Team Shapleigh in Full Court Press

Its all hands on deck for what people not-so-affectionately call "the Shapleighites". Shapleigh isn't really calling the plays as much as people think he is, so I never really liked that name.

But call'em what you want, the Fantastic Four, the Get-a-long Gang, the Justice League, whatever.

The point is, the group of El Paso's strongest and closest political allies, County Judge Veronica Escobar, Congressional Candidate Beto O'Rourke, and City Reps Byrd and Ortega are in my opinion, a full-court press against the Congressman.

Its not even subtle anymore. There is still a dog-whistle quality to it, but its becoming more and more evident that they are raising legitimate issues in their respective issues as cover for an attempt for negative headlines about the Congressman to be used in mailers for O'Rourke.

Monday's cover of the Borderland section is one example. Today's front-page story about Ortega having to wait in line at the border is another. Susie Byrd on ABC 7 Xtra week before last, followed by Escobar with the maps. All three are clearly going after the Congressman.

And the Congressman's team is in total reaction mode. Rather than dictating the conversation, they all got caught on their heels by what the Foursome are doing and don't appear to have any counter strategy other than trying to occasionally counter-punch and weather the storm.

You might not like what I think it is that thee Foursome are doing, but I have to admit....effin' brilliant!

The maps is one example. Frankly, I think the whole map thing was a calculated strategy that blew up in the Commissioner's Court's face like dynamite in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Now they are scrambling to try to make a legitimate argument.

And I think they busted the Congressman on something that I will write about later today.

There are really people out there that believe, because of what Commissioner's Court said, that Fort Bliss is being taken out of the 16th Disrtrict. To be more accurate, based on what they heard Commissioner's Court say was that it was being taken out of El Paso. So some people have asked me when they were going to start moving Fort Bliss out of El Paso. As in physically remove.

Yesterday the map madness continued at city hall. For some reason they don't get it. So let me break it down. (And why a vato with less than two semesters of community college should be breaking it down for city council when they pretty much all have college degrees is beyond me.)

Congressional Districts in the United States can only be a certain size. If you have too many, or not enough people in a district, it is in violation of the Constitution. The 16th Disrict of Texas has more than 60,000 people too many in the district. Bottom line is 60,000 people in the El Paso area that were once in the 16th district can no longer be there.

Those people have to come from somewhere. So let me say what no one else will publicly say. You either take white people from the Northeast and Westside, or you take brown people from the Lower Valley.

There is a going to be a lot of window dressing, but the bottom line is this. When it was brown people that were taken out of the 16th District from the Lower Valley, there was not the draw-a-line-in-the-sand, let's-have-several-hours-of-discussion about that map plan. And there was certainly not the tone of bitterness that we are now hearing from some of our leaders.

Probably because Fort Bliss is more important to El Paso than the Valley. Sorry gente en el valle, its the truth. When you become a major economic driver to El Paso, you'll matter as much as Fort Bliss but until then, most of the attention you will get from those of us that live in the city is during the Fourth of July when we want to go buy fireworks.

Oh wait, that's probably on its way out.

Sorry.

At least you still have the Mission's, Mammacita's, Cotton-Eye'd Joe's and the Fabens Rooster.

The point is, the Foursome turned something there were admittedly wrong about, into a multi-level governmental strategy, with at least one member of city council with the intent of making a City of El Paso Congressional District.

The maps are not drawn by city reps, county judges, the media, etc. They are drawn by the legislature and if they are messed up, the Courts drawn the lines. Its that simple. So following the Supreme Court's decision, the City and County want to be prepared to have a seat at the table.

Having a familiarity with the redistricting process, I just can't figure out where the hell that seat is actually going to be.

And now we are going forward with this conversation about bridge wait times. Fine, lets have that conversation, but lets be honest with El Pasoans about who's fault it is.

The fact that we have crappy border wait times is 100% the fault of the Republicans. While they more than tripled the number of Border Patrol agents on the border, there was no proportional funding towards Customs. Which is the real hold-up at the Border.

And increased security following 9-11 translates in to longer lines everywhere friends. There was a time in El Paso that you really only needed to show up about 30 minutes before your flight at the airport and you were good. Now they advise you show up 2 hours early. Its the world we live it.

It sucks, but lets be honest with ourselves about who's fault it is and lets not lie to El Paso.

Bottom line here is that the Foursome are, in my opinion, working on a calculated strategy to get the media to cover stuff that paints the Congressman in a bad light. Don't be mad because they are better at manipulating media than the Reyes are. Its a reality.

My question is simple. Where are the Congressman's allies right now. He should really take a look around and ask were the hell they are. It doesn't look like he has any friends on Commissioner's Court or in City Council right now.

That may be a big positive sign for O'Rourke's campaign.