It’s Getting Ugly Out There

I’ve been watching the local GOP primary process as it wends its way to May 29th with interest mainly because, outside of the KP/Kesha race, the Democrats have no primary opponents, in my area at least.

And on that race, I was very disappointed today to see that something I spotted yesterday afternoon has been undone today when I had my camera ready to capture the moment. Apparently some Republican joker decided to support Kesha Rogers’ campaign by planting one of her lawn signs in his front yard, right next to a Mike Elliott for Judge sign.

It seems the Republicans have glommed onto the movement in the Fort Bend County Democratic Party to get the word out on bat-guano crazy Kesha Rogers so we don’t have an embarrassing repeat of 2010 when she won the Democratic nomination to oppose Pete Olson for the CD-22 race. Someone in the GOP decided it would be funny to promote her race.

Kesha Rogers has had Republican supporters, only now it seems they have reconsidered their position and took the Rogers sign down.

The fun race to watch in Fort Bend County has been the 4-way race for County Sheriff. And I noted today that the Fort Bend Star, a local newspaper that makes no bones about its disgust for one of the candidates, Craig Brady, has a poll out. They ask readers to register their preferences among the 4 candidates. The publisher has made an endorsement for ABC (Anyone But Craig).

Here is a screenshot of the vote as of 5:30 PM today.

This pretty much jives with the sign wars. Signs for Troy Nehls pretty much dominate the front lawns.

Here’s a bit of mischief that I think we Democrats can visit on the Brady Campaign. It’s kind of fun. If you are a Democrat, you can still vote at the Fort Bend Star for the Sheriff’s candidate of choice. Now who you vote for is strictly up to you. I have only one suggestion. ABC.

Like Taking Candy from a Baby

The ultimate in cowardly acts is to filch candy from a toddlers hands and run off with it. You think was the ultimate cowardly act. But it isn’t. Here in Fort Bend County, Texas we have reinvented what a true coward is.

Someone who would steal the cash box from a Girl Scout Cookie sales booth in front of a store in broad daylight.

Now I as a rule stay away from buying Girl Scout Cookies because I can’t work off the calories. Pounding a keyboard in my spare time is a poor form of exercise. But today, upon exiting my market, I bought two boxes just to make a point that these creepoids cannot kick a Girl Scout when she is down.

So Fort Bendites, keep an eye out for a beat up black Camry. And go buy some Girl Scout Cookies. Thin Mints and Caramel Delites have my full endorsement.

Double Dipping or Triple Dipping at the Public Trough

You know, today something that has been flying below the political radar for years in Fort Bend County suddenly popped up. You’ve heard the stories about how Governor Perry, still the sitting governor of Texas despite how much time he is spending carrying on the people’s business, has also officially retired from state government service, earning him a pension on top of his $150 grand a year paycheck as governor.

Double dipping.

Something he argues as perfectly legal. Maybe so, maybe so. But not ethical. Ethics and Rick Perry have had a formal disagreement for years, enriching Perry beyond human belief.

Now come to find out, one of Fort Bend County’s local Justices of the Peace, one Gary Janssen running for re-election in Precinct 1 Place 1 this year, has not one, not two, but three count ‘em three jobs. Two public service, one private practice.

All of this coming at a time when jobs are stretched so thin. Why does one guy need three jobs?

Judge Janssen is not only the Fort Bend County Justice of the Peace in Needville, he is also the Needville Municipal Judge. He also runs his own law firm. Yep, you’ve got it, three jobs. Some Americans would like to have just one.

Leading me to ask, are Fort Bend County taxpayers getting the most bang for their buck? I have to ask myself, why am I paying a full time salary to a part-time judge? Appearing at a Justice of the Peace court here is dicey at best. They set their own hours and you have to take time off of work to appear. You lose money sometimes, and not just because of the traffic fines.

You know, these people have to learn to share. They have to learn to spread the wealth and not dip so heavily into the public trough.

Word has it that Judge Janssen is being primaried. A lawyer named Gregory A. Thompson apparently has filed to oppose Janssen.

And you know, I have no knowledge of his politics and don’t care really. But if I ever voted in a Republican Primary I definitely would never vote for a triple dipper. I’d vote for a guy who would very probably take a pay cut to opt in to public service.

I’d vote for Gregory A. Thompson.

The Campaign Signs are Still Up

The law enforcement officers who are also politicians here in Fort Bend County have happened upon a loophole in campaign sign posting.

Now it is way too early to post campaign signs for the Fall 2012 campaign season. I believe there is a 90-day limit in the county. Nevertheless we saw signs go up that prominently displayed the names of these officers of the law, and then somewhere in a smaller font size their message on how to vote on the constitutional amendment propositions.

