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Jerry Davis

A brief filing update

Nov 29th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Just a few observations as we head out of the holiday season and into what I expect will be the busier part of the filing period. I’m using the Patrick Svitek spreadsheet, the SOS candidate filing resource, and the candidate filing info at the harrisvotes.com site for my notes.

– There’s now a fourth candidate listed for Attorney General on the Dem side, someone named Mike Fields, who along with Joe Jaworski has officially filed as of today. I can’t find anything to clarify this person’s identity – there’s no address listed on the SOS page, and Google mostly returned info about the former County Court judge who is now serving as a retired judge and who last ran for office as a Republican. I seriously doubt this is the Mike Fields who is running for AG as a Dem. I know nothing more than that.

– No Dems yet for Comptroller or Ag Commissioner, though I saw a brief mention somewhere (which I now can’t find) of a prospective Dem for the former. I feel reasonably confident there will be candidates for these offices, though how viable they are remains to be seen.

– Nothing terribly interesting on the Congressional front yet. A couple of Dems have filed for the open and tough-to-hold CD15; I don’t know anything about them. State Rep. Jasmine Crockett, in her first term in the Lege, will run for CD30, the seat being vacated by the retiring Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, who has endorsed Crockett for the primary. That race will surely draw a crowd, but having EBJ in her corner will surely help. No incumbents have yet drawn any primary challenges, though Reps. Vicente Gonzalez (now running in CD34) and Lloyd Doggett (now running in CD37) will have company for their new spots. I am not aware of any Dem yet for the new CD38, which should be Republican at least in the short term but which stands as the biggest prize available for Harris County Democrats.

– Michelle Palmer has re-upped for SBOE6, which will be a tougher race this time around. I’m working on a post about the electoral trends for the new SBOE map.

– Sara Stapleton-Barrera and Morgan LaMantia have filed for the open SD27 Senate seat; Rep. Alex Dominguez has not yet filed. Nothing else of interest there.

– For the State House, I’m going to focus on area districts:

HD26 – Former SBOE member Lawrence Allen Jr, who ran in the 2020 primary for this seat, has filed.

HD28 – Eliz Markowitz still has an active campaign website and Facebook page, but I don’t see anything on either to indicate that she’s running again. One person who is running though he hasn’t filed yet is Nelvin Adriatico, who ran for Houston City Council District J in 2019.

HD76 – The spreadsheet lists four candidates so far. Two ran in 2020, Sarah DeMerchant (the 2020 nominee) and Suleman Lalani (who lost to DeMerchant in the primary runoff). Two are new, Vanesia Johnson and James Burnett. This new-to-Fort-Bend district went 61-38 for Joe Biden in 2020, so the primary winner will be heavily favored in November.

HD132 – Chase West has filed. He’s not from the traditional candidate mold, which should make for an interesting campaign. This district was made more Republican and is not the top local pickup opportunity, but it’s on the radar.

HD138 – Stephanie Morales has filed. This is the top local pickup opportunity – the Presidential numbers are closer in HD133, which does not yet have a candidate that I’m aware of, but it’s more Republican downballot.

HD142 – Jerry Davis is listed on the Svitek spreadsheet as a challenger to Rep. Harold Dutton. He hasn’t filed yet, and I don’t see any campaign presence on the web yet. That’s all I know.

HD147 – I am aware of a couple of candidates so far to fill the seat left vacant by Rep. Garnet Coleman’s retirement. Nam Subramaniam has filed. HCC Trustee Reagan Flowers sent out a press release over the weekend stating her intention to run. I would expect there to be more contenders for this open seat.

– For Harris County offices, there are already some people campaigning as challengers to incumbents. Carla Wyatt is running for Treasurer, Desiree Broadnax is running for District Clerk. On the Republican side, former District Clerk Chris Daniel has filed for his old office, and someone named Kyle Scott has filed for Treasurer. There are no Democratic challengers that I can see yet for County Clerk or County Judge, though there are a couple of Republicans for County Judge, Vidal Martinez and Alexandra Mealer. Finally, there’s a fourth name out there for County Commissioner in Precinct 4, Jeff Stauber, who last ran for Commissioner in Precinct 2 in 2018 and for Sheriff in 2016, falling short in the primary both times.

So that’s what I know at this time. Feel free to add what you know in the comments. I’ll post more updates as I get them.

Dragging Dutton

May 14th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Richly deserved.

Rep. Harold Dutton

Houston area political action groups, activists, and unions gathered outside the office of Democratic state Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. on Tuesday to call for his resignation.

“It’s better if he goes now than in the next election,” said Alexis Melvin, president of the Houston-based nonprofit Transgender Foundation of America.

“We the Houston community are here to call for the resignation of Harold Dutton for his attacks on education but more specifically his attacks on transgender kids,” said Brandon Mack, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Houston.

The fury stems from a bill Dutton revived and voted in favor of last week, Senate Bill 29. The legislation would prohibit trans youth from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

[…]

The Tuesday press conference and protest was organized and attended by major political groups in the Houston area, including the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, Houston Federation of Teachers, Black Lives Matter Houston, Indivisible Houston, Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation, and others.

“In the labor movement, we say an injury to one is an injury to all,” said Ashira Adwoa an organizer with the Houston Federation of Teachers. “When your civil rights are under attack, we will speak out with you.”

Adwoa said Dutton should instead focus on making housing more affordable in his district, and pull funding from charter schools to finance smaller class sizes and more wraparound services in public schools.

“This school year has been traumatizing to students, and we need to help them recover from this pandemic,” Adwoa said.

Hany Khalil, executive director of Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation, described Dutton’s behavior as shameful.

“Dutton didn’t vote for SB 29 when it first came up in committee because he knew it was a terrible, hateful bill,” Khalil said. “He knew it would hurt vulnerable kids. And so he used it as a cudgel to go after legislators who stood up to him and his attempt to strip democratic power from our schools.”

“Trans kids deserve to be safe and loved, just like all of our kids,” Khalil continued. “And they’re not pawns — they’re not pawns to be sacrificed in a disgusting game of legislative chess.”

See here for the background. Rep. Dutton has served for a long time, and while we have seen our share of Houston-area Democratic State Reps get bounced in primaries, mostly during the Speaker Craddick era, it’s not an easy thing to do. None of the groups present were Dutton supporters before – certainly not in 2020, when Dutton had to win in a runoff against Jerry Davis – so the work of building a sufficiently large coalition to oust him still needs to be done. The starting energy is good, and the cause is just. There remains a long way to go.

One more thing:

“I am hopeful that he doesn’t just get one primary challenger but a whole team of them,” [Houston GLBT Political Caucus President Jovon Alfon B.] Tyler said.

With all due respect, I don’t think that’s the best path to beating Dutton. Find one strong candidate that everyone at that demonstration can line up behind, and go from there. The problem with a stampede is that you’ll have too many people expending effort and resources in competing directions. There’s a real risk the same energy wouldn’t carry over into a runoff, as one would likely be needed in such a scenario. Join forces and unite behind one champion, that’s my advice.

Tarsha Jackson wins District B runoff

Dec 13th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
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The long saga comes to an end.

CM-elect Jackson led early voting, and as of 9 PM was up by a 68-32 margin, about what the initial returns had. As of shortly after 9, Cynthia Bailey conceded the race. Here was a Chron story from yesterday morning that largely recapped The Story So Far, and another story that followed Bailey’s concession.

Thirteen months after the first round of voting, Houstonians in District B on Saturday finally picked their city councilperson.

Tarsha Jackson beat out Cynthia Bailey, whose 2007 felony conviction became cause for a lawsuit that stalled the runoff.

Saturday’s decision ended the long period of limbo, both for the candidates and residents of the district.

Bailey congratulated Jackson in a statement.

“I look forward to continuing to fight to solve neighborhood issues together,” Bailey said. “District B will benefit from her leadership. It’s time to get to work.”

Congratulations, Council Member-elect Tarsha Jackson. It was a long road to this point, but you have arrived.

“Natasha Ruiz” indicted

Dec 12th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

At long last, an update to the weirdest local election story of the year.

Rep. Harold Dutton

A grand jury has indicted two Houston residents on election fraud charges, accusing them of orchestrating a phony candidacy of a woman that forced longtime state Rep. Harold Dutton into a runoff in this year’s Democratic primary, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced Friday.

Richard Bonton, one of Dutton’s other primary opponents, is accused of conspiring with Natasha Demming to register her on the ballot as Natasha Ruiz, an alias that garnered enough support to force Dutton into a runoff with another challenger that he later won.

Dutton and Houston Councilman Jerry Davis, who lost to Dutton in the runoff, both said they never saw Ruiz during the primary or found any evidence she was running a campaign.

Bonton and Demming face felony charges of tampering with government records, which carries a maximum sentence of two years. They also are charged with election fraud and conspiring to tamper with government records, both of which are Class A misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail. Demming also is charged with perjury, a misdemeanor.

“Richard Bonton filed numerous election documents on behalf of Natasha Ruiz, intentionally circumventing laws designed to ensure that voters have legitimate candidates to choose from and intentionally obscuring his own involvement in putting up a straw candidate,” Ogg said, holding up a copy of Ruiz’s campaign treasurer’s report that she said contained false information.

See here, here, and here for the background. As a reminder, someone showed up at HCDP headquarters with a drivers license that said she was Natasha Ruiz and lived in HD142. Later, Natasha Demming claimed in an interview that she’d had her identity stolen. I infer from this story that Demming was the person who showed up as Ruiz – if someone else had done it, one presumes that person would also now be under indictment – and the perjury charge is for claiming under oath that it wasn’t her. As for Bonton, who had run unsuccessfully against Dutton in the 2018 primary as well, well:

In an interview with the Houston Chronicle two days after the primary, Bonton said he had never encountered Ruiz during the primary and was conducting an investigation of his own. He said he was upset about her candidacy, contending that she may have cost him a spot in the runoff against Dutton.

“It seems odd to me that somebody that’s never been seen on the campaign trail all of a sudden mysteriously pops up,” Bonton said in the March 5 interview. “Not a yard sign, not a speech, not an event, a forum, nothing. A campaign of nothingness has resulted in 21 percent.”

Whoops. I wonder how much assistance Dutton’s private eye was in this investigation. The ironic thing is that if Bonton wanted a Latina to run against Dutton and maybe siphon some support away from him, he could have just found a real person to run as a stealth candidate. That’s not even a novel strategy, and it involves forging fewer documents. Lesson for the future, y’all.

There was another indictment as well.

Meanwhile, Damien Jones, a Democratic political consultant, was also indicted Friday on an allegation of sending an anonymous text threatening Calanni in an effort to get her to resign from office instead of running for reelection, according to the news release. The threat, Ogg said, was sent to Calanni in December 2019 just ahead of the 2020 election filing deadline. Calanni reported the threat to the Texas Rangers, which investigated the complaint with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office Public Corruption Division.

Jones, who was indicted for two Class A misdemeanors — coercion of a public servant and false caller identification information display — could face up to a year in Harris County Jail and up to a $4,000 fine, if convicted.

There’s a bit more on this indictment in the Chron story and in the Press. It’s the first I’ve heard of this, and don’t have any idea about it beyond what’s in those articles. Jones has released a statement via his attorney, denying all the charges. We’ll see how it goes.

Early voting starts today for District B runoff

Nov 25th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

At long last, the voters in District B will get to elect a new City Council member.

Here’s the Chron story.

Cynthia Bailey

Tarsha Jackson, a consultant and criminal justice organizer, and Cynthia Bailey, a neighborhood advocate, both aim to bring fresh, grassroots energy to the district. Jackson won 20.9 percent of the vote in the 14-candidate general election last November. Bailey came in second with 14.5 percent.

[…]

District B has been represented by Jerry Davis, who faced a term limit last year, for nine years. It has the second-highest concentration of Black residents in the city (47 percent), stretching from historic neighborhoods such as Kashmere Gardens and Greater Fifth Ward to Acres Homes and Greenspoint.

Early voting begins Wednesday, pauses for Thanksgiving and resumes Nov. 30 through Dec. 8.

Jackson has the institutional and financial edge. The progressive organization she used to work for, the Texas Organizing Project, is supporting her bid. Jackson has $21,000 in campaign cash to Bailey’s $3,000, according to the most recent campaign finance filings.

Bailey, though, proved a gritty campaigner last year, surprising other candidates in the field by reaching the runoff. She is known to some as the “Mayor of Settegast.”

Tarsha Jackson

Jackson, 49, was thrust into activism and organizing after her son was arrested for kicking a teacher in elementary school.

She helped advocate for reform legislation in 2007 that ensured young people would not be sent to state jail for misdemeanors. Jackson ultimately became Harris County criminal justice director for TOP, which aims to mobilize Black and Latino communities across the state.

As an organizer, she has been involved in Harris County’s historic bail settlement, has called on the city to end what she calls a “debtors’ prison” system that can jail people for failing to pay fines, and this summer led a report of recommendations for police reform.

Jackson hopes to bring that activist spirit to City Hall on council.

She said the defining issue for District B is poverty. District B has the poorest median household income ($33,257) in the city. Nearly 40 percent of the district’s roughly 193,000 residents live in a household that brings in less than $25,000 per year.

“I’ve watched my communities be left behind in all areas. Infrastructure, jobs, the schools that I went to,” Jackson said. “Once we start addressing income disparities, getting people to work, that’s going to start fixing some of the issues.”

For that reason, Jackson said a top priority would be job training. She plans to push for stronger community benefit agreements when the city gives tax incentives to developers. Those deals can include provisions about hiring local workers, including affordable housing and funding for community programs.

“Let’s make sure we’re benefiting from the dollars we’re putting out,” Jackson said.

