El Paso Politics

Primary season for the 2020 election season has taken an early start. Judge Ruben Nuñez got the ball rolling having a fundraiser in his hid for the 346th District Court, followed by Judge Carlos Carrasco also getting his fundraiser for reelection going. But probably the earliest start to the 2020 campaign was the sheriff's race. Incumbent Richard Wiles typically has a non-viable opponent jump in and try to take him on. The last guy was a Republican named Tom Buchino challenger with really corny internet videos. Wiles trounced Buchino in that November election. There's talk that he is going to likely take another stab at the office, but the outcome is going to be the same. One of the primary challengers is Carlos Carillo, and there was some talk of El Paso Municipal Police Officer Union boss Ron Martin making a run at the job but that has recently died out. I'm doing a blog post on that race tomorrow because there's some interesting things to consider in that race. But u...

I've been attending several school board meetings lately and I noticed something that is really starting to bother me. For what good reason do we allow the superintendents (and the EPCC College President) to sit at the dais with the elected trustees? Not only do they sit up with the people elected to make decisions on behalf of the community, they almost always sit next to the Board President. Let me give you some context before I go on. First, this isn't aimed at any particular superintendent, so don't get your chones in a wad. The superintendent is the ONLY employee that the trustees oversee. The trustees are the super's boss. Same deal with the President of EPCC. The Super is supposed to execute the policy directives of the Board of Trustees. Super's are subordinate to the Trustees. Now, lets talk about other local elected bodies for a minute. The County's version of the superintendent is the County Administrator. That is the staffer that answers directly to ...

Ya know, its been too long since I've given this award out. But since TxDOT shirking their responsibilities to clean up medians has been getting some attention, I thought I'd take a minute to highlight something interesting. You really can tell a lot about a guy by the racist things they post on social media. A recently fired TxDOT district engineer and a former mayoral candidate that tried to convince everyone he wasn't a Tio Taco anti immigrant enjoyed a laugh about immigration. Now lets pull over real quick so that I can explain something in case it isn't clear. David Saucedo is not the Douchebag of the Week. That foo is an every day Douchebag. I'm talking about Bob Bielek. He refers to asylum seekers facetiously as, "just the kind of trash we need to make this world a third world country, just like the culture they bring with them." "trash". That guy was a well-paid public servant for years. He was the local head honcho for TxDOT for many yea...

Joke of a presidential candidate Benjamin Leyva, who also happens to be a chiropractor that went to Hanks High School and launched a "presidential" bid recently appears to have made some gay slurs in text messages published on a local fitness-based Instagram account. He appears to be running as a brown Donald Trump because in addition to using the gay slur "faggot" he also used the term "pussy", "bitch", and "fucking piece of shit". Also echoing the Donald Trump model for running for president - he's completely unqualified for the job. I had heard he was considering running a few months ago when a friend of mine on social media inboxed me about him. She told me that his presidential bid was likely just some sort of stunt for media attention that he could parlay into free advertising for his business. He was recently featured in a story on KTSM about his candidacy . Now I don't know what the cyber-beef here is, but it appears to ...

City Rep Peter Svarzbein is in a war of words against TxDOT over the fact that TxDOT basically doesn't care about maintaining their roads anymore. Its an issue I raised with my State Rep a while back too. But like all news in this town, no one cares when it happens to the brown side of town, it only is newsworthy when there are problems where rich, white, westsiders live. Anywho, Svarzbein is right on this one and hopefully the delegation will start knocking some heads around to get TxDOT to start maintaining the roads again. And since he represents rich, white westsiders, its in the news. TxDOT says that they have to fill pot holes and make other repairs on streets and that is why they don't have the dollars available to clean the weeds from the medians. That answer implies that they actually fix the pinche pot holes in state roads...because I haven't seen that to be the case. What is dangerous about Svarzbein's little stunt of cleaning the medians himself, is that it ...

This is a long post, but its  with  the read. For those of you that aren't sitting on the edge of your seat watching the state  legislative  session, there is at least one really important bill that is making its way  through  the legislature.  Its a bill in with the Republicans are allegedly going to fix public education in Texas by capping local entities ability to raise taxes in exchange for some  education  funding.  If that sounds like its robbing Peter to pay Paul, that is because it is.  If the sentence I wrote earlier that said  Republicans were going to fix public education also sounded funny to you, it should. Republicans are a joke on public education. But some Democratic Reps not only went along with it, but are actually bragging about it. Now for background, the state has been shirking off their responsibilities to counties for a long time now. And they have passed on those responsibilities to local taxing entities...

Okay, its impossible to write this post without acknowledging one important fact... Josh Carter got his ass kicked in ANOTHER election. Also, every single incumbent in Socorro ISD lost reelection. You'd think that was some big union-led revolution at the ballot box. But it wasn't. Socorro AFT under-performed and lost a ton of political clout unnecessarily and it is going to have a serious impact on their credibility. They didn't endorse any of the incumbents but they also didn't leverage any union power. At one point late in early voting I saw a social media post that said that a really embarrassingly small number of union members had voted during early voting. That was the writing not the wall for Josh Carter and frankly the union not being able to turn out its members in a school board race is a sign of a weak union. Why would trustees give you the time of day if they don't have anything to fear? Elections have consequences and if you're the union that determi...

