El Paso Politics

Most Republicans that I know have been doing their best to run as far away from the Arizona law as they can. Some like David K are totally star-crossed in love with the idea. The Tea Party locally hasn't touched the issue, but now they can't run from it. This is the Republican member of congress in his own words.

I know, I know, you guys hate when I use foul language. I promise, I'm not gonna do that this time. She is:

This was apparently set out to the entire world via email, but in case you haven't seen it yet, here is the proposal from Jaime O. Perez, the Chief of Staff for County Judge Anthony Cobos: TEXAS IMMIGRATION BILL To: County Legislative Agenda From: Jaime O. Perez, Chief of Staff Office of El Paso County Judge Date: April 27, 2010 Re: Reform Legislation Whereas: The Supremacy Clause under Article VI Paragraph 2 holds, “the Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding”; Whereas: Everyone must follow federal law in the face of conflicting state law and the practice has long been established that "a state statute is void to the extent that it actu...

I can't improve on what Chuck D said back in the day with his song called "By the Time I Get to Arizona", which was protesting Arizona's lack of a MLK Day. But apparently Chuck D can improve on his own words. Check out Chuck D's new song on the law in Arizona.

If you listen to the rhetoric regarding the legislation in Arizona one thing is clear, the Republicans have their talking points ready. The first thing they do is try to push it off on the federal government, mostly because there is a Democrat in the White House and the Democrats control Congress. Never mind the obvious fact that there was a problem with immigration issues long before Obama was inaugurated. Funny how during the Bush administration the Arizona legislature didn’t pull a stunt like this. But since we are on the topic of President Bush, let’s talk more about the Republicans. I’ve heard Senator Cornyn and Lt. Gov Dewhurst talk about how the Arizona legislation represents a failure at the federal level to deal with the problem with immigration reform. The failure to address the problem is from Republicans. Mitch McConnell, a Republican Senator, said earlier this week that “This isn’t the right time to do immigration reform.” Sounds like a Republican that doesn’t want to deal...

If you are a Latino elected official, let me be clear. Yes, I am talking about you! This is the second year in a row that I went to the Cesar Chavez march and didn’t see a single Latino elected official in attendance. Not one. Now I’m sure you will all have stories about why you couldn’t go ranging from “I was out of town”, to “I had a prior commitment” to my personal favorite, “it wasn’t on my calendar”. It pissed me off last year when there weren’t any in attendance, but it infuriates me this year, especially considering that the day before was the day that Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the controversial anti-immigrant legislation in to law. This was the perfect opportunity for our Latino leadership to send a clear message to Arizona. But none were in attendance. It’s frustrating to hear campaign rhetoric from these people about how they “need” our help when they are trying to get elected. But when we truly need their voice, they aren’t around. This is the reason why people don...

Here's a piece from the El Paso Times about some guys that got caught stealing copper wire from the Farah building. I'm just curious about something though. Why are multiple law enforcement agencies collaborating on a simple burglery of an abandoned building?

I don't know if this was something the artist did on the downlow, or if it was simply overlooked, or done on purpose. I'm not here to judge. But I snapped these photos of a mural at the County Courthouse yesterday. Can you spot the hidden naked ladies?

Team Shapleigh scored a major victory by taking out their chief rival in State Rep Norma Chavez and extending their political empire further than they previously have. But they may have found themselves over-extended. I noticed a definite mood change about Team Shapleigh and there is a growing sentiment of backlash. Then there is team Gandara. In the valley, you can find a Gandara in almost every level of government and in some case, more than one Gandara. Now the patriarch, Willie Gandara Sr, is bidding to oust Socorro Mayor Trini Lopez. Socorro already has one Gandara on their city council. Big Willie will probably win, but I think the Gandaras are risking a little backlash of their own. Especially now that you have in-fighting within the Gandara clan . I think there are a lot of people in this town that just want to scream at the top of their lungs, “How much power is enough for you people?” Is it really necessary for Team Shapleigh and the Gandara Family to have all the elected ...

I’m really late to the party on this one but it was only after a recent email that I realized there was a bit of staff change on the 10th floor of City Hall, so I went snooping to get some more info. Diana Ramirez who is a staffer for City Rep Beto O’rourke is working part-time for another city rep now. City Rep Susie Byrd lost one of her staffers, Rene Leon, and Ramirez has been helping out in Rep Byrd’s office, splitter her day with O’rourke. This isn’t anything new for city hall, in fact the last time I can remember this arrangement was between City Reps Holguin and Lozano when they shared a staffer, Jaime O. Perez. That was a little more awkward because Holguin and Lozano weren’t exactly the best of friends, where as Byrd and O’rourke are buds. Diana Ramirez also recently served as a campaign staffer for Jay Kleberg, who is rumored to be running for Beto O’rourke’s City Rep seat in the next election. As I’ve previously written, O’rourke has indicated to some sources that he will n...

