The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime

We tend to say every election is the most important of our lifetime. And truthfully it has probably felt that way every time. This time it is more true than ever—because our country is now a post-constitutional republic, and this may be our only opportunity to turn around on the path back toward our Constitution.

Decisions are state and local, since it’s not a presidential election year. And yet they may add up to a greater impact than anything we’ve seen before. That is, if—we vote for that return toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

image found here

I’ll be looking at Texas and local races today. Principles will apply elsewhere, but you’ll have to do your own research.

The short and simple answer this election is to vote Republican. And vote Republican all the way down the ballot. In Harris County, that’s a long ballot—possibly the longest in the nation. We vote on our judges, and it’s around a hundred races total. I’ll highlight just a few. There is no straight-ticket voting anymore, so it requires tedious individual voting. Note that the Republican candidate is listed first in every race.

 

Governor

The choices are Greg Abbott, our current governor, and Robert (Beto) O’Rourke. Beto had no redeeming qualities when he ran against Ted Cruz for Senate in 2018, but he pulled in a great deal of out-of-state anti-Cruz money, and was a media darling. He failed. He attempted a run for president, without the anti-Cruz enthusiasm and money, and showed himself to be at the bottom of the Democrat heap, only slightly above Kamala Harris. So again he failed. He’s attempting to pretend the multiple failures are a reason to vote for him. He changed from his previous, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take Americans’ guns” (an actual quote) to something more nuanced that he thinks might play better in Texas. He’s pro-abortion without restriction and thinks that’s a winning issue. It isn’t.

So he’s not much of a threat.

As for Governor Abbott, he disappointed many during the pandemic by allowing lockdowns. He lifted statewide mandates pretty quickly, but defending our freedoms against more local tyrants has been piecemeal. He just extended the declaration of emergency for the 31^st time (Houston Chronicle story here). Fact: the pandemic isn’t an emergency and hasn’t been for a very long time. Only 12 states still retain these emergency declarations. We’re hoping the legislature will address that this upcoming session; the people are calling for an automatic requirement for the Texas Legislature to approve emergency orders in order to extend them beyond 30 days.

That being said, he has been mostly conservative, and has been good at growing Texas and our economy here. While we would have preferred some DeSantis-style boldness, we’re better off than most. So, with less enthusiasm than before the pandemic, I am definitely voting for Governor Greg Abbott.

 

US Congress

I’ve been redistricted from CD 2, Dan Crenshaw’s district, to the new CD 38. Our candidate is Wesley Hunt. He’s ex-military and supported by Crenshaw. Those of you who followed this race in the primary know I did not support Hunt. I campaigned for a much better candidate. But Hunt got the big money and pulled off a win without a runoff—despite failing to show at every event I was made aware of. As a precinct chair I have since been invited to an event or two, but at times I was unable to attend. That means I still have not seen him in person since he began his campaign. That is completely opposite of how Dan Crenshaw ran.

Hunt says the right conservative things. My impression of him, in person, when he ran a previous campaign in 2018, was that he wasn’t as clear on the concepts, or as committed to conservative principles as his opponents. But he said the right things then too, and won the primary but not the general.

This time he’s in a district that is designed to trend Republican. As long as he doesn’t blow it, he’ll get elected. Unless I look up the name on the sample ballot, I can’t even remember his Democrat opponent’s name (it's Duncan F. Klussmann). I have seen no campaign signs for the opponent. There seems to be no enthusiasm for him. So Hunt is likely to sail through.

I’ll be voting for Hunt, in hopes that he will live true to the conservative things he says. He will be better to work with than someone who openly opposes conservatives.

 

Harris County Judge

This is possibly the most important race on the ballot for people in Harris County. Again, a brief explanation that HC Judge is an administrative position. It is, in fact, one of the largest administrative jurisdictions in the nation. I think Los Angeles and maybe one other are larger. In smaller, rural counties, some county judges still act as judges, but in the enormous Harris County, that has not been the case for many decades; just the name remains.

