El Paso Politics

Dori Fenenbock's biggest problem is going to be convincing people she's actually a Democrat. The fact that a woman her age has such a short voting history is, quite frankly, embarrassing. The fact that she thinks she's congressional material because of her checkbook, coupled with that short voting history, is a problem for a lot of people. On top of that, quitting the job she just got elected to in order to buy run for a congressional seat is also problematic. Two-thirds of her very short voting history has been for Republicans. Nearly 1/2 of the money on her first report came from Republicans. The first time she ever voted Democrat in her life was in 2016. My 13 year old daughter Maya has literally done more for the Democratic Party in her life time than Fenenbock has. Hell, she's knocked on more doors for Democrats and passed out more lit for Democrats than Fenenbock has. Anyone active in local politics that is living in the valley knows that. Hell, Chairwoman Holgui...

While David K is having a heart attack over looking like an idiot again (he's really mad that I told everyone his little scheme where he makes shit up and then later says it didn't happen because he blogged about it), Dori Fenenbock went to the Paso Del Norte Tejano Democrats meeting. I know, I laughed too. And it was predictably the outcome everyone expects. The loud Vero haters are pumping her up and going to trash Escobar all over the internet - thats no different than when that same group of people did that to Beto O'Rourke when he put Congressman Reyes out to pasture. It makes them feel good to think they are having an impact - and they are, just a negative one on their own candidate. And Fenenbock is going to try to buy some Democratic street cred. She's already throwing around money and all the rat consultants in town are going to line up to get their share of the money. She's all of a sudden become a member of every Democratic organization in town and buying...

If you haven't figured it out yet, David K doesn't like to admit when he's wrong. So what he does is make something up, say he heard it somewhere, and then when it doesn't happen he claims victory by saying that it didn't happen because he blogged about it. The County Judge wants Stout to be her successor. David K has some obsession with Susie Byrd, which started the minute his buddy Jim Tolbert went from hero to zero faster than anyone in El Paso politics. Susie is Team Escobar all the way. There's NO WAY she'd run for anything while Escobar is running her race. I don't know why he keeps pushing that line, but when it doesn't come true he's gonna say it didn't come true because he blogged about it. He's completely in the pocket of Dori Fenenbock so everything he writes is from that perspective. I've been critical of both - unlike David K. And trust me, Team Escobar has taken it personally, even though the criticism has been completel...

City Rep Maria Reyes Today is Election Day in Socorro. Instead of focusing on the flood problems in Socorro, the community has an even bigger problem on their hands - the on-going antics of two of their city representatives, Yvonne Colon-Villalobos and Maria Reyes.  Here is the latest from the dynamic duo. It appears the two may have intentionally missed a special meeting of Socorro City Council in order to avoid having an item appear on the November ballot of their Charter Amendment.  And some in Socorro are saying that it is  intentional  and meant as a "payback" to the city manager.  On August 21st of this month there was a meeting of council. If you click this link you will see agenda item 29. You may recall a previous post I did on this issue. The agenda item was for a formal complaint from the City Manager against District 4 City Rep Yvonne Colon-Villalobos,  which  the item specifically saying in part, "...and to discuss several concerns City M...

Probably. Yes, if she has the legal authority to do so. Hell no. I'm speaking of the replacement vote for County Judge Veronica Escobar. She sent out an email telling everyone that she has a big announcement coming. Unless you’re as stupid as David K is pretending to be, you know that its her announcement for her congressional bid that everyone knew was coming the minute Beto said he was running for Cruz’s seat.  I answered the questions already but lets take a second to go through it shall we?  ***Can she vote for her replacement? *** Well according to the Texas Holdover Clause, she probably has the authority to do so. She stays in place until there’s a replacement.  Normally when there is a replacement that needs to be appointed on the Commissioner’s Court, its Escobar that makes the appointment. She’s done so a couple of times, first with Precinct 3 when Willie Gandara got caught being his own narcocorrido and she appointed Tanya Chozet, and the other time was upon the...

