The latest on Houston's elections

-- Texas Watchdog has a in-depth story on where HISD's candidates get their campaign contributions from: HISD vendors. Yet another depressing expose' into how our local officials are compromised by the money in politics.

Our analysis of three years' worth of campaign donations shows that vendors and contractors to the Houston Independent School District gave nearly half of all contributions to the incumbents in the past three years.

Here's a spreadsheet of the twenty largest contributors, which include an executive search firm that wanted to conduct the headhunting for Terry Grier's replacement, Centaurus Advisors (they've been mentioned here recently) and the maintenance and construction contractor for the school district, which has earned over $3 million and given back $62,000 in campaign donations.

Go look at their interactive tools to see each candidate's contributions.

-- At Large #2 legacy candidate Bolivar Fraga may have cleared up his campaign loan woes by paying it off early, but there are still plenty of reasons not to vote for him. Big Jolly's Yvonne Larsen also throws rocks at Stephen Costello, Mayor Annise Parker, and Ellen Cohen.

See? We do agree on some things.

-- I got some calls this week on my reporting relative to "Swift Boat" Bob Perry's contributions to District C candidate Ellen Cohen. Those callers essentially asked the same question: why I was holding Cohen to a higher standard than I held, say, Melissa Noriega, or Mayor Annise Parker, or Controller Ronald Green. (I could not find any record of homebuilder Perry's contributions to the mayor or the controller, but I'm not as good at sleuthing these things out as others.)

I thought the answer was obvious, but I'll explain again: Noriega, Parker, and Green do not have acceptable alternative, much less progressive, challengers. And all three have also met -- at times exceeded -- minimum acceptable job performance standards for this observer. All three earned endorsement from this corner... if only half-heartedly in the mayor's case. And as posted earlier, the contribution itself wasn't so much my issue with Cohen as it was the controversy created in the atmosphere around it.

"Non-partisan" general elections with multiple candidates, like primary elections where all the choices are from the same party, are the voters' opportunity to pick the best candidate among several. And the quality of of a solid progressive choice in the general election in Karen Derr is what drove my endorsement. Cohen, again as previously written, may emerge as the only acceptable (and progressive) choice in a runoff. If she does, I can easily support her election.

I'm sure there will be more developments with Election Day less than a week away. Go vote early if you haven't already.

Don Boates (AL#1) caught working both sides of the street

More of this crap again.

Houston City Council candidate Scott Boates is listed on the Harris County Republican Party Web site as one of three GOP contestants for At-Large Position 1.

Texas Conservative Review editor and former county GOP chairman Gary Polland says that isn’t so, though, and has provided a link to a YouTube site in which Boates tells a Democratic group that he is a sustaining member of the party.

So which is it? Both, Boates said.

“I joined both parties this year as part of this run for office,” Boates said.

Let's look past Scott Boates and his disingenuousness for a moment. Polland is either stupid or lying, probably both. On the Harris County GOP website -- the same party he was chairman of -- it plainly says:

Party affiliation (based on latest primary vote) will be provided for your information
(i) Incumbent   (R) Republican   (D) Democrat  (-) No Primary vote found

Not real sure who Polland thinks he's fooling here. Boates, incumbent Stephen Costello, and perennial candidate James Partsch-Galvan all have a bold 'R' beside their name. In addition, Boates is listed as a Republican Leadership Council member, which is defined as "those elected officials and candidates who provide generous financial support to the Harris County Republican Party". There is a link to an application to join the RLC there; its minimum contribution level is $1,000.

By contrast, the Harris County Democratic Party's sustaining membership entry level is $150.

So Boates gave at least a thousand bucks to the HCGOP and voted in their most recent primary in 2010, and gave at least $150 to the HCDP. Which party do YOU think he belongs to? Pay no attention to his words; just look at his actions.

Incumbent Stephen Costello of course is playing the same game. From my post less than two weeks ago:

Costello, a civil engineer made wealthy on municipal contracts long before he was first elected to Council two years ago, allegedly bragged recently to the Pachyderm Club that his own drainage assessment was coming in well below the city average. As in about a third of the city's now-revised average of $8.25. On his $300,000+ HCAD-assessed domicile.