David K is right, there are rumors that Acosta is kicking around the idea of running for mayor. Having talked with Acosta about the rumor recently she didn’t deny the rumor and many people are encouraging her to make the run for mayor of El Paso. One of the other rumored candidates according to David K is City Rep Susie Byrd. It would be an interesting decision for Byrd to run for mayor considering she has so publically denied the idea of pursuing another other elected office after her next term. Who can blame her considering her margin of victory in the last election in which the builder’s association went after her seat. Actually she went out of her way to call me once when I first mentioned the idea of her running for mayor after she won her last election, so a bid for mayor would be a pretty significant reversal.

Congratulations are in order to former City Rep Melina Castro and her husband who works over at the District Clerk’s Office. I keep forgetting to write about this, but Castro is with child and will be expecting their first child soon. Castro has been teaching since leaving office last year after her loss in a run-off election to the current city rep Carl Robinson. No word on whether they are expecting a boy or girl.

Ann Morgan Lily is term limited and cannot run for another term on city council, which means the Westside of El Paso will soon decide on another city rep. Many are expecting the business community to align themselves behind a pro-business candidate for the city’s most affluent part of town. But I spoke with Kelly Dickson last Thursday and she gave indications that she might be considering a run for the city rep seat when it comes open. Dickson is an attorney and seems most interested in Justice of the Peace but she seems to be entertaining the idea of running for Lily’s seat. More to come on this one.

Ann Morgan Lily is term limited and cannot run for another term on city council, which means the Westside of El Paso will soon decide on another city rep. Many are expecting the business community to align themselves behind a pro-business candidate for the city’s most affluent part of town. But I spoke with Kelly Dickson last Thursday and she gave indications that she might be considering a run for the city rep seat when it comes open. Dickson is an attorney and seems most interested in Justice of the Peace but she seems to be entertaining the idea of running for Lily’s seat. More to come on this one.

My little physical demonstration of Chavez's reaction to Gonzalez's statements profiling a biker.

If you remember back to the primary election there was a mini-scandal that never materialized in to a big deal. It dealt with the now-infamous Playboy article. If you remember, I backed up Commissioner Veronica Escobar on that one because I felt people where making a mountain out of a mole hill out of comments that, even if they were really made (which I don’t think they were), weren’t that big of a deal. I argued that it was nothing more than political opportunism by people attempting to create division in the community in order to damage the image of a candidate and score political points in the process. Escobar has done a lot for the Latino community and El Paso at large and doesn’t need to reinforce her credentials or prove herself to anyone. And neither does State Rep Norma Chavez. The same thing is happening in the case of Norma Chavez and her comments at the Ramona Elementary Forum. Back then I was critical however of comments made by City Rep Susie Byrd in the article about sol...

I’m extremely disappointed in the mainstream media during this election season. After seeing David Crowder’s latest article in the El Paso Inc and seeing an all-out assault against Rep Chavez the previous Sunday in the Times and over last week as well, its clear to me that they Times has picked their horse. Not to be outdone, KTSM and KVIA both have run anti-Chavez pieces over the last week that seem to indicate that they have done the same. As you can see in a recent piece I wrote about KTSM’s Kai Porter piece on Chavez, I think I have good reason to think they way I do. Then my buddy Darren Hunt does his best Lady Gaga impersonation following Chavez as she was taking a plate of food to a community member. The only thing I could think of when I saw Darren chasing Chavez was “I’m your biggest fan, I’ll follow you around, pa-pa, paparazzi”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2smz_1L2_0 But for me, the biggest indicator that the majority of mainstream media has decided to back one horse ove...

This post has absolutely nothing to do with politics, but I was checking out some youtube videos and this dude was taking me back in the day. For all you late 80's and early 90's people, You should get a kick out of this vato!

She's gonna have a hard time proving it. As if it wasn't bad enough that she's funded more than 96% by the Texans for Lawsuit Reform during the last reporting period, Naomi has some other interesting associations that should be discussed. Unfortunantly mainstream media hasn't even blinked an eye about her contributions from the TLR. But here's another interesting twist. Turns out Gonzalez is using an esteemed pollster to help out with her campaign. According to this campaign finance report , Naomi's in-kind contribution for polling totalled more than $26,685. The firm used was Baselice & Associates out of Austin. Here's a little background from the Texas Tribune about Baselice. They even have a nice little video there as well. He's referred to as "perhaps the top Republican pollster in the state" by the San Antonio Express-News. The piece also says "He specializes in polling for Republican candidates..." and "One of his main...

