Tejano Dems Forum This Weekend; Holguin Working Against Organization

Well despite ousted former Chair Eddie Holguin’s effort to arbitrarily call-off the Tejano Democrats endorsements because he was no longer able to guarantee his clients would get the endorsements, the endorsement meeting will go on as planned this weekend.

If you recall, Holguin used the Tejano Facebook page to say that the endorsement meeting was canceled and that he was still the chair of the Tejano Democrats.

But they aren’t.

The Facebook page belonging to the Tejano Democrats was subsequently deleted, presumably by Holguin and certainly without the authorization of the organization. Quite frankly, I think the organization should take some action against him for doing so considering the page used the name of the organization and was used for the organization's purposes.

Holguin has now also taken the organization's website down as well. That is a clear example of how Holguin is now actively working against the organization. He's doing so because he's no longer the chair and allegedly he was paying for the website. Any rational person would understand that the website was meant for the purposes of the organization but again, if Holguin isn't calling the shots, then he decides to cut off resources.

Sounds like a President I know.

What Holguin has failed to realize is that the things he's being doing as chair, primarily for his personal or his wife's political benefit, have alienated a lot of members. And this will no doubt have an impact on the Eddie/Iliana Holguin Sun Circle stable of clients like Iliana Holguin, Karen Dykes, and his stable of judicial candidates.

Unfortunately the rest of the candidates didn't sign up for it, but they went with the Holguins because they thought there'd be a political benefit cozying up to the Chair of the Party and the Chair of the most influential Democratic auxiliary during a primary election. So they should have understood there was an inherent risk of doing so.

Although when you think about it, it was a pretty easy choice to make. I mean who could've predicted that they would go from the Party establishment to a liability so quickly? It was hard to see that one coming.

But once the issues with the Democratic Party's money being steered to Sun Circle, and Tejano Democrats' money being steered to Sun Circle came to light, people quickly began to see that the Party was being used for the advancement of the Holguins. That coincided with Eddie Holguin's effort to oust Mary Bowles-Gasca from her position as Vice Chair. That bothered Holguin because it was an obvious effort on his part to push someone of his own choosing, rather than someone that was selected as a consensus choice of the membership like Bowles-Gasca.

Ultimately, in a bit of political poetic justice, Bowles-Gasca ended up becoming the Chair of the organization.

And what is the at the heart of the change in leadership?

Impartiality.

That has been something that has plagued the local party for years. There has long been a sense that many of the endorsements of the organizations had more scripted outcomes than Wrestlemania. The reality is that all the organizations have charters in place that outline processes to ensure that the endorsements are clean and above-board. The other Democratic auxiliaries have had to take extreme measures to ensure that they are clean processes because the Tejano endorsement process has always been questioned.

This cycle, probably more than any other, would've been undermined because the Tejano Chair is married to the Party Chair who is a candidate for a position and they have a political consulting firm with candidates in the primary election.

And a process is only as good as the leadership team in place enforcing the rules set out in the charter. It is not the job of chairs to be picking winners and losers. That is up to membership. That is a central tenant of Democracy.

It is a very positive development that rules relating to impartiality were enforced that lead to the ouster of Holguin as chair and maybe now candidates and members will feel like that they have a fair shot at winning the endorsement by the vote of membership, rather than pre-selection as a result of a contract with Sun Circle Strategic Group.

Here are the particulars of the Tejano Democrats Endorsement meeting:

Saturday, January 11, 2020El Paso Community College Administration Building A9050 Viscount
9:00am-10:00am Credentialing. Members must arrive during this time to receive credentials and a ballot. No exceptions. 
10:00am-1:00pm Candidates for various offices will speak. 
1:00pm - 1:15pm Voting 
1:15pm - 2:00pm ballots counted and endorsements announced.