It’s all about messaging, and putting up in a highly visible way your issues.

Not these two

Here is one out by a heavily traveled county road.

Here is another still stuck in someone’s front lawn. I should point out that the big ones are gone.

These photos were taken earlier this afternoon, 5 days after the polls closed in the amendment election.

Time to take them down, gentlemen.  

Why Fort Bend County Judge Write-In Candidate Hates Property Taxes

I keep driving by that bare-bones campaign sign posted on the public right of way along Highway 90A for Fort Bend County Judge write-in candidate Chris Meeks. This is the “Constitutional Republican” who might as well just call herself a Libertarian, having contributed to Ron Paul’s campaign, and lobbied against fluoridated water.

She has her main campaign platform posted right on the sign and it basically says that she wants to do away with property taxes in Fort Bend County.

Property taxes that pay for, you know, stuff like education in our public school system.

And despite the fact that I was pretty candid in my opinions about her and her political views, the candidate actually responded to my posting with a comment.

[Something that some of you may have realized you can’t do anymore.]

Here is an excerpt from the comment:

“Renting to the government via property taxation is slavery. Slaves are not allowed to own property. Vote for freedom and liberty. Write In Chris Meeks for Ft.Bend County Judge.”

I don’t know about you but I’m having trouble trying to relate the first two sentences to each other, or to anything else for that matter.

But what inspired me to write anew about this candidate was a conversation that I had with a local politically savvy person who is also interested in property taxes. I mentioned to her what I had read in Juanita’s blog today about how Bob Hebert is giving away nail files and she went off on Chris Meeks. She said that she had looked her up on the property tax rolls and determined that Meeks didn’t even own any property in Fort Bend County. “Why does she care about property taxes,” she asked. “She doesn’t pay any.”

I filled her in on the fact that since she is running as a write-in candidate, she is running under her maiden name, Meeks, rather than her married name, Christine Zubizarreta.

It wasn’t a half of an hour later that she reported that she located her on the property tax records. “Wow,” was all she said.

So I got curious and went to the Fort Bend County Central Appraisal District website and repeated the query.

Wow.

Chris Meeks, with her husband own a piece of property in Fort Bend County whose assessed value is over $550,000. Depending on where that is, and in what school district, that could amount to a property tax bill of over $20,000 a year.

No wonder Meeks is against property taxes.

I would be against property taxes too if I had to lay out that chunk of change to the county every year.

Early Vote Prognostications II: The Murray Effect

I like it that Professor Richard Murray, a demographer at the University of Houston, is paying close attention to the early vote turnout numbers with the rest of us, because frankly I don’t have the background to conclude from the numbers more than the notion that it looks like interest is up in the mid-term election this year.

Interest is high as I mentioned in this posting with 6.61% of registered voters having already turned out in the first four days of early voting this year, as opposed to 3.58% over the equivalent period in 2006. Murray, in this article, points out that the trend is even higher in Harris County, where 104,420 votes were registered by the end of the day last Thursday. That, friends and neighbors, is nearly three times the turnout in 2006 where only 35,070 at the end of the fourth day that year.

But hold on, Murray says, part of that could be the effect of so many being made aware of the fact that each and every voting machine in Harris County was burned up by somebody, and Harris County has had to make do with fewer machines. Hence the huge effort to get people to the polls early and avoid the lines that will be inevitable.

But look at what is happening in neighboring Fort Bend County, which has all of its voting machines unburnt.

In 2006, Fort Bend County had 6,647 early votes in the race where Republicans saw the Democrats “steal” Tom DeLay’s congressional seat by having as the only credible opponent (if you can call her that) a write-in candidate. And we had 4 candidates for governor. Compare that to this year’s numbers at the end of four days of early voting where 20,361 votes have been cast.

That’s triple the votes registered over what were cast at the equivalent period in 2006.

In short, I really don’t think it was Harris County Clerk Beverly Kauffman’s vote early campaign that has much effect.

But this is where it gets really good. Dr. Murray thinks that a heavy early vote turnout is a positive for Democrats.

From KTRK’s Prof13 Website:

“There is no conclusive evidence on the second question of party advantage, but my guess is that early voting slightly benefits Democrats. The Democratic Party has more problems turning out their voters compared to the Republican Party, so having a longer window to get-out-the-vote (GOTV) gives them an extra opportunity to get their base to the polls. ”

Isn’t that delightful? This is something I like to call the "Murray Effect." Because we Democrats are more lethargic and less likely to vote, having an extended early voting period brings more of us to the polls. Is that the reason, dare I ask, why in Fort Bend County Democratic straight ticket votes have outstripped Republican straight ticket votes for the past 2 election cycles?

