El Paso Politics

There's an event tonight specifically geared at getting out the gay vote. This is probably the first real effort at mobilizing the LGBTQ community that I can recall in recent history locally. Here's the announcement from Facebook: Get Out The Gay Vote, Drags and Costumes to the Polls! Thursday, Oct 30th, EPIC Nightclub, with special guest Diamond, Puta Kahlo, Chandelier Kahlo, and Kiara Kahlo, among others. Rallying at 5pm, marching to vote at the courthouse at 5:30pm, and drink specials after at EPIC for voters with “I Voted” sticker. In other developments, there is a time change for the Wendy Davis event tomorrow. Davis is flying in and out of El Paso that day so the event time was moved to 5:00pm at the El Paso County Courthouse.

Its hard to watch television during this time of year and avoid political ads. They are everywhere these days. The other night I caught one featuring Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott's suegra. For some reason Republicans think that communicating with the Latino community involves a feeble attempt at Spanish or an obligatory brown face in front of a camera. George P. Bush is an example of both. So in an attempt show that they somehow understand the needs of our community they will give them a script that will pepper in a Spanish word here and there. They usually mispronounce the words and make everyone uncomfortable. Like when the Castro brothers do the same. But my favorite part is when they shovel their one Latino relative in front of a camera. Its pandering and it does nothing to convince Latinos that you understand our needs or even really care about earning our vote. But for some reason, white Republicans think putting brown faces in front of us will do the ...

Democratic candidate for governor Wendy Davis will be in El Paso on Friday. She will be in front of the El Paso County Courthouse at 3:30pm. Friday is the last day of early voting. For years El Paso has tried to position itself in statewide elections to a position of influence because we overwhelmingly vote Democratic and because we are in a different time zone. But as usual our turnout is abysmal. Her stop in El Paso on the last day is likely a last ditch effort to spike turnout.  If the TDP is really interested in spiking turnout by having a big shot show up on the last day of early voting they should've considered having a big star like fellow Texas Democrat Eva Longoria attend.  You'd attract more passive voter participants that don't normally have much of a motivation to come out and play. That's why they GOP brought in Chuck Norris, although he doesn't have the demographic appeal in El Pado tha Longoria does.  So the Davis appearance underscores the importance...

I didn't go see Leticia Van De Putte this weekend. I didn't see Chuck Norris either. Sorry, I don't have anything to share as a result. That being said, the Times reports yet again that rallies apparently don't matter because we still suck at voting. There's a County with half of our population that is out-voting us by a few hundred voters. There are a boatload of ways to vote. Early voting, mobile voting, vote-by-mail, and Election Day voting. I don't care how you do it, just do it. And don't feed me this crap about "Me not voting is actually a protest about who's on the ballot". It isn't you lazy hipster. Now get off your i-Pad at Starbucks where you're drinking your douchey over-priced latte and ride your beach cruiser to a polling location and vote. Oh, and one last thing. Its really hard to say what the impact of the low voter turn-out will be on local races. Without knowing what their outreach, GOTV, and accuracy is like, its real...

Sources in the EP GOP indicate that movie star and Walker, Texas Ranger Chuck Norris will be in town next week. The actor will be in town as part of a rally for Republican Texas gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbot.  Stay tuned for details.

Democratic candidate for El Paso County Commissioner Precinct #4 Julio Diaz has again found himself out of compliance with reporting requirements relating to his campaign finances. Candidates that are on commissioner's court or a candidate for an office on commissioner's court are required to report donations over $2500 to Commissioner's Court within 30 days. This is a requirement laid out in the El Paso County Code of Ethics, Article XII: 13. Campaign Contributions If a member of commissioners court, or candidate for a seat on commissioners court, accepts political campaign contributions of Two Thousand, Five Hundred and No/100 Dollars ($2,500.00) or more, including in-kind contributions, from any one person or entity within a twelve month period, he shall report the amounts, the donor, and the dates of said contributions by an item on the agenda of the El Paso County Commissioners Court within 30 days of the date of said cumulative contribution. The report shall also be p...

Former First Lady Laura Bush was visiting the Mission Trail here in town yesterday.  I assume she hit all three but can only confirm that she was a La Purisima in Socorro and San Elizario. Here is a photo of Bush with Mayor Maya Sanchez if San Elizario as they made their way to the mission. Photo courtesy of Ryan Montes.

Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor Leticia Van De Putte will be in El Paso in Saturday.  She will headline a GOTV rally being held at the El Paso County Coliseum. The rally begins at 4:15pm.

