El Paso Politics

Whatever will be, will be.  More like whatever was, was.  Alexandria Serra is a candidate for the 327th District Court. Remember the other day when I wrote about Cori Harbour-Vasquez and her social media problem. And by problem, I mean a picture of her and Chapo Guzman's wife - at the federal courthouse - during his trial.  If you recall in that post I mentioned that there are 4 candidates in that race and half the candidates in the 327th were sitting judges and half of them had big problems with their social media? Well it turns out I was wrong.  Well, kinda wrong.  Turns out that 3 out of the 4 candidates in the race have judicial experience. Alexandria Serra apparently was also a judge. If you didn't know that, I don't blame you.  Serra never talks about it.  You'd thinking having experience on a bench would be something you'd want to highlight, like the other two judges in the race have done.  Right? Yes. Unless you have something to hide....

Come on, it was always a punch line.  A PAC that has the word "honest" run by Carlos Sierra is a joke that writes itself.  For those of y'all that don't remember Carlos Sierra is the political operative most often associated with El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser and former City Rep Lily Limón - who is now a political consultant for Sun Circle, that found himself at the center of controversy pretty regularly.  Sierra is a Republican - which apparently doesn't bother Limón or her business partner Eddie Holguin because they have always been real chummy with Republicans. Limón and Max Grossman, Holguin and the late Jaime O. Perez.  Sierra had a string of legal troubles stemming mostly from a drinking problem. The vato had more DUI's than an infantry unit on a 4 day pass. It eventually led to him getting his ass beat at a Journey concert at the Haskins Center.  I know what you're thinking - who the hell tries to get gangsta at a Journey concert?  That guy does.  ...

Candidates think social media is their friend. Typically the younger the candidate, the more they think that. But social media as a campaign tool, especially in local races, is just a place were mistakes are made.  Don't get me wrong - as a blogger I absolutely love it because it gives me stuff to write about.  But from a campaign perspective the campaign teams should tell their candidates to stay off social media, delete their accounts, or at a minimum, go back a few years and clean them up.  I'd ban them from using their cell phones until after 7pm on Election Night.  In no race is that more clear than in the race for the 327th District Court. On paper, you'd look at that race and think that its of the more talent-rich races because all four candidates are experienced lawyers. Half of the candidates are sitting judges.  But also, half the candidates' social media posts demonstrate a complete lack of sound judgement. And the public has the right to know about t...

It is not uncommon to see a lot of big shots' names on campaign finance reports.  Thats is nothing new.  Business folks have always made contributions to candidates during election time. Some of the more progressive Democrats don't like that involvement from business and are usually pretty vocal in their opposition.  The criticism from progressives about business being involved in politics is that they feel its an effort of businesses or "special interests" to "buy" a seat. In fact, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary if 1/3 of a candidates' funds on a campaign finance report were from business folks.  But what is VERY unusual - and by that I mean unprecedented - is for business people to amount to 1/3 of a judicial candidate's total contributions.  And this should scare everyone.  Lisa Soto is a candidate for the 8th Court of Appeals. For those of you that don't know, for the vast majority of cases in our area, the 8th Court of Appeals in th...

Every once in a while you watch a candidate step on a rake. If you don't understand that reference, you've probably never watched cartoons as a kid and are obviously no fun to be around.  Actually, let me quit joking here for a moment because this isn't funny. Candidate for 8th Court of Appeals Lisa Soto posted a time-honored social media post today - the staged block-walking photo. Nothing particularly noteworthy about it, except that she was out with Queta Fierro, the Grand Dame of the El Paso County Democratic Party. An amazing woman who really should have a book written about her because she was a trailblazer.  She does the invocation at a couple of the Democratic Party club meetings - virtually these days because in-person Democratic Party events are pretty rare these days. The Democratic Party Hall of Fame was made for people like Queta.  But we are living in the time of a global pandemic. Healthcare workers are seeing a major surge in the hospitals with some depart...

The Tejano Democrats of El Paso held a candidate forum on Saturday and voting for members will be in person from January 24-January 26 from 9am - to 4pm at 1212 Montana Avenue.  Masks are required. But if you don't feel comfortable going inside to vote in person, there is curbside voting available. If you are voting curbside, call or text (915)731-6118. Members are asked not to use museum parking and park on the street.  This is likely the only Tejano chapter who's voting will not have a predetermined outcome. The other Tejano chapter is run by Eddie Holguin and Lily Limón and their clients are going to win all of their endorsements.  Its not even going to be a question. 

