Bay Area Houston

Never liked the guy. Any attorney who has to use a tube of brylcreem isn’t getting my business.

Jared Woodfill was the Chair of the Harris County Republican Party for over a decade. In 2019 his law office was raided. Now he finds himself on one end of a strange conspiracy theory assault. From the Houston Chronicle:

Instead, according to an indictment announced Tuesday by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, the incident was a brazen attempt by a former Houston police captain to secure evidence to support a far-fetched claim that prominent local Democrats had orchestrated a scheme to harvest more than 700,000 ballots leading up to the Nov. 3 election. The ex-lawman, Mark A. Aguirre, 63, faces a felony charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon stemming from the Oct. 19 confrontation.

So, how does Jared fit in this debacle? Turns out Jared is the president of Liberty Center for god and country. The Liberty Center paid Aguirre over $200,000 for his investigative skills. Over the years Jared has joined with religious nut job Steven Hotze and has been circling the drain with him. Liberty Center is not listed at the Texas Ethics Commission or the city or county websites. They had a GoFuckMe site that has since been removed.

Hopefully the Harris County DAs office is going to comb this shit out.

A few months ago the Harris County Commissioners Court rushed through a process creating the Office of the Elections Administrator. Many activists, including myself, were not very happy about being called to provide input, taking their time to do so, just so they could immediately make the decision. From a previous post:

The Commissioners listened to our input then voted to approve the item regardless. Their minds were made up leaving us with many unanswered questions. Why were we left in the dark on this extremely important issue? Why was this being discussed in the middle of a historic election? Why was this being discussed during a raging pandemic killing Houstonians? Why didn’t the Commission reach out for comments from the public? Why were they not being transparent about the issue?

Since then an Elections Administrator, Isabel Longoria, has been appointed by the Commission. This selection has been praised by many in the community but Tuesday’s meeting might upend this. According to an update to the upcoming agenda for Tuesday’s meeting:

Request by the County Attorney for Executive Session to consult with the County Attorney concerning claims that the Office of the Elections Administrator was improperly established and for possible action upon return to Open Session including ratification of prior acts of Commissioners Court; creation of the Office of the Elections Administrator and/or authorization for litigation concerning such claims.

Most probably the Harris County Republican Party has their panties in a wad and has challenged the process that was rushed through. The item will be discussed during executive session.

Hopefully this rush to appoint was legal and we can move on to the next election cycle.

Here are the major races. Updates will come soon.

Carvana Cloud raised over half her donations, $15,000, from Rusty Hardin and Carole Walter Cooke, who inherited an Oil and Gas company.

Audia Jones is still not disclosing the in-kind donations from a socialist PAC called Real Justice.

Jolanda Jones has over $60,000 in unpaid expenses. That is strange.

Once again we need to ask: “Why are you running?” to CC Phillips and Robert Morales both challenging Judge Julia Maldonado. Judge Maldonado won her race for the 507th District Court in Harris County in 2016. There is absolutely no reason to change our Democratic nominee for 2020.

From a campaign finance perspective Morales and Phillips are lacking in funds so say the least.

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Vote for Judge Maldonado for the 507th District Court.

Republicans are in red

The incumbent District Attorney has a significant advantage over her competitors with $385,908 COH compared to $23,431 combined from Jones, Cloud, and Overstreet.

Christian Menefee raised a significant amount of money….but $50,000 came from his own pocket.

Ed Gonzalez has a huge lead in this race. As does Michael Moore. Rodney Ellis has been sitting on a $3M war chest for some time now.

Alan Rosen has a commanding lead over his opponents with over $944,000 COH. There is no competition in this race. Rosen has served his district very well.

Chris Diaz is mired in controversy. He has a great challenger, Jerry Garcia, who has excellent experience but he has not filed his report yet.

Michel Pappillion* for Constable will not raise or spend more than $500.

May Marker for Constable has no opponent.

This is a new “Why are you running” series for me.

Brittanye Morris is an attorney running for 333rd Judicial District Civil Court. She is a late challenger to Democrat Judge Daryl Moore. According to the Houston Bar Association Judge Moore is the highest ranked Judge in Harris County with an overall score of 69% (see below). He was elected to the bench in 2016 and as far as I can tell has performed well for the citizens of Harris County which brings me to the question for Brittanye Morris: Why are you running?

Every candidate challenging an incumbent should be prepared to answer the question, Why are your running?. It’s a fair question and there just might be good reasons to force a member of your own party, in good standing, to spend resources to run. What has Judge Moore or any incumbent done to compel you to put your life on hold and run a campaign? Many candidates can’t answer this question.

Besides answering the question Morris is not raising money, has no website, Facebook page, or anything that shows she is trying to win.

Would love to know why she is running. I have asked.

UPDATE: Gonzales has withdrawn from the Democratic Primary for Sheriff less than 24 hours after he signed up.

This is what the Republican Party has become.

Monday a last minute candidate came forward to run in the Democratic Primary against Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. His name is Oscar Gonzales, with an “s”, and he isn’t a Democrat. According to Oscar’s voting record he is a triple R, voting in not only the last 3 Republican Party primaries, but every republican primary for the last 10 years.

Maybe he was encouraged by the Harris County Republican Party to run against a real Democrat with a similar last name. I’ve seen this tactic before with Dave Wilson poising as a Democrat and distributing misleading information much like Eric Dick has done. It’s a cheap trick to possibly confuse voters in the Democratic Primary and split the vote.

It’s dishonest. It’s so republican. It’s what they have become.

Picture from the Houston Chronicle

There are so many politicians who talk the talk. That is easy. And there are those who actually walk the walk. Case in point Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. From the Houston Chronicle:

New Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo has announced that she will refuse political donations from county contractors, a stark departure from the past in which firms seeking business from the county showered Commissioners Court candidates and incumbents with cash.

Republican Commissioners Cagle and Raddick will not do the same, neither will the Democrats Garcia and Ellis. The republicans will never stop taking corporate money or money from the vendors doing business with their office. That is who they are. That is who they represent. The Democrats are moving in the right direction. No corporate PAC money is a great start. 
Judge Hidalgo is leading the way in Harris County. It’s time everyone on the Commission follows her lead.