You have your choice of three Republicans -- at least two of which are congenital liars -- or one Green in At Large #1.

Boates, Costello, and Bolivar Fraga in AL#2 put the "tick" in politics, telling everyone they meet only what they want to hear. To a lesser degree, Mayor Parker is doing the same thing.

And this gives me the only opportunity I will ever take to say something nice about Eric Dick: at least he isn't pretending to be a Democrat.

Houston municipal elections update

Lots of people have clicked on my series of Houston progressive voter's guides published in the week prior to early voting, so if you haven't cast your ballot yet, please do so this week -- EV locations are open 7 to 7 through Friday -- and take it with you to your poll. Neil also has some recommendations (that don't exactly dovetail with mine). Charles has been tracking the vote tallies and turnout is sagging a bit from recent years. When fewer people vote, your vote has greater importance.

My picks appear below in summary if you're short on time. Candidates' names in bold represent the most important races for progressives.

Mayor: Annise Parker, with great reluctance. If you need to more about that, read this. And this posting from Chris Moran has more reasons why. And Neil also has his response to that.

Controller: Ronald Green

At Large #1: Don Cook

At Large #2: Jenifer Rene Pool or Kristi Thibaut, with David Robinson and Roz Shorter as co-third options. There are a handful of people in this ten-person contest who are completely unworthy of your vote.

At Large #3: Melissa Noriega

At Large #4: Amy Price. The best candidate in any race this cycle. Amy has her own blog post today about Harris County election manuals falsely instructing election judges to ask for voters' photo ID. Photo IDs are NOT required to vote until 2012.

At Large #5: Jolanda Jones. And on the strength of Bill White's endorsement of Republican Jack Christie, I recommend (for GOP voters only) Robert Ryan.

District A: Bob Schoellkopf

District B: No endorsement. Miya Shay reported last evening that one of the candidates, Phillip Paul Bryant, declined to answer her questions about his arrest two months ago for driving with a suspended license.

District C: Karen Derr. Here's the reason why I can't support my former state representative Ellen Cohen (but will do so if she is in a runoff with a conservative).

District D: Wanda Adams

District E: No endorsement.

District F: Peter Rene'

District G: No endorsement.

District H: Ed Gonzalez

District I: James Rodriguez

District J: Mike Laster

District K: Larry Green

"Save a pretzel for the gas jets" come to life

Does everyone remember seeing this? Well, Rick Perry decided to do a parody of it.



The sound is a little low but you can watch it muted and get the full effect. My initial reaction is that he's taking too many of whatever pain meds the doctor prescribed for his back. And perhaps washing them down with too much tequila.

There's been some talk that Perry might be able to mount a comeback, particularly given Herman Cain's Manic Monday, but not if things like this keep showing up.

Update: Herman Cain demands equal time, so here we go. You decide which one is real.

Halloween Toons

This one is from the 1930's. The more things change ...

Commissioner's court, city council, "mine's bigger", and what we can do about it

Charles has an interesting rant on the friction that seems to perpetually exist, in varying degree, between the City of Houston and the County of Harris.

A few months ago, I was invited to speak at a Rotary breakfast. I talked about the importance of paying attention to local government, which I said has a much greater impact on your daily life than what goes on in DC but which tends to get less scrutiny. Someone asked me a question about waste, and I told him that if you had to design a government structure for the Houston region from scratch, you’d never come up with what we actually have. You’d want something more broadly focused, with less duplication and not as hindered by arbitrary boundaries. Something like that would surely be better able to solve regional issues, and be much less prone to the kind of penny ante pissing matches that we’re so used to around here.

We’re not going to get the chance to reinvent our government structure, of course. But that doesn’t mean I can’t think about doing things differently. And the question I find myself asking is why should Houston be a part of Harris County? As a taxpayer in the city of Houston, it’s hard for me to see what benefit I get from that arrangement. They don’t build roads that I drive on, Sheriff’s deputies don’t patrol my neighborhood, and so on. More to the point, there’s no one on Commissioners Court that gives a damn about the city of Houston, and three fourths of their combined budget is controlled by people who are unaccountable to me or anyone else electorally. So why should we put up with this? Why not get out?