Another priority would be flooding and illegal dumping. Jackson said she would push for more regular maintenance and cleanings for drainage ditches and bayous, and seek to broaden access to dump sites, which she said require a driver’s license and matching electricity bill. Many renters lack those documents, which contributes to dumping, she said.

I did an interview with Cynthia Bailey in November of 2019, which was intended for that year’s December runoff. That was before all the craziness about her eligibility to be on the ballot and the long drawn-out legal process that finally wrapped up a couple of months ago. I don’t know how relevant this is now, given how much has changed since we spoke, but here it is:

I did make contact at the time with Tarsha Jackson for an interview as well, but by the time we connected the runoff had already been pushed back, and we agreed to try again later once the legal maneuvering had ended. That didn’t happen, as I did not get back to her, so this is the best I can do.

The PDF map of early voting locations is here, along with the times they will be open. Note that there are also runoffs for the cities of Baytown, Humble, La Porte, and Nassau Bay, and there is at least one EV location in each of those places. There are also three drive-through EV locations, two in District B and one in Baytown. Get out there and vote while you can.

District B runoff officially scheduled

Oct 20th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Hooray!

Cynthia Bailey

At long last, voters in the north Houston neighborhoods that make up City Council’s District B will get to select a new representative in December.

Visiting state District Judge Grant Dorfman on Monday ordered the long-delayed runoff to be held Saturday, Dec. 12, almost exactly a year after the election was originally scheduled last year. Tarsha Jackson, a criminal justice organizer, and Cynthia Bailey, a neighborhood advocate, will face off in the election.

That is the same date for any runoffs necessitated by the Nov. 3 general election.

[…]

Tarsha Jackson

Council member Jerry Davis, the incumbent set to leave office last January, has remained in the seat to ensure the district had representation during the legal fight. Davis narrowly was defeated in his July runoff against state Rep. Harold Dutton for the District 142 seat Dutton has held since 1985.

District B includes nearly 200,000 people from many historic north Houston neighborhoods, such as Acres Homes, Kashmere Gardens and Settegast. The district stretches up to include Greenspoint and Bush International Airport. It has the second-highest concentration of Black residents, 47 percent, in the city.

See here for the background. Not much else to say here, we’ve been waiting a long, long time for this. It’s time to finally get a new Council member in District B.

We are finally about to get that District B runoff scheduled

Oct 11th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

About damn time.

Cynthia Bailey

A court hearing set for Oct. 19 finally could end the election dispute that has delayed a runoff in Houston city council’s District B for nearly a year.

A state district judge is scheduled to hear an unopposed motion to set the election for Saturday, Dec. 12, which would be almost exactly a year after the initial runoff on Dec. 14, 2019.

Houston, Harris County and the three candidates involved in the dispute support that election date, according to legal filings.

Tarsha Jackson

That would mean voters in District B, which is concentrated in north Houston and stretches up to Bush International Airport, could elect a new representative in December.

Tarsha Jackson and Cynthia Bailey were the top two finishers in the general election last November and now would proceed to the runoff.

[…]

The runoff could not be held on Nov. 3 because state law mandates it be held on the same date as the original election, which was a Saturday.

The date of the court hearing was delayed because state law prescribes a maximum amount of time between the court order and the runoff. Oct. 19 was the earliest date possible for a court order to get on the Dec. 12 ballot, according to legal filings.

See here for the previous update. December 12 is the date that a city runoff election would have been held this year, if there had been any city elections on the November ballot. It’s always the second Saturday in December. It sounds like this court hearing is pro forma, so once it’s over we should have an official, scheduled runoff election date. All I san say is “Hallelujah”.

Five things we could do now for police reform in Houston

Sep 2nd, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
12 comments

Seems like a good list to me.

Five city council members on Monday sent a letter to Mayor Sylvester Turner outlining police reforms they said Houston can implement immediately, including a “complete overhaul” of the Independent Police Oversight Board, a cite-and-release ordinance and incentive pay for officers who live within city limits.

In the letter, Councilmembers Edward Pollard, Tiffany Thomas, Jerry Davis, Martha Castex-Tatum, and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz say the oversight board, which reviews probes by the Houston Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division, needs a reboot.

“We are convinced there must be a complete overhaul of the Independent Police Oversight Board (IPOB),” the letter says. “We have no confidence in the current format. We must create a structure of guidelines that governs the function of the new board to restore public trust with public input.”

They recommended the board have complete autonomy and investigative authority, with full access to all unclassified information from HPD.

The council members also say the city could implement an online, independently-maintained dashboard showing complaints of police misconduct, HPD policies, guidelines, “and other relevant information.”

“This platform will be an innovative measure to not only hold officers accountable for misconduct, but will increase police community relations by being transparent in a data driven fashion,” the letter said.

The letter outlines 25 items they asked be included in the next contract between the city and the Houston Police Officers’ Union.

See here and here for some background. There’s a copy of the letter embedded in the story, or you can see it here. The letter does not mention any budget items and also does not contain the signature of CM Letitia Plummer, who unsuccessfully introduced an amendment to this fiscal year’s budget to redirect some funding for HPD to other services, as well as other reforms. I honestly don’t know what capacity exists to amend the city’s budget during the fiscal year, so it may be that that’s a moot point. As for who did and didn’t sign this letter, in the absence of any Council members commenting on it all we can do is speculate.

As we know, individual Council members cannot introduce an ordinance for debate on their own, so whether or not anything happens here is up to Mayor Turner. We are due to get the vaunted Task Force recommendations in the next week or two, and I’m guessing Mayor Turner will prefer to use that as a starting point for whatever he wants to achieve. You can always call his office, as well as your district Council member and the five At Larges to let them know what you think.

Appeals court upholds District B ruling

Aug 12th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

We will finally get a runoff election in District B.

Cynthia Bailey

An appeals court ruled early Tuesday that Houston did not err when it declined to disqualify a District B city council candidate who had a felony conviction, clearing the way for a long-delayed runoff in the district.

Renee Jefferson-Smith, the third-place candidate in the race who filed the lawsuit, said she does not plan to appeal the ruling, which would effectively end the nine-month dispute.

“I am pleased with the court’s decision and I pray that Cynthia Bailey and Tarsha Jackson remain safe as they continue on with their campaigns to become the next City Council Woman for District B,” Jefferson-Smith said in a statement.

Tarsha Jackson

“It’s been long enough and the District deserves to know who will represent them. My family and I are truly excited about the opportunity to move forward and focus on what’s ahead in our lives.”

It is not yet clear when an election can be held. Attorneys involved in the case said they believe it will return now to the lower court, where visiting judge Grant Dorfman can order a new election date. In February, he ordered a May 2 election, which was derailed amid appeals.

One wrinkle is that the Texas Election Code mandates the runoff be held on the same day of the week as the original election, which was a Saturday, according to Assistant Harris County Attorney Doug Ray. That would mean the District B race cannot go on the Nov. 3 ballot, he said.

See here for my previous update. The law in question is quiet clear, mandating that a runoff election that was delayed by an election contest must be held on the same day of the week as the originally scheduled runoff. I hate the idea that this election can’t be held on the same day in November that everyone will be voting anyway, but I don’t know what can be done about it, other than Judge Dorfman saying “screw it” and daring someone to challenge him.

The central question of the case is whether Bailey, who finished second and qualified for the runoff with Jackson, is eligible for office despite her felony conviction.

Jefferson-Smith, who finished third and missed the runoff, had argued she is not. Jefferson-Smith filed two lawsuits seeking to have Bailey removed from the runoff ballot.

The Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas, like others that have handled the case, did not address directly the question of Bailey’s eligibility. A state statute says candidates cannot have felony convictions from which they have not “been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities,” but it does not define that phrase, which has led to varying interpretations and enforcement.

Instead, the court addressed Jefferson-Smith’s claim that the City of Houston erred in administering the election by failing to declare Bailey ineligible. Her team had sent the city a packet of documents, after the election but before the vote was certified, proving Bailey was convicted.

A trial court judge said the packet did not conclusively prove Bailey was ineligible because it did not say whether she had been pardoned or otherwise released. (Bailey has argued she is released because she completed her sentence.)

In a decision posted after midnight, the three-justice panel of the First Court of Appeals agreed.

“Because the documents that Jefferson-Smith presented to the Mayor’s Office in connection with her Demand for Administrative Declaration of Ineligibility present a fact question—whether Bailey has been pardoned or otherwise relieved of her disabilities—that the Mayor had no authority to resolve, the Mayor had no ‘duty imposed by law’ to declare Bailey ineligible and made no ‘mistake’ in declining to do so,” Chief Justice Sherry Radack wrote.

Candidates who run for office in Houston check a box on their application form swearing they have not been finally convicted of a felony. The city verifies they have checked the box but does not vet their accuracy.

I’ve read the decision, and while it’s pretty dry and technical, it’s easy enough to understand. The takeaway I got from it is that Jefferson Smith might have prevailed had she taken somewhat different actions, but given what she did do, it wasn’t enough to meet the requirements of the law. I suppose it’s possible the Supreme Court could have seen it differently – for what it’s worth, the panel that ruled on the case was two Republicans and one Democrat – but Jefferson Smith ultimately chose to end her pursuit, and for that I thank her. Now let’s get this election scheduled. Houston Public Media has more.

Hey, remember District B?

Aug 1st, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

This makes me so mad.

Cynthia Bailey

For the last couple months, Tarsha Jackson has organized north Houston neighborhoods around criminal justice reform, helping to release a “Justice Can’t Wait” policy platform she said the city could enact immediately.

Cynthia Bailey has been working in the same communities, solving what she calls “neighborhood issues” and distributing masks and food amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected underserved communities like those in north Houston.

Renee Jefferson-Smith said she has helped ensure seniors there have hot meals and groceries.

They are familiar roles for candidates running for local office, but lately frustrating ones. Other candidates who ran on the same ballot last fall have been in office for seven months now, working within City Hall to enact policies they favor and helping to deploy city services to constituents that need them.

Tarsha Jackson

The election Jackson, Bailey and Jefferson-Smith ran in — the District B seat on city council — has been on hold since December amid an ongoing legal battle over the ballot.

District B, a majority Black and Latino area between just northeast of downtown to George Bush Intercontinental Airport, has been particularly challenged by the coronavirus pandemic.

Incumbent Jerry Davis, who ran unsuccessfully for a spot in the Texas House, has remained in the seat to ensure district residents have representation. Still, many residents and community leaders there feel left behind.

“They have gone from being upset about it, to trying to understand, to now they’re mad as hell,” said Angeanette Thibodeaux, president of the Acres Homes Super Neighborhood Council. “How ironic is this? How terrible is this? That in a time when we need representation and leadership and support, the one district that needs it more than any is disenfranchised once again. That hurts. In the pit of my stomach, that hurts.”

[…]

The candidates’ lawyers expect an appellate ruling in early August, perhaps as soon as next week, that they hope will settle the matter. Mayor Sylvester Turner has said the city will call an election as soon as the courts decide it can.

See here, here, and here for some background. First and foremost, I’m mad that our laws continue to punish people who have otherwise completed in full the sentence for whatever past crime they may have committed. Cynthia Bailey had as much right to be on that ballot as anyone. We need to fix these racist old laws.

Second, I’m mad at Renee Jefferson Smith for dragging this out. I can understand that she felt like the system wronged her, but the damage she has caused far outweighs any injury she may have received. At any point, she could have accepted the result, allowed the voters of District B to select their next Council member, and worked to change or clarify the law so that this situation would not happen again. She could have chosen to put the district’s needs ahead of her own, but she did not. She may prevail in court – I don’t think that would be a just outcome, because you cannot conclusively determine that she would have finished in the runoff had Cynthia Bailey never been on the ballot, but it is a possible ruling we could get – but if so she does not deserve to be rewarded for it. The only acceptable result at this point is for Tarsha Jackson or Cynthia Bailey to be the next Council member in B.

And just think, this situation could be even worse right now. If Jerry Davis had won his primary runoff against Harold Dutton, then District B would have no one sitting at the Council table for them, for however long it would take to get a court ruling. Even that could come with a down side, as the possibility still exists that someone will file a lawsuit over some vote or other action Davis has taken while serving as Council member-in-overtime, on the grounds that he was not legally able to serve past the end of his term. That hasn’t happened yet thank God, but it still could.

At this point, if we get a ruling before August 17, I think we can have the runoff on the November ballot. I’m assuming here a ruling that denies Jefferson Smith’s appeal and verifies that Tarsha Jackson and Cynthia Bailey are the only candidates for the office. I don’t know if this has to be approved by City Council or not, but if so we’ll need the ruling even sooner than that, say by August 10. It would be very nice to get that ruling this week. And if Jefferson Smith prevails and we need to have some kind of do-over…I don’t even want to think about it. Let’s just file this in the “Underappreciated Ways In Which 2020 Has Sucked” folder and go from there.

2020 primary runoff results: SBOE, Senate, House

Jul 15th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Again, bullet points. Get used to it.

SBOE6 Dem: Michelle Palmer had a 65-35 lead after early voting, and that was pretty much all there was to it.

SBOE5 GOP: It’s much more boring and sedate, but the Republican candidate who didn’t arrive in a clown car, Lani Popp, defeated performance artist and semi-professional troll Robert Morrow. This is the best pickup opportunity for Dems, but since no one pays attention to SBOE races – the district are ginormous and candidates never have any money – there would have been a chance Morrow could have won if he’d been the nominee. Having Popp carry the GOP banner lowers the Dem chances slightly, but as we know from other elections it’s never a good idea for a chaos agent to be a viable candidate in any race. Whatever happens in November, this was the better outcome.

SD14 special election: Sarah Eckhardt has been over fifty percent all night. This may change by the morning, but as I type this she appears to be headed for a victory without a runoff.

