El Paso Politics

Gacho. I hadn't realized until the other day just how really bad it is that a sitting District Court judge with the reputation that Judge Herrera has is pursuing another seat. Yeah, he has all that stuff hanging over his head about his own divorce sitting in his own court, which sucks because if his own spouse can't get justice in his court, in my opinion it undermines the public's confidence in the judiciary, but there's another layer. No, I don't mean the fact that all of this is really about lining his pockets on the public dime with another pension tax payers will pay for. I mean what it says about the lengths he will go to in order to actually get that tax-payer funded additional income. Jesus Rodriguez is also running for that seat and was one of the first candidates out of the gate for the seat. Why is that a big deal? Because Rodriguez is Herrera's associate judge. He's like Herrera's assistant judge. Sorta underneath him on a flow chart. So you ...

I wrote about something yesterday regarding an advantage Selena Solis has in her bid to unseat embattled judge Luis Aguilar. I mentioned it would write it as a separate piece because it was such an important factor in this election cycle. For years people have heralded the emergence of Latinas in politics and in El Paso, that time appears to have come. In nearly every single contested race there is a Latina running, and in some races, multiple Latinas, or the entire field of candidates are Latinas. And this is the year that most of them will win. In the Congressional race you have former County Judge Veronica Escobar and former State Rep Norma Chavez - both of whom are facing a candidate that brags about beating "Hispanic" candidates. Laura Enriquez is taking on two male opponents in the County Judge race. Enriquez, Escobar, and Chavez are proof we come in all colors too. HD 75 is a field of entirely Latina candidates feature incumbent State Rep Mary Gonzalez and challenger L...

Gotta love David K. I mean the guy's family has maxed out their contributions to Dori Fenenbock and he's always done Jim Tolbert's bidding and now he's directing Jim Tolbert's latest attempt at staying relevant. Seriously can't recall a more blatant example of a guy being on the take for a political class in El Paso than David K. So he posted a letter that Jim Tolbert wrote and it became a story in the Times. I'm writing about it today because I found it hilarious that Norma Chavez's announcement messed up David K and Tolbert's little movida. In the article Tolbert alleges something I think everyone had already assumed, that Susie Byrd helped him write the ethics complaint about Larry Romero and the City Manager. Apparently that was some sort of earth shattering revelation to David K because well, he's kinda obsessed with Byrd in a weird way. But it shouldn't have been. Jim should've been honest with his boy The Juice and told him the tru...

El Paso Community College Trustee and prominent attorney Selena Solis was literally a last-minute sign-up for the 243rd District Court to take on embattled Judge Luis Aguilar. Aguilar recently received a public reprimand from the State Commission on Judicial Conduct that included more than 60 different points of discussion. That is the most wide-ranging reprimand that I can recall. The reprimand's conclusion, which can be found in its entirety here , included some pretty damning language about Judge Aguilar. "The Commission concludes from the totality of the facts and evidence presented that Judge Aguilar willfully and persistently failed to comply with applicable law...The Commission further concludes that Judge Aguilar engaged in a persistent pattern of treating those in which he deals with in an official capacity with a lack of patience, dignity, and courtesy...Finally, the Commission concludes that Judge Aguilar's willful and persistent conduct cast public discredit up...

County Clerk Delia Briones' challenger Ricardo Gonzalez was booted off the ballot because he was "declared ineligible". Interesting thing is the finance student who ran as a Republican last time was booted because he...wait for it...bounced a check for his filing fee to the Democratic Party.  Word around the Party is that there are a couple of candidates that may be facing an effort to have their names removed from the ballot as well. I don't have all the details but that appears to be the direction of things going. But I can confirm that there will be at least three, maybe more, candidates that will be receiving notice of ethics complaints filed against them at the Texas Ethics Commission.  ***************************************** Candidate Ballot Order Yesterday was the drawing of numbers for a place on the ballot. This determines the order a candidates' name will appear on the ballot. They did it a little different this time, they had 10 numbered balls in a bu...

