Mayor Shapleigh

Senator Eliot Shapleigh, according to the Whisper’s Column in the El Paso Inc is passing the hat around Austin for a bid to run for Mayor of El Paso.


To all of you who told me that Shapleigh was going to quietly go off in to the sunset; I told you he wasn’t going to leave the political scene!

If he ends up being right about the Bowie High School thing, we will never hear the end of it.

But when you think about it, is there anyone in El Paso that is poised to beat him? Think about it.

Go ahead, take your time.

I couldn’t think of anyone either.

Be prepared for heavy doses of Shapleigh speaking Spanish to anyone who will listen. But his rise to the mayorship would really bother a lot of powerful conservatives in town, but they would be powerless to prevent it.

Their only hope is to put their money behind one of the other Democrats in the city that would take on Shapleigh. I know, it’s a non-partisan race, but the only other candidates that would be considered people that could take Shapleigh on, would have to come from the Democratic party.

But that’s the problem. Who is there out there that could defeat Shapleigh? Quite frankly, I can’t think of anyone. Turnout for city elections is always low and voters in this town tend to support the name they know.

There are several names that periodically pop up for a possible mayoral bid in the next election, two of which are Democrats with a widely known name, City Rep Eddie Holguin and City Rep Emma Acosta. Joe Muench, who doesn’t leave his ivory tower over at the El Paso Times long enough to know that City Rep Steve Ortega isn’t interested in being mayor, has thrown around Ortega’s name for mayor and for congress. Ortega won’t run for congress, probably couldn’t win for congress (yet), and won’t run against Shapleigh for mayor.

Holguin and Acosta won’t run against each other. Holguin is least likely to win for mayor at this time. He does one thing that really ticks a few people off, he tries to stand-up to the Westside. While a noble act, it simply doesn’t win him votes and he doesn’t seem to be positioned to win a citywide election. Being known as the Dr No on city council is not going to get the job done.

Acosta doesn’t have the machine in place yet or the citywide recognition yet to be a contender against someone with as high of a profile as Eliot Shapleigh.

The real question is what will city council be like by the time Shapleigh becomes mayor? Beto O’rourke says he’s not running for re-election. Who knows who will end up in that seat and what the long-term impact that will be on the dynamic of city council. City Rep Susie Byrd is termed out and her absence from council could have raise the same question.

The question for me is what will Shapleigh’s platform be if he indeed runs for Mayor? I know, you’re thinking that the current majority on council will be even more progressive with Shapleigh at the helm, but if you recall, there is at least one issue in which the mayor and Team Shapleigh disagree on…legalization.

I also wonder what the leadership dynamic will be like. The current majority on city council is perceived to be followers of Shapleigh but they have differed on policy before. We have a weak mayor system and he won’t even get a vote on issues unless it’s a tie.

But when he does identify a platform there aren’t too many people I can think of that could hold their own in a debate against him.