El Paso Politics

I don't know what is with Mayor Garcia - is she just really stupid, or does she think rules don't apply to her? Seriously at this point, she's kind of comic relief in an otherwise heated race for County Commissioner Precinct 3. Garcia still has not filed a campaign finance report even though the deadline for the NEXT filing period is already approaching. At a minimum, the filing report needs to have reported the amount of money she spent on the filing fee to have her name appear on the ballot - at a minimum. She has other obvious campaign materials that cost money that should have also been on the finance report. Garcia has long been plagued with issues related to complying with campaign finance issues. Her and her supporter Ralph Duran have played fast and loose with using traffic control devices and converting them to use for her campaign. It gave voters the impression that the City of Socorro was somehow endorsing her candidacy. This is an egregious violation - but she...

The very day that District 76 candidate Elisa Tamayo, the hand-picked choice of the local delegation, was designated a "certified progressive" by Progress Texas , she showed up at an all-Republican event for an extremist Trump supporter that was just elected to city council in El Paso. The Trump supporter, Claudia Rodriguez, won a seat to represent some of the bluest precincts in El Paso County on El Paso's city council. Tamayo showed up to her election night celebration to show her support for the Republican. Here's a picture she took, literally in the arms of some of El Paso's most extremist Republicans and Trump supporters. The guy in the middle who is a grown man that still likes to play dress up and in this picture is cosplaying as Inspector Gadget is Max Grossman. Big time Democrat hater. I'll get to him in a minute. The woman off to the right is Representative-elect Claudia Rodriguez who ironically was elected largely on the name ID of Tamayo's oppo...

I don't know why Theresa Caballero bothers smack talking about me. That Captain Phasma bullshit works around the courtroom where most people are either too afraid to stand up to her, or feel its not worth the effort of making an enemy of someone who clearly routinely takes shit too far. I, on the other hand, don't give a damn who she thinks she is, she injects herself as a public figure into campaign season, she's entitled to the same scrutiny as everyone else. I mean, do I really have to go into the ol' LionStar video archive to show all the TC footage over the years? I don't know what the hell made her start in on me lately, but I don't turn the other cheek and by now she should know that little school yard bully bullshit she uses in the courtroom doesn't work on me. So aside from talking smack about me lately, Theresa Caballero has been injecting herself in local races and writing "anonymously" in various places. The one thing you need to know a...

Elisa Tamayo's campaign is a lot like most people's Facebook profile pictures - its them, but kinda not really. Tamayo does a lot of window dressing to do her best to make herself look like the front runner, or maybe she genuinely believes she is. I wouldn't blame her if she did, she's in a world where the delegation is talking her up and going all-in to make sure she wins. Seriously, wait for that post-election piece where I tell you all the stuff I know just how far the delegation has gone in this election - trust me, its gonna surprise you. Tamayo usually starts all her speeches by saying 1) she's hand-picked by the delegation - voters apparently don't matter to the delegation - and 2) she's from a bilingual, binational, bicultural, bilateral, bicameral, bionic, bipartisan, biodegradable community...or something like that. At her campaign announcement she used a mural outside of District 76 as the backdrop and spoke of the August 3rd shooting as something...

Karen Dykes is the top fundraiser on the first financial reports of the candidates for District Attorney. She donated $7,000 to herself, which put her over the top by $400. Had she lent herself that money should could pay herself back, but she listed it as a contribution instead of a loan. She seems like a nice lady and she's very well spoken. I'm sure she's an adequate attorney. But frankly, I just can't take her seriously. Here's why I can't take her seriously. The next District Attorney is going to prosecute the Walmart Shooter and the guy who killed Deputy Herrera. Two very important cases for our community. We are hiring the next chief prosecutor of crimes to help keep our community safe. Karen Dykes, Yvonne Rosales, and Roger Montoya are all defense attorneys. They have made their living getting people off the hook for crimes. The whole purpose of being a defense lawyer is to make sure your client isn't convicted or to get the least harsh punishment po...

I follow local politics across the political spectrum and most of you are probably unaware that there is actually a pretty cut-throat Republican primary going on for the Congressional District 16 race. That is the race to determine who is going to get annihilated by Congresswoman Escobar in November. But the local GOP folks have this pipe dream where they are somehow going to be able to win the congressional seat. I mean they never come remotely close, but this year they are hanging their hats on something they haven't before...the absence of straight-ticket voting. I guess no one in the local GOP actually looks at data. I think they just all get together, come up with a narrative that makes them feel good, and then they just repeat it in their social media echo chamber until it makes sense to them. Eventually, it becomes gospel to them. Well allow me to give the ol' GOP some free data analysis. But I warn you guys, this is going to be sobering. I know your side doesn't let...

Judicial races are usually boring beyond belief because they are races having to do with judges and most of the time, the candidates say they can't talk about much because it violates something. I don't know what, but that is usually what they say. But since there is now a metric to measure judicial performance, more incumbents are being challenged and the performance measures are a major part of the conversation. The most important race on the ballot is the race for the Chief Justice of the 8th Court of Appeals. That races features current 8th Court of Appeals Justice Yvonne Rodriguez versus current judge of a court (I don't recall if its a county or district court) Judge Angie Juarez Barill. It was a pretty good exchange between the judge and the justice. There was a better exchange between Judge Herrera and his challenger - but I'm kicking myself for not having recorded it. Herrera really laid into his opponent in a pretty brilliant close. The 8th Court of Appeals ra...