It’s a challenge to list the many reasons we need to get rid of our corrupt socialist incumbent. But here are a few:

·       Lina Hidalgo directed $11 million in COVID-19 relief money to a partisan crony. Three of her main staffers were indicted on fraud charges; charges against her may yet come, but not likely before the election.

o   Claims the funds have been returned are not accurate. Stories here and here.

·       Lina Hidalgo and cronies on Commissioners Court changed the structure for voting, after a corrupt Democrat County Clerk stepped down in May of 2020, and called for a new elections administrator to handle elections, rather than the County Clerk. She hired an incompetent crony as EA, who messed up the Primary so badly that even Hidalgo asked for her resignation—although they postponed her leaving until after the runoffs could be mishandled as well.

o   There are ongoing serious chain-of-custody issues related to elections. Story here. 

·       She decided the way to allocate Harvey relief and recovery funds was—not according to who suffered the most damaged, but which ethnicities she wanted to favor.

·       She pushes for higher taxes at every opportunity. The three countywide ballot propositions are an example: totaling $1.2 billion for projects that haven’t even been delineated yet. Just-in-case money, during a recession.

·       She has misallocated money intended for police on the street to social programs. The state has called her to get back in compliance with the law against defunding law enforcement.

·       Even the Democrat District Attorney is at odds with Hidalgo for failing to allow prosecution of violent felons; Hidalgo won’t fund additional prosecutors.

·       Hidalgo supports the practice of letting violent offenders out on personal recognizance bonds; i.e., no bail bonds. Since Hidalgo’s election in 2018, the increase of PR bonds to violent criminals rose from 12 to 1283, including 110 capital murder offenders. 181 have died at the hands of these criminals out on PR bonds. (I wrote about this here.) 

But what about all the things she’s done right? Hmm. I can’t seem to come up with anything to list.

Back in the Primary, the Republicans ran several capable people. But my choice then and now is Alexandra del Moral Mealer. She’s a serious woman. Unlike Hidalgo, who took on this job at age 2;7, as her first job out of graduate school, with no real world experience, Mealer has considerable leadership experience, both in the military (leading bomb squads), and in business. She’s smart, well prepared, and articulate. Doing political schmoozing isn’t really her thing; you can see it’s not natural for her. But she’s likable and real. A telling detail for me was last summer, on my way into the Republican Party of Texas convention, I ran into her in the crosswalk. She remembered my name, my association with the Cypress Texas Tea Party, where we had had her speak, and that I had supported her.

Me with Alexandra del Moral Mealer (right),
at Cypress Texas Tea Party in March 2022

She has garnered quite an army of willing block walkers. Her signs are everywhere around the county. I see almost none for Hidalgo.

Even the Houston Chronicle denied Hidalgo their endorsement and went with Mealer. The editorial board said, "Where it counts, particularly on the issue of crime, Mealer seems to be listening to many in our community who otherwise feel unheard: crime victims and their families." 

If you’re interested in seeing them side by side, there’s this video. 

 

County Commissioner

We’ve had just two of the five members of the Commissioners’ Court siding with the people, and against Hidalgo and those who control her agenda. Redistricting following the census has been used as an attempt to oust one or two of the remaining ones. My commissioner, “Cactus” Jack Cagle, is one of my favorite people in the political world. Cowboy, poet, philosopher—very fun to hear him speak on just about anything. I will definitely be voting for him. If you’re in Tom Ramsey’s district or one of the others, know that you’re doing the world a service by voting Republican in these races.

That's me with the tall guys, Cactus Jack Cagle and Mr. Spherical Model
at Cactus Jack's Campfire (picnic) in 2021

 

County Clerk

Stan Stanart was our County Clerk for eight years. Elections ran so much smoother then. All we had to worry about were the more traditional attempts at voter fraud—not systemic ones implemented by county officials. It would be such a pleasure to have him back. If we can get a Republican County Judge and keep our Republican County Commissioners, we could even do away with the failed attempt at using an Elections Administrator and return that duty to the County Clerk’s office.

