El Paso Politics

County Commissioner Vince Perez announced his re-election campaign Sunday morning after mass in San Elizario, Texas. As you may know, San Elizario exists as its own independent community because Commissioner Perez led the charge against a City Council in Socorro, led by the infamous Gandara family, that had unlawfully extended their terms in office and tried to orchestrate an annexation of San Elizario. And the contrasts between the candidates couldn't be more clear. The Holguin family are going to try to appeal to the establishment and anyone with an office or title. Perez made it a point to announce his reelection in San Elizario, the place were he married his wife, El Paso Mayor Pro-Temp Claudia Ordaz Perez and the place where he chose to be sworn in as County Commissioner - among a crowd of supporters that don't have fancy titles, don't have staff, and were from every sector of Precinct 3. Former City Rep Eddie Holguin, spouse of challenger Iliana Holguin made it a poin...

I don't recall ever seeing an alleged Democratic candidate attack a labor union and a labor leaders, but it apparently has happened. In a statement released on her campaign Facebook account Monday night, congressional candidate Dori Fenenbock attacked Ross Moore and the American Federation of Teachers following an email to AFT membership today from Moore indicating that Fenenbock was not competing for the endorsement of the labor union that represents teachers in EPISD. This is more than just an attack on one union boss or one union. When a candidate attacks one union, they are attacking all of labor. I'll get to the specifics in just a minute, but first I want to talk about two other things - people who should be embarrassed for supporting her and her hypocrisy. First, lets talk about the support. If you're a member of a labor union and you're supporting Fenenbock, you need to be asking yourself why at this point. Basically, I'm talking to the boys in blue that are...

Looks like 8th Court of Appeals candidate Maria Ramirez fixed her billboards.  If you look closely you can see that the word "for" was added. You may recall that a complaint was filed with the Ethics Commission by a constituent about the lack of the word "for" in her campaign signs. This will likely get her off the hook with the ethics commission.

Every once in awhile something or someone gets under my skin. I'll admit, its a bit of a weakness of mine, and it may someday be my undoing, but I love a good fight. But this is beyond the rush of a good exchange. I'm pissed. Don Kirkpatrick,precinct chair, longtime Democratic Party activist and member of the Democratic Party Hall of Fame, sends out emails to party activists. Next to Don Williams' email list, its the largest in the party.  Today, following the announcement of the endorsements of the El Paso Young Democrats, Mr. Kirkpatrick sent out the following email: It is difficult to understand the Young Democrats' endorsement of a candidate who is backed solidly -- with significant financial support -- by a coterie of wealthy Republicans.  Their purposes, obviously, are diametrically opposed to the goals of all Democrats. It seems to me, in view of the fact that City Council elections are non-partisan, that endorsements by political parties are inappropriate. I...

"Pull my little string and I'll turn you some flips, I'm your puppet..." I'm your puppet is a great song. I hear it every Sunday on The Fox Jukebox with Mike Guerrero and whenever I DJ a gig in the valley. But when its political candidates, its not such a great concept. But according to several witnesses that attended the EPISO Forum on Sunday afternoon, it looks like Zulema Lazarin is just that, a puppet. But I was surprised to hear who the supposed puppetmaster is...Nacho Padilla. Witnesses say that Padilla was signaling Lazarin how to answer questions. Its not like there haven't been other candidates that have had handlers guide them on how to answer questions. But thats prep that is done before a forum, not during! He was literally giving her the thumbs up or thumbs down for Lazarin when she was asked questions. Now Lazarin has given us plenty of reasons to question her judgement, everything from her decision to run, the district she ran in, the creation o...

When Dee Margo ran against Joe Moody for State Rep District 78, his main argument wasn't what Joe Moody did, he ran on what he said Joe Moody didn't do. In fact, I remember a large part of his argument was that Moody didn't get another building for the medical center. In fact, he once said, "he didn't even try". It would naturally follow that if his criticism of Moody was that he didn't even try to get another medical building, he was going to. Which is interesting because the deadline to file bills has come and gone and guess what? We don't have another building for the medical center. From The Lion Star Blog by Jaime Abeytia Not only do we not have another building for the medical center...Margo apparently didn't even try to get it for us. WARNING, THIS IS GOING TO GET A LITTLE NERDY, SO TRY TO FOLLOW ALONG. Below is a list of bills for each of the 5 El Paso Reps. First, a little explanation about what it, and what is not on this list. What is he...

Here is the entirety of the canidate forum hosted by the Greater El Paso Republican Women last Saturday. This was one of the best organized and well-run candidate forums I've seen, and I've been to many of them. The head of the GEPRW, Becky Hermosillo and her membership did a good job of running the forum. This had a chance of being a real trainwreck and it turned out to be very well run.

