doggett faced the same challenge in 2004 when Republicans drew him into a district that contained large swaths of South Texas. As was the case last year, he faced off against an established Latina elected official from the new district turf, and he won easily. You’re not going to beat Lloyd Doggett without a good reason to beat Lloyd Doggett.

And here is what I said about O’Rourke versus Reyes in CD16:

I’m pretty sure none of the people involved in redistricting, including the litigants, foresaw [the possibility of Reyes losing to O’Rourke] though at least one blogger did. But Rep. Reyes didn’t lose because the new map made CD16 more hostile to Latinos and more amenable to Anglos. Rep. Reyes had some baggage, O’Rourke ran a strong campaign, and he had some help from a third party. These things happen. Perhaps from here O’Rourke does a good job and becomes an entrenched incumbent, or he sees his star rise and takes a crack at statewide office in a few years, or he himself gets challenged by an ambitious pol in 2014, presumably a Latino, and loses. Point being, Latino voters made the choice here, and they will continue to be able to do so.

I think Rep. Reyes’ baggage was a big factor here, but you have to give credit to Rep. O’Rourke for running a strong race and giving the voters a reason to fire the incumbent and install him instead. I won’t be surprised if Rep. O’Rourke is challenged by a Latino in the 2014 primary, just as Rep. Gene Green was challenged in 1994 and 1996 in the heavily Latino CD29 after winning it in 1992. CD16 is still a district drawn for a Latino, after all. If Rep. O’Rourke does a good job he might be able to have a career like Rep. Green, who hasn’t faced a primary challenge since 1996. If not, he’ll be one and done if a better Latino candidate comes around to run against him.

As for CD33, it’s a similar story to CD16. Rep. Marc Veasey was a compelling candidate whose time in the Texas Legislature was marked by strong advocacy for progressive causes. Former State Rep. Domingo Garcia had a decent record in the Lege when he was there, but it had been awhile and he had his share of baggage as well. He had a reputation for divisiveness and was far from universally beloved among Latino politicos – just look at the large number of Latino State Reps that endorsed Veasey. If African-American turnout in the primary runoff was higher than Latino turnout despite the numerical advantage for Latinos, that didn’t happen by magic.

The other problem I had with Gonzales’ article comes from this paragraph:

Five out of six congressional districts that have both Hispanic and black populations of at least 30 percent each are represented by black Members, including Florida’s 24th and Texas’ 9th, 18th, and 30th districts.

The fallacy of that statement, which Gonzales himself alludes to in his concluding statement, which I quoted above, can be summed up by this document. Here are the Citizen Voting Age Populations (CVAPs) for the three Texas districts, estimated from the 2007-2011 American Community Survey:

CD09 – 50.6% African-American, 19.5% white, 19.2% Hispanic
CD18 – 49.2% African-American, 25.0% white, 20.7% Hispanic
CD30 – 53.5% African-American, 25.5% white, 18.1% Hispanic

You tell me what kind of person you’d expect to win in these districts. Total population is far less relevant than CVAP is. Gonzales knows this, and he should have known better. Via NewsTaco.

What will Doggett do?

Dec 12th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Does Rep. Lloyd Doggett want his old district back or not?

Rep. Lloyd Doggett

The congressional and legislative districts used in this year’s elections were temporary maps drawn by panel of federal judges in San Antonio. The maps were designed to be used this year, while the courts continued to sort out various legal challenges to maps drawn by the Legislature.

Those challenges include efforts by a group of Travis County plaintiffs and a collection of civil rights groups who accused the Republican-controlled Legislature of creating racially and ethnically discriminatory maps. Republicans denied the allegations, and the case is ongoing.

The Travis County plaintiffs weren’t specific in court documents about creating a Travis County-centered district for Doggett, said Michael Li, a Democratic fundraiser and redistricting expert. “But that was the crux of their argument in the first round of redistricting, and it very well could be again,” Li said.

