El Paso Politics

In a fairly transparent effort of voter suppression the El Paso Republican Party made a pitch to commissioners court yesterday to remove an early voting location from Canutillo. The only real question is whether it is because Canutillo votes heavily Democratic or because Canutillo is heavily Latino. Originally the argument was about a specific voting location, which is the Canutillo ISD Administration building. Essentially the GOP won that argument and another location was chosen. I'll get to why commissioners court screwed Canutillo on that one in a minute. This started last week and within the last few days Javier Chacon (Elections Department Head) came up with a proposal to move the early voting location to the nutrition center in Canutillo. The Republicans tipped their hand to their true intentions when despite the suggestion of the alternate location, the GOP continued with their efforts to remove a voting location from Canutillo. Former Judge Bill Hicks addressed the legal po...

Some genius has decided to hold a voter protection training for the Democratic Party and Debate Watching Parties at almost the exact same time. Not sure who the genius was that thought of that one, but let me speak a little about the colossal waste of time that is a Debate Watching Party. There are apparently several debate watching parties that will be happening tomorrow. My question is, who gives a damn and why the hell are we wasting energy on that kind of cluster fudge. Debate parties accomplish nothing except a waste of resources. Time, effort, and whatever someone pays for refreshments. It doesn't move the ball down the field. It in no way helps Wendy Davis be competitive. Not in the least. We shouldn't be wasting time on people who are already going to vote for her. We shouldn't waste our time on people who will never vote for her. But we should be focusing on someone that we aren't talking to - persuadable voters. Its not happening and there doesn't appear t...

For some reason Joe Muench has a political column in the El Paso Times. Not sure why, but somewhere along the way he ended up with the job. Although now I guess he's retired. I don't really know what the deal is with him and his column but his column on Sunday said something I think he needs to be called to the carpet on. First, mark the date and time. I am about to defend Norma Chavez. Yes, that Norma Chavez. The one that I've had a very public and often brutal feud with for the past few years. I don't have to recount why the feud started because you all basically know. But the feud got pretty bad. Very, very, very personal. So you know if I'm defending her, then Muench must really be off the mark. I mean worse than the time he thought Sergio Lewis and Dan Haggerty lived in the same precinct. Apparently Muench finds Norma's facebook page quite entertaining and he wrote that she has been "Ms. Congeniality" on facebook lately. He ended the blurb about h...

If you've haven't kept up with the ongoing issue in the Clint ISD, read this article in the El Paso Times and it should get you up to speed. Again it is the biggest miscarriage of justice in the county that I can think of in a very long time. Its a social justice issue, there's a racial component, a socio-economic element, fairness and equality element, and equal access to education element. The fact that the state delegation does nothing about this is an embarrassment. Luckily, the voters can do something about it. Turns out that three members of the Clint ISD Board of Trustees are up for reelection in the November election. There members of the board are up for reelection. Jim Pendell - Clint Janice Armstrong - Clint Bobby Lara - Clint As you can see, all of these incumbents. They run on an at-large basis so the incumbents end up with a huge advantage. If there were single member districts there would be equal or at least proportional representation of all the communitie...

Just noticed something interesting. Two prominent westside Democrats have a birthday today. Congressman O'Rourke and Sergio Coronado. Beto turns 42 today and Sergio turns 55 years old today. Congratulations gents. Take some time off from campaigning today to do some celebrating. Well the Congressman doesn't really need to take time off. He has a Libertarian opponent. So he basically doesn't have an opponent. Oh yeah, the Republicans put someone up again too. Like I said, he basically doesn't have an opponent.

PARENTS CAN PROCEED WITH LAWSUIT ALLEGING VIOLATIONS  OF TEXAS CONSTITUTION  FOR FUNDING DISPARITIES   EL PASO, TX, SEPTEMBER 25, 2014 – Today, the El Paso Eighth Court of Appeals announced a precedent-setting decision involving intra-school district funding in Texas. In overturning the previous dismissal of the lawsuit in El Paso state district court, the Court found that complaints by parents in the Clint Independent School District of unequal and unequitable funding for certain schools within the district are constitutional by nature.  Therefore, the parents did not have to go through school district’s administrative process first in addressing these complaints. Texas Civil Rights Project cooperating pro bono attorney Ralph Miller, of Weil, Gotshal and Manges handled the parents’ successful appeal before the Court.   The decision will allow parents of Clint ISD students to proceed with their lawsuit, which will show how the Clint ISD’s disparate funding unfai...

