El Paso Politics

He's not the politico I was alluding to over my last couple of posts, but there are some indications and more than a few whispers that State Rep Chente Quintanilla may run for County Commissioner in Precinct #3, currently represented by Willie Gandara, Jr. If true, this is yet another indicator that Gandara won't seek re-election. This puts one person in particular in the limelight. A former staffer for both Gandara and Quintanilla, Dora Oaxaca. First, lets talk about why this makes sense for Quintanilla. Quintanilla had yet another bad session in Austin. I looked at population numbers for his district and he's way over populated in his district. His district is going to be redrawn and its going to look a lot more Republican. He's a conservative Democrat, but still a Democrat. The only way he'd fight off a Republican challenger is if he switched parties and became a Republican. Which honestly wouldn't surprise me given some of the votes he's made. Secondly, ...

Last Saturday State Rep Chente Quintanilla spoke at the Press Club Meeting and took questions from the audience. From The Lion Star Blog by Jaime Abeytia Quintanilla fielded questions on a range of issues dealing with education, voter identification, the budget, and gambling from members of the audience. I took the opportunity to ask a couple questions myself and another person's question about UTEP reminded me to ask his position on the elimination of Cesar Chavez Day as a holiday at UTEP. As you will hear in the recording, I was critical of the fact that not a single elected Latino leader issued any comment on the move by UTEP. Frankly I was expecting him to against their move. I was shocked to hear what I heard next. Before any of you say that his answer was taken out of context or anything like that, I posted the entire question and his entire answer on the matter. Here is the audio: In another surprising move on the part of the long time Democratic State Representative, Quin...