Sorry y'all, I know you're waiting on the judicial campaign finance report piece I mentioned yesterday. Its coming, relax. Your Friendly Neighborhood LionStar has been busy. As I mentioned before I'm trying to get as many candidate interviews as I can, but that can be difficult. So I'm also capturing video of them speaking wherever I can if I can't get an interview.  I did an interview with 8th Court of Appeals Candidate Lisa Soto a couple weeks ago after a Tejano Democrats of El Paso Meeting - aka the real Tejanos.  This race is super interesting because both candidates have their strengths and both candidates are very different people. Soto is a private school kid (she went to Loretto) who tries a little too hard to make herself sound like Jenny From the Block (its okay that you're not). Lerma, is a public school kid and her dad is a prominent lawyer.  Both are experienced Latina attorneys who went to prestigious colleges. Soto went to school on the west coast...

As I mentioned last week former State Rep Norma Chavez is going to challenge incumbent Democratic State Rep Lina Ortega as an independent.  I had a few people reach out asking about the process and I figure I should lay it all out for you because there's a funny scenario.  She has to collect 500 signatures in like a month and a half or so and they have to be registered voters who didn't vote in either primary. Thats tedious but far from impossible.  But - it also means that Chavez can't vote in a primary. That means if she wants her family to sign it, they can't vote in a primary either.  Trust me, part of me wanted to stay quiet about that and just wait to see if she voted in the primary but I actually will find it entertaining to watch her run as an independent.  **************************** Finance Reports I'm going through the finance reports and I'm no where near done. But I took a peak at a few of them and I'll be coming through with a more in-depth bl...

A survey was done recently (I've been sitting on this for a few days because I was occupied with other things) in the precinct 4 race for County Commissioner.  Obviously Robinson's team from Sun Circle is nervous about his race. If they aren't, they should be. So they sent out their robocall survey they send a couple of times whenever they are running a candidate so that they have something to show their candidate.  Well, that poll probably has to be scrapped and run again because whatever list of voters they ran apparently was using the old precinct 4 boundaries and not the new ones because people that used to be in precinct 4, but now live in the expanded precinct 2, got the robocall.  Whenever you're running a poll for a district-level seat and you include voters outside the area, you're basically ruining your data because it won't be an accurate representation of the electorate. With so few respondents in those polls, basically any small number of voters fro...

El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser and his spouse have divorced. This story might sound vaguely familiar to some of you.  I know what you're thinking: Why are you rehashing a story that ran last week LionStar?  Is this click bait?  Are you running out of things to talk about?  I feel you. I don't blame you one bit if thats what you're thinking.  Why wouldn't you?  Well perhaps this little social experiment might help you understand a little better.  Work with me here... Just for funsies, I'd like you all to just jump into your favorite search engine and run a search on "Leeser, divorce".  I'm gonna bet that your result looks a little something like this: The result you'll find is a story from KTSM with the headline talking about the divorce. Now, continue to indulge me... Click on the link and see what happens. Spoiler Alert: You'll see this when you click on it.  So what gives? Why is the story gone? Well let me explain some things to you. First, Da...

The Westside Dems held their candidate forum last week. It was smoothly run, so they set the bar for the rest of the Democratic Party auxiliaries. Seriously, I was impressed about how smoothly and seamlessly it was run. There were a lot of candidates but they got through the forum quickly without making it feel like it was dragging.  I don't know if they recorded it and it can be reviewed, but if it can - you should take the time to go watch it for several reasons.  Mainly for two races that you probably wouldn't think much about - but they were the biggest points of interest in the candidate forum. The race for County Court at Law #2 and the race for State Board of Education.  Judge Julie Gonzalez is the incumbent in the race and she is facing Judge Sara Priddy. Gonzalez was first and it was a pretty pedestrian presentation. She stayed inside the lines and and didn't do herself any harm, which is the thing you worry about the most with incumbent candidates in judicial ra...

Controversial former State Rep Norma Chavez has filed an intent to run as an independent for state representative with the Texas Secretary of State's Office.  Chavez was the state representative for House District 76 for a few terms. At the time HD 76 was made up mostly of the El Paso's Lower Valley. She famously clashed with pretty much every elected official in El Paso at one point or another, with the exception of Eddie Holguin who was always riding shotgun for her.  The Secretary of State's Office maintains the list of candidates that intend to run as an independent in general elections because well, there's no independent party and therefore no county party to run their election. Here is a link to the list of all the candidates that have filed an intent to run as an independent candidate in the November election.  Here's a screenshot of the list so you can get a better look at it - as you can see, there is the former State Rep's name. (Its on Page Two). It ...

I'm doing my best to cover the often over-looked judicial races. So lets talk about the El Paso Bar Poll. I always thought the El Paso Bar was a cross section of lawyers in all disciplines of the law. But hell, what do I know? I only have two semesters of community college under my belt.  Turns out the local bar is pretty much dominated by lawyers from the big civil law firms. Winning the El Paso Bar poll is like being on the cover of Madden. If you don't get that reference, you don't watch enough ESPN and are probably absolutely no fun to drink with. You probably "don't watch television" and if you do, its probably BritBox.  Anywho, for those of you that don't get the reference, the El Paso Bar Association isn't known for they ability to pick winners in judicial elections. Why? Because they are a bunch of lawyers and no one knows less about winning judicial elections than lawyers.  Shhhhh, don't tell them. They have no idea that the courthouse and...