Congressman O'Rourke leveraged social media pretty effectively during his campaign in which he defeated former congressman Silvestre Reyes.  It's still evolving and candidates are still experimenting with how to make it work best. Looks like Julio Diaz has decided to utilize sponsored ads on Facebook. Pretty good idea during early voting because it's a good reminder to voters and is pretty inexpensive. People are on Facebook multiple times a day.  I would've included early voting locations and hours, but it's pretty smart on Julio's part. But before you post a campaign ad, you might want to double check the English. Not sure "enforcing" is the word he was looking for.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbot's spouse Cecilia is supposed to be in town today making phone calls at the GOP headquarters today. I don't have any other details on her visit, that is the information I was provided by a Republican insider.

Hey look, a non-doctored photo of Niland! Somebody tell Paredes he missed doctoring this one. Time for me to put this conversation to rest and time to award the Homegirl of the Week to a gringa. City Representative Cortney Niland will be reclaiming her old seat at the next city council meeting. As you have no-doubt heard there has been a long on-going novela about where people sit at El Paso City Council because City Representative Lily Limon can't seem to behave herself like an educated Latina during city council meetings. For the second time a member of city council as asked to be moved from sitting next to Limon because of her conduct during the meetings.  Representative Limon has apparently been more concerned with distracting her colleagues during meetings than representing her constituents which has led to her constituents having to seek assistance at other levels of government. Sources indicate that Niland will reclaim her seat and save the tax payers the expense of having t...

So here is a follow-up to the piece I did about a protest yesterday in front of Senator Rodriguez's office by constituents who live in an area of East El Paso near Loop 375 and Rojas. They live in upper middle to upper class area of the east side of town. Tropicana Homes, owned by Bobby Bowling and family, applied for some tax credits with the state and was able to get permission to build a 300 unit low-income housing community in their area. The reason that the protesters were in front of Senator Rodriguez's office is because he signed a letter of support for the Tropicana project. The residents indicate that they don't want the development in their area because they believe it will affect their property values, traffice, crime, and the local elementary school. Their primary concern at this point is that they feel there weren't adequately notified that the project was in the works and that robbed them of the ability to expressed opposition before a decision was final...

You all know I'm a Democrat so I'm sure you'll take this post with a grain of salt but I'll be as objective as I can on this one. In terms of performance in the debate hosted by the West El Paso Republican Women I think you'd have to give a slight edge to Julio Diaz, the Democrat. Both candidates surprised me with the depth of their knowledge of county policy and issues. Haggerty showed that he's running on more than just a storied family name. Diaz showed that he's more than just a pretty face. If the question is who impressed me more, then hands down I'd have to say Andrew Haggerty. Clearly young Andrew could use some polishing. He's a little unpolished and probably a little more blunt than he should be, but he wouldn't be a Haggerty if he wasn't. Haggerty came out with a very sharp message about Diaz that he's been open to since the primary. Haggerty basically used Diaz's own message against him. Diaz has spoken about ending th...

Late last week when there was a dust-up about a patient in an El Paso hospital that may have had Ebola-like symptoms, social media exploded with rumors. A reporter from KVIA and the editor of the El Paso Times had two different takes on the situation and I monitored the conversation and found it fascinating. The comparison of one very seasoned reporter from print media and a pretty studious television news reporter was a great contrast. It was interesting to see the two approaches to the story. One the more traditional and methodical newspaper approach and the other was the get-the-info-to-the-public-quickly breaking news approach. An interesting debate arose about being first versus being right and the responsibility of media to inform the public in a timely manner without causing confusion and alarm unnecessarily. It was all centered around the establishment of whether or not it was factually accurate to say that the emergency room was closed.  Interesting conversation. LATER TOD...

I was downtown earlier today and happened to be near Senator Rodriguez's office when I noticed a protest going on so I stopped to ask a few questions about it. These folks live in what one protester characterized as “an exclusive area” in east El Paso. Its the neighborhood that is north of Rojas between Zaragoza and Loop 375. I'm gonna look into this much more comprehensively in a later post, but I wanted to post this quick interview to give you an idea of what I'm working on because I find protests interesting. I think they are protesting in the wrong place and should be working through their city reps office, in this case Representative Ordaz's office if they want the project to go away. The short of it is that these folks don't want a low-income housing community put near their area and thats why they are protesting. They indicate a concern about their property values going down, the local schools being at capacity, traffic and concerns over increased crime. I...

Ben Mendoza, another perennial candidate is on the ballot in November. Proving just how rusty I am at the whole blogging thing, I didn't even know he was a candidate. That's my bad. He is running for House District 77 against incumbent Marisa Marquez. He has less of a chance of winning than Manny Hinojosa does of being the next District Clerk.  I found out Mendoza was running when I was at the Republican forum the other night and I saw a business card he was passing around advertising his candidacy.  He is apparently running as an independent.

