El Paso Politics

Sources close to the campaign have indicated that embattled EPISD School Board President Dori Fenenbock is set to announce her bid for a congressional run next week. She would likely face County Judge Veronica Escobar who announced on Monday that she was not seeking reelection. That was an almost solid indication that her intention is to run for the seat being vacated by Congressman Beto O'Rourke. Fenenbock is said to be looking at June 11th for the announcement date. Fenenbock found herself in a controversy when Superintendent Juan Cabrera allegedly offered City Rep candidate Shane Haggerty a campaign contribution and solicited his support for Fenenbock in the same conversation. That led to Fenenbock stating that she wanted all media communications to go through her. Rumor has it that the long-time Republican is going to actually run as a Democrat. The Democratic Primary will be held in March 2018. From this point forward, just about everything they do will be scrutinized and have...

Who is the subject of a Texas Ranger investigation that has denied he's a subject of the investigation but has now actually be contacted my the Texas Rangers? It's absolutely not anybody running who's name rhymes with Slim Sherbert.

According to emails obtained by The Lion Star Blog, Socorro City Rep Yvonne Colon-Villalobos, who together with City Rep Maria Reyes engineered the railroading of former Mayor Gloria Rodriguez, inexplicably decided to move away from using the city-issued email addressed assigned to her, in favor of using per personal email address for business purposes. This issue has raised some eyebrows in Socorro because there is basically no reason to not use the city-issued email address to conduct official city business. Some would say that switching from an assigned email address to your personal email address conduct city business is - and this is really pulling some punches, sketchy. Some have also said that in their opinion it looks like a deliberate effort to side-step the Open Records Act. Emails of city business would still have to be turned over if requested even if they are on her personal account or devices. You would think after all the scrutiny of emails and open record requests at th...

The Northeast Business Association held a forum last night at the Northeast Regional Command Center. Mayoral candidate Dee Margo was in attendance but Republican candidate David Saucedo was a no-show. The organizers mentioned Saucedo was invited to attend but he was not in attendance. Margo spoke to the crowd and gave them a chance to ask him questions. To my knowledge, that was the last scheduled debate of the campaign season.

Lots going on in my blog today, but here's a quick one about the county judge race. There are two possibly three members of commissioner's court that are interested in being the next county judge. There are indications that both Commissioners Leon and Stout are considering a run for the seat soon to be vacated by County Judge Veronica Escobar. Former El Paso Mayor John Cook has already announced his intent to seek the County Judge position. I'm pretty sure you'll end up with people from outside government run but its hard to see viable options out there when you consider how terrible of a field it was for the mayoral election. Stay tuned to this one...

District 4 candidate Sam Morgan said in a recent forum that he would instruct the Chief of Police Greg Allen to enforce SB4, characterizing the controversial law against Sanctuary Cities "legitimate" and the "law of the land". The question was asked by KINT Channel 26 Anchor Hector Urrutia during a debate held at El Paso Community College. Only two candidates were in attendance at the forum, Sam Morgan and David Saucedo. The answer bothered me because SB4 is the most clearly racially-motived piece of legislation that I can recall in my lifetime. Recently there was an opinion piece against undervoting in the run-off for the mayoral election and it evoked images of hoses and dogs being let loose on minorities. At some point in American history, a lot of really dumb laws were the "law of the land" including forbidding women and minorities from voting, interracial marriage, same sex marriage, and oh yeah...owning other human beings. "Law of the land"...

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm pretty hard on the vato. Mostly because I believe he's an entitled pocho vendido sell-out who grew up with every advantage in life but tries to be the "average El Pasoan" and tries to be someone he's not all the time. He did it again at a recent forum and I'll get to that later. But for now, lets just have a little fun. I've seen candidates do just about anything for a vote. Memmur that time Melina Castro dressed as Wonder Woman? Or Jaime Barceleau handing out suckers to people voting for him? Which is really creepy now that a lady has come forward with some interesting allegations. Hell, Saucedo himself has even posted a video of him staging that he was mopping, then hands the mop back to a senior who was mopping up coffee Saucedo spilled himself. Told ya he was a douche... Anywho, I was at this forum awhile back and I haven't had a chance to post the video. As this unfolded another candidate saw me pull out my phone to re...