Think on it. The motivated voter is the partisan voter. Having more days than just the one day on Election Day allows Democrats more days to express our partisanship. OK, the theory has a hole or two, but it is what it is.

In the same article, Murray goes on:

“What early voting does show is that the most intense voters cast their ballots early. In the 2008 election that was the African American voters who cast early ballots in support of the first [African-]American nominated for president by a major party.”

So if that is true, are Republicans the motivated ones this year? And does the Democratic early vote advantage serve to negate the fabled “Republican surge?”

In a previous posting I concluded that who wins and who loses will all depend on who gets out their base, and guess what? Nothing has changed.

This Time Vote Veronica Torres for District Clerk

Veronica Torres for Fort Bend District Clerk

We have on the ballot in Fort Bend County a rematch in the District Clerk race. Veronica Torres, a Democrat was barely edged out in 2006 by the former Assistant DA’s wife Annie Elliott. The final vote was 51,202 (54.04%) to 43,538 (45.96%). If that doesn’t seem impressive, then take a look at all of the other county-wide races that were opposed in that election. Veronica got more votes than any of her fellow Democrats.

This means that some of those who voted for Veronica Torres were Republicans.

But the election results also revealed that in that race that 5,781 people who voted in that election chose not to vote for either candidate. Granted this is not enough voters to have made a difference in the outcome, but it does support one of my theses in 2006 that voting for District Clerk is just not as sexy as voting for governor. In that election, there were four candidates for governor and 98,667 Fort Bend Voters had one opinion or another, and only 1,854 under votes were recorded in that race.

So, as I indicated above, we have a rematch of two employees of former District Clerk Glory Hopkins. Some voters made the mistake of voting for the lesser qualified of the two simply because of the R after her name, or maybe because her husband was a wheel in the DA’s office. And then some voters made the mistake of not voting for either.

Most times in life we don’t get to correct past mistakes we make. There are no “do overs” or as they say in golf, no “Mulligans.” This time you can correct that little mistake. This time cast your vote for Veronica Torres for District Clerk.

The background for this race is something I discussed in this blog four years ago. It was a sordid tale full of intrigue and lawsuits. Go and read about it to refresh your memory of how the Republican Party purged their candidate for District Clerk, Glory Hopkins, a 20-year veteran of the position who ran afoul of the county’s political machine, and who had the misfortune of being primaried by the wife of the 2nd most powerful person in the District Attorney’s office.

And now consider this. In this rematch the playing field has leveled a little. This time instead of being the wife of a Republican who had both power and influence in the county government, Annie Elliott these days is the wife of a former ADA, Mike Elliott, who was soundly and not just a little indecorously fired by District Attorney Healey.

At the time Elliott charged that Healey did this so he could win in the Republican primary that took place earlier this year. Healey was opposed by two Republican attorneys and yes his former employee’s antics did come up in the election. But now consider this: Elliott’s firing and Healey’s renomination earlier this year exposes the suppurating wound that still exists in Fort Bend County government: cronyism that borders on incest.

Like for instance, as reported in FortBendNow, how Annie Elliott benefitted from her husband's position as county prosecutor by receiving campaign contributions from a roofing company that her husband was helping by filing criminal charges against one of their competitors.

A vote for Veronica Torres is a vote to end the cronyism that pervades county government. So in voting for Veronica Torres, you get a two-fer: not only can you cast a vote against cronyism, you can also cast a vote for the better-qualified candidate.

But don't just take my word for it. Veronica Torres has received the endorsement of Annie Elliott's former boss, Glory Hopkins. Hopkins made the endorsement as a life-long Republican who simply opts for the most qualified rather than the most connected candidate. In her endorsement Glory Hopkins said that Veronica Torres is "the most qualified candidate for district clerk. I, like many others, trust her…I believe that with her education, experience and ethics, she will serve the public trust."

Geez, I wish people would talk like that about me.

Fort Bend Blue by 2016 Latest

I have been saying this for some time now and now it’s good to see that the Houston Chronicle has picked up on the news that Fort Bend County will once again be a Democratic-dominated county.

By 2016 at the very latest.

The article is centered on University of Houston demographer Richard Murray’s work in this suburban area southwest of Houston and is worth a read. Murray has noted that when this sleepy rural community experienced moderate growth, the political landscape changed from dominant Democratic to dominant Republican.

From the Chronicle:

“These days, though, the county is experiencing what Murray calls ‘the second wave of change in modern times.’ Recently arrived black, Asian and Hispanic residents not only are helping make the county one of the most diverse in Texas, but they're also changing the political equation. The gap between the Republican and Democratic votes is down to single digits. Murray predicts the county will revert to Democratic dominance by 2016 at the latest”

At this point, 27 of the 31 elected officials are Republicans in Fort Bend County. But even Republican county chair Rick Miller admits that his party has been losing ground, having been taken by surprise in 2008 when McCain/Palin won the county vote by a mere 4,838 votes – this from the Secretary of State website.

