El Paso Politics

I received a press release last week along with actual journalists a didn’t see it get covered, so I thought I’d share my thoughts on what I think is a pretty interesting story.  By any measure, Fareed Issa Khlayel is not an outsider to civic life in El Paso. A lifelong resident, former school board trustee, longtime nonprofit board member, and community volunteer, Khlayel has spent years operating inside the very systems he now alleges failed him. That history makes the federal civil rights and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuit he filed against the City of El Paso this week especially consequential - not only for what it alleges, but for what it suggests about accountability, transparency, and power when government closes ranks. The lawsuit stems from a violent encounter with El Paso police officers on Thanksgiving morning 2024, followed, Khlayel claims, by months of institutional obstruction that extended well beyond the incident itself. Importantly, Khlayel is explic...

Alright, let’s not bury the lede, because this one deserves to be slapped across your face like that dumb tortilla challenge. This is the follow-up to yesterday’s post about county discretionary spending, and there was   one commissioner   I intentionally saved for today because - frankly - I took the time to double check the records because I just couldn't wrap my head around what I saw.  County Commissioner   Jackie Butler , Precinct 1. Eastside / Montana Vista. Unincorporated areas with real, visible needs. According to county records, each commissioner gets about   $10,000   in discretionary funds. That’s money meant for   the public good -   the kind of flexible funding elected officials can use to address neighborhood issues that don’t always make it into the big budget. So imagine my curiosity when I saw that Commissioner Butler spent  $6,000  of that money. Sixty percent. Órale, pues. Let’s play the guessing game. Where did the f...

El Pasoans love two things more than green chile on everything: 1. complaining about taxes, and 2. complaining about what taxes don’t buy us. We complain that streets are trash. Then we complain when streets are under construction. We complain parks are dusty wastelands with one sad tree and a broken swing. Then we complain when the County fixes them. At this point, complaining is our real regional industry. If bitching were taxable, we’d have world-class infrastructure by now. But here’s the thing most folks don’t know: elected officials have a little cheat code in the budget called discretionary funding. Cue the dramatic music. Discretionary funds are exactly what they sound like. A set amount of money baked into the City and County budgets that the elected official for a district or precinct can spend as they see fit for their constituents. No bake sales. No GoFundMe. No “we’ll study it for three years.” They can use it for: • park improvements • street...

Well… here we are. Congresswoman Veronica Escobar will not face a challenger in the Democratic Primary. And actually, her opponent wasn't kicked off the ballot, he technically  never made it on to the ballot. And before anyone starts yelling “machine!” or “establishment!” into the void, let’s talk about what actually happened…because this wasn’t some backroom smoke-filled room situation. Okay, not smoke anymore...vape pen clouds.   This was math.  Boring, unforgiving, election-law math. Arturo Andujo, a first-time candidate and young progressive activist, tried to qualify for the ballot by petition. On the filing deadline, he turned in 558 signatures. Respect where it’s due - that’s not nothing. Gathering signatures is annoying, time-consuming, and thankless work. Anyone who has ever done it knows that by the end of it, you hate clipboards, humans, and democracy just a little bit. But elections are not about vibes. They’re about qualified signatures. Once the pet...