El Paso Politics

Before we begin, let me repeat my annual public-service announcement, the one I give every election season like a Tía warning you not to trust gas station ceviche: Endorsements almost never matter. The only time they matter is when they come with: • Money (and by money I mean more than $500, not “here’s gas money, good luck mijo”) • Labor (real labor—doors knocked, phones called, repeatedly, not one Saturday cameo) • Advertising (for you, not a group photo where you’re buried between six other names and an organization chair nobody remembers) Other than that, endorsements are political Pokémon cards. Cute. Collectible. Utterly useless in a general election. They exist mostly to make first-time candidates feel like they unlocked a side quest: ✨ Achievement Unlocked: Local Club Endorsement ✨ Anywho—back to the regularly scheduled dragging. ⸻ Ay Monica Terán… Monica Terán is running for her old job again and keeps saying “the proof is in the pudding.” Oka...

Let me start by saying this: being right doesn’t always feel good - especially when being right gets you dragged, cursed out, and labeled a   vendido   by people who think “Chicano” has a silent Q. But here we are. Seventeen. Years. Later. And once again,  su servidor  was right. Back in the prehistoric era of El Paso politics - when Facebook still required a college email and people pretended the courthouse was holy ground - I warned the El Paso Democratic Party about one of   our  candidates for a judicial seat: Manny Barraza. And whew. You would have thought I slapped the Virgen de Guadalupe with a voter registration card. The establishment and Old Guard wanted to tar and feather me. Run me out of the party. Burn my D card like it was confiscated contraband. Why? Because I committed the ultimate political sin:   I told the truth about someone on our own team. See, one thing I pride myself on is holding   my   party accountable. I do it bet...

So apparently I hit a nerve. Like nopal en la garganta levels of discomfort. My last post about the Justices of the Peace and their little wedding-ceremony side hustle has certain folks todos enojados. Phones ringing. Texts flying. Whisper campaigns doing cardio. And honestly? That reaction alone tells you everything you need to know. Because if nothing shady was happening, there wouldn’t be this much huffing, puffing, and clutching of pearls. Let’s start with something very simple - because apparently we need flashcards. No one is forcing any Justice of the Peace to: • Keep wedding money • Take it in cash • Hide how much they make • Or pretend transparency is some sort of political persecution They can stop today. Return the money to taxpayers. Put it in the County General Fund. Report it publicly. Boom.  End of controversy. But instead, they’re mad at me. Ah yes. Classic El Paso politics: “How dare you point at the tranza while the tra...