After the debate last night I caught up with each of the candidates for the JP race on the westside to ask them a question about the money that JP's collect performing weddings. JP's can collect a fee to perform weddings (as can judges) and they are not obligated to turn any of that money over to the county. At a time with commissioner's have to struggle to find funding sources I thought I'd inquire about the fee. For background, many JPs don't charge anything for some groups like GI's. But they frequently perform the weddings during business hours at the county-funded offices. County-funded staff have to support the ceremonies. County resources are expended on performing the ceremonies and if it weren't for the fact that they were elected by county constituents, they JPs and judges wouldn't have the power to perform the ceremony and get that supplemental income. So why not provide some tax payers a little relief? BTW, some of the JP's have wedding s...

The El Paso Liberty peeps have been struggling to find a home now for many years. They are active and savvy. But the Republicans really don't accept them and they aren't quite strong enough to stand on their own. Libertarians are all generally pretty well informed, except the occasional leanings towards conspiracy theories. Some of them still won't let the birth certificate thing go and a few think 9-11 was an inside job. They almost all think they are smarter than everyone else. Which is probably why I like them. They are actually pretty good at poking fun at themselves which is something you have to appreciate. But for a group of people so smart, they have let something devastating to their local credibility happen. They have been defined by the shallow-end of their political gene pool. The El Paso Times made their endorsements of candidates and they took a moment to whack the two Libertarians that are candidates. And the worst thing about it for the liberty movement in E...

Last night was the debate for the two major races on the westside – the JP race and the county commissioner 4 race. I'll do a few posts that summarize the debates but I wanted to write this quick note about the actual debate. Despite the fact that it was run by one of the auxiliaries of the El Paso GOP the debate featured both Democrats and Republicans. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it was going to turn in to a political food-fight. Well you'd be wrong. The debate featured fair and probing questions of the candidates and the West El Paso Republican Women were gracious hosts. Even had homemade cookies. Becky Hermosillo is the head of WEPRW and is probably one of the top two moderators in town that I've seen host debates over the years. She's fair, controls the program well, and keeps the show rolling. It was certainly a tale of two debates. The first debate was JP candidates – Democratic nominee Sergio Coronado and Republican nominee Kelly Dic...

Its stupid that this is even a topic, but it is and I must therefore chime in. First things first. Lets stop pretending that there is anyone at fault here but City Rep Lily Limon. Country/pop music star Taylor Swift has become famous for writing songs about ex-boyfriends who have done her wrong. Well after a few songs like that, maybe the problem isn't with the ex-boyfriends... That is the same situation here with city council. After multiple members of city council have asked to move, maybe the problem isn't with those members of council... Seriously, what (in this case who) is the common denominator?  As a Chicano from the barrio, I'm sorta pre-programed to root for people like Limon. An educated strong Latina woman. I happen to be a product of a strong Latina woman. Hell Limon had Little Joe in her campaign commercials! I should be her biggest cheerleader. But instead, I find myself embarrassed by her conduct. She's an educator for God's sake. She doesn't kn...

Kelly Dickson (Republican) - Sergio Coronado (Democratic) The West El Paso Republican Women will be hosting a Candidate Information Forum tomorrow night at the Westside Regional Command Center, The race will feature both Republican and Democratic candidates for the County Commissioner Precinct 4 race as well as the JP race. The JP race is particularly interesting because its the first time in a very long time, maybe ever, that the race will feature two actual attorneys in the November election. Kelly Dickson is the Republican nominee for the post and Sergio Coronado is the Democratic nominee for the job. Becky Hermosillo, head of the West El Paso Republican Women, has confirmed that all four candidates have confirmed that they will participate in the forum. The other two candidates are Republican nominee for County Commissioner Precinct 4 Andrew Haggerty and Democratic nominee for Precinct 4 Julio Diaz. For more information about the event click on this link .

I know most people don't care, but George P. Bush is in town. I don't know if its because they purposely keep it a secret whenever one of their big shots comes into town or if its just because they suck at getting the word out, but for whatever reason no one really knows about it. There are three other bloggers, all of whom are Republicans that could help them get the word out. Not sure why they don't ask them to help them get the word out. But at any rate, he's in town. I don't really know where or what the schedule is, but lets be real no one cares. 

I missed this last week but someone mentioned it to me earlier today so I went to check it out for myself. Apparently the Precinct 4 County Commissioner's race is getting interesting. Republican candidate Andrew Haggerty went on the offensive against Democratic candidate Julio Diaz in an interview conducted by Karla Mariscal of the El Paso Telemundo affiliate. If you recall I wrote a piece awhile back about how Julio Diaz won the Democratic Primary by out-working his opponent and benefiting from the fact that she really fumbled the leveraging of a negative message against Diaz. Apparently Andrew Haggerty learned from that mistake and at least appears to be flirting with what has the potential to be an effective negative message. It remains to be seen how its done and if there is enough time for Haggerty to leverage the message. Here's a link to Haggerty's interview . Haggerty is asked what the biggest difference between he and Diaz is and Haggerty said business experience a...