As I mentioned to you all before, I'm trying to interview all the candidates that are running for office. Its hard with COVID because they aren't as many in-person events to run into candidates. In fact, I ran into one at an event last night but I wasn't prepared and hadn't really done any background research on the race or the candidates so I didn't have any questions that I thought would be helpful for voters. But I promise I'll be ready next time.  I have been able to get a few so far and I'll publish them by the race they are in. I'm trying to publish them all together in one post when I can get all the candidates on camera. The first is Precinct 4 County Commissioner. Since Commissioner Robinson doesn't get out much, I figured I likely won't ever have a chance to interview him so I'll go ahead and post the interviews from the two opponents for Precinct 4. 

I'm posting the first of several candidate interviews later today but I wanted to just drop this quick post about the Eastside Democrats Meeting last night.  This may start an internet beef akin to the Vanta Lord and the Rogue on Tik Tok - but it is not my job to take sides. Only to observe, record, and retell.  Okay, sometimes I take sides.  Anywho, the Eastside Democrats had a ton of candidates show up and each of them was allowed a minute to speak. One of the speeches actually made me make a face of shock.  Judge Julie Gonzalez started her speech by saying she grew up in the Lower Valley. Now, I'm sure she was just trying to ingratiate herself to the Eastside Dems or maybe trying her best channeling her inner Davey Crockett, but she gave the Lower Valley quite the cachetada last night. So as I mentioned, she started by saying she grew up in the Lower Valley but then said something to the effect of but I left there as soon as I could for the Eastside .  Zas. R...

Art Fierro made a last ditch effort to remove Claudia Ordaz Perez from the ballot by suing the local El Paso County Democratic Party. That meant that the local party - already cash strapped from the fact that we've basically had no fundraisers other than some enchilada sales and a car show, had to pony up the money to hire an attorney.  Art Fierro either knew this was just a political Hail Mary and did it anyway, or he's the least informed state rep on planet earth. The guy actually sits on the ELECTIONS COMMITTEE in the state house. You'd think he'd know the rules!!! The 8th Court of Appeals ruled against Art Fierro's frivolous lawsuit on Friday night. You likely won't hear an update from Martin Paredes about this lawsuit - and I'll explain why later.  Here's another fun little nugget for ya - there is a pretty high likelihood that YOU the tax payer are ultimately going to have to foot the bill for Fierro's folly. You see when the complainant loses ...

Okay so you clicked on this because of the title. And yes, its appears so. But I need to give some back story before I get to the birther part. I'll try to be as succinct as I can be, so - walk with me.... I genuinely feel sorry for first time candidates. Its hard to run for office and as a first time candidate you absolutely never have a real understanding of all the work that goes into running a campaign. The good candidates know they don't know what they are doing and seek out advice and assistance from people who have done it before.  The bad ones think they know what they are doing and go on being blissfully ignorant about the status of their campaign because they go off of Facebook likes or their friends that are being nice to them - and then end up completely shocked on election night.  I've seen it play out dozens of times.  I feel especially bad for people that are fist time candidates that shoot for the moon and run for mayor, county judge, or congress without e...

I'm doing this first non-judicial race analysis because honestly, its the easiest one to do. Technically its a race, but seriously - just technically.  Incumbent Congresswoman Veronica Escobar drew an opponent in the Democratic Primary. Her name is Deliris Montanez but appears to also be going by the initials DMB as part of her campaign. Its super strange and I don't understand what she's trying to accomplish by doing so.  I'm sure she's a really nice person. She's a veteran and some sort of whistle blower. She's never run for anything before and that is pretty obvious. Her social media appears to be the main way she's trying to connect with voters - although she's using a Facebook group instead of a public Facebook page. I haven't seen much about policies that she advocates for or has a different opinion about than Escobar. She seems to be pretty religious but no information currently available about her that distinguishes her from Escobar.   An...

Okay, I just wrote about how important the judicial races are but I didn't mention the JP races so I thought I would take a minute to write a few lines about the four contested JP races.  First things first, its conspicuous that two of the incumbents didn't draw opponents - Judge Rebeca Bustamante on the Eastside and Judge Herrera in Central / East El Paso. Both incumbents are attorneys and are pretty popular among their base and have managed to be able to successfully work their docket despite the COVID situation that has been a challenge to a lot of courts.  Justice of the Peace Precinct 5 is currently presided over by Judge John-John Chatman. If you could find a judge more incapable of managing a court during the best of circumstances, to say nothing of trying to manage it during a crisis, I would be surprised. Because honestly, his court's a desmadre . And trust me when I tell you - all the other JP's are fed up with him and tired of picking up the slack for him.  B...