Trustee Attacks Dem Party

I certainly wasn't expecting there to be fireworks at an endorsement meeting for the Eastside Democrats but it really hit the fan last night!

Since the Eastside Democrats are a partisan organization that are issuing endorsements for nonpartisan elections, a question was asked about party affiliation of candidates - specifically associations with the GOP and voting history.

This is a pretty routine question raised at partisan organizations during the endorsement season. Candidates are asked to disclose any associations with the GOP.

EPCC Candidate Frank Macias mentioned his personal and family voting history of voting Democrat but made no mention of the fact that his campaign manager is an officer in a GOP student organization according to the El Paso County Republican Party website.

Go ahead, go look. It is still there right now. Here's the link if you don't believe me.

Here's a screenshot of the page.

But that wasn't even close to the fireworks that happened with another candidate for EPCC Trustee in another district.

EPCC Trustee Dr. Carmen Graham decided to address her voting history, which was already pretty well-known in the Party because she suddenly voted Republican in the 2016 election which was the Trump election. In Democratic circles that has much more scrutiny than any other primary.

She started off by doing pretty well with the question. She said she voted Republican because she voted Democratic far more often. Had she ended with a period right there, she would've been fine. But she kept going.

And it got ugly.

She said she was proud to be pro-life.

Had she stopped there, she still would've been okay. There is a pro-life segment of the Party and there always has been. But then it got real up in La Morena.

She continued by saying, "...when the Party stops killing babies, I'll be a Democrat again."

People started choking back their food.

Forks dropped.

There were a lot of really offended people in that room.

She really pissed off a lot of people in that room and lost a lot of support. She was probably going to lose the endorsement anyway, but she really screwed up with that answer. She made it impossible for even the most ardent of supporters to stick by her after that remark.

What makes her answer even more strange was the fact that has already voted Democrat after that Trump election because she voted in the 2018 primary as a Democrat. So on top of the insult, the answer turned out to not be true.

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SISD Trustee candidate for the Montwood area Dr. Melissa Ortega was unanimously endorsed and the Chair of the El Paso Democratic Party seconded the motion to endorse her candidacy. At least one of her opponents is a Republican so he was never going to attend. For some reason Josh Carter didn't seem to care enough to attend and therefore wasn't considered for the endorsement.

But I was checking social media over the weekend and the saw a post by the Socorro AFT that featured his literature and from what I learned in the literature, Carter hasn't finished a degree yet. Neither have I, something I've mentioned pretty regularly here on The Lion Star Blog, but I'm not running for a school board position.

If you haven't graduated from college what business do you have making decisions on education for children? The whole point of an ISD is to make sure students are college ready...if you yourself haven't finished college, you are certainly not qualified for the job.

It further complicates the fact that the teacher unions endorsed him - a candidate with no degree or experience in education - therefore making him a far less qualified candidate over a Latina with a PhD in teaching. The unions are women led and most of the membership are women, so the fact that they are supporting far less qualified male boggles the mind, but even more so now that it turns out he hasn't finished his degree yet.