State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, an Austin Democrat and one of the Travis County plaintiffs, said in an interview that he would like to see a Travis County district in which minorities would be able to elect the candidates of their choice, like they have with Doggett.

“I’d like to see as much of Travis County as possible in one congressional district,” Rodriguez said. “I would like to see us having one unified voice in D.C.”

Rodriguez said he believes Doggett feels the same way, but in a statement Doggett said: “I remain ready for whatever Republicans throw at me next. I am really not concerned with ‘what if,’ I am working on ‘what now’ is needed to serve our families.”

I don’t remember, and the story doesn’t say, if Doggett fought to have CD25 restored as a mostly-Travis County district after the 2003 re-redistricting. When it was redrawn for the 2006 election, it was a byproduct of CD23 being declared illegal. My guess is that Doggett will stay quiet, at least publicly, about this. He’s already proven he can win in a non-Travis-centric district, so it’s not clear what he’d gain from advocating for CD25 to be put back together. It won’t surprise me if he expresses an opinion behind the scenes, or if he ultimately has some influence over whatever the Travis County intervenors do, but I seriously doubt he’ll be caught talking about it out loud. On a related note, Texas Redistricting reviews the briefs submitted by the intervenors asking the Supreme Court to dismiss the State of Texas’ appeal or, alternatively, to summarily affirm the decision of the district denying preclearance of the redistricting maps drawn by the Texas Legislature. We’ll see how long it takes to get a ruling.

Looking back at Romo versus Doggett

Jul 18th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

Former CD35 candidate Sylvia Romo does a post-mortem on her unsuccessful run for Congress.

Sylvia Romo

“Texas is ready for a qualified Latina congresswoman,” she said. “If I wasn’t the first one, then I hope I opened the door for another woman to be the first one.”

As she thought about her defeat, Romo cited numerous factors, least of which was the fact that she was the only real contender for the seat until Doggett filed to run against her.

There was also the fact that lawsuits tied up the primaries, resulting in confusion not only among voters — but amongst the media, which often distributes such information to the public. The squeezed timeframe of the final dates meant political boundaries were set March 1 and early voting started May 14 — leaving but a few weeks to campaign, raise money and get out the vote, she said.

“There was so much confusion out there with the voters, I can’t tell you how many people came up to me and told me they were going to vote for me after the fact,” said Romo, a former state lawmaker and Bexar County (San Antonio) tax assessor-collector for 16 years. “They had no idea that the election had already happened.”

But one of the biggest issues Romo dealt with during her campaign was the emphasis on her gender and race over her professional and political experience as a candidate. She highlighted the fact that 2012 marked her fourteenth political race — and her first and only loss. People couldn’t seem to get over the fact that she had a good chance to be the first Latina congresswoman representing Texas, she said, and found it all too easy to dismiss her political experience and career as an accountant.

“I had a fiscal background, and in 2013, Congress was going to have to make some really rough decisions based on the tax code, with which I am familiar —that was the point I was trying to make,” she explained. “And it somehow got lost in ‘I am a Latina.’”

Romo says her fiscal background made her an ideal candidate, but admits she could not compete with Doggett’s resources after he entered the race. “It’s hard for a woman to raise money, period,” she said. “It’s easier for a man, I think because the perception is that men would most likely win.”

Let’s not overcomplicate things. The main reason for Romo’s defeat is that she was up against a very strong opponent. It wasn’t just that Rep. Doggett had name ID and a ton of money, it was also that he had a long record of doing things that Democratic voters tend to like. Though he had to move to run in CD35, he was generally perceived – or at least generally portrayed – as the incumbent, and the first rule of beating an incumbent is that there has to be a good reason to fire that incumbent. Doggett’s voting record has no obvious black marks on it – none that Romo articulated, anyway – and there were no issues of personal behavior to exploit. Having interviewed Romo, I agree that she’s a perfectly well qualified candidate and I think she’d have made a perfectly fine member of Congress, but I don’t think she ever adequately answered the question why voters should choose to replace a perfectly fine sitting Congressperson with seniority, a good record, and a history of making Republicans mad enough to try twice to kill him off via redistricting. The ironic effect of this was that it made “I am a Latina” a strong pitch for her, as she was both a better demographic fit for the district as well as a resident of its more populous area. Understandably, that wasn’t the campaign she wanted to run.