Mayor Maya Sanchez (I should say the newly married Mayor Sanchez) of the City of San Elizario, Texas sent out the following announcement about a Community Visioning Workshop coming up this weekend.  Read more for details. If you have friends or family that live in San Elizario, please let them know about this important meeting.  Here are the details: The City of San Elizario is on the move! What changes would YOU want to see in our community? What would YOU prefer to keep the same? Let us know!  Please join us for the City of San Elizario’s first  Community Visioning Workshop  on  Saturday, Sept. 27 .  This exciting, highly participatory event will be held at “Maya’s Garden,” 12339 Socorro Rd. in San Eli, starting promptly at  9:00 a.m.   The workshop will run until approximately  1:30 p.m. and will include a complimentary lunch and break-time snacks. In this  LIVELY, DYNAMIC SESSION  we hope to work out the foundation of San E...

I wanted the return of the Homeboy of the Week Award to be something important. If you recall I would periodically give out an award for someone who I think did something good and another for someone I think did something bad. The Homeboy of the Week Award was obviously for something good. The bad award used to be the Douche Bag of the Week Award. Some people have complained about using the word douche bag and requested I use something different. Well I am trying to figure out what else to use not because of their complaints but because I don't think Douche Bag is sufficient. So after several very good suggestions I came up with the MP of the Week Award. No gringos, its not shorthand for MVP. And as much as I wanted the initials to stand for something else in Spanish, its slang that could be interpreted as a slur so I chose for the MP initials to stand for something else. The Douche Bag of the Week will now be renamed the Mas Pendejo/a of the Week Award. The "Empe" for sh...

Looks like there will be a debate coming together for the two races that matter on the westside. I'm speaking of course of the county commissioner race for precinct 4 and the Justice of the Peace race. Once it all comes together I'll share the details but it appears that all four candidates will be participating. The race for Justice of the Peace which features two actual real-life attorneys facing each other in the November general election. It is probably the most high-profile JP race in El Paso since Texas became a state. Normally no one gives a crap about JP races because, well, they are JP races. But the JP race is more than just about the actual race. Its actually even more than the fact that its the first time I can remember two real lawyers going at it for a JP seat. This race is about the Republicans being able to hold on to one of the few offices they have. Its a gubernatorial year and they will have the edge in turnout in the area. Under Tom Holmsely's leadership...

Its not a big deal at all and I'm only writing this because I thought it was pretty funny. There's a picture in the Times today along with an article about the UTEP President Diana Natalicio (she's the one in the middle that looks like Granny from the Beverly Hillbilly's) and the delegation. And by delegation I don't mean The Delegation that sings one of my favorite oldies rolas "Oh Honey" I mean the state delegation. Looks like they had everyone except Senator Rodriguez in the pic. I thought it was funny because it was obviously a staged picture with all of the members giving the Picks Up hand signal. Of the five members of the delegation in the pic, I know for a fact that three of them didn't go to UTEP. Again, not a big deal but it made me giggle.

The El Paso Republican Party attended Commissioner's Court today to raise a concern about the approval of early voting locations. Their focus was one particular location in Canutillo. The El Paso GOP take issue with the fact that one of the locations is at the Canutillo ISD District Office. Their are two races that will likely be close on the westside, which is the only place in the county that Republicans hold office. In fact, both of the offices they currently hold are up for grabs, the commissioner's seat and the JP seat. That is why the location of an early voting location is a big deal. Any little edge can mean the difference in the election. The GOP believes that the Canutillo ISD District Office early voting location gives the Democratic candidate for JP Sergio Coronado an unfair advantage. They may have a point, though the remedy is unclear. The GOP officials in attendance, including Tom Homsley the Chairman of the El Paso Republican Party, Rob Pena the elections admini...

Chente Quintanilla (Left), Ruben Lujan (Right) handling-out cash; electronic devices to voters. Justice of the Peace Rosalie Dominguez filed two lawsuits against Enedina "Nina" Serna, former State Rep Chente Quintanilla and fellow JP Ruben Lujan. The El Paso Times has a piece on all the details. You can find it here . Let me tell you something, in my opinion this allegation should surprise no one, especially from this crew of people. And this group of Democrats just handed racist Republicans exactly what they need to justify voter ID laws. I'll explain in a bit. First, here's some background. Serna comes from one of the more prominent political families in the valley. She lives in Socorro and has been a long-time aid to former State Representative Chente Quintanilla. Even after Quintanilla's departure from the legislature the two have remained close. The other person mentioned is Justice of the Peace Ruben Lujan. He's another old-school politician that is stra...

