EP Democrats Falter, Again…

I am taking care of some family business right now so I am out of the loop on a few things. But since Monday night I have received a slew of phone calls, emails, text messages, and FB inboxes about the swearing-in ceremony for the new Chairman of the El Paso Democratic Party.

It was a royal mess. Surprise, surprise. 

Actually, some people should count themselves lucky I wasn't there because I would've been recording it and I would've posted the whole mess online. But since I wasn't there, they have a reprieve. 

But I pieced together what happened based on my conversations with people that attended the event. Here's how it wen't down...

On Monday night’s swearing-in ceremony held at The Garden, the local Democratic Party and its leadership proved once again why the local party is a joke to so many people. It was a damn novela for the people in attendance. There are a few things to take away from the entire evening:

New Leadership

The new leadership of the party seems to have the best intentions when it comes to making sure the party serves the needs of its membership and candidates. Unfortunately, there are always those that are going to have a fit when they feel power slipping through their fingers, like a wounded animal that knows its dying. More on that later, first, let’s discuss the appointment of new officers.

Seems that the new leadership is really coming out of an old group of headed by Norma Chavez, including the Chairman. To Melendrez’s credit, he has done a good job of reaching out to both sides of the party in an effort to have a more unified front, at least publicly. I guess the thought is to leave the bickering behind closed doors. The installation of the new officers was routine, however, I want to point out one specifically: Aaron Baraza for Parliamentarian. Pay attention because this gets good later. This is a guy who had never voted until the election he was a candidate in and who attempted to work for El Paso’s only Republican state legislator, Margo, last legislative session.

Granted, Parliamentarians are rarely utilized but there are some times when they may be useful, sometimes. That aside, he did not attend because he was in Austin. Not sure why—maybe he had more pressing business to attend to. But the Party is doing what it can to put a unified face on heading into November, but as we discover every election, sometimes we enjoy fighting amongst ourselves than we do with the four serious Republicans in town, because hey, we can get away with it.

What is sad is that TDP Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa was in attendance. He started his speech off by saying that he never got the chance to make it out to El Paso during his race for chairman— despite the fact that he campaigned for over a year. He gave some riled up speech about how Republicans want to steal babies away from minorities and other exaggerated items but never really effectively captured the audience’s attention. It’s not a good thing when you’re in a room full of Democrats and their attentions wavers as you speak. What I did take away from his speech was that he didn’t feel it was important enough to visit EP during his campaign. So much for the “Democratic Stronghold of Texas”.

There is certainly a well-earned perception outside of the Borderland that we may vote Democrat, but we are not a functioning Democratic party. To guys outside of here, we’re a joke. It’s a sad reality that we have to begin to alter if we ever want to shift attitudes from elsewhere.

New Guard?

There were a lot of people in attendance who never attend party functions. They were there mainly to show their support for Beto’s bid for the congressional seat against the Republican nominee (let’s be serious, why does she even think she has a chance?). The presence of these individuals was met with some very noticeable and vocal tension from the Old Guard’s membership and precinct chairs. When County Judge Veronica Escobar went up to speak she was met with boos and thumbs down from certain members of the party, and someone yelled, “We need to elect real Democrats!” Funny how most of those old geezers that say stuff like that usually aren't people that actually work to get Democrats elected or support key parts of our platform like protecting a woman's right to choose or the advancement of equality and gay rights.

Judge Escobar went on to introduce Beto and as he began his speech, someone from inside of the venue yelled at him, “Vote Republican!” Nice. Someone says to elected real Democrats and then turns around and says to vote Republican. And yet that person claims to be a Democrat. Clearly they have no understanding or loyalty to the values for which our Party stands.

A few of the Old Guard got up and went inside during his speech—so much for being the generation of values, respect and integrity.

In his Speech, Beto mentioned Congressman Reyes and thanked him for the positive work he had put forth for our community. He said it was important to continue the positive things Reyes had started in Washington for El Paso; I guess that’s a “no” to using campaign monies as a personal slush fund. Including Reyes in his speech was a big change for Beto, considering the slew of criticisms he threw against the Congressman as being ineffective—looks like he’s trying to mend some wounds with Reyes supporters.

Fireworks at The Garden (Didn't Judge Escobar ban fireworks in the County?)

So amongst the other group of people at The Garden were a lot of new faces that people were really unfamiliar with—a lot of youth. Definitely a good thing to have younger people start to take more of a role in an aging party; someone’s got to do the door knocking. Anyway, after the local candidates had all had a chance to talk, a precinct chair got up and asked to nominate precinct chairs for some of the vacancies within the party (there’s an approximate 75 percent vacancy rate I’m told). She was recognized and then she proceeded to list about a slate of chairs, about 50 in total, from all across the County.

That lit the fuse.

Existing precinct chairs stood up outraged and upset that someone would ever dare try to promote participation within the party without their authorization first. Yolanda Clay made the argument that this was not the proper forum for such a discussion and such a motion could not be made given the public nature of the meeting. Too bad she was wrong; considering the officers had a quorum and anyone who’s ever read Robert’s Rules of Order would know that. It’s a good thing we’d just elected a parlimenta…

Damn it. He’s out of town.

Clay added that these nominees needed to be vetted and their voting records needed to be analyzed using Texas VAN to make sure they were active enough to be chairs. Like Aaron Barraza right? The guy who had never voted until this past election and was unanimously voted in as parliamentarian despite his absence from the meeting? Like him right? Oh ok, cool, just checking.

Motions and seconds and roll calls were being called for and made and it was just a mess. People were yelling and the Chair was struggling to keep it all together. It all culminated in Blanche Darley going up to him and asking to be recognized to which the Chair sternly replied, “No! You’re drunk and I have the mic!”

So much for party unity, huh? After that, the situation began to calm down and the chair decided to table the motion and called an emergency meeting on September 20 to work through the nomination process for these vacancies.

What is interesting about these nominees is that a group has to be behind them all, as they were all nominated together. After this debacle known as parliamentary procedure happened the room began to clear out, despite there still being four state candidates scheduled to speak. The people missing were the younger unfamiliar people that had been there earlier. It appears that a group is aiming to have a larger influence in the party now. That’ll make for some interesting “discussions” in the future.

Overall, despite what former State Senator Eliot Shapleigh said at the start of his speech, it’s not a great time to be a Democrat in El Paso. We have a lot of work to do internally to ensure that our community becomes a true stronghold and not a laughing stock of a political party.

Way to make a good impression in front of the new State Chairman people. Once again you are doing your best to ensure El Paso is the laughing stock of TDP.

Another take away from Monday night: Aaron will definitely need a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order. I say we we start a colecta. Who wants to kick in?