There’s another issue that needs to be mentioned here, and that’s age. Sylvia Romo turns 70 this year. That’s absolutely not a disqualifying factor, but as I said back when it looked like Doggett would be running against Joaquin Castro, if we’re going to trade in a solid progressive like Lloyd Doggett, my preference would be to get someone a generation younger with higher ambitions in return. (I’ve said the same basic thing in other contexts as well.) Again, that by no means implies that a Sylvia Romo cannot or should not run for whatever office she chooses, but it is a factor that voters and interested onlookers are entitled to consider.

Finally, while Romo will not be on the ballot this fall, there are still two Latinas vying for Congressional seats on the Democratic side. Candace Duval is the nominee in CD21, and Rose Meza Harrison is in the runoff for CD27. (On the GOP side, Susan Narvaiz is the nominee in CD35, Barbara Carrasco is the nominee in CD16, with Adele Garza and Jessica Puente Bradshaw in the runoff for CD34.) None of these districts are on anyone’s short list for takeover opportunities, but they are running and should not be overlooked. If a Latina doesn’t get elected this year, it will happen eventually, more likely sooner than later. Politics365 link via Sara Ines Calderon.

How about those new Latino Congressional districts?

Jun 6th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

In the end, not so much.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett

Originally hailed by Latino leaders as a way to boost opportunities for their community, the newly redrawn Texas congressional map has led to a pair of white Democrats claiming the nominations in districts that were crafted with Latino majorities. The result could be that five of the state’s 36 congressional districts will be represented by Latinos when the 113th Congress convenes in January — exactly the number in the current 32-member delegation. The best-case scenario would have them claiming one-sixth of the state’s House seats.

Latino leaders are split on the developments. Some are dismayed that while Latinos account for 38 percent of Texas’s population, and were key to the expansion of the state’s House delegation, that may not be reflected in a larger Latino presence in the delegation.

“There’s the strong possibility we may get zero,” said Sylvia Romo, the tax collector for Bexar County, who lost her bid for the congressional nomination in a new district stretching from San Antonio to Austin. “We got four [new seats], and we Latinos could end up with zero.”

Others suggest that it is up to candidates and campaigns to take advantage of the new demographic reality. Nine of the 36 Texas seats next year will be from Latino-majority districts.

“The purpose of increasing Hispanic political opportunities is not about sending more Hispanics to Congress. I don’t know why people think that way,” said Nina Perales, a lawyer at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF). “It’s about increasing the voice of Latino voters. They can elect whoever they want.”

One of the newly-redrawn seats that was won by an Anglo last week was CD16, in which Beto O’Rourke knocked out 8-term incumbent Rep. Silvestre Reyes. I’m pretty sure none of the people involved in redistricting, including the litigants, foresaw such a possibility though at least one blogger did. But Rep. Reyes didn’t lose because the new map made CD16 more hostile to Latinos and more amenable to Anglos. Rep. Reyes had some baggage, O’Rourke ran a strong campaign, and he had some help from a third party. These things happen. Perhaps from here O’Rourke does a good job and becomes an entrenched incumbent, or he sees his star rise and takes a crack at statewide office in a few years, or he himself gets challenged by an ambitious pol in 2014, presumably a Latino, and loses. Point being, Latino voters made the choice here, and they will continue to be able to do so.