UPDATE: The final results from Travis County show Sarah Eckhardt winning with 51.1%, but I’d forgotten that Bastrop County is also in SD14, and Eckhardt is only at 31% there thanks to 38% of the vote going to Republican Don Zimmerman. It appears that is enough to keep her under 50%, which means a runoff with Rep. Eddie Rodriguez.

SD19 Dem: State Rep. Roland Gutierrez has bounced back from his second place finish in March to lead 53-47 as I write this. Seems likely he’ll hand on.

SD27 Dem: Alas, Sen. Eddie Lucio has also hung on, leading 54-46 in the later evening. I believe he said this would be his last term. We can only hope.

State House Dem Sarah DeMerchant will get her third shot at HD26 in Fort Bend County. In Harris County, Akilah Bacy crushed it in HD138, Rep. Harold Dutton eked it out in HD142, and going late into the night, Penny Shaw was leading Anna Eastman in HD148. Eastman had a sizable lead in mail ballots – her campaign worked that pretty hard – but Shaw equaled that in early votes, and had a small but growing lead on Election Day. Anna’s a friend and I’m sad for her, but Shaw appears to be the nominee. I suspect – and I’d have said this regardless of who won – there will be another hotly contested primary in HD148 in 2022. It’s a fact of life with redistricting, and there’s a high potential for the neighborhoods in and around HD148 to be swapped in and out of various districts, as was the case in 2011. (I personally was at various times that year drawn into HDs 134, 143, 146, 147, and 148, before finally landing in 145. I can hardly wait to see what happens next.)

In Dallas, Lorraine Birabil, who had won the special election in HD100 and was leading by enough early on for me to say she had won, was trailing Jasmine Crockett by about 90 votes late in the evening, with three vote centers yet to report. (Hat tip to Scott Braddock and his indefatigable Twitter feed.) Elsewhere, Liz Campos won in HD119, while Lorenzo Sanchez (HD67) had a small lead. Two Republican incumbents were ousted, Dan Flynn (HD02) and JD Sheffield (HD59). Jacey Jetton had a modest lead in HD26.

UPDATE: Birabil is still trailing Crockett in HD100, but it’s not quite final yet.

Runoff reminder: State House

Jun 21st, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Previously: Statewide, Congress, SBOE and State Senate.

There are seven Democratic primary runoffs for State House districts. Let’s have a look at what we’ve got.

HD26

Located in Fort Bend County, HD26 is an open seat now held by Rep. Rick Miller, who dropped out of his contested primary after some racist remarks he’d made were publicized. Sarah DeMerchant, the Dem candidate in 2016 (42.1% of the vote) and 2018 (47.6%) faces off against first-time candidate Dr. Suleman Lalani. Lalani led in March 31.7%, DeMerchant had 29.6%. I do not know if either of the other two candidates from March have endorsed in the runoff. HD26 is a prime target for Dems, one of the nine districts carried by Beto won by Republicans last time around. My primary interview with Sarah DeMerchant is here, and my primary interview with Lalani is here. A brief Q&A with all of the primary candidates from a local paper is here.

(UPDATE: Since I first drafted this, Rish Oberoi has endorsed Suleman Lalani.)

HD67

Moving up to Collin County, this is one of two near-misses for Dems from 2018, where Sarah Depew took 48.8%. (Sarah Hirsch, who got 49.7% in 2018, is back for another crack at HD66.) Four new candidates lined up for this race, with Tom Adair (32.9%) and Lorenzo Sanchez (27.0%) ending as the top two. Adair was endorsed by the DMN in March, and is quoted in this story from the Plano Against Police Brutality march in early June. Sanchez has been endorsed by Latino Victory Fund and also by former Senate candidate Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez. Both appear to have been quite active at recent protests and rallies, going by their respective Facebook pages.

HD100

This is an open Democratic seat, vacated by Eric Johnson, who is now the Mayor of Dallas. Lorraine Birabil won the special election to fill out the remainder of Johnson’s term, so she is the incumbent, though she has not participated in a legislative session yet. (There’s another race like this later, as you may know.) She led the field of six with 29.3%, followed by Jasmine Crockett at 25.9%. The Lone Star Project recently sent out an email touting Rep. Birabil’s accomplishments in her short time in office – she has called for a special session to address police violence and has vowed to file legislation on the topic. Crockett for her part has been representing protesters and co-filing lawsuits on behalf of people injured by rubber bullets. Rep. Birabil is an Annie’s List-endorsed candidate.

HD119

Also an open Democratic seat, now held by Rep. Roland Gutierrez, who as we know is running for SD19 and is in a primary runoff there. Elizabeth “Liz” Campos (whose website was offline when I drafted this) and Jennifer Ramos were the top two contenders, with 46.1% and 43.8% in March, respectively. Ramos was endorsed by the Express-News in March, and was also endorsed by Latino Victory Fund. I don’t have much else to tell you about this race.

HD138

Our last three races are all in Harris County. HD138 is the only one currently held by a Republican, and it is another Beto-carried top target, which fell short of flipping in 2018 by a handful of votes. Akilah Bacy led the way in the primary with 46.8%, followed by Jenifer Rene Pool with 29.2%. (Google still does not show a campaign webpage for Pool when I search for her.) Bacy was endorsed by the Chronicle in March, by 2018 candidate Adam Milasincic before that, and is on the Annie’s List slate. My interview with Akilah Bacy is here, and with Jenifer Pool is here.

HD142

Remember this one? Longtime Rep. Harold Dutton, forced into a runoff against still-serving-on-City-Council-in-District-B-because-we-can’t-get-a-damned-runoff-scheduled-there Jerry Davis? The race with the mystery candidate that other State Reps want investigated? That investigation is ongoing, I’ve not heard anything since then. Yeah, I don’t know what I can add to this.

HD148

Last but not least, the other district in which a special election winner is trying to be the official November candidate. Anna Eastman won the special election and runoff to fill out the remainder of Jessica Farrar’s term. She took 41.6% in the field of five in March. Penny Shaw, who was a 2018 candidate for County Commissioner in Precinct 4 and who finished sixth in the 13-candidate special election, took 22.1% in March. Eastman was endorsed by the Chron in both the special election and the primary. She has been touting vote by mail for the runoff, and along with Rep. Jarvis Johnson and Sen. John Whitmire has promised to introduce legislation making it easier for homeowners associations to change deed restrictions to easily allow old racist language to be removed. Shaw was endorsed by Farrar for the primary, and has the larger share of organizational endorsements. I interviewed both for the special election – my conversation with Rep. Eastman is here, and with Shaw is here. Both also participated in a forum held by the 2020 Democratic Candidates Debates group on Facebook, and you can see that here.

That covers most of the races of interest. I will do an update on the Commissioners Court Precinct 3 runoff, and I will remind everyone who’s running in the judicial races. Let me know what you think.

Budget amendments and a fight over police reform

Jun 10th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

That’s your City Council agenda for today.

City council members have authored more than four dozen amendments to Mayor Sylvester Turner’s proposed budget to trim spending, create new sources of revenue and expand police accountability measures.

Council members will take up the proposals Wednesday when they consider the mayor’s $5.1 billion budget plan, which is coming forward at an especially fraught moment. The city’s usual budget challenges have been aggravated by the economic crisis tied to COVID-19, while activists are gaining traction around the country in their calls to defund or scale back police departments after the death of Houston native George Floyd.

Many of the 50 budget amendments are a direct response to those topics, including one from Councilwoman Amy Peck that would establish a group to audit all city departments and programs, then recommend whether they should be continued with certain changes, folded into another program or dissolved altogether.

The process would in some ways parallel the zero-based budgeting process used for Turner’s spending plan, which required department heads to analyze every function and justify each dollar spent rather than adding to existing budgets. Peck said Turner’s administration never showed council members the detailed results of zero-based budgeting — and her so-called sunset review commission has a broader scope.

“With the sunset review, it’s looking at every line item, but it goes past that,” she said. “It involves citizens and stakeholders and really gets into whether (the program is) serving the constituents, whether there are ways to consolidate, if there are technology advances to make. There could be some program within a department that’s just not needed anymore.”

Other cost-cutting amendments include Councilwoman Sallie Alcorn’s proposal to study where Houston and Harris County can join forces instead of providing duplicate services, and a program suggested by Peck and Councilman Robert Gallegos that would allow city workers to voluntarily take unpaid time off. Councilman Greg Travis also proposed letting private firms compete with city departments for certain contracts, or studying whether it would save money to do so.

[…]

The mayor has expressed opposition, meanwhile, to a sweeping police reform amendment introduced by Councilwoman Letitia Plummer that would eliminate nearly 200 vacant positions in the Houston Police Department. The funds saved by getting rid of the positions and a cadet class would go toward beefing up de-escalation training and the police oversight board, among other proposals sought by those pushing for police department reform around the country.

Turner repeatedly said during last year’s mayoral campaign that he wants to grow the police department by several hundred officers, and he rejected the idea of reducing the police department’s budget during an appearance on CNN last week.

With a budget of over $900 million that is devoted almost entirely to personnel, HPD is by far the city’s largest department and would have little room to cut spending without diminishing the police force. The police union previously negotiated a 3 percent pay bump from July 1 through the end of the year, accounting for much of the department’s proposed budget increase.

On Monday, five black Houston council members released a series of proposed HPD reforms that include many of the measures contained in Plummer’s plan, but without the spending cuts. The letter included every black member of council — Martha Castex-Tatum, Jerry Davis, Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, Edward Pollard and Tiffany Thomas — except Plummer.

In a statement, Plummer said, “After reading my colleagues’ open letter, it appears we all want the same things. I look forward to having their support for my amendments on Wednesday.”

See here for some background, and here for the five Council members’ proposals. Here it must be noted that the police union was a big supporter of Mayor Turner, and they were the instigators of the lawsuit that killed the firefighter pay parity referendum. He campaigned on hiring more police, and that’s where he is. That said, nine votes on Council can pass a budget amendment, and in addition to those six black Council members there are five other Democrats – Abbie Kamin, Robert Gallegos, Karla Cisneros, David Robinson, and Sallie Alcorn – who should be open to persuasion on this matter. Maybe some of the Republican Council members might be willing to trim some budget as well – CM Dave Martin received no money from the HPOU PAC in 2019, for instance. Point being, there’s plenty of room to get at least the group of five amendments passed, if not the Plummer amendment. There’s a rally this morning at City Hall to build support for that. There won’t be any better opportunities anytime soon.

More runoff debates

May 18th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

In case you had not seen this, as I myself had not before Sunday.

Watch Democratic Candidate Debates Here!

Every Tuesday and Thursday in May, join us for our debate series:

Debate Schedule:
Tuesday, May 5 – Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner
Thursday, May 7 – Texas State House District 138
Tuesday, May 12 – Texas State House District 142
Thursday, May 14 – Texas State House District 148
Tuesday, May 19 – US Congressional District 10
Thursday, May 21 – Texas State Board of Education Position 6
Tuesday, May 26 – Texas Railroad Commission
Thursday, May 28 – United States Senate

Video of past debates are on the page, so for example if you want to hear Anna Eastman and Penny Shaw, go here. In some cases, one of the candidates in the runoff has declined or not responded, but in most cases you can hear both candidates. Early voting begins June 29, so remind yourself of who’s on your ballot and start making up your mind.

Dutton’s colleagues ask for investigation of Natasha Ruiz

Apr 10th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

Hey, look, it’s actual election news!

Rep. Harold Dutton

Nearly the entire Harris County Democratic legislative delegation has asked the county attorney and district attorney to open a criminal investigation into the candidacy of a Texas House candidate whose existence was called into question after this year’s March election.

The candidate, one of four in the primary race for state Rep. Harold Dutton’s seat, received enough votes to help force Dutton, a longtime Houston Democrat, into a runoff this year.

“We are concerned that more than 2500 Harris County voters may have been duped into voting for a non-existent candidate, a serious theft of those voters’ most important right, and three legitimate candidates were harmed by the crimes committed,” reads the March 18 letter, which was signed by every delegation member except Dutton and released to a Tribune reporter on Thursday. “We request that your offices coordinate an immediate investigation into the events documented in the attached memo and take appropriate prosecutorial action at the earliest possible time.”

Dutton was the only Democrat from Houston not to sign the letter.

[…]

Dutton, who had previously said he had hired a private investigator to look into the matter, told the Tribune on Thursday that he was not involved with the delegation’s letter to Ogg and Ryan and was focused on winning the runoff election, which is now slated for mid-July instead of May.

“I hope someone takes a look at the system that allows this to happen and cleans it up so that it can’t happen again,” he said. “If there are people who have engaged in a conspiracy, I hope that law enforcement will deal with them in the proper context.”

The delegation’s letter also included an attached “Indices of Election Fraud,” which detailed the background of the long-winding drama and “known facts indicating election fraud.”

See here and here for the background. The letter sent by the delegation is here, and the “Indices of Fraud” attachment is here. The latter is the more interesting, and contains the most new information. It suggests strongly that the person originally identified as “Natasha Demming” is not the person who filed for a spot on the ballot, but was perhaps a victim of identity theft. What I had considered to be the wilder option, that someone impersonated this person when they filed for this seat, appears to be the more likely explanation based on what the delegation claims.

So yeah, this should be investigated. Start by talking to the private eye that Dutton hired, and talk to all the political insiders to see what crazy things they might have heard about this. The big question here isn’t who did this (if it really was a deliberate attempt to put a sham candidate on the ballot) but why they did it. If the intent was to hurt Dutton’s re-election chances, it seems to me that there are more straightforward ways to do that than putting an impostor on the ballot in the hope of forcing Dutton into a runoff that maybe he’d lose. (What do you think might have happened if Dutton’s runoff opponent had been Natasha Ruiz, for example?) For sure, if there is someone behind this, maybe that person isn’t the most clear-headed thinker you’ve ever known. Whatever the case, getting a handle on the motivation might at least point you in the direction of a suspect. There doesn’t appear to be much physical evidence (unless maybe someone managed to take a picture of “Natasha Ruiz”), so if this gets cracked it’ll be because someone talked. Find out who that might be, and the rest may follow.

