Bay Area Houston

Be prepared. Maybe.

I don’t see any candidates in the Mayor, Controller, at Large 1-5 stooping to the level of Eric Dick, candidate for At Large 5 in 2019, in the upcoming elections. Maybe a candidate in District E might dip into unethical campaigning but for the most part dirty tricks probably won’t happen. Here are some examples over the years:

Dirty Tricks. Eric Dick
Eric Dick in 2013 and 2019 sent out mailers that looked as if elected officials had endorsed him. In 2013 Dick had the habit of taking pictures with elected officials then used their pictures in a mailer as if they were supporting him. They weren’t. Then in epic fashion he out did himself sending out mailers to the Black community in the runoff for At Large 5 claiming some organization had endorsed him. You can see the front and back here. In the end, he lost and the Texas Ethics Commission fined him $30,000 and referred him to the Texas Bar.

Dirty Tricks. Dave Wilson
Dave Wilson won a seat on the Houston Community Board beating out a 24 year incumbent. From the Texas Observer:

The anti-gay activist printed mailers for his campaign featuring pictures of African-Americans that said, “Please vote for our friend and neighbor Dave Wilson.” The pictures came from the Internet, Wilson said.

Dave Wilson wasn’t even in the pictures. It said that Ron Wilson, a Black State Representative, asked for voters to vote for Dave Wilson. Ron Wilson was actually Dave Wison’s cousin. In Iowa. Here is the mailer:

Dirty Tricks: Misleading Endorsements
This is hard to prove. There are organizations that seem to be running a “pay to play” endorsement. For a $25,000 donation you too could be listed on their endorsement mailer or magazine. As a possible example Aubrey Taylor of Houston Business Connections has a well designed blog. I don’t believe it is an actual website, just a blog. (like mine but my design sucks) Taylor lists endorsements like the one below. He is listed as a “newspaper” although I have never seen anything in print. Because of this he can receive donations without disclosure. I doubt HBC actually interviewed some of the candidates listed below.

Dirty Tricks: Misleading PACs
In the Democratic primary of 2020 and organization call Fort Bend United run by Shapnick Khan distributed an endorsement brochure titled “Harris County Democratic Voters Guide” (see below). Harris County had nothing to do with this voters guide, by law. Harris County Democratic Party had nothing to do with this, by bylaws. But it sure did look nice, and well written. Their endorsements included absolutely horrible candidates running against Commissioner Adrian Garcia and Judge Lina Hidalgo. Fort Bend United has since filed a campaign finance report showing a $0 COH. The Treasurer, Shapnick Khan also created a PAC called Texas Progressive Executive Council in 2021. He raised no money and it is now listed as “Inactive”

Dirty Tricks: District E
I’m looking forward to seeing what one candidate is going to do since he is self financing and is an extreme partisan candidate running in a non partisan race. To be continued.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2023 at 9:12 am and is filed under Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.