As for CD35, the current configuration of which MALDEF supported, here’s a chart:


County    Latino %   Doggett %
==============================
Bexar        68.6%      53.75%
Caldwell     54.1%      88.48%
Comal        46.8%      74.92%
Guadalupe    25.6%      70.24%
Hays         51.5%      88.66%
Travis       65.3%      93.21%

It’s true that Doggett completely dominated his home turf, but he won on Romo’s court as well. There were more total votes cast in Bexar than any other county; nearly half of all votes came from there. Doggett’s total in Bexar was more than Romo’s total in all six counties, and almost enough for a majority by itself. Point being, Doggett did pretty well in all parts of the district.

You may be looking at that “Latino %” for Travis County in that first chart and saying to yourself “Huh, I thought Travis was a lot whiter than that”. It is, actually, but remember that Travis County is split into five different Congressional districts. Guess which one the Latinos were clumped into?


Dist      Total Pop  Latino Pop  Latino %
=========================================
CD10        244,317      70,680     28.9%
CD17        133,554      36,409     27.3%
CD21        189,294      52,672     27.8%
CD25        241,475      42,120     17.4%
CD35        215,626     140,885     65.3%

Total     1,024,626     342,766     33.5%

One of these things is not like the others. Now, all these figures are for straight up population, and before Greg Wythe‘s head explodes, I do understand the difference between “population” and “citizen voting age population (CVAP)”, which often is considerably lower for Latinos. That’s as granular as the TLC data is, so it’s the best I can do. It’s certainly possible that the Latino CVAP for CD35 is under 50%, and it’s certainly possible that the actual turnout for this election was even whiter than that, or that Doggett ran up the score in the white areas and treaded water elsewhere. Someone with access to all the relevant precinct data and the knowledge of each one’s demography will have to tackle that question, as it’s beyond my scope. But the point again is that Latino voters had the opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice. It’s hardly irrational or surprising that they went with the guy with seniority and a long record of supporting things they favor.

Democratic results, statewide

May 30th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Let me get this off my chest first:

In tonight’s Texas primary, President Obama faces another set of red-state voters — and with it the possibility that some little known challenger could wrack up some significant portion of the Democratic vote.

Challenging Obama for the Democratic primary nod will be John Wolfe, the Tennessee attorney who took over 40 percent of the primary vote in Arkansas, Florida author Darcy G. Richardson and Chicago investor Bob Ely.

“I think the President might have some protest votes against him in the Texas Democratic primary today,” said Harold Cook, a veteran Democratic strategist in the state. “Many conservatives here vote in the Democratic primary, driven mostly by local contested races.” But he added, the vote has “absolutely no significance for November.”

Matt Angle, another expert on Texas Democratic politics, concurred. ”In Texas, the people who don’t like Obama vote in the Republican primary,” he said.

A look at the numbers suggests that Obama will perform better in Texas than in Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia — all states where he lost upwards of 40 percent of the Democratic primary vote. Even so, the Lone Star state could still cause the Obama campaign a bit of heartburn.

Politico had a similar thumbsucker on its site as well:

President Barack Obama’s humbling Appalachian primary tour is over. But there’s still one more chance for him to be embarrassed by white, rural working class voters.

While he’ll win the state easily, Texas borders three of the president’s worst performing primary states this year – Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. And the resistance to Obama in those states is concentrated by the Texas border and is likely to bleed across state lines into the counties in the Texas Panhandle, the Red River Valley and East Texas.

The good news for Obama is that the bulk of the Democratic vote will come from elsewhere in Texas. And the Democratic ballot will feature three little-known candidates, which will disperse the protest vote. But one of those candidates will be John Wolfe, who won 42 percent in Arkansas and 12 percent in Louisiana. While that’s enough to capture some Democratic delegates, state party officials in both states refused to award them to him.

For the record, President Obama was at over 88% with 91% of precincts reporting. Has no one noticed that you could fit all of the rural, white, working class, Democratic primary voters in this state in a Yugo? Sheesh. The vote in Texas, at least on the D side, comes from the cities and South Texas. This was not a state that was going to embarrass him.

