One thing that’s not so fun about living here in Fort Bend County is that you don’t get to vote for County Sheriff.
Not if you’re a Democrat, that is.
Republicans dominate county politics here, you see. So it should come as no surprise that we have such questionable hiring practices in the county that includes Judge Shoemake (a Republican) of the 434th District Court getting District Clerk Annie Elliott (a Republican) to hire his wife to be her 1st executive assistant. Annie Elliott, you will recall, is the wife of Assistant DA Mike Elliott (a Republican) who recently had his trumped up charges against a group of roofers thrown out of court. The roofers, it seems, were new competitors to a local roofing company whose owner gave Annie Elliott $1000 in a campaign contribution.
But that’s how the crazy Republicans in Fort Bend County like their local government: incestuous.
It has to be or they wouldn’t keep on voting for them.
But I digress.
I don’t get to vote for County Sheriff because I am a Democrat and no Democrat has run against the current County Sheriff, Sheriff Milton Wright (or as we are wont to call him, “Uncle Milty”). Not in years. No, if you want to vote for who is going to be sheriff in this county, you have to vote in the Republican Primary.
And this year, no Democrat I know did that – well, maybe there was one.
But this year, we Democrats have some recourse. We have someone to vote for, or if you will, we have someone to vote for instead of not voting at all (Uncle Milty got over 30,000 under votes in 2004). We have a retired deputy sheriff from Fort Bend’s own Sheriff’s Department to vote for.
We have Allen Rivers.
From the Fort Bend County Star:
The beauty of all of it is this: Wright was opposed in the 2008 Republican primary by Billy Frank Teague, a former DPS Senior Trooper, and he very nearly got handed his hat. Teague got over 6000 Republicans to vote against Wright. But now, with Democrats voting, with so many Democrats voting, we have one more chance to wrong this Wright.
But it’s a real Hail Mary because we are talking about a write-in candidate where you don’t get to write anything, despite what President Bush thinks. You have to dial his name in on the eSlate machine.. Dial and punch, dial and punch. Very time consuming, particularly for the arthritic.
The upside is that his name doesn’t have that many letters in it, not like our former infamous CD 22 write-in candidate, Shelley Sekula Gibbs.
But that shouldn’t matter, should it? Former County Elections Administrator J.R. Perez made some pretty liberal calls when he decided “voter intent” for the Shelster, counting one entry, “SSG” as a vote as well as the infamous “Draculac _ _t.”
Deciding voter intent in the County Sheriff race should be a snap, shouldn’t it?
Well? Shouldn’t it?
Not if you’re a Democrat, that is.
Republicans dominate county politics here, you see. So it should come as no surprise that we have such questionable hiring practices in the county that includes Judge Shoemake (a Republican) of the 434th District Court getting District Clerk Annie Elliott (a Republican) to hire his wife to be her 1st executive assistant. Annie Elliott, you will recall, is the wife of Assistant DA Mike Elliott (a Republican) who recently had his trumped up charges against a group of roofers thrown out of court. The roofers, it seems, were new competitors to a local roofing company whose owner gave Annie Elliott $1000 in a campaign contribution.
But that’s how the crazy Republicans in Fort Bend County like their local government: incestuous.
It has to be or they wouldn’t keep on voting for them.
But I digress.
I don’t get to vote for County Sheriff because I am a Democrat and no Democrat has run against the current County Sheriff, Sheriff Milton Wright (or as we are wont to call him, “Uncle Milty”). Not in years. No, if you want to vote for who is going to be sheriff in this county, you have to vote in the Republican Primary.
And this year, no Democrat I know did that – well, maybe there was one.
But this year, we Democrats have some recourse. We have someone to vote for, or if you will, we have someone to vote for instead of not voting at all (Uncle Milty got over 30,000 under votes in 2004). We have a retired deputy sheriff from Fort Bend’s own Sheriff’s Department to vote for.
We have Allen Rivers.
From the Fort Bend County Star:
“Retired Sheriff’s Sergeant Allen Rivers announced late Tuesday afternoon that he will seek to unseat Fort Bend Sheriff Milton Wright.”In his mission statement Rivers says that he is filing to run for County Sheriff in order to
“Rivers, a 21 year veteran of the Fort Bend Sheriff’s Office, retired in March and announced Tuesday that he has decided to seek the office of Sheriff as an independent in a write-in campaign. Acknowledging that write-in campaigns are tough, he is determined to unseat Wright, an 11 year Incumbent who recently had the closest primary since he first ran in 1996.”
“…re-establish a foundation of honor and dignity within the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office. And with that honor and dignity, formulate a department reflective of the community, their need and interests, while promoting a cohesive bond between citizens and law enforcement officials as well as personnel.”Some of that honor and dignity gets compromised when Sheriff Wright tries to get his deputies to run against Fort Bend County Constables because they contract for private guard duty in local homeowner’s associations, something that Wright thinks he and his boys should have – despite the fact that they are already paid to do just that.
The beauty of all of it is this: Wright was opposed in the 2008 Republican primary by Billy Frank Teague, a former DPS Senior Trooper, and he very nearly got handed his hat. Teague got over 6000 Republicans to vote against Wright. But now, with Democrats voting, with so many Democrats voting, we have one more chance to wrong this Wright.
But it’s a real Hail Mary because we are talking about a write-in candidate where you don’t get to write anything, despite what President Bush thinks. You have to dial his name in on the eSlate machine.. Dial and punch, dial and punch. Very time consuming, particularly for the arthritic.
The upside is that his name doesn’t have that many letters in it, not like our former infamous CD 22 write-in candidate, Shelley Sekula Gibbs.
But that shouldn’t matter, should it? Former County Elections Administrator J.R. Perez made some pretty liberal calls when he decided “voter intent” for the Shelster, counting one entry, “SSG” as a vote as well as the infamous “Draculac _ _t.”
Deciding voter intent in the County Sheriff race should be a snap, shouldn’t it?
Well? Shouldn’t it?
1 comment:
Thanks for the comments. Please check out our Web site and give me your thoughts, allenrivers.com.
Thanks, Rivers Team
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