El Paso Politics

City Rep Cortney Niland - District 8 So based on a few conversations I've had with folks I wanted to offer some clarification on the city council elections. There's some confusion so I'll try to help clear it up. There are four seats up on city council during this election. Two on the westside and two on the eastside, although one of the two eastside races includes part of the valley. On the westside its districts 1 and 8 that are up. District 1 is on open seat because City Rep Ann Morgan Lily has aged out, oops I mean termed out. District 8 is the seat held by City Rep Cortney Niland. I haven't heard any rumors of opponents for her yet. On the eastside its districts 5 and 6 that are up. District 5 is currently held by City Rep Dr. Noe. Rosa Arellano looks more and more like she's going to throw her hat in the ring. I mentioned her in recent post. District 6 is held by City Rep Claudia Ordaz. There are on-again-off-again rumors of a challenger but I'm starting t...

Peter Svarzbein, candidate for city council District 1 released a video that I ran across on social media. I gotta give him credit, its pretty funny. Especially for a local campaign ad. Social media is still a really ineffective way of campaigning and so the number of people that will see it is limited. But none the less, you have to admire the fact that he's willing to poke fun at himself, which is pretty rare in politicos. Politicos tend to be the most sensitive of creatures. He also posted a picture of a map of Azerbaijan the other day. He was obviously having a little fun with David K who refers to Svarzbein by that name in his blog. What's my Name? from peter svarzbein on Vimeo .

Turns out Alma Lopez-Molinar, former campaign manager for recent County Commissioner candidate Julio Diaz, is actually a lot more likely to end up in the Mexican Congress than you might think. Lopez-Molinar is the PAN candidate for a district in Juarez that has a couple of interesting characteristics. The first is that by Mexican rules, the representative must be a woman. Also in Mexican politics, it is quite common for very young people to serve in Congress. Much more so than in the United States. The other interesting quirk about the district is that the PRI hasn't put up a candidate in that district in quite some time, so its normally a PAN seat. Essentially if Lopez-Molinar wins her primary she's going to be in the Mexican Congress.

This is a guest post written by a friend and former colleague at Newspaptree, Ben Wright. The piece is in response to controversy at events held by the Muslim community in Austin last week. Dear Hateful Christians, Here are ten verses that I hope you will read (and weep) over. Sure, God loves you. His love is so big He even those who think He only loves them. But that’s also why he calls you (and me) to live life differently. 1 John 2:9 “ Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.” We’ll start with the simple stuff. Hatred=not knowing God. ‘Nuff said. Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” So sure about your own salvation eh? Careful what you wish for. And what is the will of the Father? 1 John 4:7 "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does...

Old Photo Taken from KTSM Website Jesse Gandara's trial has been postponed as expected, until April of 2015. Little Jesse was set to go to trial at the end of January but asked for a continuance and new council. Gandara, who is a member of a family that was likely the most affluent in Socorro at one time, is now declared indigent and will have a tax-payer funded attorney. Although, that appears to have been Gandara's plan all along. Gandara was originally indicted while he was still a member of the Socorro city council and his faction of city council at the time voted to have the tax payers of Socorro pay his legal fees. A judge later found that his faction was in office unlawfully and a special election was ordered. He was booted out of office by the voters in the special election and the new city council quickly voted to take the burden of Little Jesse's legal defense off the backs of Socorro tax payers. At that point, Gandara had to pay for his own legal representation. ...

A couple of things to look forward to on the LSB today. In fact, it will be one of the busiest days on the LSB in a long time. But there's a couple of posts in particular I want to high light. One is a post from a friend and former colleague of mine that I saw on Facebook. It was a response to the recent actions of Christian right-wing extremists who made quite the spectacle in Austin during a peaceful event held by the Muslim community. I was very moved by my friend's post, who is a devout Christian himself, and I asked permission to post it here. And later today, or maybe tomorrow, I am going to post a special response to Martin Paredes. Look I don't know if he is diagnosed with anything, but the vato is straight up crazy. He's known for writing some pretty crazy outrageous, unfounded, and usually incoherent conspiracy theories on his blog. Today, he wrote arguably the dumbest conspiracy theory he's ever written, even by his standards. Normally I ignore the fool, ...

I spoke with Julio Diaz yesterday and he informed me that while he fully intends to run for office in the future, he has decided to focus on work and family right now and not pursue the office of city council for District 1. "I'm not running for anything right now. While the opportunity is tempting, I am going to focus on the military, my business, and my family right now" Diaz said in a phone interview. Diaz said he's received a lot of calls, texts, and other messages following my last piece and he decided that he wanted to make his intentions for the short-term clear. "I want to see some good candidates get in that race. I don't want to interfere with anyone else who wants to run for that seat at this time. I thought it was best to make my intentions clear very early in order to give other candidates a chance to decide if they are going to run or not." Having indicated that he is definitely going to run for an office in the future, Diaz didn't indi...