Anyway. On to the other races. Statewide results are here, and the live chat transcript is here.

– Paul Sadler will face Grady Yarbrough in a runoff for the Senate nomination. No, I knew nothing about him before last night, either. I quote from the Trib’s liveblog:

Educator Grady Yarbrough of San Antonio is currently running second in the four-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, with 21 percent of precincts reporting.

Reached by phone, Yarbrough said he had not been following the results but is not surprised he is running ahead of Addie Allen and Sean Hubbard and only behind former state Rep. Paul Sadler.

“I felt that it would be a runoff and yes, I have a plan for the runoff,” Yarbrough said. “It’s turning out the way I thought it would.”

Unlike his three competitors in the primary, Yarbrough has not reported raising or spending any money with the Federal Elections Commission. Yarbrough said he just hasn’t filed any reports yet but did spend money around the state promoting his campaign. Yarbrough said he advertised in African-American newspapers and had yard signs up in several parts of the state.

“I spent money, you bet I have,” Yarbrough said.

Better file that report before someone files a complaint, dude. Sean Hubbard finished fourth. There will come a day when a good social media strategy will mean more than a familiar-sounding name in a race like this, but that day is not today. Sean, please run for something in Dallas in 2014. We do need more people like you on the ballot.

– The Campaign for Primary Accountability may have its scalp here. As of last report, Beto O’Rourke was leading Rep. Silvestre Reyes with 51.34% of the vote to Reyes’ 43.31%. (I’m going by Trib results here.) Rep. Eddie Berniece Johnson cruised in CD30 with over 70% of the vote, Rep. Ruben Hinojosa finished with 71% in CD15, and Rep. Lloyd Doggett won easily in CD35, with 73%. Reyes was the only Congressional casualty, but not necessarily the only interesting result. Former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez led the field in CD23 and will face former State Rep. Pete Gallego in the runoff. Rodriguez was above 50% for much of the night but Gallego caught up late to force overtime. Also going into overtime:

CD33 – Former State Rep. Marc Veasey (38%) versus former State Rep. Domingo Garcia (24%). I’m grimly pleased to note that the guy who spent over a million bucks of his own money, David Alameel, came in fourth.

CD34 – Filemon Vela, with 41%, most likely against Denise Saenz Blanchard, who led Ramiro Garza by about 140 votes with several precincts still out. Former Cameron County DA Armando Villalobos, who looked like the frontrunner at one point, came in fifth. I’m guessing those federal charges didn’t help his cause much.

CD27 – Jerry Trevino (40%) versus Rose Meza Harrison (32%). Ronnie McDonald was third with 26%. I hope he runs for something else in 2014, too.

Former Rep. Nick Lampson took over 80% of the vote in CD14. I’m pretty sure he’s happy that both of his potential opponents are from Pearland.

– Another “what the hell just happened?” SBOE result as Michael Soto, the incumbent in SBOE 3, got crushed by Marisa Perez, 66-34. I have no idea where that came from. The open SBOE2 race will have Celeste Zepeda Sanchez versus Ruben Cortez, Jr. in the runoff, while Martha Dominguez won the right to face Charlie Garza in the best pickup opportunity in SBOE1.

– No Democratic incumbents in the Lege lost – Rene Oliveira, Mando Martinez, Marisa Marquez, Tracy King (who trailed early), and Lon Burnam all survived.

– Oscar Longoria is the new State Rep. in HD35; former Rep. Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles will face the GOP runoff winner in HD43; Poncho Nevarez took the three-way race in HD74; Chris Turner will return to the House in HD101; Toni Rose won HD110, and Justin Rodriguez in HD125. I’m very pleased to note that Mary Gonzalez made history in HD75 as the first female candidate to win in that part of El Paso, and also as the first openly gay candidate to make it to Austin. (I am hoping for one other in the fall.) There will be runoffs in these HDs:

HD40 – Terry Canales versus Auggie Hernandez
HD95 – Nicole Collier versus Jesse Gaines
HD117 – Phillip Cortez versus Tina Torres

– Rosemary Lehmburg easily won re-election as Travis County DA, as did Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton.

