Justice of the Peace Races

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. 

But if you listen to ol' John-John, its everyone's fault but his own and he has no shortage of excuses. 

Which is probably why he has so many opponents. And they are all Latinas. His court is in the valley, so we all know how this story ends. He survived last time, but he's toast this time. 

I think one of the candidates running against him is, or was, a staffer from Judge Ruban Lujan's office. The other is the spouse of a former elected official in the valley. Another candidate is Lucilla Najera who is the one candidate who is capable of being a worse justice of the peace than even Chatman. And there's another with the last named Marlin, who actually has the fish on her signs. 

None of the candidates other than Najera appear to being doing anything. The strategy in this race apparently is to put a campaign sign anywhere there is empty space in the lower valley. And I mean anywhere. Its obnoxious. 

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that former Socorro Mayor Elia Garcia also filed against John-John Chatman. But as par for the course for the former Mayor of Socorro who somehow managed to pass the bar exam - she once again managed to screw something up. As a quick refresher, she's the former mayor that as the sitting mayor of Socorro, tried to represent a resident of Socorro in a case against the Socorro PD, in Socorro while she was mayor of Socorro - and saw absolutely nothing wrong with the idea. And then had the audacity to get pissed when the case got kicked to another court. Incidentally, it was Lujan's court. 

You'd think someone who went to law school would actually look up the district lines before they filed, but she didn't. Elia REALLY wants a comfy judicial seat and is trying really hard to find one. 

Anywho - that genius (yes that is sarcasm for those of you that are new here and haven't picked up on it), didn't realize that she didn't actually LIVE in Judge Chatman's area. I assure you, she's the dullest crayon in the box. 

Where was I? Oh yeah - there's beef between Chatman and Judge Ruben Lujan. Lujan is facing a Latina opponent and I think she is, or used to be, from Chatman's office. So a bit of gamesmanship appears to be going on. 

If that challenger can get her act together and get more help than the code enforcement officer from San Elizario, she might pose a threat to Judge Lujan. Lujan has been in office for a very long time but barring any major screw-up, he will likely be re-elected. Latina candidates on paper are generally formidable but his opponent doesn't appear to be moving the ball down the field or making any noise, so he seems to be fine. 

Judge Nina Serna is facing a rematch with the former incumbent in the other Precinct 6 race. Both Precinct 6 races are pretty rural and JP's out there have more of an intimate relationship with their constituents than the other precincts and maintain a higher community profile than the other JP's and are therefore pretty well-known. As a result, really hard to beat an incumbent if you aren't well-funded or don't have a strong campaign team. 

Out in JP 7 - which is the westside incumbent JP Stephanie Frietze drew an opponent, an attorney named Beto Enriquez. He's an attorney with a lot of experience. Frietze has a strong base in Canutillo which elected her to school board a few times before she won her seat as JP. She was the first Latina Justice of the Peace on the Westside of El Paso since Texas was in the confederacy. 

Seriously, it had always been represented by old white guys. And when I say old white guys, I'm pretty sure her predecessor fought for the confederacy before he was the JP. 

JP races hear a lot of traffic ticket cases, landlord-tenant disputes, and small claims matters.