UPDATE: And indeed, there will be an investigation.

The Harris County Attorney’s office told the Houston Chronicle on Thursday that it was looking into the matter.

The county’s District Attorney Kim Ogg responded to the delegation in late March by saying that she had forwarded the case to the public corruption division but could not confirm or deny whether it was under investigation.

“Please be assured that the protection of our democratic election process, along with enforcement of all related laws, is a top priority for my administration and that your complaint will be addressed by this office,” Ogg wrote.

Not exactly sure why it’s the County Attorney jumping in on this, but whatever. I very much look forward to seeing the results.

Does getting to 40% make you likely to win the runoff?

Mar 15th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Anna Eastman

I was talking with some fellow political nerds last week, and one of the topics was the forthcoming runoffs. As is usually the case, this year we have some runoffs between candidates who finished fairly close together in round one, and some in which one candidate has a clear lead based on the initial election. The consensus we had was that candidates in the latter category, especially those who topped 40% on Super Tuesday, are basically locks to win in May. The only counter-example we could think of off the tops of our heads was Borris Miles beating Al Edwards, who had been at 48%, in the 2006 runoff for HD146.

So, later on I spent a few minutes on the Secretary of State election archive pages, looking through past Democratic primary results and tracking those where the leader had more than forty percent to see who went on to win in the runoff. Here’s what I found:

2018

Winners – CD03, CD10, CD23, CD31, Governor, SD17,
Losers – CD27, HD37, HD45, HD64, HD109*, HD133*

2016

Winners – CD15, HD27
Losers – SBOE6

2014

Winners – Senate, SBOE13
Losers – HD105

2012
Winners – CD34, HD95, HD137
Losers – CD23*, SBOE2

2010
Winners – CD10, HD76*

2008
Winners – CD32, RRC

2006
Winners – Senate, Lt Gov, HD42, HD47*
Losers – HD146

In each of the cited races, the leading candidate had at least 40% of the primary vote. Races that have asterisks indicate that the runnerup also had at least 40%. As you can see, up until 2018, having forty percent or more in the primary was indeed a pretty good indicator of success in overtime. The last cycle provided quite a few counterexamples, however, including one incumbent (Rene Oliveira, who had been busted for a DWI earlier) who went down. So maybe 40% isn’t such a magical number, or maybe it’s harder now than it was before 2012. Or maybe this is just a really small sample and we should be careful about drawing broad conclusions from it.

Fortunately, we have quite a few races this year to add to this sample:

CD03 – Lulu Seikaly 44.5%, Sean McCaffity 43.8%
CD10 – Mike Siegel 44.0%, Pritesh Gandhi 33.1%
CD13 – Gus Trujillo 42.2%, Greg Sagan 34.7%
CD17 – Rick Kennedy 47.9%, David Jaramillo 35.0%
CD24 – Kim Olson 40.9%, Candace Valenzuela 30.4%
SBOE6 – Michelle Palmer 46.8%, Kimberly McLeod 34.6%
SD19 – Xochil Pena Rodriguez 43.7%, Roland Gutierrez 37.3%
SD27 – Eddie Lucio 49.8%, Sara Stapleton-Barrera 35.6%
HD119 – Liz Campos 46.1%, Jennifer Ramos 43.7%
HD138 – Akilah Bacy 46.7, Jenifer Pool 29.3%
HD142 – Harold Dutton 45.2%, Jerry Davis 25.3%
HD148 – Anna Eastman 41.6%, Penny Shaw 22.1%
138th District Court – Gabby Garcia 48.0%, Helen Delgadillo 31.0%
164th District Court – Cheryl Elliott Thornton 41.3%, Alexandra Smoots-Thomas 33.1%

I’ll be sure to do an update in May, when we can see if the leading candidates mostly held serve or not. Place your bets.

Runoff roundup

Mar 7th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Here, as best as I can determine, are the runoffs of interest for May:

US Senate – MJ Hegar versus Royce West

CD02 – Sima Ladjevardian versus Elisa Cardnell
CD03 – Lulu Seikaly versus Sean McCaffity
CD10 – Mike Siegel versus Pritesh Gandhi
CD17 – Rick Kennedy versus David Jaramillo (D), Pete Sessions versus Renee Swann (R)
CD22 – Troy Nehls versus Kathaleen Wall (R)
CD23 – Tony Gonzales versus Raul Reyes (R)
CD24 – Kim Olson versus Candace Valenzuela
CD31 – Christine Eady Mann versus Donna Imam

Note that Wendy Davis (CD21), Sri Kulkarni (CD22), Gina Ortiz Jones (CD23), and on the Republican side Wesley Hunt (CD07) all won outright. I skipped a couple of Republican runoffs in safe D districts, because life is short.

Railroad Commissioner – Chrysta Castaneda versus Roberto Alonzo

SBOE5 – Robert Morrow versus Lani Popp (R, wackadoo versus what passes for normal)
SBOE6 – Michelle Palmer versus Kimberley McLeod

SD19 – Xochil Peña Rodriguez versus Roland Gutierrez
SD27 – Eddie Lucio versus Sara Stapleton-Barrera

Didn’t mention this yesterday, but Susan Criss prevailed in SD11.

HD02 – Dan Flynn versus Bryan Slaton (R)
HD25 – Ro’Vin Garrett versus Cody Vasut (R, this is Dennis Bonnen’s old seat)
HD26 – Suleman Lalani versus Sarah DeMerchant (D), Matt Morgan versus Jacey Jetton (R)
HD45 – Carrie Isaac versus Kent Wymore (R)
HD47 – Jennifer Fleck versus Don Zimmerman (R)
HD59 – Shelby Slawson versus JD Sheffield (R)
HD60 – Jon Francis versus Glenn Rogers (R)
HD67 – Tom Adair versus Lorenzo Sanchez
HD100 – Lorraine Birabil versus Jasmine Crockett
HD119 – Liz Campos versus Jennifer Ramos
HD138 – Akilah Bacy versus Jenifer Pool
HD142 – Harold Dutton versus Jerry Davis
HD148 – Anna Eastman versus Penny Shaw

Note that in that HD47 primary, one (1) vote separates second and third place, according to the Travis County Clerk. I assume there will be a recount, and even before then late-arriving mail ballots could change this. In the event of an actual tie, there will be a coin flip to determine who goes to the runoff. I’m rooting so hard for that outcome, you guys.

In the HD67 primary, 63 votes separate Lorenzo Sanchez and Rocio Gosewehr Hernandez, or 0.3 percentage points. I would expect a recount there as well, but with a far lesser chance of affecting the outcome.

Lorraine Birabil was the winner of the special election in HD100 to fill out the unexpired term of Eric Johnson, who is now Mayor of Dallas. Anna Eastman was the winner of the special election in HD148 to succeed Jessica Farrar.

14th Court of Appeals, Place 7 – Tamika Craft versus Cheri Thomas

164th District Court – Cheryl Elliott Thornton versus Alex Smoots-Thomas
339th Criminal Court – Te’iva Bell versus Candance White

County Commissioner, Precinct 3 – Diana Martinez Alexander versus Michael Moore

Moore was leading most of the night, but Alexander caught and passed him as final results came in. I don’t care to go through the various Constable and JP races, but the good Jerry Garcia was leading problematic incumbent Chris Diaz going into the Precinct 2 Constable runoff.

Whatever turnout there will be in the runoffs will be driven primarily by the Dem Senate race and the Congressional races on both sides. Won’t be much, but it ought to be a bit more than usual, and surely more on the D side if there were no Senate runoff.

HCDP statement on Natasha Ruiz

Mar 7th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

From the inbox:

The Harris County Democratic Party has learned of an allegation that a candidate on the Harris County Democratic Party Primary ballot for Texas House District 142 may not have been a genuine candidate. HCDP has not been presented with evidence to corroborate this allegation, but we have recently become aware of its existence.

The facts we have are that on December 9th, during the 30 day filing period to be placed on the Democratic Party primary ballot, a person claiming to be Natasha Ruiz came to the party office with the required elements to file: an application, identification, and filing fee. This Application was subsequently approved, and the name of this candidate appeared on the March 3rd Democratic Party primary ballot.

Since the day the person filing the application came to the Party office, no one from our staff has had any further contact with her.

The party followed all steps required by the Texas Election Code to approve this Application for a place on the ballot. At no time prior to the primary election did we receive any information that there may be any questions or concerns about the genuineness of this Application or the eligibility of the person who submitted it to be a candidate for the office sought.

See here for the background. There are basically two possible explanations here:

1. Someone, for reasons unknown, provided a fake ID for a person who then claimed to be “Natasha Ruiz” and filed for the HD142 primary.

2. The Natasha Ruiz that ABC13 identified and contacted yesterday is the person who filed for the primary and was not telling the truth when she denied any knowledge of this.

Maybe I’m missing some other possibility, so let me know if you come up with another scenario that can fit the known facts. Option 1 is the most spectacular, and as such seems to be the least likely. As for option 2, maybe Harold Dutton’s private investigator can shed some light on that. Fascinating as this all is, until and unless we find out more there’s not much to be done about it, and there’s insufficient evidence to conclude that the absence of “Natasha Ruiz” on the ballot would have enabled Dutton to avoid a runoff. Let’s move on to May, and if something comes up to suggest that dirty tricks were at play we can reassess. Stace has more.

HD142 and the case of the mystery candidate

Mar 6th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

WTF?

Rep. Harold Dutton

Long time Democratic State Representative Harold Dutton was forced into a runoff Tuesday night, but a ghost candidate may have helped make that happen.

Dutton, who has long represented House District 142 in northeast Houston, already faced a formidable challenger in Houston City Council Member Jerry Davis. However, the only female name on the ballot is what’s raising eyebrows.

“When you’re leading, you’re never at a disadvantage,” said Dutton, “But I think there are a lot of questions about what happened in this election.

According to the Harris County Clerk’s election records, the third place finisher in the race is a woman named Natasha D. Ruiz. She received 2,597 votes, or just 20% of the votes. Dutton finished first with 45% and Davis made it into the runoff with 25%.

“We have never seen them, we never talked to them, they never showed up, they never had a sign. They don’t seem to be a real person,” said Dutton.

Davis didn’t disagree with Dutton’s assessment.

“I ran my race, I saw her name, Ms. Natasha Ruiz,” said Davis. “I have not had an opportunity to meet her, or see her at any of the events. No signs in the yard, nothing.”

ABC13 found a campaign treasurer filing document with the Texas Ethics Commission. On the document, the candidate’s name was listed as Natasha Demming Ruiz. The campaign treasurer is listed as Hector Riveria.

Riveria’s phone number went unanswered. However, when we called Ruiz, a woman picked up. Identifying herself as Natasha Demming, she told us she lives in Colorado and is a truck driver.

Demming said she has not lived in Houston for years. She is registered to vote at her elderly mother’s home. Demming said she has no idea why anyone would sign her up to run for office.

In a year where we had Not That Jerry Garcia and in a city where we once had the other Bill White, I guess I can’t be too surprised by something like this. The Trib adds some details:

Dutton, who said he has already hired a private investigator to look into Ruiz’s candidacy issue, told the Tribune that questions about it were first brought to his attention a few weeks ago, when an anonymous letter sent to his law office pointed out discrepancies between Ruiz and a “Natasha Nicole Demming.”

A copy of Demming’s voter registration record with Harris County was attached and included her address and phone number, which matched the paperwork Ruiz filed with the Harris County Democratic Party in December, though Ruiz wrote on the candidate filing that her full name was “Natasha Demming Ruiz” and her ballot name was “Natasha Ruiz.” Ruiz also listed her occupation as a teacher.

The address and phone number used by Ruiz on her candidate filing also matched a campaign treasurer appointment form filed with the Texas Ethics Commission. The phone number for Ruiz’s campaign treasurer had been disconnected when called Thursday.

Ruiz’s candidate filing paperwork, which was reviewed by the Tribune, was notarized by Marc Malacoff, who works for the local party. DJ Ybarra, executive director for the Harris County Democratic Party, said that Ruiz showed a Texas driver’s license with an expiration date as her form of photo ID when submitting that paperwork.

So either someone used a fake ID to impersonate this Natasha Demming Ruiz person, or it was her and she’s not being truthful about it now. Both are crazy, and deserve some kind of investigation to find out what happened. Candidates who file for an office and then basically disappear are hardly unheard of – I feel like nearly all of the multi-candidate City Council races last year featured at least one such person, and anyone who’s been a Democrat in Texas for more than five minutes has been saying “Yeah, like Gene Kelly” since I started typing this sentence – but this is next level. I would certainly like to know what the real explanation is here. The Chron has more.

2020 primary results: State races

Mar 4th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

I’m going to direct you to the Texas Tribune results page, which combines both parties’ results and is a couple orders of magnitude less sucky than the revamped SOS election night results pages. Good Lord, whoever designed that “upgrade” from the lower-tech previous version should be banished to a desert island. We’re gonna do bullet points here:

– As with the Harris County judicial races, female candidates swept the statewide judicial nominations. Brandon Birmingham, who was unopposed for CCA Place 9, will be the lone Democratic dude on the statewide judicial ballot. Staci Williams was leading Brandy Voss for Supreme Court Place 7. On the Republican side, incumbent CCA Place 3 incumbent Bert Richardson was holding on against Rick Perry fangirl Gina Parker. Good grief.