– Turnout was around 600,000, which is down from 2004. The only things driving turnout were local races, and that’s not a recipe for big numbers.

On to Harris County Democratic results from here.

Four Congressional stories

May 28th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

CD27:

It’s a relatively unknown field of hopefuls trying to unseat incumbent Republican Blake Farenthold in the newly configured U.S. House District 27, an area that stretches from Bastrop County south to Nueces County.

The field includes former Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald — well-known in Central Texas but not in the most populous part of the district. His three opponents in the Democratic primary — Rose Meza Harrison, Murphy Junaid and Jerry Trevino — are from Corpus Christi, where Farenthold also resides.

The primary election is May 29. Early voting began Monday.

“I’m known in Bastrop, Caldwell and Gonzales counties, so I’m campaigning 24/7,” said McDonald, 41, who served 14 years as Bastrop County’s top administrator and led the county through its worst natural disaster, the wildfires last September.

McDonald is not fazed by his underdog status. No one gave him a chance when he became a county judge at age 27. He did it by going from door to door, which is his strategy again.

“This is not about connecting with people for their vote but about connecting to get to the heart of the people and find out what is important to them,” he said. He points to his experience in balancing a county budget and working across party lines to do that.

Other than one quote from the dimwitted incumbent Farenthold, that’s all you get from the candidates themselves. Several paragraphs are dedicated to stuff from outside experts who discuss how the district isn’t particularly competitive. Maybe so, but it still would have been nice to hear from the people who are running for the seat. I’ve said that before, haven’t I? You can hear from Ronnie McDonald in the interview I did with him here, and from Rose Meza Harrison here. I didn’t get to interview Jerry Trevino, but he picked up the endorsement of the Corpus Christi Caller.

CD23:

The winner of a three-way primary between Ciro Rodriguez, Pete Gallego and John Bustamante will become the Democrat’s best hope to unseat Republican Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco with strong GOP backing this fall.

“This is a must-win race for Democrats. The stakes are very high,” said David Wasserman, a political analyst with The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter.

[…]

Rodriguez is mired in a close race with Gallego, a popular state representative from Alpine and the favorite of the Democratic establishment that financially supports his campaign.

Bustamante, a patent lawyer and son of former U.S. Rep. Albert Bustamante, D-San Antonio, who represented the district in the 1980s and 90s, also is seeking the Democratic nomination.

The race tightened in the closing weeks, said Larry Hufford, a professor at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio.

“It certainly could go either way. It depends on turnout and where the turnout is,” Hufford said.

Rodriguez’s strength is San Antonio and Eagle Pass; Gallego’s is in the western reaches of the district that he has represented in the state House for more than 20 years.

Hufford would not rule out a runoff. “The wild card is Bustamante,” he said.

I’ve heard that Bustamante has been pretty impressive out on the trail. In a world where I had more time and more certainty about who would respond to my emails and when, I’d have tried to contact him for an interview. My interview with Pete Gallego is here and with Ciro Rodriguez is here. The story notes that Rodriguez has been under attack from environmental groups for a vote he cast in 2009; that may have an effect on the outcome as well.

CD35:

“I am giving it my all to turn out more votes, but much more help is needed. We face a perfect storm of less than 2 percent voter participation resulting from Rick Perry’s redistricting scheme, recent local elections and the Memorial Day weekend,” [Rep. Lloyd] Doggett said in a statement. “I run every race like I’m 10 points behind, and I will be unless more folks vote and volunteer to help.”

