El Paso Politics

Socorro Mayor Elia Garcia is apparently still fuming about the fact that the Municipal Judge in Socorro did what any decent judge worth a damn would have done - kicked a case that was full of conflict out of her court. Really I think she's still mad that she's not the municipal judge herself anymore. If you recall, she was aiming to triple her tax-payer funded salary in the City with a Mission. Anywho, Garcia and her partner on council Ralph Duran were trying to run a movida to get rid of the Judge that Socorro hired over Garcia. They failed and what appears to be a retaliatory move, Mayor Garcia has apparently refused to sign the contract for Judge Velarde. She also appears to have been delaying the process which ultimately has lead to an expense to tax payers. They now have to contract with Justice of the Peace Lujan to hear cases that Judge Velarde can't or hasn't because there has been a judicial limbo due to the delay. To bring you back up to speed, Mayor Garcia is...

Sunday morning District 6 candidate Eric Stoltz posted a facebook message about the need to "address campaign finance if we want a future that involves our community and not large campaign donors". In a shockingly hypocritical finance report, 80% of Stoltz's contributions come from one person - an out-of-town billionaire from Houston. This really is an about-face for a guy that has been talking about "bringing community voices to City Hall". In the post that Stoltz was being critical of Ordaz's contributions he featured a screenshot of a report to council about regarding her campaign donations. She had a fundraiser thrown for her by Latino business leaders in this community. Stoltz would have very happily taken their money if they had given him their support. Hell many of them were realtors and he competed with Ordaz for that endorsement. Now that the 8 day finance reports are out we get a clearer picture of the fact that while Stoltz has been talking up add...

It takes some next-level hypocrisy for me to actually come to the defense of Mayor Margo but the level of hypocrisy from City Reps Cassandra Hernandez and Alex Annello is legendary. They sent out a letter complaining about the fact that yet again, El Paso's dynamic duo of failed leadership lost on another vote. And its the most middle school bullshit I ever heard. The two are apparently pissed because the majority of council selected a home-grown El Pasoan who is Latina as the new city attorney instead of an old white lady from out of town. Why they are advocating for an old white lady from out of town over one of our own is a mystery to me, but the letter they sent out complained about the fact that Representative Noe wasn't around for most of the interview process for the new city attorney and they feel that because he wasn't around that the people that live in District 5 (El Paso's eastside) shouldn't have a vote in who the new city attorney would be. But you mem...

You know for a Republican, Andrew Haggerty is pretty cavalier about how he blows through campaign money. He dropped a mailer recently - and I won't even get started on the racial undertone to it - that he sent to Lower Valley Democrats. Why on earth the mailer would be sent to Bel Air, Ysleta, Riverside, and Del Valle areas is mystery to me and definitely an indicator of a major campaign screw up. But the bigger screw-up and waste of money is WHO he sent it to. I don't mean that he sent the mailer to voters with just some casual Democratic voting history, I mean he sent it to people with  a madre Democratic voting history. His mailer landed all over the place but its hilarious that it landed so far away from the westside and landed in homes of people that even if they actually lived on the westside, would never vote for him. I don't know who the hell screwed that up, but its one hell of an expensive screw up! Talk about a massive waste of campaign dollars. I've heard o...

So City Rep Cissy Lizarraga said in a debate recently that none of her opponents had voted in the special election she won to replace City Rep Cortney Niland. Turns out that Rich Wright in fact has. Lizarraga sent me a text a few days ago to let me know that she had discovered the error. There are a few people with his name and she apparently saw the wrong guy's voting history. I actually made the same mistake. I give credit for Lizarraga correcting the record. But the El Paso Times ran an article about the issue and fellow D8 candidate Greg Baine, who I hear may be being run by everyone's favorite slime ball Carlos Sierra, had a rather interesting quote. Baine basically said what difference does it make, and then turned it around to say that Lizarraga was attacking his integrity. I'm not sure how bringing up his voting record is an attack on his integrity, but if is voting record is in fact an attack on his integrity, then he's in trouble. Before we get into Baine'...

Ah yes, El Paso's Dandy Max Grossman has once again gone after Democrats. I hope all you slacktavists are paying attention because once again your Pied Piper has proven he doesn't really care about you. He's just using you. I warned you guys a long time ago that the guy was just using you and none of you listened. It really wasn't until he went after Beto that the majority of you woke up about him. Max Grossman is an extremist conservative. Those are his values. Although Mr. Small Government actually feeds at the government trough because he has a tax-payer funded job, which is hilarious to me. When he did that, he used the El Paso History Alliance Facebook page to launch his attack. True to his MO, he did it again. This time he used the page of the El Paso History Alliance to lob an attack on the Democratic Party. I guess he quickly re-thought the attack and deleted the post. But here is a screenshot of the post. I know what you're thinking, how can we see what the...

The funniest thing in the world to me is to see the lengths people will go to for a vote. Remember David Saucedo's boxing commercial. And the time he was dancing? Or Chente's pachangas... Or Dora's knock-off pachanga.. Or Norma's dine and booze... Or a myriad of other examples. But one of my favorite examples is Eric Stoltz. Stoltz is super liberal. He's even backed Green Party candidates. To show you just how far candidates will go for votes sometimes, Stoltz's pretty much has one consistent poll sitter. For those of you that don't live in the valley, poll sitting is something of a cultural phenomenon in valley races. It can be best described as in-your-face Democracy. Its the last chance you get to touch a voter before they go in to cast a vote. Poll sitting in the valley is the stuff of legend! I could write about the stuff I've seen for days. Anywho, Stoltz's main poll sitter is a big time Ted Cruz supporter. Today he even showed up with a home-m...