– Chrysta Castaneda and former State Rep. Roberto Alonzo were headed to a runoff for Railroad Commissioner. On the Republican side, incumbent Ryan Sitton was trailing his opponent, some dude named Jim Wright. I was paying no attention to that one, so I’ll be looking for some news stories today to explain what happened there.

– Michelle Palmer and Kimberley McLeod were headed to a runoff in SBOE 6, while Marsha Burnett-Webster was cruising in SBOE 10. Rebecca Bell-Metereau was on her way to another shot at SBOE5, and, well, lookie here:

Robert Morrow is leading in the Republican primary races for the State Board of Education District 5 seat, which represents an area spanning Austin to San Antonio, according to some voting returns Tuesday night.

With about 86,000 votes counted, Morrow, a provocateur who often posts photos of women’s breasts on social media, had 39% of votes, followed by Lani Popp, a speech pathologist at the Northside school district in San Antonio, who had 36% of votes. Inga Cotton, executive director of San Antonio Charter Moms, a nonprofit that provides resources to families about charter schools, has 25% of votes. If nobody wins more than 50% of votes, the two highest vote recipients will head to a run-off election May 26.

Chairman of the Travis County GOP Matt Mackowiak was already signaling his dismay at Morrow’s lead Tuesday night.

You may recall that Morrow was for a brief time the Chair of the Travis County GOP. Have fun dealing with that shit sandwich, Matt.

– Sen. Eddie Lucio was on the knife’s edge to win in SD27. He was just over 50% when last I looked. Sara Stapleton-Barrera was in second, with about 34%. This still could go to a runoff, we’ll see. In SD19, the main pickup opportunity for Dems, Xochil Pena Rodriguez led Roland Gutierrez and would face him in the runoff. Sen. Borris Miles was around 60% of the vote in his race.

– For the State House, Natali Hurtado (HD126) and Ann Johnson (HD134) won easily. Akilah Bacy was headed to a runoff with Jenifer Pool in HD138, and Anna Eastman will have to run one more race, this time against Penny Shaw, in HD148. As of this writing, Rep. Harold Dutton was at 50.03% in his race, eight votes above the line to avoid a runoff. Needless to say, that can change. All other incumbents, in Harris and elsewhere, were headed to victory, though on the GOP side Reps. Dan Flynn and JD Sheffield were facing runoffs. Suleman Lalani and Sarah DeMerchant were leading in HD26.

Like I said, a few things are still in flux, but this is where we are with about two-thirds of the Harris County vote in. I’ll do updates as needed and will have more tomorrow.

UPDATE: In the end, both Sen. Eddie Lucio and Rep. Harold Dutton fell short of fifty percent and will be in runoffs in May.

The interviews I didn’t do

Feb 19th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

As was the case with the 2019 Houston elections, there were too many candidates and too many races (and in this case, too little time as well) to do a full slate of interviews. I did what I could, and did a pretty good job of covering the races of interest in Harris County if I do say so myself, but if there had been more time I’d have done more. In some cases, I can point to previous interviews or other resources, so let’s have a review, and look ahead to what might be on tap for the runoffs.

US Senate: I’d have loved to interview some of these candidates, but it was unlikely I’d be able to get time on their calendars, especially after the filing deadline. The Texas Signal has done some Senate candidate forums, and you can see links to Facebook videos from one they did in Houston here. The Texas Trib also did a series of interviews with the five leading candidates, and they can be seen here, as well as a Q&A series here.

CD02: I interviewed Elisa Cardnell and Travis Olsen very early in the cycle, before the filing deadline and thus before Sima Ladjevardian entered the race. I’ve tried but have not succeeded at setting up a time to talk with her, and if there’s a runoff that she’s in that will be a top priority for me.

CD08: This is obviously not a district that anyone expects to be competitive, but I regret not having the time to speak to Laura Jones and Elizabeth Hernandez. They both look like super candidates, and it’s important to support efforts to build Democratic infrastructure in places like Montgomery County. That race is on my list for November.

CD09: Rep. Al Green is the one Democrat in Congress from the area that I’ve never had the chance to interview. Tried to chase him down once a few years ago but couldn’t make it happen. I don’t see this as a competitive race and there’s no need to do a November interview, but one of these days I’d like to talk with him, just to have done it.

CD10: I interviewed Mike Siegel for the 2018 runoff. This race is on my list for the May runoff, if there is one.

CD18: I interviewed Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee back in 2010. I would enjoy talking with her again, but I did not have it in me to do seven (!) interviews for this race. In the unlikely event of a runoff, I’ll definitely revisit this race.

CD22: I interviewed Sri Kulkarni for the 2018 runoff. My original thought was that if this goes to a runoff I’ll be there for it, but after the recent bizarre allegations between the two candidates who might make it into a runoff besides Sri Kulkarni, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

SD11: I interviewed Susan Criss when she ran for HD23 in 2014. I may or may not do this race for November, we’ll see.

SD13: I’ve interviewed Sen. Borris Miles twice, most recently in 2012, when he was running for re-election in HD146. Let’s just say I’d have to ask him some very different questions now, and leave it at that.

HD126: As it happens, I interviewed both candidates in 2018 – Natali Hurtado, and Undrai Fizer. I’ll probably do this one for November, we’ll see.

HD142: I have never interviewed Rep. Harold Dutton, I don’t think I’ve ever met him. I have interviewed Jerry Davis a couple of times, most recently in 2013. I will definitely want to do interviews in this race if there’s a runoff.

HD146: I have not interviewed Rep. Shawn Thierry, but I did run a judicial Q&A from her in 2010. I interviewed Ashton Woods for City Council last year.

HD147: I have interviewed Rep. Garnet Coleman multiple times, most recently in 2012. He’s always been a favorite person to talk to. In the unlikely event of a runoff, I’ll definitely revisit this race.

HD148: Had it not been for the special election in November, I’d have been all over this race. That said, thanks to the special election I’ve already done interviews with Rep.-elect Anna Eastman, Penny Shaw, and Adrian P. Garcia. I also interviewed Cynthia Reyes-Revilla for City Council. I might possibly revisit this in a runoff, but because I’ve done these interviews so recently it’s not clear to me I’d have anything new to ask these folks. We’ll see.

Sheriff: I’ve interviewed Sheriff Ed Gonzalez multiple times, including in 2016 when he first ran for Sheriff. I also interviewed Jerome Moore after he made it to the runoff with Gonzalez in 2016. I didn’t see this race as a particularly serious challenge to Gonzalez, so I put a higher priority on the DA and County Attorney races. If it turns out I was wrong and this one winds up in a runoff, I will of course revisit it.

HCDE: I also regret not doing interviews in the two At Large HCDE races, but there just wasn’t the time, and unlike with legislative offices there’s just so many questions about this position I can reasonably ask. I’ll probably do Position 7 if that race goes to a runoff, but we’ll see.

Yeah, I’ve done a lot of interviews over the years. Always room for more, though not always the time. I’ll be back to the task in March, and again later this year. Hope you find this useful.

Endorsement watch: More State Reps

Feb 15th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The Chron finishes the task of endorsing in the State Rep primaries. Here was Round One, now let’s dive into the rest.

Natali Hurtado in HD126:

Natali Hurtado

Hurtado was 19 and a college student working at Olive Garden when she became a single mother. Her husband was arrested and convicted for a crime committed before she knew him and sentenced to life in prison, leaving her to fend for her young daughter. She moved back in with her parents and relied on food stamps and Medicaid. She stayed in school and eventually graduated from the University of Houston, before earning a master’s degree in public policy and administration at the University of St. Thomas.

She told the Editorial Board she’s running for a seat in the Legislature to represent “not just those that had a privileged upbringing but those with real struggles in life.”

Now 36, she has cut her teeth in politics in various positions with elected officials at City Hall, the Texas House and in Congress for U.S. Rep. Gene Green. She currently works as deputy head of a local management district. Hurtado’s ability to connect her own remarkable story, and those of district residents, to policy ideas is exactly what is needed in a legislator. Her platform includes expanding Medicaid, improving public education and addressing flooding. She also has her ear to the ground in terms of economic development and addressing blight in the district.

As noted before, this is a rematch of the 2018 primary between Hurtado and Undrai Fizer. Hurtado was endorsed by the Chron then, and won that race. HD126 is one of the districts targeted by the Dems this cycle – in 2018 it was on the fringe of the fringe – and will be a bigger deal this time around.

Akilah Bacy in HD138:

Akilah Bacy

House District 138 has been represented by Republican Dwayne Bohac since 2003, but the political currents could be changing and Democrats have a strong chance of picking up the seat in the fall. Last time, Bohac won his seat by just 47 votes and he’s not running again. That means the district, which has the Addicks Reservoir at its center and includes Bear Creek neighborhoods and parts of Spring Branch, is wide open.

Democratic primary voters have two strong candidates to choose from. Akilah Bacy, 34, has strong, on-the-ground experience that speaks to her passion and smarts. Josh Wallenstein, 44, has proven his commitment to improving education and other vital local issues. It’s a close decision, but we feel that a vote for Akilah is the best choice for Democrats in this district.

Bacy told the Editorial Board about an experience representing a client who could not read key legal documents, an encounter that motivated her to volunteer to teach adult literacy and ESL in her local school district and to hold free legal-rights classes. She has also represented children seeking asylum at the United States borders at no cost. Bacy grew up in northwest Houston and has an insider’s knowledge of its challenges. She attended Cypress-Creek High School, Spelman College and Texas Tech law school. She began her career as an assistant district attorney for Harris County before starting her own firm. Her focus is on core issues — education, healthcare, flooding, climate, employment rights, restorative justice — all issues voters in her district care deeply about.

I agree this is a tough choice. They’re both strong candidates and would represent the district well. Wallenstein has raised more money so far, but I don’t think that matters too much. This district is a top priority, there will be plenty of establishment support for whoever wins. Jenifer Pool is also in this primary so there’s a good chance this will go to a runoff. Pick your favorite and go with it.

Rep. Jarvis Johnson in HD139:

Rep. Jarvis Johnson

Angeanette Thibodeaux credits her opponent, State Rep. Jarvis Johnson, D-Houston, for joining other community and elected leaders to help defeat plans to locate one more concrete batch plant in Acres Homes.

But rather than a reason to send him back to Austin for a fourth term, she says the fact that the batch plant operator was able to get a permit in the first place is grounds to fire Johnson and vote for her instead to fight for the seat in November. Experience like that, she said, is not worth keeping. “I won’t sleep at the wheel,” she said in a video posted to her website.

In politics, that’s called taking your opponent’s strength and turning it on its head to make it sound like a weakness. It can be effective, but Democratic voters in the 139th District should look beyond the jujitsu and stick with Johnson, 48.

He’s been in office three terms, and has been consequential even as a Democrat in a GOP-dominated chamber. He has passed bills, worked with Republicans and Democrats and rallied allies to safeguard the interests of his constituents. Far from being a liability, his work to help convince owners of the batch plant to drop plans to locate in Acres Homes is a powerful example of success.

I’ve been basically happy with Rep. Johnson. I didn’t think he was all that capable as a City Council member, and he never articulated a good reason for his 2010 primary challenge to Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, but overall as far as I can tell he’s been fine as a State Rep. I haven’t met Angeanette Thibodeaux and can’t say how they compare. If you live in this district and have any thoughts about it, I’d love to hear them.

Rep. Harold Dutton in HD142:

Rep. Harold Dutton

There’s a reason why Harold V. Dutton Jr., who has been in the Legislature since 1985, has drawn his first competitive challenge in decades: the looming state intervention in the Houston Independent School District.

House Bill 1842, spearheaded by Dutton in 2015 and approved with overwhelming support, set the district on a collision course with the state over chronically failing schools.

Dutton arrived at that legislation neither lightly nor quickly, he told the Editorial Board. He first proposed other options and tried to work with the school board to help underperforming schools, including Kashmere High School and Wheatley High School, both in his district and both of which have been on the state list of troubled schools for years.

While the remedy — sidelining an elected school board with a state-appointed board of managers — is extreme and offers no guarantees, Dutton believes that it’s better than the alternative of another year of students falling behind.

We wish Dutton’s legislation had allowed otherwise strong districts more flexibility in addressing campuses with long histories of failure. But we are convinced Dutton was acting in good faith to force accountability, and his authorship of this one bill is not enough reason to forget years of accomplishment, nor the advantages that his seniority in the Legislature confers.

Dutton has done a lot in his legislative career, and he’s been a force for good on voting rights and criminal justice reform. I think you can admire the intent of HD1842 and recognize that the overall consequences of it may be significant, without any guarantee of a payoff. Whether the one of these outweighs the other is the choice you get to make if you live in this district. I like Jerry Davis and I think he’d make a fine State Rep. We’ll see if he gets the chance.

The Chron still has a lot to do before they’re done – HCDE, Tax Assessor, District Attorney, State Senate, Railroad Commission, Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, Congress, US Senate, and, you know, President. My gut feel on Friday as I write this is that they’ll go with Amy Klobuchar, but what do I know? The point is, there are still a lot more of these to come.

Chron overview of the HD142 primary

Feb 13th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Also known as the How Mad Are People At Harold Dutton? primary.

Rep. Harold Dutton

Longtime state Rep. Harold Dutton is facing the most serious re-election test of his 35-year political career in an acrimonious primary against two Democratic opponents.

The race, which has generated few headlines but produced ample tension between the candidates, pits Dutton against Houston District B Councilman Jerry Davis and transportation logistics executive Richard Bonton. A fourth candidate, Natasha Ruiz, does not appear to have a campaign website and has yet to file any campaign finance reports.

Imperiling Dutton’s re-election is a well-funded challenge from Davis, who since 2012 has represented much of the same northeast Houston territory as Dutton, including Fifth Ward, Kashmere Gardens and Trinity/Houston Gardens.