In the challenging race for the Austin-to-San Antonio district, Doggett is running in a new, majority Hispanic district against Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector Sylvia Romo, a Latina politician who has been in public life in Bexar County for 20 years. Furthermore, Doggett is seeking votes from hundreds of thousands of citizens he has never represented.

Walter Clark Wilson, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas-San Antonio, said Doggett’s efforts show he’s taking seriously the primary race for District 35, one of four congressional districts that were created in Texas to reflect population growth and to allow Hispanics to elect the candidate of their choice.

“It would make sense that Lloyd would dip into his significant war chest for this particular race,” Wilson said.

It also makes sense that he’d spend the majority of his time courting the party establishment in South Texas. Doggett, 65, has won the support of South Texas insiders and union members, who are expected to help turn out voters for him, Wilson said.

According to Federal Elections Commission reports, Doggett has pulled in more than $1.1 million since the race began.

Romo, who got into the contest later, has raised $60,800. Maria Luisa Alvarado, who ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor as a Democrat in 2006, has raised only about $5,000.

Romo, 69, has spent about $47,000; Doggett has spent $1.1 million.

Harold Cook, for one, thinks that turnout so far is not favorable to Doggett. I guess that depends on how well he’s been doing in Bexar County and other points south of Austin. My interview with Sylvia Romo is here; as you know, I was never able to get an appointment to talk with Doggett. I’ll try again for the general election if he survives the primary.

CD36:

Former Congressman Steve Stockman has a question for Republican voters in the new 36th Congressional District: “Would you eat at a restaurant that had to pay people to say nice things about it?”

Probably not, assumes Stockman, a GOP candidate for the congressional district that runs from the Louisiana state line into southeast Harris County. In a similar vein, he encourages voters who receive a voter guide or sample ballot in the mail to toss it in the trash, saying on his website that it is from “a liberal group using a Republican name that charged liberal candidates money for their endorsement.”

Stockman is alluding to the front-runner and best-known name in the race, state Sen. Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, who is among the more conservative lawmakers in Austin.

Ah, Steve Stockman. He was crazy before crazy was cool. For those of you who don’t remember the 90s or weren’t here to experience his particular brand of nuttiness, let me take you through a stroll of the Houston Press archives for a taste of how things were. It’s just a shame that Stockman isn’t running in CD14, because a rematch with Nick Lampson, who mercifully ended Stockman’s Congressional career back in 1996, would be too awesome for words. An interview with Democratic candidate Max Martin is on my to do list for November.

Endorsement watch: Two for Doggett

May 19th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The San Antonio Express News did most of its endorsements before the start of Early Voting, but took its time on the Congressional races. In the end, they did all their endorsements in one editorial, and at the end of that one editorial they gave the nod in CD35 to Rep. Lloyd Doggett.

We recommend that Democrats nominate U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin in District 35.

Doggett is a hard-edged liberal who was targeted by state Republicans during the redistricting process. GOP legislators made Doggett’s current district more conservative in an effort to get him out of the House.

While Doggett’s abrasive style has made him a GOP target, his experience and seniority are assets that far outweigh the attributes of his Democratic opponents.

That’s all you’re gonna get, so don’t go looking for more. They also endorsed Pete Gallego in CD23 and Daniel Boone in CD21, and they had even less to say about those two races.

I don’t know if the Express News’ endorsement of Doggett comes as a surprise to anybody, but I’m pretty sure that the Statesman’s endorsement of him will not be.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett

Doggett is the top District 35 choice in the May 29 Democratic primary. He is an energetic campaigner who understands as well as anyone that a congressman’s first duties are to serve the citizens he represents.

Almost half of District 35’s residents live in Bexar County. This gives Doggett’s main challenger, Bexar County Tax Assessor-Collector Sylvia Romo, a big name-recognition advantage, because the 330,000 Bexar County residents who are in District 35 write checks addressed to Romo when they renew their car registration and pay their property taxes.