Fred Cantu The State entity for the Tejano Democrats apparently doesn't want to turn over contact information to the El Paso chapter of the organization because they are both competing for the State Chair office in an election to be held at this weekend's Tejano Democrats. Former City Representative Eddie Holguin has filed a lawsuit to force the group to allow him access to membership data so that he can campaign for the State Chair. According to former State Treasurer of the Tejano Democrats Fred Cantu, an unnamed State Democratic Executive Committee person from may have also leveled a veiled threat towards Democratic United States Senate Candidate Beto O'Rourke's campaign. Cantu appeared to be really focused on a personal dislike of Othon Medina but stated that, "'To quote a SDEC member from San Antonio: "...all he is doing is alienating everyone else in the state; El Paso can not elect Beto by themselves.'" If true, that SDEC member is potenti...

When I wrote my post yesterday I got a flood of people contacting me about her. People really don't like her taking her husband's place when they want to hear from the person they elected. Its also apparently NOT the only time she's gone and made a presentation in his place. When I wrote about it the first time I was talking about a neighborhood association at the Marquez library on Yarborough near Bel Air the other night. I have now been told that it has been other places as well where she has filled in for Representative Rivera. Witnesses indicated that Oaxaca has indicated that she goes because her husband is working because he doesn't get paid very much as a city rep. Which is weird because they both knew the amount of money the reps make before they ran for the position. So the representative not showing up to community meetings because he has to work another job is a bad visual for the newly elected Representative Rivera. But here's the more important question...

The biggest thing people were afraid of when Dora Oaxaca ran her husband for City Rep was that she was going to be the defacto city rep.  Well last night at the Yucca Park Neighborhood Association meeting, Dora Oaxaca gave a presentation to the organization on behalf of her husband, City Rep Henry Rivera.  Thats exactly what everyone was afraid of.  As it is Oaxaca has had to be reigned in previously by her bosses by too often taking on the role of the elected official.  He hasn’t even been in office one fiscal quarter yet at Dora is already doing community meetings for him.  I can't think of another situation where a spouse did the job of  an elected spouse.  That situation is going to get a lot worse before anything is done about it. 

Under the Trump administration immigration has been even more of a hot button issue lately in politics. And for whatever reason, it has caused a tremendous amount of hypocrisy in some leaders that have long been for immigration reform, some of them trying to make their position not sound like a completely hypocritical about-face from the rest of the political resume, a candidate with no accomplishments and who's immigration platform sounds like that of a Republican instead of a Democrat, and some former electeds backing some interesting choices that really don't make sense. So immigration is an issue that isn't going away and will become of greater and greater importance. Enter County Judge candidate Ricardo Samaniego. Samaniego is pretty much running on one thing, his last name. And if he is running on more than that, then his communication has been failing him because the only thing you see pushed about the guy is his last name. Oh, and they underline the "go" i...

There is something not right going on in Socorro tonight at their City Council meeting. Here's a look at their agenda and there is an item on there regarding a dispute about the City Manager and District 4 City Rep Yvonne Colon-Villalobos. According to City Staff in Socorro that I have spoken to, and watching any of the last few council meetings this year, Representatives Colon-Villalobos and Reyes have been wanting to get rid of two people...the City Attorney and the City Manager. But what is also interesting is that there was a memo that came out asking that the item be deleted. The memo was sent out by Colon-Villalobos' close political ally, City Rep Maria Reyes. The fact that there would need to be an agenda item from the City Manager filing a formal complaint regarding a sitting City Representative's actions is out of the norm, even for the City of Socorro. The item actually goes on to say "...and to discuss several concerns City Manager has regarding District 4 R...

