El Paso Politics

I know, you're used to that kind of rhetoric from the Trump administration but the shameful reality is that the comment came from a Democratic Party office holder. The comment was made on a thread posted by an elected official regarding Pride Flags. The elected official posted a picture of Pride Flags flown in another city and added the comment, "We need to fly Pride flags in El Paso." Not something you would think is very controversial but the response was pretty surprising. Westside Constable Angie Sommers replied, "No we don't...being gay does not make you special". I know, that sounds pretty hard to believe and harder still to believe that a comment like that came from a Democratic office holder, but it did. Whats that you say? Of course I have a screenshot. Come on now, you know me better than that! I always have a screenshot. I'm a Democrat and my daughter is gay, so there was no way I was going to let someone from my own Party make a comment like...

I'm doing a quick PSA here. Seniors are often the target of scams and there has been a rash of them lately. My mom was even targeted. So obviously this is an issue near and dear to my heart. So for those of you that are, or know some seniors that live in the valley (or any other part of town for that matter) the AARP is having in event this weekend that can help out.

I get a kick out of the local Republican Party because they are comically inept - but they apparently don't know it. If you watch their social media page, they spend a lot of time smack talking. Which hey, far be it from me to criticize a little healthy smack talk. Lord knows my favorite expression is "scoreboard". Well for a party that has lost every partisan race in El Paso, you'd think by now they'd express a little humility and try to figure out how not to suck so badly. But rather than solve the mystery of why they keep losing, they just pull a Trump and claim victory. Case in point, the last round of school board races. It is a nonpartisan race, but the GOP was solidly behind Tom Hicks. As you can see, even in the bastion of their perceived power, they got their ass handed to them. But hey, they post AOC memes, amirite? Well let me tell you just how state the affairs of the local GOP really are right now. Word around the union campfires is that Tom Buchino, ...

Don't look now but the 2020 primary has already begun and it will, in addition to the presidential primary, feature some interesting races on the local side of things. And obviously there will be some interesting races in the following November considering some idiots decided to move the municipal elections to the general cycle, which serves only to make money a bigger factor in local politics. Keep this in mind - campaigns live at the intersection of timing and opportunity. Anwho, lets talk about some the races and why they are important. There is a pretty big slate of local judicial races that always sort of upend things in the courthouse but most of the judicial races are going to fly under the radar this session. But some of the biggest races could be the DA race, and two other possible races - the senate seat and possibly the westside/NE state rep seat. So as you can see in this screenshot, State Representative Joe Moody is mulling over whether to leave his position in the sta...

The campaign finance reports for the run-off election for the two EPISD races were very revealing. They revealed that one candidate appears to flat-out lie and the other revealed that he doesn't have an understanding of policy. Both cases are bad and should (although they won't) impact the election. Lets start with Tom Hicks, the Republican candidate for the EPISD seat on the westside in the Franklin area. He appears to have told a Trump-level, bold-faced lie about his finance report. The races are non-partisan, but when you think about it, are they? Hicks has the El Paso GOP helping his campaign out - which is sign #1 that he is going to get defeated on Saturday - and they are pushing a really scary narrative about Klayel-Avalos. This is all the brainchild of Carlos Sierra, who used this narrative in the first part of this election with his other candidate, Mickey Loweree. Loweree, who suffered the biggest political beat-down since Eric Stoltz, was trying to appeal to Republic...

The passing of city council's so-called Code of Conduct agenda item is the kind of policy that gets on people's nerves. It represents arrogance in governance and is the perfect example of what a mistake it is to have a body try to correct the short-term behavior of some bad actors on council through long-term policy changes. Policy changes that the Mayor Margo himself has shown an unwillingness to adhere to, so at the end of the day, what is the point? My biggest beef with the code of conduct they passed is the attempt to muzzle members of council. Most school districts also have a dumbass policy like this. Basically the Mayor wants to be the spokesperson for council and no one else should speak - which is utter bullshit. The members of council are each individually elected officials, accountable only to their electorate. They don't answer to the mayor. In fact, this type of policy is EXACTLY the reason we should NEVER go back to a strong-mayor form of government. If Margo ...

Seriously, what is it with Carlos Sierra and filing campaign finance reports. Republican candidate for the District 6 EPISD trustee seat for the Franklin feeder pattern Tom Hicks, failed to file a campaign finance report...again. I don't think this guy has met a filing deadline even once in this election cycle. But its not an over sight, it is much more than that. One time is a mistake. Every time is a pattern of behavior. If you recall on his recent mailer I wrote about the other day, Hicks holds himself out to be "accurate, accountable, truthful, and knowledgeable". Not filing his campaign finance report as required undermines that message. If you didn't file it, then you're hardly accountable or truthful. If you filed it, but you filed it late, then you're neither accurate nor knowledgeable. But this habitual failure of Carlos Sierra and his stable of candidates to file finance reports says a lot about transparency and in a race that is for a seat on the EP...

I saw a mailer today that someone sent me that has be cracking up because it crystalizes just how terrible of a consultant Carlos Sierra is. It was for his District 6 EPISD candidate for the Franklin area, Tom Hicks. Freddy Klayel-Avalos has Sun Circle Strategic Group. Former City Rep Eddie Holguin is a partner in that firm and he's made a career out of taking people from the Hicks' clan out to the woodshed. Klayel-Avalos was just 25 votes shy of winning without a run-off so Sierra had his work cut out for him to begin with. Its a steep climb to try to come back from that kind of deficit. But it is the tactic that he took that is surprisingly dumb. I mean we all know that Carlos Sierra is a Republican. That isn't breaking news. Hell I'm half-surprised he's not wearing a MAGA hat in this pic of the two of them at a fundraiser for Mickey Loweree earlier this cycle. Sierra mistakenly believes that in order for Hicks to win, that the path to victory is going full Republ...

This post is about the elections in EPISD, though it might not seem like it at first. This might take awhile, but it'll be worth it if you're voting in the EPISD run-off, or care about public education in general. And there are only three places to vote - downtown at the Courthouse, Grandview Senior Center, and the Doris Van Doren Library. So walk with me... If you recall I wrote a piece about how its completely stupid that superintendents sit on the dais with the elected trustees of a district. There is no practical reason for doing so and quite frankly, its actually really bad policy that trustees don't show the backbone to make the superintendent sit with the rest of staff. The reality is that Trustees are elected to represent the people and there is only one employee the Trustees supervise - the superintendent. The fact that they allow the superintendent to sit with the elected members of the board as though they are somehow a peer of those elected by the people, is a b...

According to a video posted on We Build the Wall Inc's Facebook page , El Paso's own Jobe Concrete is pouring the concrete used for their private border wall project. If this is in fact true, it is an interesting development because the Jobe's give a LOT of money to local political candidates. It will be interesting to see who will accept contributions from them going forward considering this development. Particularly those who say they are against Trump's agenda. Obviously this is America and they are free to do whatever they want in terms of their business. But we as consumers are also free to do what we want with our business and if we choose to not patronize their company anymore, we are free to do so. Jobe made a conscious choice to take that work. We should act accordingly.