The candidacy of Bonton, who ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2018, also raises the prospect that Dutton could be forced into a runoff for the first time since his initial run for the seat in 1984, said Michael Adams, chairman of Texas Southern University’s political science department.

“I think it’s a very competitive race,” Adams said. “Harold is a long-standing incumbent, but that cuts both ways, because Jerry has a lot of recognition from his city council races.”

Nothing has drawn more attention in the race than Dutton’s role in crafting a 2015 law that requires the Texas Education Agency to penalize a district if any of its schools fails state standards for five consecutive years by closing the school or replacing the school board.

[…]

Dutton shrugs off the criticism over HISD, noting that the law received widespread bipartisan support when it sailed through the Legislature five years ago.

“I stand by it totally,” Dutton said. “I just couldn’t in good faith sit there and do nothing while these students linger in the education toilet. HISD, like most school districts, could have taken the opportunity to fix the schools. That’s what could have happened and should have happened, but didn’t happen.”

I just don’t know what to make of this one. It’s certainly the strongest challenge Rep. Dutton has faced in a long time – he made it through the Craddick years without being targeted – I just don’t know how much people will hold the TEA takeover stuff against him. He’s right, the bill had broad support when it passed, and there’s certainly a case that if a school continues to struggle year after year, it’s being failed by its district as much as anything else. On the other hand, he doesn’t have much money, he probably doesn’t have much of a field operation (since he’s never needed to have one, and he’s far from the first name you think of when you think of team players in the countywide campaign), and he doesn’t have much in the way of establishment organizational support. Labor has mostly sided with Davis (with the exception of the Texas State Teachers Association, which may see him as a friendly incumbent), as has the GLBT Caucus, while HBAD has endorsed Bonton, and the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats co-endorsed Bonton with Dutton. Maybe the high expected turnout will help him, as he’s likely the best known name on the ballot even after Davis has won three elections, and maybe less-frequent voters will feel less affinity for him. I really have no idea. If you live in the district and have seen the campaign activity there, please leave a comment.

January 2020 campaign finance reports: City of Houston

Feb 8th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

We’re done with the 2019 Houston election cycle, but there are still things we can learn from the January 2020 campaign finance reports that city of Houston candidates and officeholders have to file. Other finance report posts: My two-part look at the State House was here and here, Harris County offices were here, statewide races were here, and SBOE/State Senate races were here.


Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
====================================================
Turner       359,567    780,735        0     293,503
Peck           1,075     17,435    5,000          72
Davis          4,000     14,164        0     139,068
Kamin         24,158     93,810        0      18,717
E-Shabazz     14,394     18,965        0       2,145
Martin        14,600     48,754        0     148,989
Thomas        20,263     21,642        0      11,675
Travis         9,850     70,904   21,000      51,484
Cisneros      15,050     44,687        0      24,169
Gallegos      16,850     46,055        0      76,776
Pollard        4,525     25,007   40,000       1,882
C-Tatum       16,250      8,520        0      71,747
Knox           6,900     29,075        0       4,302
Robinson      11,625     82,515        0      40,735
Kubosh        14,770     31,570  276,000      94,540
Plummer       71,168     83,491   21,900      11,068
Alcorn        21,535     76,313        0      16,374
Brown          1,650    102,340   75,000      14,128

Bailey             0      2,400    2,600          70
Jackson       43,845     18,338        0      28,343

Buzbee         1,903    460,888        0      63,531
King          29,925    161,047  420,000      11,567
Parker             0     38,750        0      26,184
Laster             0     12,579        0     162,209
Salhotra      24,010     75,837        0       9,060
Sanchez       40,056     92,678        0      10,636
Edwards          499    109,812        0      89,987

HouStrongPAC       0     10,000        0      51,717

Nominally, this period covers from the 8 day report before the November election (which would be October 27) to the end of the year, but for most of these folks it actually covers the 8 day runoff report to the end of the year, so basically just the month of December. In either case, this is the time when candidates don’t raise much but do spend down their accounts, as part of their GOTV efforts. For those who can run for re-election in 2023, they will have plenty of time to build their treasuries back up.

Mayor Turner will not be running for re-election again, but it’s not hard to imagine some uses for his existing (and future) campaign cash, such as the HERO 2.0 effort or the next round of city bonds. He can also use it to support other candidates – I’m sure he’ll contribute to legislative candidates, if nothing else – or PACs. That’s what former Mayor Parker has done with what remains of her campaign account. Nearly all of the $38,750 she spent this cycle went to the LGBTQ Victory fund, plus a couple of smaller contributionss to Sri Kulkarni, Eliz Markowitz, and one or two other campaigns. Tony Buzbee has restaurant bills to pay, and those endless emails Bill King spams out have to cost something.

Others who have campaign accounts of interest: As we know, Jerry Davis has transferred his city account to his State Rep campaign account. I’ve been assuming Mike Laster is going to run for something for years now. The change to four-year Council terms may have frozen him out of the 2018 election, when he might have run for County Clerk. I could see him challenging a Democratic incumbent in 2022 for one of the countywide offices, maybe County Clerk, maybe County Judge, who knows. It’s always a little uncomfortable to talk about primary challenges, but that’s what happens when there are no more Republicans to knock out.

Other hypothetical political futures: Dave Martin could make a run for HD129 in 2022 or 2024, or he could try to win (or win back) Commissioners Court Precinct 3 in 2024. If Sen. Carol Alvarado takes my advice and runs for Mayor in 2023, then maybe State Rep. Christina Morales will run to succeed her in SD06. If that happens, Robert Gallegos would be in a strong position to succeed Morales in HD145. Michael Kubosh wasn’t on my list of potential Mayoral candidates in 2023, but maybe that was a failure of imagination on my part. As for Orlando Sanchez, well, we know he’s going to run for something again, right?

You may be wondering, as I was, what’s in Amanda Edwards’ finance report. Her activity is from July 1, since she wasn’t in a city race and thus had no 30-day or 8-day report to file. Her single biggest expenditure was $27K to Houston Civic Events for an event expense, and there were multiple expenditures categorized as “Loan Repayment/Reimbusement” to various people. Perhaps she has transferred the balance of her account to her Senate campaign by this time, I didn’t check.

Most of the unsuccessful candidates’ reports were not interesting to me, but I did want to include Raj Salhotra here because I feel reasonably confident that he’ll be on another ballot in the short-term future. The HISD and HCC Boards of Trustees are both places I could see him turn to.

Last but not least, the Keep Houston Strong PAC, whose treasurer is former Mayor Bill White, gave $10K to Move to the Future PAC. That’s all I know about that.

The Jerry Davis situation

Feb 7th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Someday, this is going to be taught in political science classes. And possibly law schools.

CM Jerry Davis

The ongoing election dispute in District B has put Jerry Davis in a peculiar position, seemingly caught between two provisions of the Texas Constitution as he challenges longtime incumbent state Rep. Harold Dutton in the March 3 Democratic primary.

And it is unlikely to change until the courts clear the way for voters to cast ballots in the long-delayed runoff for his council seat.

Until then, Davis is stuck in the council seat he was supposed to leave in January because of term limits.

[…]

With no new council member seated by the first of the year, Article XVI, Sec. 17 of the Texas Constitution kicked in, requiring Davis to remain in the District B seat until his successor can be elected and seated.

“All officers of this State shall continue to perform the duties of their offices until their successors shall be duly qualified,” the provision reads.

When Davis filed Dec. 9 to challenge Dutton for the District 142 seat in the Texas House, it raised another constitutional clause, this one found in Article III, Sec. 19.

That provision says no public official who holds a “lucrative office… shall during the term for which is he elected or appointed, be eligible to the Legislature.”

Texas Supreme Court rulings have held that any paid public office, no matter how small the compensation, is considered “lucrative.” Additionally, the high court has ruled that the eligibility requirement extends to one’s candidacy.

A Houston city council salary is around $63,000 a year.

To date, no one has challenged Davis’ eligibility.

The councilman said he believes he is in the clear because his elected term ended in January. Democratic Party officials, tasked with determining eligibility for primary candidates, say they believe he qualifies because his appointed term as a hold-over should end long before he would join the Legislature next January if he wins.

And Dutton has not lodged any complaints or challenges. That could change, should Davis prevail in the March election.

Buck Wood, an authority on Texas election law who has represented clients in landmark Supreme Court rulings on the subject, said the law holds that candidates have to be eligible while they are running for office, not just on the date they take it.

Since Davis still is on the council, someone could make the case that he is not eligible, he said.

“The problem is, the court has also held that you have to be eligible as of the date that you file,” Wood said.

The interaction of those two constitutional clauses is an open legal question, left unresolved for now by Texas judges.

“The courts have not ruled on that hold-over provision,” he said.

It gets deeper into the weeds from there, and I’ll leave it to you to read up. For now, all is well and legal and good. Until such time as someone files a lawsuit – either Dutton over Davis’ eligibility to be on the ballot (an irony that may wash us all into the sea), or a city resident alleging that some action Davis has taken since January 1 as Council member is invalid, or maybe some other claim I can’t envision right now – there are no problems. Maybe we’ll make it all the way to the (we hope) May runoff in District B and there will still be no problems. It can all come crashing down at any time, and if that happens it’ll tie up the legal system for years, but for now, make like Wile E. Coyote and keep on running. As far as you know, the end of that cliff has not yet arrived.

(Note: this story ran, and I drafted this post, before the ruling in the District B runoff lawsuit. The fundamentals are the same, as Davis will still be serving till we have a runoff winner.)

January 2020 campaign finance reports: State House, part 1

Jan 25th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

I’m going to take a two-part look at the finance reports in State House districts. Part One will be from Harris County, looking at both contested primaries and contested November races. Part Two will focus on races in the counties around Harris. Previous entries in this series include Harris County offices, and statewide races.

Undrai Fizer, HD126
Natali Hurtado, HD126

Sam Harless, HD126

Josh Markle, HD128
Mary Williams, HD128

Briscoe Cain, HD128
Robert Hoskins, HD128

Kayla Alix, HD129

Dennis Paul, HD129
Ryan Lee, HD129

Bryan Henry, HD130

Tom Oliverson (PAC), HD130

Alma Allen, HD131
Carey Lashley, HD131
Deondre Moore, HD131
Elvonte Patton, HD131

Gina Calanni, HD132

Angelica Garcia, HD132
Mike Schofield, HD132

Sandra Moore, HD133

Jim Murphy (PAC), HD133

Lanny Bose, HD134
Ann Johnson, HD134
Ruby Powers, HD134

Sarah Davis, HD134

Jon Rosenthal, HD135

Merrilee Beazley, HD135
Justin Ray, HD135

Akilah Bacy, HD138
Jenifer Pool, HD138
Josh Wallenstein, HD138

Josh Flynn, HD138
Lacey Hull, HD138
Claver Kamau-Imani, HD138

Jarvis Johnson, HD139
Angeanette Thibodeaux, HD139

Senfronia Thompson, HD141
Willie Franklyn, HD141

Harold Dutton, HD142
Richard Bonton, HD142
Jerry Davis, HD142
Natasha Ruiz, HD142

Shawn Thierry, HD146
Ashton Woods, HD146

Garnet Coleman, HD147
Colin Ross, HD147
Aurelia Wagner, HD147

Anna Eastman, HD148
Adrian P. Garcia, HD148
Cynthia Reyes-Revilla, HD148
Penny Shaw, HD148
Emily Wolf, HD148

Lui La Rotta, HD148

Michael Walsh, HD150

Valoree Swanson, HD150


Candidate     Raised     Spent     Loan     On Hand
===================================================
Fizer            800       319        0         500
Hurtado       25,091     9,588        0      11,752

Harless       73,265    11,022   20,000     103,669

Markle        78,906    12,426        0      68,081
Williams

Cain         125,891    39,462        0     133,616
Hoskins        4,575    26,033        0       3,804

Alix           2,141     1,343        0         898

Paul          85,621    38,444  156,000     116,486
Lee           10,720     4,779        0       5,879

Henry          3,385     2,901        0       3,385

Oliverson     56,555    62,895   60,000     101,693

Allen         11,100    13,251        0      32,798
Lashley
Moore
Patton        43,075     1,100        0      10,000

Calanni       82,002    24,571        0      70,770

Garcia        28,045    20,076        0      21,309
Schofield     27,400    24,152        0     152,549

Moore          2,000     2,539        0       1,502

Murphy       120,076   132,583        0     487,913

Bose          54,573    13,702        0      40,871
Johnson       58,287    31,075        0     148,054
Powers        43,015    40,852        0      18,299

Davis         89,750    76,040        0     230,958

Rosenthal     70,841    42,143        0      41,320

Beazley            0       465        0           0
Ray           52,666    24,644        0      47,082

Bacy          28,066     6,799        0      14,455
Pool
Wallenstein   42,137    35,766   10,000      51,786

Flynn         12,080    20,761        0       9,166
Hull          50,068     4,551        0      45,516
Kamau-Imani   18,800     2,229        0      16,570

Johnson        8,775     3,619    2,500      26,946
Thibodeaux     7,000     2,069        0       4,931

Thompson     104,216   136,801        0     889,738
Franklyn           0     1,873        0       1,336

Dutton        26,876    16,676        0      79,263
Bonton
Davis        139,565     9,787        0     129,928
Ruiz

Thierry       13,710    11,825        0      13,446
Woods          1,485     1,263        0       1,690

Coleman       97,990   129,532        0     110,589
Ross
Wagner

Eastman       75,378    57,861        0      33,967
Garcia        12,100     2,500        0       4,000
Reyes-Revilla  3,547         0    8,000       3,547
Shaw          11,635    15,531   34,000      15,454
Wolf               0         0      200         235

La Rotta      11,280    10,602        0       4,095

Walsh              0        33        0          33

Swanson       10,201    27,643   34,040      34,657

You may also want to refer to this Trib story and this Reform Austin post about the finance reports in the top tier House races. I don’t have the bandwidth to look at all of them, so check them out for their reporting on it.