We heard from Stan at last Saturday’s Tea Party meeting. Vide here.

 

County Treasurer

This race is even lower on the ballot than County Clerk. Kyle Scott would be such a joy in that position. He understands how the County Treasurer can keep spending under control—by not signing authorization to any spending outside the law. What a concept! He proved his contrarian abilities as a member of the Lone Star Community College board, some years ago (term-limited out). He cheers us up every time he speaks at our Tea Party. Here’s video of him from last Saturday as well.

 

Judges

As I mentioned, we have a l-l-o-o-n-n-g-g ballot, because of all the judges. This year, because of the ridiculous policy of letting violent felons out on personal recognizance bonds, it is especially important to safety in our community to oust those judges and put in judges who abide by the law. I signed on for nearly all of these judges; getting signatures saves them big bucks in filing fees. Many of them have served before but got ousted in the Beto wave or its 2020 echo. The Democrats are both inexperienced and ineffective. And in many cases they have proven dangerous to our communities. An excuse for the PR bonds is that it takes up to three years to bring a case to trial. Wouldn’t the better solution be to get through the docket faster? Managing caseload is something a good judge must do.

A favorite for me this year is Julian Ramirez, running for the 248^th Judicial District; it’s one of those criminal courts. Julian had been in the DA’s office for many years, but because of his support of the previous DA, he got ousted after Kim Ogg’s election. He has been my guy with inside info on judges for close to two decades. I believe I can trust him to do the job to make our streets safer.

 

Propositions

There are three bond propositions on the Harris County ballot. I’m voting against all three. It’s not noral to put forth bond proposals that are not even attached to planned projects, but that’s what our County Judge and her Commissioners Court are doing. During a recession. There’s no good reason.

If you’re in the City of Houston, there are another 7 or so bond proposals. I’d vote against those too. Taxing yourself at higher rates for no good reason just doesn’t make sense.

At the Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee (the precinct chairs) earlier this month, we vote to oppose all three Harris County propositions and all of the Houston propositions.

Vote All the Way Down the Ballot

Republicans tend to hesitate to vote down ballot where they don’t know all the candidates. This year especially, just trust that the Republican candidate will be better than the other guy. And vote every race all the way down the ballot. Plan on taking 20 minutes to vote—after you reach the machine. Good luck finding a place with a short line. The inexperienced Democrats running the election are particularly bad at allocating resources appropriately. In my polling location they have cut the number of machines in half from what we had in the Primary, and have cut our staff—as though we would have fewer voters in a general election than in a Primary. We’ll be adding to our staff with volunteers to make sure we can get the job done. But it appears from Early Voting, which started Monday, that we are having a high turnout. So plan your time accordingly. Paper jams took a lot of time in the Primary. The machines weren't expected to handle two-legal-size pager per voter. They now have installed a guide, which they said makes it almost impossible to jam. Nevertheless, in my training, we had a jam on our first try (not trying to jam, just trying to insert the paper). And then we had a second jam when they were demonstrating the curbside duo-go.

from page 153 of the official manual for this election

Voting in person on Election Day, preferably in your precinct polling location, is the gold standard. But if there’s any chance you can’t do it on Election Day, do Early Voting. (Locations for both here.) I didn't find a place to check for estimated wait times, but that would be handy info to have.

It took until just a couple of weeks ago, but the County’s website finally has its sample ballots up. They can’t seem to find me by name—in this place where I’ve been a registered voter for 24 years. So I use the VUID (voter unique ID) on my voter registration card, and then they recognize me.

Will your vote count? We watch for voter fraud here. There’s an army of people daily looking at the voter list of unqualified voters (dead people, people who have moved away) who have been identified but not removed from the voter rolls as they should have been. If any of those people vote, they’re immediately flagged. Also, there’s an army of trained poll watchers, in addition to the army of trained Presiding Judges, Alternate Judges, and Clerks. If you vote in person, you can believe it will be counted. And if we can get enough of us to vote to exceed their ability to cheat, that’s how we beat them.