When there is flooding in the Mission Valley and farmers and families are losing their homes and livelihoods, where is your state rep? The answer all too often is State Rep Mary Gonzalez is out partying while you nervously wait out the storms.  But that isn’t the issue that is the central focus on the HD 75 race. I’ll get back to that in a minute, walk with me… Forma has been gunning for Gonzalez since she took office. Most of the time they don’t have a decent candidate. Last time they had to dust-off Chente Quintanilla to run against Gonzalez.  Thats not really giving the voters much of a choice. I watched that whole campaign and waited to hear some compelling reason why they should send Chente back to Austin.  Not because I don’t think he’d be any better or worse, I mean lets be real…what the hell has Gonzalez actually done in Austin? I can’t think of a meaningful accomplishment for her district. I mean there’s some identity stuff, but with a district that has as much n...

One of the funnest (and sad) things about election season is how amazingly petty people can get. A lot of really dumb, immature, and annoying things happen during election season. For example, taking an opponent's signs down. I'm dealing with that right now, but I'll update everyone when I find out if it was John Chatman's doing or Lucy Najera's. Its especially egregious when it happens at a Democratic Party function though because it reflects as much on the hosting organization than it does the candidate. Check out those two photos. Monique Velarde, who is running for a judicial seat was a sponsor for the event. Her name shows up on the sponsor board right? And a little later, her name magically disappears! Gacho! Now does this affect anything? Absolutely not. But its just dumb and petty. And that is campaign life in El Paso. Come on Westside Dems, if you're gonna shake down candidates for "sponsorships" at least make sure no one can do some dumb shit...

This ain't a dis track. I'm just gonna tell it like it is. Former State Rep Norma Chavez is running for congress, which you undoubtedly know by now. So lets talk about the implications of a Chavez candidacy. She suffered the worst self-inflicted political wound in history and it led to her ouster from local politics. No one should feel sorry for her about that either. No one forced her to make bigoted comments about her opponent. The fact that she still has the audacity to compare someone's sexuality with being a biker shows that she really hasn't learned anything. A person's sexuality is how they are oriented and should never be equated with a leisure activity like being a biker. Thats just flat-out ignorant. I knew she would say that it was taken out of context. Well there is no context in the world that would justify that kind of blatant attack. Its also not the only time she raise her opponent's sexuality. But in that video, I showed all the context of what ...

One of the biggest criticisms of the El Paso County Historic Commission is that it has been almost entirely white for so many years. Seriously, going to a meeting looked like being at a meeting of the Alabama Republican Party. It was only because the last commission had screwed up so badly that they Commissioner's Court revisited the EPCHC and injected new blood. That has been a much-needed improvement of the Commission and as one of the few people that monitor what they do regularly, its important to pass on to you and the media the development at last night's meeting. It seemed a mundane task, but there were two particular items of note that were stripped from the Bylaws - one being the requirement that the Commissioner represent a diverse group of El Pasoans, and two, that the EPCHC can't do anything that the Commissioner's Court doesn't want them to. Both provisions are needed because of actions that body has taken in the past. First, the diversity thing, becaus...

Click this link to go to the local party's website and see all the filings as of yesterday. George Ybarra and Lily Limón, under the leadership of Chairwoman Holguin have done a great job of keeping information updated. Special shout out to George, Lily, and Ayle Sarinana for working well on such a hectic day. Having to get stuff done with me, Eddie Holguin, and Pee Wee in the room being loud and obnoxious could not have been easy. Especially me and Eddie, we were laughing and joking all day. But everyone got their work done despite us distractions.  Except Eddie Holguin. He had one job to do and failed! So here are some quick highlights.  Embattled Judge Mike Herrera, who is currently a District Court Judge, filed to run for a County Court. Why take a step down on the food chain? Mostly because it doesn't affect him in any way but positive.  Frankly, this and two other judicial filings are really important news stories but lets be honest, everyone more interested in the ...

Norma Chavez is running for congress. She's going to file at the Democratic Party today at 4:30pm. Clearly its a coordinated effort with Dori Fenenbock's campaign to try to siphon off votes from Escobar's campaign. Silly strategy. Thats just further splitting Escobar hater votes. But its fun to watch. Why Chavez would want to further damage her legacy is beyond me, but she is apparently consulting with several campaigns including Ruben Nuñez, Patsy Patiño, Jay Hulings, and Ricardo Samaniego among others. So not sure if she is leaving them hanging or trying to run for office and consult at the same time. Back to analogies about boxers. Here we go again, with a fighter that doesn't know she's done. Norma isn't running to win. Norma isn't going to answer any substantive questions. Norma is going to do one thing - attack Escobar for Fenenbock. Chavez should have preserved her legacy. She got a measure of vindication by defeating Naomi Gonzalez. But contrary to w...