There are several contested Democratic primaries, including five challenges to incumbents in safe D districts. This was a popular pastime in the 2000s, during the Craddick era – Alma Allen beat Ron Wilson, Armando Walle beat Kevin Bailey, Borris Miles took three out of four against Al Edwards. The latter of those occurred in 2012, and while there have been primary opponents to incumbents over the past few cycles, none have come close to succeeding; Edward Pollard in HD137 and Demetria Smith in HD149, both of whom got about 35% in their races in 2016, came closest. The one this year that has the greatest potential to upset the status quo is in HD142, where longtime State Rep. Harold Dutton faces unrest over his role in passing the TEA takeover bill as well as the tumult in City Council District B. Still-current District B incumbent Jerry Davis, who transferred all of his city campaign funds into his State Rep campaign treasury, is the main threat to Dutton. I can’t wait to see how the endorsements play out – Davis has already gotten the nod from the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation (TGCALF), AFL-CIO, the only challenger to an incumbent in Harris County to do so. Elvonte Patton, who was a candidate for HCDE in the 2018 primary, has a nice fundraising total, but most of that is in kind, and Alma Allen has vanquished previous challengers with 85% or more of the vote in the past.

On the Republican, there’s not much action outside of an attempt to install a grownup in HD128. As I understand it, Robert Hoskins has some establishment support in his effort to knock out Briscoe Cain, but as you can see not a lot of money. We both know which speaks louder.

The four most hotly contested seats, one of which is open, is where the bulk of the action is. All three contenders in HD134 raised similar sums, but Ann Johnson has a commanding lead in cash on hand thanks to a big first half of the year. Akilah Bacy and Josh Wallenstein both raised a few bucks in HD138, with Wallenstein doing a bit better, while Lacey Hull led the pack on the Republican side. I have to assume now that his spot on the ballot is assured, Josh Flynn will ramp it up. Freshman Reps Gina Calanni and Jon Rosenthal both outpaced the totals of their potential opponents. The HD132 GOP race will be interesting, as Angelica Garcia has Greg Abbott’s endorsement but former Rep. Mike Schofield still has cash left over from his 2018 loss. To some extent, none of these totals matter that much because there will be a ton of PAC money on both sides in all of the competitive districts. Still, a candidate or incumbent who can raise cash on their own is stronger than one who relies mostly on others doing that work.

In HD148, where there’s both a contested primary and a special election runoff (happening now!), the main thing to note is that these totals are all from October 27 through the end of the year, as all of the candidates save Emily Wolf had eight-day finance reports from their November 2019 races. Penny Shaw has gotten a couple of early endorsements, so the 30-day report in early February will tell a more detailed picture for this race. As for the special election runoff, there’s nothing to suggest anything unusual, Erica Greider’s weekend daydreams aside.

Beyond that, not a whole lot else to discuss. Jim Murphy’s cash on hand total is one reason why I speculated he might consider a run for Mayor in 2023 if the Lege is no longer amenable to him. Sarah Davis would probably have more cash on hand right now if she hadn’t had to fend off primary challengers in the past. As above, I’m pretty sure she’ll have the funds she needs to run that race. The Dems have some longer shots out there, with HD126 being the most competitive of them, so keep an eye on Natali Hurtado. I’ll be back next time with the State House races from elsewhere in the region.

After-deadline filing review: Houston area

Dec 11th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All have filed who are going to file

Dec 10th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
8 comments

Barring any late challenges, disqualifications, or lawsuits, what we have now is our lineup for the March primary. Most of what there is to say was covered in yesterday’s post, but here are the highlights and there is some big news.

– Pretty much all of the “not yet filed” people did indeed file. There are three notable absences that I can see, though do keep in mind that the SOS page may be behind and shouldn’t be considered final until we have confirmation. Be that as it may, two people I don’t see are Judge Elaine Palmer (215th Civil Court; no one is listed on the Dem side for this court as of Monday night) and Precinct 1 Constable Alan Rosen. Hold those in mind, because there are news stories about some of the other interesting bits. Until I hear otherwise, the absence of any mention of those two suggests to me there’s no news, just a not-fully-updated SOS filing page.

– News item #1: Commissioner Steve Radack retires.

Steve Radack will not seek a ninth term as Harris County commissioner for Precinct 3, vacating a powerful position he has held for three decades that Democrats hope to flip next year.

Radack, 70, said he plans to invest his time and significant campaign account into helping Republicans regain seats after disastrous elections in 2016 and 2018.

“I’m not through being involved in public service, and I felt that there’s a lot I can do to help the Republican Party,” Radack said.

[…]

Radack and Harris County’s other Republican commissioner, Jack Cagle, endorsed Spring Valley Village Mayor Tom Ramsey for the seat.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston, said Radack’s impending retirement speaks to the shifting county electorate, which has helped Democrats sweep every countywide race since 2016.

“It is getting harder and harder for Republicans to compete in a rapidly changing county,” Rottinghaus said.

[…]

Several candidates from both major parties have joined the race. Ramsey, City Councilwoman Brenda Stardig and former West University Place Mayor Susan Sample will run in the Republican primary. The Democratic race will feature Michael Moore, chief of staff to former Mayor Bill White, former state Rep. Kristi Thibaut, educator Diana Martinez Alexander and three other candidates.

I wish Commissioner Radack well in his retirement. And I am very much looking forward to seeing a Democrat elected to succeed him.

– News item #2: Council Member Jerry Davis will challenge State Rep. Harold Dutton in HD142.

Houston City Councilman Jerry Davis filed Monday to run as a Democrat for House District 142, a northeast Harris County seat long represented by state Rep. Harold Dutton.

Davis, who has represented District B since 2011, is prevented from seeking re-election due to Houston’s term limits. His council district overlaps part of the House district, which includes the Fifth Ward and runs east and then north to FM 1960.

The move ensures Dutton, D-Houston, will have his most challenging primary in years. He was first elected to the Legislature in 1984 and frequently has coasted to victory without primary opposition. Last cycle, he beat primary challenger Richard A. Bonton, 65 percent to 35 percent.

Bonton is running for the seat again this cycle.

I always figured CM Davis would run for something else when his time on Council ended, it was just a matter of what opportunity there would be. I’ll have more to say about this later, but for now this is an exciting race.

– News item #3:

Well, I did hear that a “big name” was set to enter this race. Now we know.

– News item #4:

And now Beto has endorsed Sima. I’ve already published one interview in CD02, and I have another in the works. I’ll figure out something for this.

– Five Democratic incumbents in Congress do not have primary opponents: Reps. Lizzie Fletcher (CD07), Vicente Gonzalez (CD15), Veronica Escobar (CD16), Sylvia Garcia (CD29), and Colin Allred (CD32). Everyone else needs to be gearing up for March. As was the case in 2018 and for the second time ever, Dems have at least one candidate in all 36 districts.

– All of the statewide offices except CCA Place 9 are contested, with several having three candidates. Already, the potential for multiple primary runoffs is high.

– According to the TDP, in the end Dems have candidates in all but one of the Senate districts that are up (only SD28 is uncontested), and they have candidates in 119 of the 150 State House races. HD23 drew a candidate, but HDs 43 and 84 apparently did not. In Harris County, only HD127 is uncontested.

– There is now a third candidate for HD148, an Emily Wolf. I cannot conclusively identify her – maybe this person? – so it’s impossible to say more than that.

– And on the Republican side, State Rep. Mike Lang in HD62 is your promised surprise retirement. Dems do have a candidate in this not-swing district.

– Looking at the Republican filings, quite a few Democratic judges have no November opposition. We have officially come full circle.

Again, remember that the SOS page may not be complete. The parties have five days to notify the SOS of their candidates. It’s possible there are still surprises lurking, to be confirmed and reported. If you’re not sure about a particular candidate, google them or find them on Facebook, to see if there’s been an announcement. I’ll have more as we go this week.

It could be March before District B gets to vote in their runoff

Dec 5th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

And honestly, by the same calculations, it could go later than that.

Cynthia Bailey

The Houston City Council District B runoff could be delayed until March if a lawsuit contesting last month’s election result is not resolved by Monday, the Harris County Attorney’s office said.

The third-place finisher in the race filed the contest, arguing that second-place finisher Cynthia Bailey’s felony conviction bars her from holding public office.

Meanwhile, incumbent District B Councilman Jerry Davis said he intends to hold the seat until a successor is elected, while Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said the runoff should not have been delayed.

“There’s a lot of people out there that are angry,” Ellis said at this week’s Commissioners Court meeting on Tuesday. “And to be honest with you, I’m angry as well.”

Assistant County Attorney Douglas Ray said Dec. 9 is the deadline to place District B on the Jan. 28 ballot, which also will feature the runoff for the vacant District 148 seat in the Texas House of Representatives. The county will begin sending mail ballots for that election next week, Ray said.

“We don’t want to have to run another election in addition to the ones that we’re already doing,” Ray said.

A hearing on the election contest has been scheduled for Friday.

See here for the previous update. According to the Secretary of State, the deadline to send out the mail ballots for the March primary election is January 18th. That means that if we don’t have a resolution by the 9th, we have a bit less than six weeks to get resolution in time to have the election in March. Otherwise, the next opportunity is May. Isn’t this fun?

The District B race was a topic of discussion at Commissioners Court, where Ellis questioned whether the county should have yanked the runoff from the ballot. He suggested the county attorney could have sought to quickly dismiss Jefferson-Smith’s suit so the runoff could proceed as scheduled.

Ellis said the county’s decision sets a dangerous precedent where any disgruntled party could cause delays to an election.

“We’re going to be the laughingstock of the country if there’s some last-minute challenge, and then somehow we’re going to affect the presidential primary on Super Tuesday,” Ellis said.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo suggested the county attorney’s office develop a strategy to more quickly resolve election challenges in the future.

To be fair, the fact that the state law in question is ambiguous and has not been resolved by a court is part of the problem. Short of declaring Bailey ineligible when she filed, I’m not sure what the County Attorney can do or could have done. That said, I Am Not An Attorney, and they are (it’s right there in the name), so maybe they can think of something. Whatever they do think of, getting that law fixed needs to be a priority as well.

City and county leaders have said they support keeping Davis on council until his replacement is named.

“Although his term will expire on January 2, 2020, the City expects Council Member Jerry Davis to serve on a holdover basis (if necessary) until his successor is elected and qualified for office,” said Alan Bernstein, communications director for Mayor Sylvester Turner.

While some question whether that may run afoul of the city’s term limits, Davis and county officials said the Texas Constitution allows him to stay.

“All officers of this State shall continue to perform the duties of their offices until their successors shall be duly qualified,” Article XVI of the Constitution says.

I’m fine with this as well, but we all know this is another lawsuit waiting to happen, right? Lord help us if Davis is on the winning side of a 9-8 vote in Council in 2020. It sure would be nice if we get a verdict by Monday.

Lawsuit filed over District B candidate eligibility

Nov 9th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

All right then.

Cynthia Bailey

Renee Jefferson-Smith, who trailed Cynthia Bailey by 168 votes in unofficial returns, sued the city of Houston and Harris County Thursday, contending that Bailey’s 2007 conviction for forging a $14,500 check makes her ineligible to appear on the ballot.

The Texas Election Code says candidates are eligible to run for office if they have not been “finally convicted” of a felony from which they have “not been pardoned or otherwise released from the resulting disabilities,” though the law does not define “resulting disabilities.”

In the state district court lawsuit, which seeks an injunction and temporary restraining order to bar Bailey from appearing on the ballot, Jefferson-Smith also argued that Bailey may have committed perjury by affirming in her candidacy application that she had not been convicted of a felony.

Though the law appears to prohibit convicted felons from seeking office, candidates with felony records successfully have reached the ballot in Houston, Austin and San Antonio, and the law has yet to be thoroughly tested in court.

For now, Bailey is set to face Tarsha Jackson in the District B runoff. The district, which covers several north Houston neighborhoods including Fifth Ward and Acres Homes, currently is represented by term-limited Councilman Jerry Davis. Jackson finished atop the 14-candidate field with 20.8 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s election.

[…]

In the petition filed Thursday, Jefferson-Smith also contended that Bailey’s criminal record “will guarantee a victory for the other runoff candidate and deny voters in District B a real choice.”

Replacing Bailey in the runoff, Jefferson-Smith argued, would give voters “the opportunity to choose between two eligible candidates for the position of Council member for District B, thus ensuring that District B voters are not disenfranchised.”

Jefferson-Smith declined to comment through a spokesperson, though she posted about the lawsuit on Facebook Thursday.

“I had a decision to make, and believe me it was extremely tough, so please understand; this lawsuit and fight is not about me, it’s about the people in District B,” she wrote.

Jackson said she was disappointed Jefferson-Smith filed the lawsuit, and argued that Bailey should not be kept off the ballot.

“I’ve spent my whole life fighting for criminal justice reform and fighting for people to have a second chance. All the candidates knew she had a criminal record when the story came out,” Jackson said, referring to a Chronicle story published last month. “She finished second despite the story, and I think she should be able to finish the race.”

As you well know, I Am Not A Lawyer, so I have no idea what the courts will make of this. I expect we will get a quick decision, likely followed by a quick appeal to the 1st or 14th Court of Appeals, which in turn will either rule or refuse to take up the matter in short order.

Bailey’s status was reported by the Chron in October in a story that was primarily about residency requirements. You will note that three other candidates who were on the ballot were in the same boat, though none of them came close to advancing. You may also recall that former Geto Boy Willie D decided not to file in District B over concerns about his own status. I wonder what he’s thinking right now.