So, vote! Vote Republican! Vote all the way down the ballot. This is indeed the most important election of our lifetime.

The Biggest Local Race

We have a very important race here in Harris County, in the Primary runoff election coming up May 24^th. This is for Harris County Judge.

I went to hear the two runoff candidates Tuesday night—along with about 200 close friends and allies who also have a stake in this decision. It was hosted by Towne Lake Republicans, and held at the Weekley Community Center. I’m hoping to see video soon, but for today I’m relying on my audio recording and notes.

Why is this race so important? What does a county judge do? Good question. At a candidate forum, moderator Rep. Mike Schofield spelled out the job description. He said,

We don't call it County Judge intentionally to deceive you. Originally—and in the small counties to this day—the County Judge actually hears cases. The last vestige of that in Harris County went away about ten years ago, when we got rid of the County Judge's jurisdiction over hearing liquor license cases. So now our County Judge is basically the county executive. The Commissioners Court, over which the judge presides, is responsible for the following: adopting a budget for the county, setting tax rates, calling for bond elections, building and maintaining county infrastructure such as roads and bridges, and overseeing county courthouse jails, libraries, parks, and the Harris County flood control district.

Then he asked the two candidates to tell us what makes them qualified to preside over Commissioners Court.

Alexandra del Moral Mealer (left) and Vidal Martinez, getting ready for opening remarks,
at Harris County Judge Republican candidate forum March 29, 2022

We have two very qualified people. Compared to Lina Hidalgo, who holds the position now, almost anyone off the street would have more experience. So it’s a blessing to have choices so far above the low bar she has set.

I made my decision well ahead of the March 1^st Primary, and this forum only solidified my choice.  But I believe I’m choosing the better candidate; I’m not choosing between a good and bad option here.

So the short version is, in the Primary I voted for Alexandra del Moral Mealer (I’ll call her Alex Mealer from here on for brevity), and I will do so again in the runoff. The other runoff candidate is Vidal Martinez, and he’ll get good coverage here as well.

I first heard them both speak in November, at a forum we held at Cypress Texas Tea Party (sorry, videos no longer available). We heard from Alex Mealer again, as our main speaker, in March (video here). And we have scheduled to hear from Vidal Martinez on April 23^rd.

Back in November we had five of the seven County Judge candidates that day. Vidal Martinez went first. I was taking notes and thinking, Wow! He has a lot of really relevant experience. He’s older, but he does seem ready to run a large organization—and Harris County is one of the largest jurisdictions in the country, bigger than many states.

Rep. Mike Schofield moderated at the
candidate forum, March 29, 2022

On Tuesday night, Martinez quantified it this way:

Harris County is a big town. 1700 square miles. 4.7 million people in here. If we were a state, we would be larger—number 22—larger than Louisiana. We're larger than the state of Rhode Island.

I think he may mean our population is larger than Louisiana, and our size is bigger than Rhode Island. Actually, I think we’re comparable to New Jersey in size. He added,

It's two real centers of the population. We have 2.1 million inside the donut with the city, which is predominantly liberal. And we have 2.5 outside of that that is predominantly conservative.

He noted that we had 44 years of conservative governance, with County Judges John Lindsay, Robert Eckels, and Ed Emmett. Until 2018, when Lina Hidalgo came in and tried to wipe out good governance entirely. More on her later, if there’s time.

As I was saying, Martinez seemed qualified.

But…  There’s a problem that struck me in November, and was the issue that brought the most sparks at Tuesday night’s forum as well. But I’d like to cover the qualifications of both of the candidates first.

Vidal Martinez

He has been working here for 47 years—since 1975. (I’m estimating that makes him 72.)

·        He has been a federal prosecutor in Houston.