This'll be short and sweet. There were three EPCC seats up for grabs in this cycle. I don't remember who has what district number because lets be real...who cares? I hope they redistrict in way that makes sense because its beyond stupid that I live in Ysleta and I am in the same district as someone who lives in the Willows. Anywho, in that district, Christina Sanchez beat her opponents like they stole something. Frank Macias was one of her opponents and he promised to never raise taxes. He pretty much just sent out a mailer and that was it. If he had a block walking program, he wasn't committed to it and its why he lost. Well, one of the many reasons. Her other opponent was perennial candidate Nico Dominguez who had all the money behind him. He basically put all of his money into campaign signs that unlawfully used the EPCC logo. I'm pretty sure Lucilla Najera was in charge of his sign placement in the valley. And it worked as well for him as it did for her. You remembe...

What bothers me most about this council led by Mayor Dee Margo is how small and petty they can be. There is an item on the agenda that really pisses me off - and they have had this stupid item before. It is an item that will require multiple members of council to sign of on an agenda item. There is no need for that. It does not solve a problem. Any elected member of council should be allowed to put an item on the agenda. They do not, and should not ever, need the permission of other members of council. If I was elected by my district and I want to put an agenda item making an ordinance to require my neighbors to stop parking in my spot, or to make the color of the city salmon and purple, then that is my right. Not only is this a rule that doesn't solve a problem, it is meant to stifle the debate or input of those of in the minority. Government is not made better by doing that. This is unnecessary and mean-spirited. But it could also be an even bigger problem. This could lead to wal...

Sorry people, I had some unexpected travel over the last few days and I've been busy. Lets cut to the quick - Carlos Sierra's ticket of candidates took a major beating. I don't know the last time I can remember a contested race in El Paso County in which one candidate flirted with 80% of the vote. I mean you almost have to try to suck that badly. Mickey Loweree was an incumbent and spent a boatload of money on a school board race, including television ads, only to get wiped out. Trustee-Elect Daniel Call fell just short of 80% of the vote, and against an incumbent no less. It is still a mystery where all the campaign money came from, but it is no secret where it ended up...in Carlos Sierra's pocket. His other candidate, Tom Hicks didn't do so well either. He's in a run-off election, but at this point, especially seeing how Sierra handled Mickey Loweree's campaign, I'm gonna bet that Hicks does his best to distance himself from Sierra. Now this is the pa...

Today is Election Day and for the last two days Carlos Sierra has sent out mailers for one of his two candidates, Mickey Loweree. I don't know why he didn't send anything out for Tom Hicks. But the last two mailer crystallize two things, how terrible of a candidate Mickey Loweree is and how terrible of a consultant Sierra is. Basically each of the last two mailers were negative mailers - one aimed at Loweree's opponent Daniel Call and the other - which is hard to understand how anyone (even a sober Carlos Sierra) would think is a good idea, was aimed at teachers. Lets start with the first mailer. Basically Sierra was calling Daniel Call a Republican on the westside. I saw that mailer and for a minute I wondered if Daniel Call was going to have to report Carlos Sierra working for Loweree as an in-kind contribution to his campaign. But when you're Carlos Sierra facing the most squeaky clean candidate in town, you'll find any string to pull I guess. Which is why it is ...

There appear to be very explicit photos of a school board candidate on a porn site that is live. Right now. Today. And the creepy thing about it is that the headline to the site says "Capturing the erotic essence of youth." It gets far creepier and I'm not exaggerating. It's bad. Its one of those, only in El Paso sort of things. It was leaked to me a few days ago and I have been struggling with what to do with it. I think voters should know and then make their decision on whether or not they should vote for this person. No laws appear to be broken and the photos are obviously taken a few years ago. But its a school board candidate. And they are explicit and they are on a porn site. There's no getting around that. This cycle has scrutinized education, employment, addresses, temperament, campaign consultants, and a whole host of other things - you'd think this would be something that would also be scrutinized.  I mean if all those factors are relevant to voters,...

This election season more than any other is a referendum on Carlos Sierra. He made it a point to talk about how electing Mickey Loweree in the Coronado area and Tom Hicks in the Franklin area and by his own admission, was personal for him. Well after this election cycle, it'll be hard to see why people would pay that guy to run a campaign. Or even be a part of one tangentially - that people will later have to disavow when it comes out that he's involved. He's completely mismanaged Loweree's campaign - as we say in the valley - a la Madre. And she apparently loaned herself money to pay for his services. Other campaigns, take note of Sierra's and the rest of the Legion of Douche's outcomes in this cycle. The way he handled the whole diploma-work history thing was a desmadre. Straight up amateur hour. Seriously, why do people pay this guy to basically do the exact worst thing you possibly think of? I mean, you can screw up a campaign for free. Why would you pay Car...