Escobar - Damned if she does, The Valley is Damned if She Doesn't

Since Gandara has made his intentions clear about what he is going to do in terms of the race for HD 75 and being a County Commissioner (he's resigning), the decision to replace Gandara on Commissioner's Court is solely the decision of one person.

The County Judge.

With Gandara's resignation, that means the valley will have no voice on Commissioner's Court until a replacement is named. It would be irresponsible of the County Judge to not name a replacement until a successor takes office. That would leave the valley with no representation for around 9 months. County Commissioner's Court meets weekly and a lot of decisions are made during each meeting. So waiting until the winner of the election doesn't make sense at all.

And frankly, waiting for the winner of the Democratic Primary doesn't make sense at all either considering that date is constantly fluctuating. So far the date we have is May 29th, but that could easily be changed and what ever changes there are, they won't be sooner than the 29th of May.

So she has to appoint someone.

And she is going to be criticized no matter what she does, even if she does nothing. At the end of the day, someone is going to be unhappy with her decision.

Now in most scenarios, the political safe decision is to appoint someone who is not going to run for the position. But since there is no guarantee of that happening because of the likelihood of the filing window opening again, anyone she appoints could be a candidate for the seat.

So if she is going to be criticized no matter who she appoints, she might as well appoint who she thinks would be the best fit for the job. The obvious choice for her would be to select one of the existing candidates for the race.

Ultimately it will be the voters that will decide who takes office to represent their community in January, so no one is losing out. The voters could very easily reject the Escobar appointee in May if they so choose. But no matter who is selected it is going to have an impact on the race, more so if she selected someone who is not already a candidate because she would effectively be complicating the race further for the existing candidates by doing so.

These are the times when leaders are tested. When an unexpected situation is thrust upon them.

She will be criticized no matter what, so she might as well pick who she thinks is best for the position.