There was one notable no-show at Saturdays forum for the Candidates in District 1 held by the Greater El Paso Republican Women...Tim Besco. From Burges Candidate Forum Becky Hermosillo, who heads the organization, announced that Besco had declined their invitation. If you want some insight as to why, I have conveniently posted his now-infamous email at the end of this post, ya know...in case you forgot or missed it the first time. I'm betting the College Republicans were expecting Besco to show up, refuse to pay for a meal, and bring in his own breakfast. I know some of you might think that I am just looking for an excuse to repost the email Besco sent out as a reminder to Republicans in the district just exactly what he thinks of them. To those people I say...oh hell, who am I kidding, of course I was just looking for a an excuse to repost the letter! Just in case you forgot, here it is again in all its glory: THANKS FOR NOTHING All of you who are getting this email should know wh...

You aren't going to believe this email, so take your time reading it, it's certainly worth the read. I'll let you know one thing that will make you want to keep reading, it ends with FUCK YOU! I HOPE YOU'LL ROT IN HELL! From Burges Candidate Forum The following is an email sent out via an mass email communications program. I obtained this email just a few moments ago and checked with one source in the Republican Party to verify its authenticity. To the best of their knowledge, this came from Tim Besco's Campaign: THANKS FOR NOTHING All of you who are getting this email should know why. From the very start of my campaign - I have had nothing but criticism from many of you. All I'd hear was, "You don't speak well." or "You can't do this or that." I'd even ask for your help at different events, but I'd get very little or no help. Then when I hired someone who is a professional consultant - I would get nothing but even more hatred...

From The Lion Star Blog The El Paso chapter of the Latino National Republican Coalition issued a statement to the media today calling for Senator Harry Reid's (D-NV) resignation as Majority Leader in the Senate because of comments he made questioning why Latinos would be members of the Republican Party. "The El Paso Latino National Republican Coalition finds the comments made by Harry Reid on a campaign stop in Nevada to be racialist and demeaning to the Hispanic Community. For many years Hispanics have been a part of the Republican Party not only in El Paso but nationally as well and the numbers have been steadily growing as more and more Hispanics find themselves being over taxed, don't want big government and are tired of working hard so others can live off of social programs. For Harry Reid to even think that all Hispanics should think a certain way only feeds into the stereotype that all Hispanics should also all look a certain way and should all talk a certain way. H...

There is more to what I posted but I am in the process of digging around and getting some background from attorneys in terms of process before I write the rest, so stay tuned. A quick search of county records does show that the organization is registered as a proprietorship. This link shows that the group was first organized under Ricardo Armendariz. More commonly known as Rick Armendariz. He's a political consultant here in El Paso and is known for working on campaigns regardless of political affiliation. He recently ran Gus Haddad's bid for Mayor and has done some political work for State Representative Norma Chavez in the past. I wrote about a mailer that was done by Armendariz for Chavez a couple years back and a similar design was done for her opponent, State Representative-Elect Naomi Gonzalez, who recently defeated Chavez. This link shows an active registration under the name ANIBAL HIDALGO OLAGUE and lists an eastside address. This link shows an active registration un...

From The Lion Star Blog A member of the Executive Committee of the newly-elected Camino Real Mexican American Democrats confirms that most of the officers and all of the Executive Committee with the exception of State Representative Norma Chavez, have resigned from MAD. Alfredo Longoria, the Secretary of the Camino Real Mexican American Democrats says he turned in his resignation in writing last week to the newly-elected Chairman (and Mayor of Socorro) Willie Gandara Sr. Longoria also confirmed that the Chair and Vice-Chair Dora Oaxaca (senior staffer of County Commissioner Willie Gandara Jr.)also resigned. Though not specific as to why he resigned, Longoria did state that he felt the organization had "...been mismanaged over the last 8 years..." Longoria also said something that may shed some light on his reasons for leaving the organization. He said, "...I felt defrauded. I gave MAD my money and it was spent on other purposes..." Longoria has been active in the El...

I could go on and on about this topic for days, but I'll restrict my current critiques to just a couple of areas. At some point I am going to write about the fact that we are the "Democratic stronghold of the state of Texas" but people don't "need" the party to win elections in this town. In fact, most of the people in town that have won elections lately aren't party regulars, so its pretty sad that the party is largely irrelevant in elections when we are the "Democratic stronghold of the state of Texas". But here are two problems with our local Democratic Party. #1-The website. What the hell? The site is fugly and many parts are not updated or functional. Click here to see what I mean. By comparison, check out the Republicans' website . They kick our ass. A good website should be clean, easy to navigate, intuitive, and updated regularly. I will volunteer myself and a team to help with this if necessary. #2-El Paso's answer to Vladimir ...