The County Judge Race

Happy New Year to you if you're reading this today. I hope your cruda isn't too bad and that you've cuddled up to a nice warm bowl of menudo to help you recover from last night.

(Also, I didn't write this today, I wrote it yesterday. I'm probably headed to mass wondering why I'm up and how soon I can take a nap.)

So lets start this new year off by talking about the races since its not a dead sprint to Early Voting.

I chose to start with the race for County Judge. Its like a redo of the mayoral race - not a lot to be excited about in terms of talent, although I think one of the candidates will learn quickly and if elected could be a good county judge.

No one appears to be campaigning too terribly hard and don't look now but Early Voting is 50 some odd days away.

But somebody has to actually win first, and frankly none of them really look like they have been doing too much campaigning. Nothing strategic anyway, mostly just throwing up a bunch of signs or wrapping a vehicle with campaign stuff.

So lets go over the candidates that were left when all the dust settled. First things first, the great thing about the candidates in this race is that they are all very personable people. I find them all to be extremely likable people.

Former El Paso Mayor John Cook is obviously the candidate that is going to have the most name recognition. He's been around El Paso politics for a long time frankly that is a bigger liability to him than it is an asset.

Problem is, he apparently doesn't know it. If you have seen his social media sponsored ad, he actually highlights it as though its an asset. Voters hate career politicians. Mayor Cook should repackage himself.

Richard Samaniego's problem isn't money. He appears to be the candidate that is going to throw the most money into his campaign. His problem is talent. Word around the Party is that he doesn't have a field person and that its basically campaign by committee over there. Ask ol' Silver Reyes how well that works out for a campaign. He's gotta get someone to help and do so quickly because the clock is ticking. He's gotta stop blowing money and spend it on the right stuff.

Sidebar - heard some buzz about a field person having their spouse be kind of a front field person so that they could work multiple campaigns. I'll try to track down more info on that and write in more detail soon.

Laura Enriquez was my sleeper candidate in this race. I thought if she worked hard and had some things go her way, she could be a real factor. If she's really working it hard on the downlow, then what I said will be true and she'll surprise people by making a run-off. Frankly, with the right effort I think the race is hers to lose and she could go in the run-off with the most amount of votes. But I'm not seeing it if she's really working it hard.

The race everyone is watching is obviously the congressional race, but I'd argue that the race for County Judge is far more important to El Pasoans. And here's the problem I have with the current field of candidates - I don't know where any of them stand on anything.

Your County Judge has for more impact on your tax bill and daily life than the member of congress does. The Commissioner's Court oversees a big part of your tax bill. They oversee the jail, the courts, public safety, Ascarate Park, the County Coliseum (that is contracted out and was Commissioner Lewis' worst vote next to voting against the clinics), and basically all services in the rural and unincorporated communities.

It would be real nice if we knew where any of them stood on any of those issues, right? I think we need to focus on that race and the policy issues around that race probably more than any other race, otherwise we are going to put and untried candidate into office. This is going to determine the future direction of the Court and that isn't something that we should ignore.

Everyone says they want to hold the line on taxes and I'm 100% certain that is what this field of candidates is going to repeat. That is an easy thing to say and most certainly a sign of a candidate with absolutely no plan unless they can include some specificity with the broad platitude.

Here's why you need specificity. The County doesn't run like the City. The City has a vertical chain of command that consists of the Mayor and Council at the top, the City Manager, and then all the department heads that answer to the City Manager. The County is much harder to manage. At the County you have several glorified department heads that are actually their own independently elected officials.

At the City when a budget is formed, the department head has to make due with what they end up with. At the County, no department head ever goes before Commissioner's Court and says, "give me less money, give me less staff.

That just simply doesn't happen. They all bitch about not having enough and always want more money or staff. And quite frankly, rare is the commissioner that halls the balls to tell them "no".

Why does that matter? Well it matters because you have to say a lot of "no" in order to hold the line on taxes. You know what else it means? It means that people who live outside the city limits (which is happening more and more because the only place El Paso can grow is to stretch out east) will not get roads paved, pot holes patched, lights, sidewalks, or park space without some really fucking creative budgeting.

Those of you that are reading this and hear the County Judge candidates tell you that they are going to hold the line on taxes, ask them why they think you shouldn't have access to park space, sidewalks, and drivable roads.

Unless they are going to make cuts somewhere else. So where do you make cuts? The easiest places to cut are where there is a lot of fat like the sheriff's department and the courts. We don't have enough patrol units and we have the highest paid jailers in the state of Texas. And thanks to the jail contract with the feds, you taxpayers have made jailing people really, really lucrative.

At your expense of course.

Oh yeah, here's another good one. Listen for the candidates that complain about the stadium downtown when they talk about holding the line on taxes. Those are the ones you really gotta pose the tough questions to because guess what? We pay roughly the cost to build the ballpark EVERY YEAR to operate the downtown jail. Its bloated, inefficient, old and therefore expensive to fix.

What are the odds that any of the candidates for County Judge are going to articulate a position on that issue? What are the odds any of those candidates are gonna stick their necks out and take a stand on that to save you the taxpayer a shit-ton of money and ease your tax burden?

UTEP has a better chance at making a bowl game next year than any of them doing so.

But those are some of the tough choices that our next County Judge will face when they take office.

We owe it to ourselves to ask the tough questions now, instead of later when its too late.