·        He has been Chairman of the State Bar of Texas.

·        He has been on the Methodist Hospital board—the number 1 hospital in the state for many years.

·        He has been the Houston Port Commissioner.

·        He chaired the Transportation Committee of the Greater Houston Partnership, working for funding of the I-45 expansion (Hidalgo rejected the funding and sued instead; we need to reverse that).

·        He has served on the University of Houston Board.

·        There’s a more complete list of experience on his website. 

He summed up what the county is in charge of as three things: “public safety, public health, and transportation, which is really emergency management.” So he showed how his resume fills all of those categories. Really, his resume is stellar.

 

Alex Mealer

Alex Mealer is much younger. She’s 37, married, and has a couple of small children. Her Facebook page still looks like a regular mom enjoying her family. But packed in her relative youth she has a lot of good experience. As she says, “Not all experience is good experience.” But what she’s done is relevant for this job.

·        She graduated from West Point and began her military career right after 9/11.

·        She joined the Army bomb squad, which is full-time emergency management.

·        In her 20s, she was tasked with getting a bomb squad unit ready to deploy to Afghanistan; Army standard is one year, but she did it in four months.

·        She not only diffused bombs herself (proving calm under pressure); she worked with senior leadership to allocate scarce resources in real time with imperfect information.

·        She was promoted to lead a unit in Iraq: 600 people, 40 locations, to restore a broken unit. This required convincing people to follow her—waiving their home time after a deployment to redeploy with her.

·        After military, she and husband settled in Houston, and she began work in oil & gas—which is where she got her financial expertise and understanding of working with the oil & gas feast-or-famine cycle. This expertise includes knowing:

o   What is the appropriate leverage?

o   How do you raise capital?

o   How do you use your resources efficiently?

She summarizes the County Judge job as having two key functions: “Can you lead a large bureaucracy, and manage a large budget?” She has done both—and both under challenging conditions. With what is maybe the best soundbite for her campaign, she says,

“If I can diffuse a bomb, I can handle the pressures of this job.”

Both candidates have the relevant education, which neither mentioned on Tuesday. Martinez has a law degree, obviously. Mealer has a JD/MBA from Harvard. Mealer's website is here.

 

Improvement Plans

Both of them would probably do similar things for the County—all a 180-degree turn from the current direction. Both of them seem to have a good grasp on the situation. Martinez has long experience. Mealer has done her homework. She’s been gathering the data—and noting that Hidalgo keeps taking down data that might make her look bad, so things are likely worse than they appear. So transparency will be a high priority in the next county administration.

Here are a couple of examples of discussions to come in the general election.

We got funding related to flood control in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. It was to be distributed according to need—where floods happen. Hidalgo has decided to distribute—illegally—according to oppression status. That means, if you’re in an area she can call oppressed because of your skin color, or maybe your economic status, she prioritizes the funds there—and leaves the people who have actually suffered the flooding unserved. Considering how many people all over the county suffered from flooding, some woke nonsense is not going to go over well in November.

And there’s that other thing she’s done—making a bad-faith deal concerning bail bonds. As a result, even the pro-criminal District Attorney Kim Ogg is saying enough is enough; we’ve got to stop letting violent offenders—who are already out on bond when they commit new crimes—back onto the streets. Hidalgo has scuttled funding for law enforcement and sent those funds to whatever are her pet social projects. Note: social projects are not on the list of responsibilities for the County Judge. As a result, it’s hard to hire law enforcement. And we’ve suddenly got the distinction of being the murder capital of the nation—taking that dubious honor away from Chicago.

Martinez mentions some close-to-home examples in his opening remarks:

We now have a little girl getting shot and killed at FM 529 and Fry Road by a stray bullet in a carjacking. Then another carjacking two days later in the same area. Then a vicious attack on a lady at HEB parking lot at Tuckerton and Fry Road. This crime wave has to be taken seriously. I know how to stop it. I know how to stop this nonsense. Keep criminals in jail. Stop the decarceration. Restore funding to law enforcement, and make this community safe for all of you again.