“The election was a lot closer than we thought it was going to be. Fort Bend went for McCain, but it was really pretty close.”

Yeah, like less than 2% close.

The vote has been going that way steadily since 2004, the last time that Republicans finished very strong in Fort Bend County, when W beat Kerry by a margin of 57.37% to 42.11%. This trend is mimicked in the judicial races that pretty much go down party lines.

In 2006 the poll results tightened with Republicans losing 2-3% of the vote and Democrats gaining a like amount.

Then the tight race in 2008 marked by record turnouts of first-time Democratic voters where McCain/Palin edged Obama/Biden by 50.88% (103,206 votes) to 38.48% (98,368 votes).

Democratic Party county chair Steve Brown is hopeful that the dominance shift will occur in the upcoming election.

“In 2004, only 11,000 people voted in Fort Bend County's Democratic presidential primary. Four years later, that number jumped to 68,517. Brown's job is to get the newcomers out to vote and to reignite the 2008 momentum. His goal for November is 70,000 Democratic voters”

Rick Miller is also optimistic but doesn’t have the facts and figures to point to. He bases his optimism on a perceived energy.

“I have never seen people as stirred up as they are now," he said after a recent meeting at party headquarters to plan a Rick Perry visit to Fort Bend. "They've been awakened, and people are getting up and taking action.”

This from a county chair that has only lived in the county for 11 years, and been involved in politics only since 2006. Yeah, “never seen” goes back just four years. This is just part of the hype that Republicans are picking up from the national news pundits who point to an anti-incumbent trend nationally.

In Fort Bend, the incumbents are all Republicans. So are the statewide candidates. Republicans have a problem at the top of their ticket: Rick Perry is seen as a governor who has enriched himself and his cronies at the expense of Texas and Texans. This is what I am hearing from Republicans as well.

So if it’s not this year, it will definitely be next year. But a sea change in Fort Bend County is all but inevitable.

Paid Political Hack to Direct Fort Bend County Coordinated Campaign

When do you become aware that a sleepy backwater suburban county Democratic Party apparatus has suddenly shaken awake? The answer is the moment when an all-volunteer effort hires a paid political hack to oversee its coordinated campaign. We all knew that this would happen once County Chair Steve Brown was elected and sworn into office, but it’s nice to see it when the change that is promised becomes the change that is delivered.

Today, in a news release, the Fort Bend County Democratic Party announced its new Executive Director.

Quoting from the release:

The Fort Bend County Democratic Party has named political campaign veteran Nick Hellyar as Executive Director of the party's Coordinated Campaign, party Chair Steve Brown announced.

Hellyar, who has managed and worked on campaigns for a variety of Fort Bend and Houston-area Democratic candidates, will be responsible for all aspects of the Blue Fort Bend in 2010 local candidate campaign.

"As Executive Director, I'll be responsible for turning out the Democratic vote in the upcoming November elections," Hellyar said."That means working to provide essential support, resources and training to promote our candidates and agenda. Over the next several weeks, we’ll be block-walking, phone-banking, registering voters and hosting a series of rallies aimed at informing and exciting Fort Bend’s Democratic base."

Said County Chair Steve Brown of Hellyar’s hiring:

"I think Nick's hiring further demonstrates how committed we are to turning out Democrats in upcoming elections. His background is a perfect mix of campaign experience along with a familiarity with Fort Bend County. Both of these attributes are essential to our overall success."

Hellyar will maintain an office at the county party’s coordinated campaign headquarters at 31 E. Highway 90A in Richmond (right next to Baytown Seafood). These are some digs that, curiously, lacks a leaky roof and water-stained ceiling tiles that have marked campaign headquarters of the past.

So first, no leaky roof and now a paid director. To say that things are looking up for a Democratic presence in Fort Bend County would be an understatement.

Commissioners’ Court Diverts Federal Dollars to Women’s Shelter

It’s an interesting turn of events when you see the Fort Bend County Commissioner’s Court do an amazing thing right out in the open, but that is what happened this week when they voted 3 to 2 to take $20,000 in federal grant money and reallocate it from one charitable organization to another.

Voting, this time, against County Judge Bob Hebert.

What could be behind this, I had to ask myself. So I perused the rest of the article found here in the Chronicle’s Fort Bend County blog and thought I had an answer, but question marks still kept appearing.