I've mentioned to you before that as a courtesy to candidates I will post any campaign event info that is sent to me. As a reminder - the posting of any event is done as a courtesy and should not be construed as support for said candidate. I may or may not like the candidates that I am posting information for, I post them all equally if I am asked to. Here is the first one I have received of the campaign season:

In light of the recent events in Virginia that led to the death of an innocent person all because a bunch of racists wanted to keep a statue, I think its time El Paso City Council change the name of Robert E. Lee in east central El Paso. And I think the best thing to do is use the opportunity to honor a Latina civil rights leader and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom who doesn't have any major thing named after her in El Paso, Dolores Huerta. We shouldn't be honoring confederates. They were traitors to their country and took up arms against the United States. There's no getting around that basic fact. You can spin it anyway you want, but confederates were the enemy. The cause they fought for was to preserve the ability to enslave other human beings. As a veteran, it has always bothered me to see statues and street names after confederates. Fort Bliss has several, including confederate General Jeb Stuart. And that is on a military installation! They were the ene...

Considering two commissioners used to work in communications (Commissioners Perez and Stout for those of you playing Commissioners Court - The Home Game), you would think they'd do a better job of explaining to the public the logic behind their new elected officials salary policy. The fact that Commissioner Haggerty and Commissioner Perez voted on same side and actually got a 3-2 majority (for a pay increase of all things) says a lot.  Before we go any further, understand that the County PROBABLY is not gonna raise your taxes. So you most likely aren't paying more taxes for this raise specifically. For years, the commissioners court and all other county elected officials like county court judges, Justices of the Peace, the District Clerk, County Clerk Tax Assessor, etc, viewed themselves like other county employees.  Problem is they aren't.  Regular county employees and department heads are on a step plan with pay grades.  Elected officials aren't.  Their salari...

A source reached out to me recently leveling some strong allegations against controversial local political consultant Carlos Sierra. I made repeated attempts with Sierra to get his side of the allegations. The source alleged that Sierra was operating covertly with several campaigns recently, misrepresented himself, was in a fight at journey concert that left him with an injured arm and a black eye, and further accused Sierra of "bypassing election laws, anonymous robocalls to get his hitlist". After further conversation with the source, he identified several robocalls that Sierra allegedly created and sent, independently of an actual campaign against a group of people he identified on his "hit list". If you recall an article from the El Paso Times a few years ago, Sierra ends it by identifying several elected officials he wanted to get rid of in El Paso politics included both County Judge Veronica Escobar and then-City Rep Emma Acosta. Escobar was the target of a ro...

Here's a few tidbits that I have written down in my notebook that are probably not worth their own blogpost so I'm just gonna bunch them up here for you: Emma's Consulting - Former City Rep and opponent to open government Emma Acosta apparently now fancies herself as a campaign consultant. I don't know how the only major Latina candidate and Democrat who didn't even make a run-off to two lame ass Republicans has the balls to actually try to get someone to hire her to consult on a campaign, but Acosta is apparently pitching herself. Remember how terribly she did with Aliana Apodaca? Seriously, who in the hell is going to hire her? Speaking of Emma, Dora Oaxaca is out trying to poach judicial candidates as a consultant now too. ************************* D8 - Ya know, in all the excitement of the big come-from-behind win for Cissy Lizarraga that was quarterbacked by Michael Apodaca, I forgot to really talk about how shitty of a job the Cormel campaign did. What a lot o...

What could be more fun than a Republican running as a fake Democrat for congress visiting a disaster site? That's easy, the same thing that makes anything more fun...make it happen in Socorro! Ah yes, our favorite faker took a little trip (probably her first) out to Soco-loco to go survey the flood damage. Obviously this is political grandstanding at its finest/worst. If you would've included a press conference with the visit, I would've thought it was coming from Escobar. But any who, Fenenbock went out to visit the county's second-largest municipality and took a tour. The picture below is probably Interim Mayor Rene Rodriguez explaining to her that Socorro isn't actually in the 16th Congressional District. But I doubt Fenenbock is going to let a little thing like a disaster that didn't happen in the congressional district she's running for get in the way of a good ol' fashioned photo-op amirite? However, Fenenbock's trip to Soco-loco, despite being...