I don’t have a problem with the filing of the lawsuit, especially if one believes that Bailey would be prevented from taking office in the event she won because of her status. We don’t know that would happen, but it could and it seems likely that someone would take legal action to force the question. I would have preferred to adjudicate the question before the actual election, precisely to avoid issues like this, but the courts in their wisdom prefer to only get involved after elections. I’d also prefer for people like Bailey and Willie D to be able to run for office after they finish serving their sentences, but at the very least the law in Texas is unclear on that. I’ll keep an eye on this and we’ll see what the courts have to say.

July 2019 campaign finance reports: Open City Council seats, part 1

Jul 29th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

There are seven more Council races to examine, all open seats thanks to a couple of incumbents either stepping down (Steve Le in F) or running for something else (Dwight Boykins in D, at least for now). I’m going to split these into two posts, with Districts A, B, and C in this one. A look at the Council races with incumbents, plus the Controller’s race, is here. As before, my look at the January 2019 finance reports for Houston candidates is here, and all of the finance reports that I have downloaded and reviewed are in this Google folder. Except for the reports that were filed non-electronically, which you can find here. Erik Manning’s invaluable spreadsheet remains my source for who’s in what race.

Amy Peck – District A
Mehdi Cherkaoui – District A
Iesheia Ayers-Wilson – District A

Robin Anderson – District B
Cynthia Bailey – District B
Patricia Bourgeois – District B
Alvin Byrd – District B
Karen Kossie-Chernyshev – District B
William Dennis – District B
Tarsha Jackson – District B
James Joseph – District B
Alice Kirkmon – District B
Alyson Quintana – District B
Renee Jefferson Smith – District B
Rickey Tezino – District B
Ben White, Jr – District B
Huey Wilson – District B

Kendra Yarbrough Camarena – District C
Candelario Cervantez – District C
Anthony Dolcefino – District C
Rodney Hill – District C
Abbie Kamin – District C
Shelley Kennedy – District C
Greg Meyers – District C
Bob Nowak – District C
Daphne Scarbrough – District C
Mary Jane Smith – District C
Kevin Walker – District C
Amanda Kathryn Wolfe – District C


Candidate     Raised      Spent     Loan     On Hand
====================================================
Peck          31,697     15,122    5,000      20,185
Cherkaoui     11,500      8,681    8,000       2,818
Ayers-Wilson

Anderson      1,465         820        0         540
Bailey        7,400       3,787        0       3,612
Bourgeois
Byrd         15,809      10,731    2,500       7,195
K-Chernyshev
Dennis        1,000           0        0       1,000
Jackson      24,813       5,306        0      20,787
Joseph
Kirkmon
Quintana     10,868       4,632        0       6,505
Smith        53,167      27,958        0      25,208
Tezino
White
Wilson

Camarena     13,638          12        0      13,625
Cervantez     1,954          46        0       1,908
Dolcefino     2,836           0        0       1,750
Hill
Kamin       175,490      44,557        0     141,382
Kennedy      39,651      40,600	       0       6,677
Meyers       25,722      10,004   20,000      34,297
Nowak        13,186       8,697        0       4,488
Scarbrough   31,195       5,849        0      22,195
Smith        58,906      20,696        0      38,209
Walker
Wolfe            63          43        0          20

District A is pretty straightforward. Amy Peck, currently the Chief of Staff for incumbent Brenda Stardig and a two-time candidate (2009 and 2013) before this, is the seeming front-runner. She’s the fundraising leader and there are no other brand-name Republicans in this race for an open Republican seat, which when you look at the field size in basically every other open seat race is kind of a miracle. That said, her haul so far is hardly a deterrent, and there’s still a few weeks for anyone on the fence to jump in. If the election were today, I’d make her the solid favorite. Ask me again after the filing deadline.

District B is always a fascinating mixture of experienced candidates with solid backgrounds and resumes, perennials and gadflies, and intriguing outsiders who could upend the conventional wisdom. Alvin Byrd has been Chief of Staff to two different Council members. Tarsha Jackson was a force with the Texas Organizing Project with a long record of advocacy on criminal justice issues. Cynthia Bailey is a longtime civic activist who’s leading efforts to fight illegal dumping and clean up trash. Renee Jefferson Smith had a day named for her by City Council following her Harvey recovery work. And of course, there’s Willie D of the Geto Boys. He joined the race too late to do any fundraising; the others I named account for the bulk of what has been raised, with Smith in the lead. There are some great candidates running here in a race that won’t get much attention outside the district. That’s a shame.

The district that will get most of the attention, only partly because about half of all the candidates running for anything are here, is district C. Abbie Kamin is the fundraising powerhouse by far, but it’s a big field and it won’t take that much to make it to the inevitable runoff. Kamin is an advocate for voting rights and refugees and generally makes you wonder what you’ve done with your entire life when you look and she what she’s done so far. This is a purple district with a roughly even mix of Republican and Democratic candidates, with Kamin, 2010 candidate for HD138 Kendra Yarbrough Camarena, and entrpreneur/activist Shelley Kennedy as the leading contenders in the latter group. (Nick Hellyar was there with them till he moved to the At Large #4 race.)

Mary Jane Smith is the leading fundraiser among the Republican candidates. Interestingly, her bio notes her political activism and campaign experience, but doesn’t say which party she’s been active with. That’s easy enough to figure out with a little Google searching, but I do find it curious that she wouldn’t fly her flag proudly on her own webpage. (Also, too, if you were a power broker in the last election for a county party chair, you aren’t an “outsider” in any meaningful political sense.) Anyway, Greg Meyers is a former HISD Trustee who ran against State Rep. Hubert Vo a few years ago, and Daphne Scarbrough (you can find her webpage yourself) is a longtime anti-Metro zealot. And yes, Anthony Dolcefino is the son of Wayne. You can’t say there aren’t choices in this race. I’ll fill you in on the rest tomorrow.

Two Geto Boys are better than one

Jul 6th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Again I say, sure, why not.

Willie Dennis

William James Dennis, a rapper who goes by the stage name Willie D, has filed a campaign treasurer’s report to run for city council, becoming the second member of the Houston-based hip-hop group Geto Boys to seek a council seat.

Dennis filed a report Thursday with the city secretary’s office indicating he will run for District B, joining a field of 11 candidates.

Councilman Jerry Davis represents the district, but he has served the maximum number of terms and cannot run for reelection.

Hilton Koch, a Houston furniture dealer who is serving as campaign treasurer, confirmed Monday that Dennis is seeking the District B seat.

It is unclear, however, whether Dennis legally can be a candidate for council because he is a convicted felon.

[…]

The other candidates in the District B race are Robin Anderson, Cynthia Bailey, Patricia Bourgeois, Alvin Byrd, Karen Kossie-Chernyshev, Tarsha Jackson, James Joseph, Alyson Quintana, Renee Jefferson Smith, Ben White Jr. and Huey Wilson.

As the story notes, fellow Geto Boy Scarface is in for District D, the seat vacated by Dwight Boykins (assuming there are no backsies), where he currently faces a smaller field. I don’t know how Dennis’ past conviction will affect his candidacy, but having a conviction appears to have discouraged Booker T from running for Mayor (to be sure, there may well be other reasons why he hasn’t followed through on that). My opinion is that if you have completed your sentence you should be free and clear, but as far as I know that proposition has not been tested in the courts. So we’ll see. In the meantime, I will note that I am most familiar with District B candidates Alvin Byrd, who lost in the runoff to incumbent Jerry Davis in 2011, and Tarsha Jackson from her time with the Texas Organizing Project. Cynthia Bailey has sent out the most campaign emails, at least among candidates who have bought email lists that include mine.

July 2018 finance reports: City of Houston

Aug 15th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Every level of government requires finance reports in January and June, whether or not there is an active election cycle in that year. That includes the city of Houston, whose january report data we inspected here. Our next election is in 2019, and while this is still traditionally a little early for there to be much activity, there are the finance reports. Here’s what we’ve got:


Candidate       Office    Raised      Spent     Loan    On Hand
===============================================================
S Turner         Mayor   585,267    137,758        0  2,260,407

C Brown     Controller    13,070     17,650        0     59,164

M Knox      At Large 1    28,225     12,691        0     62,856 
D Robinson  At Large 2    61,650     21,468        0    162,079
M Kubosh    At Large 3    72,475     23,841  276,000     82,360
A Edwards   At Large 4    40,345     26,349        0    147,883
J Christie  At Large 5     3,263      6,055        0     25,918

B Stardig       Dist A    56,439     24,738        0    116,794
J Davis         Dist B    22,750     12,487        0    147,300
E Cohen         Dist C    33,990     18,591        0     57,264
D Boykins       Dist D   126,000     55,556        0     96,400
D Martin        Dist E    43,900     17,226        0    123,730
S Le            Dist F     4,000      6,445   30,823     10,570
G Travis        Dist G    69,468     81,775   21,000     56,571
K Cisneros      Dist H    34,399      5,660        0     49,176
R Gallegos      Dist I    32,875     21,319        0     80,288
M Laster        Dist J    20,330      7,524        0    173,358
M Castex-Tatum  Dist K    15,375        339    3,788     43,822

A Parker                       0     10,383        0     82,854
L Green                    5,500     42,118        0     40,492
Lift the Cap PAC               0          0        0      3,987
Citizens to Keep               0      1,803        0     47,564
 Houston Strong

As you may recall, there wasn’t much in the way of fundraising for anyone except Mayor Turner last time. I don’t know if it’s due to the time of year, the approach of the next election, or the overall political climate, but as you can see nearly all of our elected officials have been busy. The report for Martha Castex-Tatum, who was elected in May to succeed the late Larry Green, is in a shorter period than everyone else since she had to post 30-day and 8-day reports for her cycle; the others are all for the full January through June time frame.

Looking at these numbers, only Jack Christie has acted like the term-limited Member that he is. Brenda Stardig, Jerry Davis, Ellen Cohen, and Mike Laster have been more or less business as usual. I’ve speculated before about the possible future ambitions they may have, and I don’t have anything to add to that. I’m sure there’s a reason why the three non-Cohen members have been stockpiling the loot like this, but until they do something tangible it’s hard to say what that might be.

Which doesn’t mean we can’t speculate at all. I look at what Dwight Boykins and David Robinson are doing and I wonder a little. Both are on the ballot next year for their final terms (as always, modulo future rulings in the interminable term limits litigation), and while Robinson had to fend off four challengers and win in a runoff in 2015, Boykins cruised home unopposed. It could be that Robinson is merely gearing up for the next battle while Boykins is doing his best to keep potential opponents at bay. It could also be that they’re looking beyond their next term to a time when both the Mayor’s office and the Controller’s office will be open seats. I have no idea and no evidence – like I said, I’m just speculating. Dave Martin is also in that “one more term and has a lot of cash” group, but we don’t tend to elect Mayors who fit Martin’s political profile, though perhaps Controller might appeal to him.

Be all that as it may, this is the first time since we switched to four-year terms and no blackout period for fundraising that we’ve seen incumbents establish a clear financial advantage for themselves. No one on the outside has yet taken a concrete step (like designating a campaign treasurer and raising their own money) towards running for a Council seat, but do keep in mind there are several now-former candidates for Congress in town who likely have some cash remaining in their coffers (sorry, I’m only checking on still-active candidates). Surely it would not be a surprise if one or more of them decided to act more locally next year. Given that possibility, it’s hard to blame any of the members who are up for re-election next year to take precautions.

The remaining reports I included because they’re there. As we learned after the death of El Franco Lee, the remaining funds in Larry Green’s campaign account are to be distributed by his campaign treasurer, whose name is Kevin Riles. As we see from Lee’s July report, there’s no particular rush to do whatever that turns out to be. I don’t remember what Citizens to Keep Houston Strong was about, but Bill White is their treasurer. I’m sure we’ll see plenty more PACs and PAC activity as we move towards referenda for firefighters’ pay parity and the revenue cap.

Deterring dumping

Aug 11th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Tough problem, good use of technology.

[Radny] Scales, a Harris County Environmental Crimes Unit lieutenant, and his team of nine investigators depend heavily on video cameras to crack down on illegal dumping, a crime that disproportionally affects the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

The City Council voted last month to add 22 cameras to create a portfolio of nearly 150 total. Precinct 1’s nearly $600,000 program also includes a fleet of drones, as well as several full-time employees.

It’s paying dividends: A two-year program started in 2016 to catch those who illegally dump their trash in remote locations across Houston yielded 694 investigations and 396 charges.

“It’s been working for the city as a whole — better than what we thought,” said Jerry Davis, the councilman for District B, who initiated the program to catch illegal dumping.

The majority are people charged in the crime are private citizens: The average offender is a 50-year-old who dumps 75 pounds of waste, according to statistics the county provided. Contractors looking to dodge the expense of paying to throw away their garbage at a designated facility account for just 20 percent of offenders.

[…]

Beyond just being eyesores, illegal dumping sites present serious consequences, including being safety hazards and serving as a breeding ground for potentially disease-ridden mosquitoes, snakes and other wildlife. Dumping sites can also contribute to flooding and could potentially have a serious impact in future weather disasters.

“When you have drains that have been stopped up because people put furniture and tires and plastic, it’s going to cause flooding,” [Precinct 1 Constable Allen] Rosen said.

Illegal dumping is a big problem in some parts of the city, and has been for a long time. Video cameras are basically the only realistic hope for catching the perpetrators in the act, but it takes a lot of them because stuff gets dumped all over the place. It’s good some real resources being put into this, because it’s a real quality of life issue for a lot of people. I hope this is big enough and sustained enough to put a serious dent in the problem.

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