The 20 grand in question was targeted to benefit the Fred and Mabel Parks Youth Ranch, Inc. a facility currently under construction in rural Fairchilds. This is a facility meant to house abused troubled and homeless children in Fort Bend County. A homeless shelter for children does not exist in Fort Bend County. Well not one for those who are not charged with a crime, anyway. The facility was funded by the Fred and Mabel Parks Foundation and the Mamie George Foundation. Management of the construction of the facility was donated by Asset Plus Companies.

This endeavor, it seems is a multi-million dollar undertaking.

An undertaking that has as one of its board members the very same County Judge Hebert who voted in favor of sending the 20 large to this charity. His charity.

Instead, Commissioners Morrison, Prestage and Meyer voted to divert that money away from Hebert’s project and direct it toward the Fort Bend County Women’s Shelter, an organization that houses and shelters abused women and their small children. This organization, by the way, was the beneficiary of $60,842 from the same federal emergency shelter grant, bringing their total up to $80,642, or 94.8% of the total federal grant.

Hebert said that the vote was “political.” From the Chron:

“I can’t sit there and vote to withhold money from a charitable organization whose only mission is to help homeless children. I think it’s a terrible precedent that members of the court made a determination on what charities are worthy of receiving federal money.”

In seeming answer to Hebert’s charges of politicization of charities, the article then concentrated on community opposition to the youth ranch and specifically how neighbors have been negatively impacted by the ranch’s construction.

So what is it? Was the vote to divert funds to the Women’s Shelter a vote in support of Fairchilds residents who opposed the project? Was it a vote to overturn what seemed to be an obvious conflict of interest on the part of Bob Hebert? Or was it simply a choice of which charity needed the funds more, a well-funded youth ranch or the women’s shelter, which gets its funding from donations and proceeds from the sale of used goods in their thrift store?

Whichever it was, one or all, I really don’t care.

Here’s why.

It took a little digging but I discovered that the Fred and Mabel Parks Youth Ranch will be run by the Arrow Child and Family Ministries, or Arrow Ministries for short. This is a Christian organization that endeavors to create “communities of children and families who have experienced healed hearts and changed lives enjoying a whole and meaningful life through faith in Jesus Christ.”

I also discovered that Arrow Ministries is in some way associated with the Michael Reagan Center for Advocacy and Research. The self-same ultra rightwing organization that conducts robotic telephone push polls all over the country pushing their conservative agenda.

So you see, I really don’t care what or why the 3 commissioners voted the way that they did. I simply do not want my federal taxpayer dollars, and that is what this federal grant is, to be used to support a sectarian cause. It is in absolute violation of the Establishment Clause to the US Constitution.

And I really don’t want a cent of my taxpayer dollars to benefit an ultra-rightwing political organization.

There are lots of private foundations to support sectarian and rightwing causes. Let them handle all of that and let’s let the federal taxpayer money benefit non-sectarian apolitical causes.

This is America, after all. Not a sectarian state like the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Drug Money Goes To Fort Bend Law Enforcement Agencies

Did anyone see this in the Houston Chronicle’s coverage of Fort Bend County news?

It sure gives one pause to see all of those Republicans holding checks for a total of $655,728, doesn’t it? Especially when you consider the illicit source: drug money seizures.

It gives one pause, and it makes one wonder whether Texas will ever adopt progressive drug laws, because if local law enforcement agencies and the district attorney’s office are the sole beneficiaries of seized drug money assets, then the answer is decidedly no.

What to with drug money? Use it in further drug interdiction, maybe?

Making no sense at all because the reason America has a drug problem is because America has drug addicts.

Pumping seized drug assets into drug interdiction, instead of into drug rehabilitation programs makes as much sense as using cigarette taxes to buy air purifiers in county buildings.

They don’t do that, do they?

May 8 Election Results: Barnum and Bailey at Its Best

It is truly amazing what a handful of people can do.

A handful of people can literally decide how a local council, school board or city leadership will be formed. It can decide the direction of a county political party.

Truly, truly amazing.

In March, 101 people decided that the Fort Bend County Democratic Party had been spinning its wheels for far too long and voted another way, and now we have Steve Brown in place in a county whose demographics are poised to tilt toward a Democratic majority. And that's a good thing.

But 101 votes?

On May 8th, yesterday, 23 people decided that they would rather have the continued presence of local good-ol’-boy Bill Dostal on the Richmond City Commission rather than up and comer Carlos Garcia. Garcia was in a 3-way race with Dostal and Gary Gillen. That’s right, the self-same Gary Gillen lately Chairman of the Republican Party of Fort Bend County.

How the mighty have fallen. At least he isn’t making a fool of himself on TV like his old pal Hot Tub Tom.