There's a reason its called Soco-loco. Sources in Socorro indicate that former City Manager Lorenza Fraire is recruiting a candidate to replace the late R.E. Chito Bowling for the now vacant District 4 in Socorro. Thats not really surprising when you consider the fact that that she's a former city manager and was fired. She wants her job back. The fact that she is a former city manager, wants her job back, and is trying to get involved in the campaign of a candidate should send MAJOR red flags. She's already very tight with Councilman Sergio Cox. It appears that she's looking to elect a majority so that she can get her job back. I'll let you readers decide if you think thats Kosher, but speaking only for myself, it doesn't pass the smell test. If you don't know Fraire, there is something you should know. She's fancies herself a good campaigner. She's taken credit for a lot of people getting elected, even people she didn't have anything to do with...

Stolen from some vato from KFOX I hate picking on the crazies...okay I'm lying, I LOVE picking on those idiots, but the latest rants I've seen on Facebook make me laugh. I know this shit might be hard for you to understand but you can never completely prevent flooding. Every engineering project, no matter how well its designed and constructed, has limits. If the Almighty decides he wants to drop a ton of water in a given location in a very brief amount of time there will be flooding.  Our drainage systems are designed for your regular rainfall. Hell they are designed to cover above average rainfall too. But when its record-setting rain, there's no system out there that can prevent it. If there was, then there would never be flooding in any city ever. When it comes to water and flooding, you can minimize it, you can mitigate it, and you can manage it. But you can't PREVENT it! It was record rainfall. Its going to collect. Are you really that fucking stupid?  The answer i...

Lets just rip the band-aid off. The school boards in the valley are the areas that need the most help. There's some bad stuff happening there and there are certainly some characters there. Clint ISD is the poster child for a school district that is screwing poor Latinos, but I'll get to that in a minute. Marty Reyes, wife of Chuy Reyes and sister-in-law of former Congressman Silvestre Reyes sits on the board at Ysleta ISD. She's in a constant battle with the teachers association and is pretty unpopular among staff. If she runs again, she's going to be targeted as one of the priority members of the board to get rid of. The district is land-locked and the provision of resources to students and schools is going to be a major concern for years. Shane Haggerty is one of the board members and seems to understand that there needs to be a more policy-oriented board. The lady that represents the Del Valle area, Patricia McLean, didn't even send her own kid to Del Valle, she ...

We have all done it as kids, but you need to make sure you tell your kids that its a bad idea. Especially if you live in the outlying areas, but in general its a bad idea. That water is dirty. Dirty means different things to different people but if you live in Montana Vista, then you know a lot of the septic systems are failing. That means that the water your kids are splashing around in probably has fecal matter in it. If you live in the valley its probably animal feces and pesticide run-off. Either way its not safe for your kids. Its fun, but when you think of the health risks, be the bad mom/dad and get their butts inside and away from the puddles.

I have a buddy who lives in the Town of Horizon City, I know its weird to name your town a city, but thats actually the official name of the county's third-largest municipality, and he mentioned all the new things happening in what he refers to as H-Town. If you haven't been out to Horizon City in a while you might not recognize it because its grown a great deal and the growth doesn't appear to be slowing. Since this is Texas we all love our football and I saw something online about the play-by-play of football games for Horizon being available online. I thought that was cool since I haven't heard of any other school in the area doing that so I went to check it out. Turns out theres a whole website about Horizon. Lots of cool stuff in it too. I'm geeky about that kind of stuff but its really well done and I like that its focus is so local. Click here to check it out. I'll probably hook them up with an ad just so that people will know its out there. Soco...step ...

County Commissioner Vince Perez's office spearheaded an initiative to secure more than a million dollars for rural parks. Park space within the city of El Paso is in abundance but out in the rural communities there is very little area for children to play in safely. There's a park in Fabens proper, there's San Felipe (you've never heard of it if you aren't from the valley but its on the way to Cattleman's and if you don't know how to get there you'd never find it, even by accident) Its not an exaggeration at all to say that dog parks in east El Paso have far better amenities than the parks in unincorporated communities. Most of the time what passes for a park is an every-so-often graded patch of dirt. This has been a need for communities in the unincorporated areas for many, many, years. While the amount might seem like its a lot of money, it is somewhat of a drop in the bucket when you consider how much need there is in the community for parks. The bulk...

The Burnt Orange Report is one of my favorite sites to visit. Its good stuff. Its a progressive liberal site that focuses on Texas politics.  I've been a faithful reader and occasional contributor for years. I'm glad to pass on to y'all that it went under the knife and had some work done. Tummy tuck here, face lift there, some fat injected into the lips and now...it looks great. The old site was pretty ugly. It wasn't easy to find info either. Now the site has a much cleaner layout and intuitive UI. So go check it out, job well done. Click here to visit their site.