I'll be honest, I don't know the Texas pledge. I've always thought it was a little commie to be pledging to a state anyway. But I know Texas forces that crap on students. So I found it mildly entertaining when a staffer sent me this photo. Limon, a long-time school administrator, apparently has a cheat sheet to remember the words.

Socorro Mayor Jesus Ruiz comes out in support of marriage equality. Ruiz, who is one of the youngest mayors in Texas, has joined a handful of other mayors of municipalities across the state to join Mayors for the Freedom to Marry. This is noteworthy not only because Texas is a red state but also because there is a common misconception that people in the valley are against gay marriage because of the fact that they are largely Catholic.  Socorro is the second-largest municipality in El Paso County.

The race for the congressional seat for the 16th District of Texas will be decided in less than a month. Congressman O'Rourke will rightfully be re-elected and by a large margin. Neither of O'Rourke's opponents are viable challengers to the congressman for a myriad of reasons including election math, funding, policy positions, name ID, etc. Congressman O'Rourke has far more campaign dollars available to him and he has the ability to raise more if necessary. It isn't so he won't have to, but he could if he had to. There is no base or path to victory for either candidate to be considered viable. El Paso County votes heavily Democratic and there are few cross-overs. Even the people that still haven't gotten over the fact that O'Rourke defeated former congressman Silver Reyes don't number that many anymore so there's only a few yahoos out there that would flip and support someone from another party. But the ones that did that in the first place were ...

Okay peeps, I posted a poll question about the freeway art. Feel free to chime in. Oh and for those of you wondering about the results of the last poll, overwhelmingly pollsters thought Leeser was a disappointment. BTW, my poll is not the least bit scientific. That being said, I have a +/- of 1%. Boom.

I've seen a lot of conversation about the freeway art on Airway that is currently being erected. Art is always subjective. Some dig it, some think it's hideous. I'm leaning toward the latter until I see it fully complete. For now, it sorta looks like stoners who work at a home store had some really good stuff and decided to get creative using fluorescent lights that were over-stock in the Home Depot lighting section. But I wasn't impressed with the ballpark during construction either and once it was complete I was a big fan, so what do I know? I understand the idea of doing something near the airport because it's one of the first places people see when they come to El Paso. Except that it isn't. Most people drive to or through town, not fly. They people that fly are on-and-out business trippers and military.  You wanna really make an impression? Do that at the edges of town. Right now the only impressive light displays on the edges of town are strip clubs. That...

There are a few political meetings coming up and I wanted to pass on the info. Over on the Mighty Mighty Eastside, the Eastside Democrats will be meeting tonight at Los Tres Galleros Restaurant starting at 6:00pm tonight. Elections are next month, so if you plan on voting or running, you need to be at this meeting. Westside Democrats changed their meeting date for the month of October. They will be meeting Thursday, October 9th at the Great American Land and Cattle Company at 6pm. They will be having the candidates speak at the meeting. They also have a pancake fundraiser coming up on the 18th at Applebee's (Mesa and Mesa Hills) from 7am-10am. Annual dues are due. Pay up or Noel will hunt you down all the way to the Eastside if necessary. Congressman O'Rourke will have his October Town Hall Meeting at Parkland High School on the 8th (Wednesday) from 6-7pm. The meeting will be in the theater.

Democratic Party Hall of Famer, prominent businessman, and father of a recent Democratic candidate for US Senate Jim Scherr was the top political contributor to Libertarian candidate for HD 76 Alejandro Lozano. The Democratic candidate for HD 76 is State Rep-Elect Cesar Blanco. Yes, I said state rep-elect. Lets be real, Lozano is going to catch a major beat down at the polls. First because he's a Libertarian and second because he's Lozano and voters have soundly rejected him the last few times he's been on a ballot. Scherr was inducted in to the El Paso Democratic Party Hall of Fame in 2009 and has been active in the Democratic Party for many years. His daughter Maxey Scherr recently ran for United States Senate. Had she won, Ted Cruz would've been the senior senator from Texas Its a little surprising that Scherr would contribute money to someone who represents the same ideological extremism as Ted Cruz who is really a Libertarian that has to say he's a Republican. ...

I was gonna do this long piece about the budget and then I remembered, you don't really care. I told you to pay attention to the budget process and you have the ability to stream all the meetings. But you didn't. Well now you are left wondering why you will have to pay more money this year and you're angry about it. You weren't angry enough to pay attention when it was happening, but you're angry now. Go figure. I do want to make a couple of quick points about the budget though. Primarily the little tussle between Commissioner's Lewis and Perez when the vote happened. Lewis was pissed that Perez voted against the tax rate and Lewis said that Perez was doing exactly what he criticized Lewis for doing. Proof positive that Lewis clearly doesn't understand the budget, which should frighten the people of Precinct 2 because he's been voting on it for 4 years now. For background, last year Lewis was in an election cycle and during the budget process he basicall...