El Paso Politics

Its a pretty contentious time politically in El Paso right now. Trump is driving us all crazy, the crazies are mad because they got their collective butts kicked in the municipal election by the popular kids, the Republicans lost the only seats they still held in El Paso County, there is an unexpected state legislature seat that suddenly opened up and EPISD is in the middle of a very contentious year. For those of you that watch Game of Thrones, you will get this reference, Winter is Here. But as good as we are at fighting with one another many people across political factions in El Paso have come together and sprang into action to help the immigrants that Trump dumped into the streets. So shout out to several people out there like Dylan Corbett from the Hope Border Institute who is working his tail off, Ruben Garcia of Annunciation House, Bob Moore and Kate Gannon for making sure the world knows this is happening and doing it from the perspective of people who actually know the border...

As you by know by now, the race to replace State Representative Joe Pickett is basically just between El Paso Community College Board of Trustees Chair Art Fierro and City Representative Michiel Noe.  The El Paso Times ran a story the other day about how Chairman Fierro had sewn up the endorsements of several of the members of the state delegation at the time. The article found at this link specifically references State Reps Moody, Gonzalez, and Blanco.  Since the article was published State Senator José Rodriguez and State Rep Lina Ortega have since also endorsed Fierro, making it a clean sweep of the delegation in favor of Fierro.  I don't know, maybe Noe will think discretion is the better part of valor and back out (he still has a few days to back out) because when you read his quotes, Noe goes after the state delegation pretty hard. Which from a practical standpoint makes no sense.  But hell, its probably Dora Oaxaca telling him that smack talking the entire de...

Where are the pinche crazies on this one? Today there was an item put on the agenda by City Representatives Noe and Rivera regarding the leaking and dissemination of confidential information. Apparently the leak of information that was not otherwise available to the public via legal means like an Open Records Request because it didn't fall under the provisions allegedly hurt El Paso tax payers to the tune of a couple million dollars. I don't know the exact figure but that is the last number I heard. That is an expensive mistake you and I have to pay for. So council wants to talk about the repercussions and get some legal advice on it. The measure was postponed until after the New Year, presumably to give the lawyers an opportunity to look into this issue. Apparently various members of council have been accusing one another of selective leaking of documents to media outlets for quite some time but it intensified over the Doo-ruhn-gee-toe issue and as a result one the City Reps d...

Long-time El Paso law-maker Joe Pickett announced he was retiring today due to some medical issues. Pickett has been rumored to be mulling over retirement for as long as I can remember but today's announcement was a shock to many with the legislative session starting in just a couple weeks. That will trigger a special election and that makes the situation unique because it would require a quick turnaround on a campaign. And I mean really quick. The governor calls for the special election and its likely to be very soon. So that limits the field to just a very small group of people that would have the capacity, name ID, and fundraising capability to run a race like that - all in a short period of time. The first name that comes to mind is Art Fierro, who is currently a trustee with El Paso Community College. He's lead that board for several years now, has a lot of contacts in Austin with the type of folks that fund campaigns and he's run campaigns himself. Anyone wanting to t...

Word around the campfire is that the PD Union is going out for a ballot initiative, similar to what the Fire Department did a couple years ago. And thanks to a document that was leaked to the media, the boyfriend and would-be political consultant of a city representative is likely benefitting greatly from the leak. The real story here is the alleged source of the leak. I don’t think any laws were broken, but it is likely ethically bad. I'll get to that in a minute. We have the same number of PD on the streets now that we have had for years, so I'm generally supportive of the idea of taking something out to the voters to approve and its smart to get someone to help them pass it. Multiple sources indicate that Jeremy Jordan is working for the Municipal Police Officer's Association. His work with any entity that does business with, or has items in front of the City of El Paso, is a major conflict for his current girlfriend, City Representative Cassandra Hernandez. And it may h...

There's an old saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. I was at a meeting the other day where Sito Negron, staffer for State Senator Jose Rodriguez, indicated that the Senator was going to file a bill to move school board elections to November. And I think its a terrible idea because it will make rich business people more influential and grassroots candidates less competitive. We are coming off of an election cycle where they moved city council elections to November general elections. The idea was to get more people to vote in municipal elections. Whoever came up with the idea had good intentions - but its not better for the community. At some point you will start to get a more educated electorate that is engaged and knows the issues and the candidates. Maybe. Someday. If that happens eventually (I'm not convinced it will to be honest) it will take a lot of election cycles to become a realization. Elections have consequences and as such, some pretty bad ...

Sorry, been slacking it lately on blogging. My bad. Let’s talk winners and losers in the congressional race. Obviously the big winner is Congresswoman-elect Escobar. Just like she kicked the shit out of Dori Fenenbock and Norma Chavez in the primary, she kicked the shit out of Rick Seeberger in the general. However Rick Seeberger is channeling his inner Norma Chavez apparently. Which is ironic if you remember that a source very close to Norma told me that she tried to work with Rick Seeberger after Escobar gave Norma Chavez a beat down in the primary like she owed her money. Seeberger sent out an email to his supporters declaring that he didn't concede the election to Escobar. SHOCKING NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL, JK, No one gives a shit. I mean other than Seeberger. I don't think he understands that whether or not he concedes the election, Escobar still kicked his ass. But he's following the Norma Chavez Playbook of Losing. First deny that you lost. Second, come up with some rea...