In a move eerily similar to a big fight in the Mission Valley, it now appears that the Upper Valley will have one city trying to annex another community. The issue will be discussed tonight at a Sunland Park city council meeting. Last year San Elizario faced annexation by a then-corrupt city council led by former city councilman Jesse Gandara. San Elizario had to gain the permission of Socorro to incorporate within their ETJ. Luckily for San Elizario Socorro had elections and the bad guys were kicked out (mostly). Santa Teresa's situation may be a little different considering they might not have the option of getting permission to incorporate within the ETJ of Sunland Park. The move makes sense for Sunland Park. They are a cash-poor community and annexing the businesses and homes of their more affluent neighbor will benefit their constituents. The meeting takes place at 6:30 tonight at Sunland Park Town Hall Chambers. Sources tell me that there will be some pretty upset Santa Teres...

Sources in the City of Socorro indicate that a special election for District 4 will take place as early as December 20th of this year. The election is necessary due to the passing of J.E. "Chito" Bowling. There are no details available yet as to the filing window or deadline, although there are several people in the community that have expressed a desire to fill the seat. Sources indicate that Anthony Gandara may pursue the seat. The seat was previously held by Jesse Gandara. Anthony Gandara was going to run for mayor against his uncle Willie Gandara Sr at one point but was removed from the ballot on a technicality. At one point there was an internal dispute between the Gandara clan involving the patrons Willie Sr and Jesse Sr, but apparently they have all kissed and made up and are one big happy political family again. It will be interesting to see if a Gandara is viable in Socorro again.

I'm just gonna say what a whole lot of other people are thinking, and I know its gonna annoy my fellow progressives but it needs to be said, we focus too much on bike lanes. If you've ever had the misfortune to sit in on a meeting of the MPO there is inevitably a presentation of something that has to do with bike lanes. I'm sick of hearing about bike lanes. I'm sick of seeing bike lanes. They take up a lot of real estate and here's a dirty little secret...the are rarely used. Seriously, they are almost always empty. In rural communities a traffic study is done to establish the amount of traffic on a given road. That is how it is determined whether or not the road gets paved. Makes sense. Why they don't do the same thing for bike lanes is beyond me. Could I use a few miles on a bike every week? Hell yes. Is it great exercise? Absolutely. Would I like to see more people use them? Actually I don't really give a shit. It just seems like we spend a lot of time, t...

In case you haven't noticed, today is the last meaningful budget hearing before the County adopts a new budget and tax rate. So if anything big is going to happen, its going to happen today. It starts at 9:00am so get your coffee and sharpen your pencil. The Sheriffs Office and the courts have been under the most scrutiny. Thats likely a couple of areas that will be discussed. This Court more than others in the past has been focused on structural efficiency. So watch for reforms in those areas. Also funding for rural parks and pretrial services, which are two really big issues facing the County, were discussed last week but not really finalized. Today is the last day that can happen. Pay attention...

So I mentioned the money that the JPs get from performing weddings.Well I failed to mention that regular courthouse judges do it to. And no, the County doesn't get a piece of that action either. If they do it in the courthouse they are using resources paid by the electorate. Sources in the courthouse indicate that some judges send their bailiffs or other court personnel down to the Clerk's floor to get couples to come up to their various courts. It would be really interesting to see a comprehensive look at the amount of revenue collected by the JPs and real judges on quickie weddings. To be fair to some of the real judges, there are several that don't charge anything or make it a policy to not charge active duty military personnel.

You should know this if you are a voter but you probably don't. First you don't have to be an attorney to be a Justice of the Peace. I know, it boggles the mind that someone who will make a legal judgment doesn't actually have to be trained in the law but thats how we roll in Texas. Second, and probably even more infuriating is that JP's charge a fee to marry someone and the county tax-payers don't see a dime of that revenue. Its sort of a JP's personal little slush fund. In fact, I doubt they even need to track or disclose how much they make on that service. I'll get to that in a minute. Currently only one of the JP's is actually an attorney. I suppose there's probably a good investigative piece in the works for anyone who actually wants to do some digging and found out how often decisions of JP's are reversed and what the cost to tax payers is. County Judge Veronica Escobar is proposing cutting the salary of JP's but offering a different p...

I'm working on a piece about the Justices of the Peace that I'll post later this afternoon but in a recent article in the El Paso Times there was a quote that I wanted to talk about. El Paso County HR Director Betsy Keller is quoted as being against a reduction in pay for elected officials because El Paso is already lower than the rest of the state. Keller is 100% right. First let's be real. You aren't going to provide meaningful tax relief to tax payers through salary cuts of elected officials. It's a symbolic gesture at best. And the gesture says more about acquiring quality candidates than it does about providing tax relief. It's a crying shame that JP's make more money than County Commissioners. There's no way that should be happening. Now there are a group of crazies out there that will say that county officials should cut their salaries because they don't deserve it or they don't do anything blah blah blah. That just shows their ignorance. ...