For Saturday, January 26, with the filing deadline on December 27 and the early voting period from January 9-22,
per Harvey. The
Chron reveals another contestant...
A fourth potential candidate, Rodolfo "Rudy" Reyes, said he intends to announce his candidacy on Friday.
That embedded link tells little about Reyes, but a cursory Google search turns up his
website and curriculum vitae including a
stint on the League City council. Reyes has no obvious political party affiliation that I can find. I suspicion he is a Democrat, which is going to make it even more likely that
RW Bray -- who got 30% of the vote
against Mario Gallegos a month ago -- and one of
Sylvia Garcia,
Carol Alvarado, Reyes, and Maria Selva make it to a runoff election. Tea Party Republican Bray may well lead the primary field, but there's no chance he wins a runoff.
Garcia laments in
her response to this news that the seat will be vacant for "10% of the session", but I don't understand her math. It seems more like two months, or roughly a third of the 2013 legislative session (a runoff election can't occur, by my calendar, before the end of February or first of March).
That's a legitimate concern with the Senate having one
less Democratic vote, giving Republicans a two-thirds majority. So
until someone gets sworn in, the Senate can pass whatever it likes --
vouchers,
"fetal pain", etc. That one vote (previously regarded as Wendy
Davis of Fort Worth) barely kept the 2011 session from being more
egregious than it already was.
If you wondered why Rick Perry slow-walked this, that's why.