Gillen, Dostal, and Garcia literally split the vote into thirds, except Gillen got the most, and Dostal the second most (by 36 votes).

Dostal and Gillen, I would imagine, face a runoff election.

A runoff city election.

My guess is that the winner will be the one with the greatest number of extended family members living in the city limits.

In Fort Bend ISD the numbers weren’t as close, but again the turnout was so low that it is an embarrassment to call this an election. The undervote in the school board election tells the tale. In the Rice/Alumbaugh race, 1,743 voters who actually came to vote in this low turnout election did not check either box. In the Babb/Hawkins race, this reduced somewhat to 1,458 voters with no opinion.

That Babb won the race was good news in that his opponent, Gerald Hawkins, was a no-show as an actual candidate for office. That Jim Rice won his race was bad news in that it proves once again that soliciting and then spending campaign contributions does matter even in local elections. Matters when maybe it shouldn’t but there you are.

But then again, maybe I am being too hard on the undervoters, those who voted, but not in a school board race. Maybe they really had no opinion, or maybe they were uninformed. I’d much rather a voter cast an informed vote than an uninformed one, and not vote at all if they felt uninformed. Witness the embarrassment that is the Democratic Party’s nominee to face Pete Olson in November as proof of that.

Finally, in Missouri City, where I have no personal or political stake at all, I was still happy to see that voters returned Mayor Owen to office by a pretty fair margin (57.7% to 42.3%). Owen, to my mind had done nothing to earn himself an opponent in Cynthia Lenton-Gary. Missouri City seems to be running well. If I were to fault Lenton-Gary in any way it would be her decision to let the guy who came in dead last in the DA’s race, Richard Raymond, endorse her in TV ads (yes there were TV ads).

My advice to anyone who goes with Raymond to the dog track: let him pick the winner first, then go bet on some other dog, thus beating the odds by some margin.

And also in Missouri City we had the 4-way race for Council-At-Large Position 2, in which Democrat Danny Nguyen won (OK, it’s funnier if you pronounce his last name correctly). For the past few years Nguyen has been a force behind the scenes and it was good to see him put himself out there, and even better to see that the voters saw him to be the superior candidate that he was, giving him an outright majority of 55.33%. This despite the vocal and outright nasty oppo effort by those who also have Vietnamese roots, who branded Nguyen as a communist no less.

Finally, it was also heartening to see Libertarian and perennial also-ran Kevin Tunstall come in a distant third in that race despite the best efforts of his semi-crazed dittohead Chris Calvin who did his best to relieve Nguyen supporters of their lawn signs as reported here. Tunstall can take heart in the fact that he beat the pants off of Judith Dupré, a self-described savior who has been "instrumental" in helping Texans by lowering their home, auto and other insurance rates with her letter writing campaign to Governor Perry.

So voters of Fort Bend, especially those who didn’t vote in the May election, if the lesson isn’t clear, let me make it so: why reserve your votes for the big races for state and federal offices with players like Sarah Palin, Kinky Friedman and Ron Paul when you have your own three-ring circus right here at home.

Early Voting Begins Today

Oh no, not another election.

Depending on where you live you might be having a city election, a MUD election or a school board election. Saturday, May 8th is the statutory uniform election day for local elections here in Texas.

Early voting for that election begins today and extends through Tuesday, May 4th. In Fort Bend County you can find out your early voting location here at the county elections website.

The schedule varies depending on what election you are voting in so you have to click on the separate election links from there.

Now I already went and looked. In every election listed in Fort Bend County no polling location will be open on Sunday. None.

And it’s even dicey on Saturday. For instance, out of the ten early voting locations listed for a majority of the elections (the ones where one would go and vote early for the Fort Bend ISD Board of Trustees, for instance) only four of them are open on Saturday. So if you’re planning on voting on Saturday because you can’t make it to the polls between 7 AM and 7 PM on weekdays, make sure you go to one of these poll locations this Saturday between 7 AM and 5 PM:

Aliana Clubhouse – 17122 West Bellfort, Richmond, TX
Missouri City Community Center – 1522 Texas Pkwy, Missouri City, TX
Hightower High School – 3333 Hurricane Lane, Missouri City, TX
First Colony Conference Center – 3232 Austin Parkway, Sugar Land, TX

Everybody else will be closed on Saturday.

I’m voting tomorrow. I vote in every election. I always early vote and I always early vote on Day 2 so there are no glitches and they’re operational or have identified the problems and established the workarounds.

And no, I’m not making any endorsements on the school board election. No one would listen to me anyway.