Good Lord, you people need to start paying me for ripping off all my shit. Seriously, this is really starting to piss me off, especially now because they are stealing my sarcasm. As you can see in the news piece from the KTSM website , they mocked Rep Chavez for not being available for interviews. They brag about their repeated attempts at reaching her. That's funny, because based on what they are describing, they make far more attempts to reach someone than I do, but people accuse me of stalking candidates??? If you look at the video piece, they start with an image of Chavez on a milk carton. That's hilarious. It was even funnier when I thought of the same joke about a month ago. You memmer, memmer? Here's the piece I ran back then . Funny thing about that piece, I was being critical of the fact that Naomi doesn't talk about issues or specificity. Interestingly she interviews with everyone under the sun but me, which makes sense because no one has really vetted her on...

Lots of irony in this video of Norma Chavez signing I Will Survive . Draw your own conclusions on this one. And yes, it is her.

You no doubt have guessed that I am the unnamed blogger in the El Paso Times story regarding the identity of someone in Naomi Gonzalez's campaign mailer. Naomi Gonzalez, who has run on ethics, said that the person's real name was changed because she of "fear of being confronted by political foes". Interestingly Gonzalez was asked about this very issue at a recent campaign forum and she gave an interesting response which appears to be inconsistent with her story about the name change. What hasn't been reported in any of the mainstream broadcasts is that the flier gives no indication at all that the individual's name was changed. The identity being protected is a little hard to understand given the fact that the women was actually pictured in the flier. Her identity could also have been protected by giving just her first name and first letter of her last name if there was really such a concern about confrontations. Like this: Maria A., Jaime A.. or David K. (oop...

As previously seen here on The Lion Star Blog, the local chapter of the Tejano Democrats donated $1000 to Naomi Gonzalez. The organization also donated $500 each to Justice of the Peace candidate Brian Haggerty and candidate for District Clerk Norma Favela. That's a total of $1500 in contributions. According to guidelines set forth for campaign finance by the state ethics commission , this contribution doesn't appear to have been done in accordance with the established campaign rules. (Look for the section entitled "Filing an Appointment of a Campaign Treasurer") In a nutshell the rules say that "A group becomes a political committee by its actions, not by filing an appointment of campaign treasurer. A political committee must have a campaign treasurer appointment on file, however, before it may engage in certain activity. This section explains the circumstances under which a political committee is required to file a campaign treasurer appointment. A political co...

This is the race that keeps on giving. Yet another question I ask doesn't get answered in a forum. But the fun doesn't stop. Here's some fun video of Susie Shelton making an allegation against myself and Paul Strelzin. Like I said, its the race that keeps on giving!

A group of Naomi Gonzalez supporters along with members of the Tejano Democrats gathered for an informal ceremony to award $1000 in campaign contributions to Naomi Gonzalez in her bid to defeat the incumbent State Representative Norma Chavez. Former State Representative Paul Moreno was also in attendance for the awarding of the contribution.

Former candidate for state senate, and current YISD school board trustee Liza Montelongo was hospitalized for a bad reaction to prescription medication. She is at the Providence Hospital East and will be staying an additional night for observation.

The El Paso County Commissioner's Court is a real close second place for this week's Asshole of the Week Award. In an ironic twist, some genius over at Commissioner's Court decided to give El Paso County workers their furlough day (a day they don't get paid for), the day AFTER Cesar Chavez Day. Chavez was an advocate for the working people. Nice, way to go Commissioner's Court, screw the county workers the day after celebrating the worker's adovacate, Cesar Chavez Day. In another sad commentary, the pinche Times does a piece on the anniversary of Selena's death but not one on Cesar Chavez! That would be like the El Paso Times doing a piece on the death of Biggie or Tupac on Martin Luther King Day. Come on Chris Lopez, you are supposed to be the Head Vato in Charge over there. How the hell do you drop the ball on this one?

This one is easy. Gustavo Reveles Acosta of the El Paso Times. On his Twitter Page he posted the following message: " If a news org does a story on the anniversary of death of Selena but not on César Chávez's bday, there's something wrong there. ¡Viva César! " Orale! This weeks Asshole of the Week, also easy. The El Paso Times, for not doing a story on Cesar Chavez.