In a few hours, the deadline to file for a place on the Democratic Primary ballot will pass. I've been at Democratic Party Headquarters for the last few days as people come in to file for their spot. According to George Ybarra who is pretty much the day-to-day backbone of the Party, there are only about 4 candidates that have declared their candidacy that haven't actually filed yet, which is somewhat out of the norm. So far everyone has come in writing checks, with two notable exceptions - Enrique Garcia who turned in 64 pages of signatures with a little over 520 verified signatures on them. Which is slightly more than he needs to get a place on the ballot. Its likely that there are more valid signatures, but I think they stopped counting once he hit the number, so that number could be as high as 600. The other candidate to file with signatures was Kathryn Lucero. She only needed around 220, but she turned in about 33% more than the required number and they were gathered in les...

It was apparently a big secret and I didn’t hear even a peep about it before Friday. Former City Rep Carl Robinson filed to take on Commissioner Andrew Haggerty in the general election next November.  Robinson has an uphill battle but frankly I think he can do it if he catches a couple of breaks and focuses on a strong ground game.  Julio Diaz worked really hard last time, but he fell short. Mostly for a couple of reasons, 1) money and 2) he wasn’t well known before he started campaigning.  Robinson doesn’t have either problem. Robinson is a name people know and he has the potential to raise money. I was at Democratic Party Headquarters today when everything went down today. I heard mumblings of some pretty interesting endorsements and financial support.  This move also explains why he was recognized by the Tejano Democrats last month at their annual dinner. Looks like this may have been something planned for a short while prior to today.  Andrew Haggerty is vul...

Here's an interesting little conversation. In the Northeast Democrats candidate forum, candidate Enrique Garcia raised the issue of Dori Fenenbock correcting him when he said he was the only attorney running for the congressional seat. Personally, I don't think that is an asset, but thats just me.  Anywho, Fenenbock corrected him and said she was an attorney. It caught my attention because Garcia made a comment that she hadn't passed the bar in Texas or Oklahoma. It was obviously a touchy subject for Fenenbock because as he's talking about it, she physically puts her hands on him, which I found as odd body language.  Here's the video of the exchange. So I checked with ALL 50 freaking states to see what the facts are. I didn't check with the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, etc because well damn it, you people don't pay me for the time I put into this stuff, so 50 states is enough! After checking with all 50 states, there wasn't one single sta...

I won't pretend Jaime O. Perez and I were friends, because we weren't. Other than having the same first name we had almost nothing in common other than both being good friends with his former boss Eddie Holguin. JOP was a Democrat at some point but he was mostly a Republican and Libertarian. Perez and I feuded and did so pretty strongly. But I have to acknowledge a couple things about the guy. First, Jaime fought for and advocated for what he believed in. He was a voice for a small group of people but he was a tireless, passionate, and articulate advocate for what they believe. You have to admire someone who will take a stand no matter how unpopular, often against the establishment in the Republican Party or in city leadership, and passionate advocate for their position even if you don't agree with their position. Because it takes a level of courage not everyone has. Again, I almost never agreed with anything he stood for politically, but I admired the fact that he was will...

As a courtesy to all candidates that request it, I post their campaign announcements.

A few different blog items that I am just throwing in to one post. In probably the most egregious example of a candidates side-stepping campaign laws I have ever seen, current Justice of the Peace for Precinct 4 (the Eastside) Jesus Urenda put a campaign sign for his reelection on a Constable's vehicle and had them drive him in the Sun Bowl Parade. Here is a pic of the signs (they were on multiple vehicles) affixed to constable patrol vehicles. Judge Urenda is in the far vehicle waving to the crowd. Here's a closer look at the signs. As you can see, all he did was tape some blue painter's masking tape to the parts of his sign that said "re-elect" and cover up the disclaimers at the bottom. It is against campaign laws to use public property like a law enforcement vehicle for campaign purposes. Covering up a couple of parts of your campaign sign doesn't alleviate him of the problems. I'm sure someone will likely file an ethics complaint over this little stun...