Well . . . OK, I’ll make one anti-endorsement. I’ll not vote for Jim Rice. First because he’s a Triple R – I checked – and next because as an established vendor that has done work for the school district, he’s just too close to the situation notwithstanding the fact that his firm will not bid on district contracts if he is elected. He has even said that he will recuse himself in bid award decisions. Frankly that disqualifies him because I want a voting board member, not a non-voting one. Oh, and my third reason for not voting for Rice is one I just came up with today. Not an hour ago I listened to a voicemail message from Rice. Rice paid for a robocall ad. This is when a candidate or his surrogate records a message and then pays someone with a robophone to dial a list of numbers and deliver the recorded message.

Now I don’t hate robocalls. I kind of like them because you can do stuff with recorded messages. What I didn’t like about this particular robocall is that the message was really boring.

Compared to the robocalls I received in the Republican primary, where the attacks were absolutely bloodletting – Rocky Road with sprinkles if you will, this robocall was plain Vanilla.

No, if you’re going to make me sit through a robocall to see if you say anything really awful about your opponent, and you don’t, and it’s a really boring message besides, then you don’t get my vote.

Healey Wins in a Squeaker

Well, you Republicans couldn’t be trusted, could you? You allowed what is probably the most embarrassing District Attorney in a long, long time to retain his office for another four years.

At 10:44 PM it became abundantly clear that Incumbent DA John Healey pulled a fast one and narrowly defeated Nina Schaefer by 6,543to 6,047 votes (51.85% to 48.15%).

There is only one thing that I can say to express my feelings of disgust and dismay over my neighbors unwillingness to get up off their collective behinds and get down there in the same numbers they showed in March (53% opposed to another Healey term in the March primary).

No, wait, Homer Simpson says it so much better:

Another Anakin Skywalker Goes to the Dark Side

It happens every so often. People switch from the party of all that is good and true to the party of the Dark Side.

I think it’s like Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars. Something just snaps and all of a sudden voting for people with R’s next to their names on the ballot seems like a good thing to do.

But this is what I don’t get: why to you go and switch parties while you are an officer in the Fort Bend County Democratic Party? Isn’t that a bad, bad thing? I mean, jeez, even Anakin Skywalker wasn't a in the Jedi knight leadership when he made his switch, was he?

And then you keep it a secret that you are now a Republican so you can go on and do your worst to the party that you just abandoned. That's too horrible to think about.

But guess what, that has just happened.

I heard about it last evening from my friend, Susan, who writes her not-a-blog. She called and told me the news that she had just found out that the Secretary to the Fort Bend County Democratic Party had voted in the Republican primary.

My reaction?

“Noooooo…”

You see, while who you vote for on your ballot remains a secret between you and The Creator, whose primary you vote in is not. And for a fee anyone can find that out.

What is amazing to me is that in her non-participation in the Democratic primary, that was one vote less for her patron, Elaine Bishop who lost her re-election bid by a mere 101 votes.

But most unnerving is that this individual, a Republican, will remain in office for another month and a half. This is because the County Chair-Elect, Steve Brown, doesn’t take office until May 1st. This is a rule that needs some changing, by the way. What if, for example, a challenger wins over the incumbent in a particularly bitter race (like this one)? What if one of the reasons the challenger ran against the incumbent is that a high degree of pettiness and back stabbing goes on within the Party by the incumbent and her coterie?

Real damage can be done.

Sheriff Albatross Endorses Nina Schaefer

Oh no.

The Fort Bend Herald, the very newspaper that took Fort Bend County Sheriff Milton “Albatross” Wright to task for endorsing Richard Raymond for District Attorney here in Fort Bend County, is now reporting that the sheriff is now getting behind Nina Schaefer in her runoff bid to unseat Wright’s least favorite DA, John Healey.

Getting an endorsement from Wright these days is akin to having a dead albatross hung around your neck.

Mainly because the Herald had such negative comments on the sheriff’s endorsement, and mainly because Wright’s champion came in dead last in a 3-way race, this is really bad news for Nina Schaefer.

And apparently Richard Raymond no longer thinks that Nina Schaefer is “too liberal for Fort Bend County.” According to the same article, Richard Raymond, Schaefer’s former opponent, is also endorsing her.

I actually ended up rooting for Schaefer on Raymond’s recommendation that she was too liberal, but now wonder whether your typical die-hard primary runoff voter will have the same partiality.

So all you can hope for now is that your typical Republican diehard primary runoff voter will see the endorsements for what they are: an anyone but Healey endorsement.

Frankly, I am not optimistic.

Congratulations Mr. Chairman

Let's hear it for the 29th prime number! One-Oh-One! One-Oh-One! One-Oh-One! One-Oh-One!

Help. Republicans Keep Robo-Calling Me

Today I saw the ominous blink of my voicemail light again announcing that I had received another message.