Romo was elected tax assessor-collector in 1996 after a four-year stint in the Texas House. She’s an appealing candidate with political experience, but her experience can’t match Doggett’s.

Experience counts in Congress, and Doggett’s has earned him coveted seats on the important House Ways and Means Committee and the House Budget Committee.

Doggett best represents the values of Democratic voters in Travis County, and voters elsewhere in the district are learning he is a quick study wherever he campaigns. Democrats should give him their support over Romo and the third candidate in the District 35 Democratic primary, Maria Luisa Alvarado, who was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2006.

I forget about Alvarado’s presence in the race. That probably doesn’t help Romo, but it would only really matter if no one gets a majority of the vote. Here was the Express News overview of this race. If you live in CD35, who will you be voting for?

Express-News overview of Romo versus Doggett

May 14th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Some interesting tidbits in here.

Sylvia Romo

Despite the minority makeup of a newly drawn congressional district, a San Antonio Latina candidate faces a steep uphill climb against a white Austin liberal with a long tenure in the nation’s capital.

Sylvia Romo, the Bexar County tax assessor-collector, and Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, are battling with political newcomer Maria Luisa Alvarado of San Antonio for the Democratic nomination in the 35th Congressional District.

[…]

“The fact that the battle lines are in San Antonio is bad news for Romo,” said David Wasserman, a House race analyst at The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan newsletter.

Wasserman said “Doggett has Austin locked up, and he is charging hard in Bexar” County, where the district includes portions of San Antonio and nearly half the 35th’s voters.

[…]

Rep. Lloyd Doggett

Doggett told the San Antonio Express-News Editorial Board that the 35th District contains about half his former constituents.

Perhaps the biggest break for Doggett came when Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, announced he would not seek re-election in the neighboring 20th District and state Rep. Joaquin Castro, also a Democrat, decided to seek that seat.

Castro was seen by political pundits as a formidable foe to Doggett in the 35th District.

“Doggett dodged a big arrow when Charlie Gonzalez retired and Joaquin Castro walked into the 20th,” Wasserman said.

While Doggett has $3.1 million in the bank, Romo has only $14,000 and Alvarado, $653, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

But Romo says she remains a considerable opponent with a chance to win the seat and represent the working-class sections of Austin, San Marcos and San Antonio.

“I have great positive name ID in Bexar County,” she said, adding; “Money is important, but it is not the only factor.”

I’m surprised Romo hasn’t raised more money. She’s a multi-term countywide officeholder in Bexar, she has most of the San Antonio political establishment on her side, and as she herself says she’d be the first Latina elected to Congress from Texas. Given all that, you’d think she’d have more financial support for her candidacy. I’m not as convinced as the Cook Report guy that Doggett has the advantage here – the bulk of this district is in Bexar County, Doggett has no choice but to run hard there – but the financial disparity is suggestive. My interview with Romo is here. After several attempts to make contact with someone in Rep. Doggett’s office and campaign, I did hear back from someone a couple of weeks ago but she told me that his calendar was pretty full and that she couldn’t say when there might be time for me to do an interview with him. I’m still hopeful I will have the chance to do so, but that’s the way it goes.

Interview with Sylvia Romo

May 1st, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Sylvia Romo

One of the most closely watched Congressional primaries this cycle will be in the new CD35, the district to which Rep. Lloyd Doggett moved after redistricting and the second interim map made his CD25 hostile territory. In this Austin-to-San Antonio district he will face Sylvia Romo, who announced her candidacy in that district very early on. Romo has been an elected official for 20 years, having served as the Bexar County Tax Assessor since 1996, with a stint in the Texas Legislature for two terms prior to that. She was the first Latina elected to countywide office in Bexar, and if she wins this race she will be the first Latina elected to Congress from Texas. Here’s what we talked about:

Download the MP3 file

You can find a list of all interviews for this cycle, plus other related information, on my 2012 Texas Primary Elections page. You can also follow this blog by liking its Facebook page.

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