Stockman will primary Cornyn

Get your corn popped now.

Stockman, 57, walked into the Texas Republican Party headquarters in Austin at about 5:45 p.m. — 15 minutes before the filing deadline — and withdrew his filing for his congressional seat, then filed a new application as a GOP candidate for the U.S. Senate, said Spencer Yeldell, a GOP spokesman. “Until then, it was a pretty laid-back day,” Yeldell said.

 Taegan Goddard links to WND for the exclusive (I won't):

Stockman blamed the incumbent GOP senator for undermining Sen. Ted Cruz's "fight to stop Obamacare."

Said Stockman: "We are extremely disappointed in the way he treated his fellow congressmen and broke the 11th commandment and undermined Ted Cruz's fight to stop Obamacare. And now, it looks like Cruz was right and Cornyn was wrong. He sided with the president, essentially, in making sure Obamacare became law while Cruz did everything possible to stop it."  

This is going to be some funny shit.  Once Cornyn pinches off that brick, he'll get to work Tweeting some more insanity to the far right.  As for the Congressional seat Stockman leaves behind, there remain three Republicans who filed in CD-36: John Amdur, Phil Fitzgerald, and Kim Morrell.  (Update: This, from Texas on the Potomac, adds the additional names of Chuck Meyer, Doug Centilli -- who is believed to be the chief of staff for Cong. Kevin Brady -- and Dave Norman.  Unless these freaks start cannibalizing each other before next March, I won't post on them again until two of them are in a runoff.)

John Amdar, an attorney from Houston and city council member in nearby Nassau Bay, has filed for the seat. So has Phil Fitzgerald, who owns a construction business in Hull.

Also in the running is Kim Morrell, who ran for the seat in 2012. He’s a former city councilman in Seabrook who owns a printing and shipping company. Morrell says he’s pro-life, pro-gun, and against Obamacare. He’d been thinking about running again for a long time, he said, but Stockman’s Senate run convinced him.

“My sources told me Steve wasn’t going to run for the seat, and so I made a last-minute decision to run,” he said. He says he’s hired a campaign manager and hopes to have the rest of his team put together very soon.

And Michael Cole has filed, this time as a Democrat.

Meanwhile, Michael Cole has had his eye on the heavily-Republican district since 2012, when he ran as a Libertarian. He got about 6,000 votes in that election.

Now Cole, a 38-year-old teacher from Orange, Texas, is running again as a Democrat. He says he has a campaign team in place, has been crisscrossing the district, and is about to file his first report on fundraising to the Federal Elections Commission. He said he’d focus on getting things done and charged outgoing Stockman with wasting time on politics.

“I can listen to what my constituents want instead of just showboating against Barack Obama,” he said, noting that his major focus would be on middle-class job growth.

Cole explains his conversion from Lib to Dem here.  Update: This Daily Kos diarist has written a few about a Cole, with some links and embedded video.

Things just got a lot more fun for those of us who track these things.

Update: So if anybody else wants to file as a Repuke in CD-36... you still have some time to do so.  Thanks, GOP!

CCA Judge Meyers switches parties, to run for SCOTX as Democrat

Burnt Orange, Quorum Report, and PoliTex appear to have it first.

Longtime Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Lawrence "Larry" Meyers announced Monday that he is leaving the Republican Party to run as a Democrat for the Texas Supreme Court.

Meyers, of Fort Worth, filed Monday on the last day of filing to seek Place 6 on the Supreme Court, currently held by Jeff Brown.

How long ago did I say that there would need to be a lot more of this sort of thing before the media people would start sitting up and taking notice?  About six weeks.

Meyers was rumored to have contemplated switching parties two years ago.  The significance of his flip today is that he will still be on the CCA as a Democrat even if he does not prevail in his bid for election to the state Supreme Court.  So the Dems just picked up a statewide officeholder.  More filing updates later.