I think it blinks ominously, somehow, when the message it holds is a Robo-call from some Republican or another.

Today it was from Rick Forlano and it instantly peaked my interest because he listed in order, 3 endorsements. Two from two local newspapers, and the third from Sheriff Milton Wright no less.

Now I can understand him wanting to tout the newspaper endorsements but given what we read in the Fort Bend Herald, one of his endorsing newspapers, I wondered whether Forlano was just inviting not just a little bit of trouble.

Wright has become something of a controversial figure, it seems, in his endorsements. Some would say downright wacky.

Anyway, for your edification, I am going to share Forlanos’s robo message in this You Tube presentation.

Fort Bend County Democratic Party Chair Agrees to Another Polling Location Change

Shades of 2008.

In 2008 the Elections Office in Republican-dominated Fort Bend County government pulled a fast one by changing the Election Day polling locations of two Democratic-dominated precincts.

I mentioned it in this piece back then.

Back then the county Elections Office changed the polling locations of Precincts 2123 and 1114, both of them strong Democratic precincts. But they made the mistake of announcing the change 3 weeks before Election Day.

I remember it well. My Democratic Club printed and mailed at its expense notification of the polling location change to each and every resident of the affected area.

At the same time we railed at each other why our County Chair, Elaine Bishop, would allow that to happen. Isn’t she supposed to protect the votes of each and every Democrat in Fort Bend County?

And now it has happened again.

Only this time the Elections Office waited until the last minute.

They do learn.

The polling location for Democratic majority precinct 1076 has been changed at the last minute. And obviously, with the assent of our Party Chair.

Precinct 1076 used to vote at Holy Cross Episcopal Church near just outside of River Park West. It has now been moved down the freeway to River Pointe Community Church on Ransom Road. Here is the precinct map.

Yes, two separate communities joined by one two-lane road.

So now, even if a Precinct 1076 voter looks on their voter registration card to remind themselves of where they go and vote, that address will be wrong. But usually voters don’t even look it up, they just go where they always go.

We can only hope that enough voters do show up at the polls and vote for Change in Fort Bend County.

Vote for Steve Brown for Fort Bend County Democratic Chair.

Oh, did I mention what was Elaine Bishop's reaction to my Democratic Club's action in response to her inaction? Were we thanked? Appreciated? Not on your life.

She criticized the group for meddling.

I am not kidding.

A DA Three-Fer

Now every once in awhile I get an e-mail message forwarded to me that originates from one Teabagger or another, but that is because I asked my cousin, who gets them nearly every day to forward them to me.

I like to see what the Dark Side is saying without having to venture there and wade through the mis-spellings, ALL CAPS TEXT and exclamation points (honestly these people write like Glenn Beck talks).

But what irritates me is that come election time my mailbox gets inundated with those color glossy cardstock campaign cards from Republican candidates.

To my knowledge, I have never given my mailing address to a single Republican so I have no idea how I wound up on their list. But they all send me their campaign paraphernalia.

But today it was unreal.

I received four pieces, all of them the same size (6 by 11) mailers, and 100% of them coming from a Republican DA candidate. One each from Healey and Raymond, and two different ones from Nina Schaefer.

It was just unreal that they were all received on the exact same day. What are the chances of that happening?

Here’s a photograph of them.

Of the three, Healey’s is the tamest. His attacks consist entirely of the lack of experience of one his two opponents (Raymond) and that the other is “Weak on Crime” ostensibly because she doesn’t prosecute criminals, she defends them.

Raymond devotes most of his ink attacking Healey and cites the Fort Bend Herald Coaster’s call for his replacement, quotes a juror (and taxpayer), and cites a Texas Ethics Commission opinion on Healey’s “illegal campaign activities.” His sole criticism of Schaefer is that she is TOO LIBERAL for Fort Bend County.

Obviously, he is not worried about Nina Shaefer.

Schaefer, on the other hand trumps both candidates by sending out not one mailer but two. In one she attacks Healey for his many legal and political sins (as I recall Healey’s assistant, Mike Elliott, was the sinner most of the time). In the other she fires shots at both Healey and Raymond, bringing up Raymond’s association with Joey Sula, the guy who bilked Fort Bend County political consultant Karen Pearson out of 500 large.

Pearson, as it turns out, managed DA Healey’s campaigns in the past.

Reading all of this just assaults the senses a little bit because one of these rascals is going to be elected (or re-elected) to District Attorney because no Democrat would file in the race.

So, what the heck, since Richard Raymond says Nina Schaefer is too liberal for Fort Bend, and since Nina Schaefer definitely pulled on her punch in her hit piece, what the heck. If you vote in the Republican primary you should probably put the red color in the box next to Schaefer’s name when you vote.