Chuck knows he's spitballing and so do the rest of us. First of all, much of the antagonism comes about because of all of the conservatives on commissioner's court bumping up against all the libruls on city council. And commissioners are, for the most part, not really held accountable by the voters -- Sylvia Garcia being a recent exception -- and thus the corruptive influence of money combined with what is essentially a lifetime job turns it into a good old boy's club. (Sorry, El Franco.)

Houston resolved some of these character issues with term limits and a cap on campaign contributions some years ago. Don't expect the court to ever do anything that radical.

With about 4 million residents of Harris County compared to roughly 2 million Houstonians, and the proportion of county voters slightly skewed to the GOP, it really shouldn't be a surprise about how much influence those "unincorporated-area" voters have on county elections -- not just commissioners but judges and executive offices like county clerk and tax assessor/collector. Bellaire and West U Place and Pasadena may have a few more Democratic voters but the Republicans in Jersey Village, Katy, Webster, Baytown and Humble even things out. Those folks out in the sticks sure do turn out the vote. Must be those excellent bridges and roads providing easy access to the polls.

I don't expect redistricted precinct maps to help this phenomenon. It wouldn't matter if we threw the whole thing out and started over with a map that more closely approximated community interests -- where and how people live, instead of the woefully gerrymandered precincts now. Say for example there was a precinct roughly inside the Loop, another couple consisting of everything outside the Loop but inside the Beltway, and then one for everybody else in the boonies. We would still have 3 TeaBaggers and one Democrat, very likely an African-American. Just like now.

That leaves County Judge, who among his other imperial duties gets to fill the rare vacancy on commissioner's court unilaterally. He alone picks the replacement for everybody, including himself (with the voters eventually confirming his selection). That's where IMHO the most emphasis for change should be focused each election cycle. But even if someone with the money and the electoral base -- like say, Rodney Ellis -- decided to run for the top job, and then somehow managed to get elected, he'd still have to push a reform agenda through with a Republican vote.

So then the most reachable goal to implement reform becomes electing a Democratic county judge and replacing a Republican county commissioner. Still a pretty tall order when we can't get Democrats to come back and vote in off-presidential years.

Nedless to say I just don't see any of this happening in my most feverish of dreams. Which is why the most powerful agent of change on Commissioner's Court winds up being ... Wayne Dolcefino. And that begs the question: what's really the difference between Cactus Jack Cagle and Jerry Eversole besides a criminal record?

Given a little time, that probably evens up too.

All Hallows Eve Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance wants more treats and fewer tricks as we bring you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff has some updates on the state of play in the redistricting lawsuits.

McBlogger finds Texas House speaker Joe Straus finally discovering that he fudged the numbers on the budget (profanity warning). And when McB offers a profanity warning, you know it's pretty salty.

As Michelle Obama appears at a Houston fundraiser hosted by hedge fund billionaire John Arnold, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs wants to know what the difference is between Democrats who cozy up to Wall Street and Republicans.

Now that Rick Perry has flamed out, CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wonders if the batsh*t crazy crowd will prevail with Herman Cain?

Darth Politico takes a break from their Austin Film Festival coverage to offer some Star Wars-themed advice to those enemies of the Occupy Wall St movement, and offer solidarity with those who have been arrested: The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

The DOJ stated the GOP redistricting plans in Texas had "... the intent of limiting the voting power of Hispanic voters". WCNews at Eye On Williamson has that and more: Texas GOP's attack on Hispanic voters.

Lightseeker explains why the banks have no grounds for raising their fees now! Check out the details at TexasKaos.

Neil at Texas Liberal offered his views on who liberals and progressives can support in upcoming Houston municipal elections. Neil's view is that Green candidate Amy Price leads the pack for City Council, while incumbent Mayor Annise Parker does not merit the support of those on the left.