Those are steps Mealer will take as well. And she has ten law enforcement groups endorsing her.

I believe them both on many of the things on our to-do list for the County Judge. Their strength on these things is going to show up well against Hidalgo’s feckless cronyism in a general election. The disastrous results of this County Judge are not in some faraway place; they show up in our faces every day. Even Democrats want safe streets and controlled floods in their own neighborhoods.

 

The Sticking Point

Now for what has been a sticking point for me. Back in November, during the Q&A, someone asked Vidal Martinez about his donations to Lina Hidalgo. This was during her first year, early in her administration, not during a campaign. He explained that he was trying to be supportive, and had been hopeful she would be better. It turned out she was a disappointment.

Really? Because some of us knew from day one that she was a 27-year-old twit, just out of school, with no work experience, and a whole lot of tyrannist philosophy that she was determined to foist on us. Some of us don’t give money to our paid elected officials at all; our taxes do the paying. And we certainly don’t give it for them to use in future campaigns when they are that undeserving.

On Tuesday when he tried to defend those donations, Martinez said,

With Lina Hidalgo—Yes. Every businessman downtown, and every business leader—we had a 27-year-old without a driver's license driving the family car. We were worried about that. We wanted to have access to her. We didn't know until after a donation—and, by the way, any donation to her [Hidalgo] by these businessmen, including her [Mealer’s] supporters that are replete with business, with donations to Lina Hidalgo—we didn't know until about six months later. This is donations that came in after Ed Emmett lost; it wasn’t during the election. She’s a sitting officer. There’s a whale of difference in leadership. You haven’t held any of those folks [previous county leadership] here. But anyway, there’s a whale of a difference in leadership in this county, when you have to deal with Democrats that are in positions of power. And she disappointed us. She disappointed everyone in that 2019 year…. She turned out to be the wrong person.

For someone as high powered as Martinez is, a $1000 donation here and there is like a cost of doing business. It’s like my assuming paying for toll roads is a cost of driving around Houston. Nevertheless, I’m still bothered by it.

I have more questions I would like to ask him: If it’s a cost of doing business, and the way things are done, will you expect donations from people who want access to you in that position? Did you give donations to the Republican predecessors, to have access to them? Or was giving money to “the 27-year-old without a drivers license driving the family car” your first attempt at buying access? And how do we know that you would be completely different?

Alex Mealer summed it up as, “if you can’t understand the difference between donating and pay-to-play,” and asked do “business leaders, to talk to our elected officials, need to pay?”

Martinez is clearly defensive about the accusation. It hurts. Because it loses votes from people like me. And he did it in the interests of business, because he thought he had to. He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong.

The problem is, he accepted it. He didn’t call out the practice. We’re in a day of such corruption, we need to know our elected officials stand against that in every way.

I know a number of respectable people who have known Vidal Martinez a long time, and feel some loyalty toward him. I accept that. They may not be wrong. But I haven’t known him long or well, so this thing really bothers me.

And I see in Alex Mealer a spine of steel. She’s a serious woman. She’s not warm and fuzzy. I can see that gladhanding is not her favorite thing to do; solving problems is her thing.

Me and Alex Mealer
at Cypress Texas Tea Party,
March 19, 2022

I told her at our March meeting that I had endorsed her, and we took a photo. When I arrived on Tuesday, I had timed my arrival just a minute before start time (Houston traffic). She was with a couple of staffers, about to enter the big room where the event was being held. She stopped and turned to come over and shake my hand and call me by name. Not a big deal if you expect that kind of thing—but I do not. A nod would have been sufficient at that moment when she was focused and ready to enter the room. But she took the extra moment. Her whole campaign has been grassroots. Meeting people and remembering them—and inspiring them to have confidence in her—has been what has put her in the lead against such a qualified opponent.

Let me address one more thing between the two candidates. Vidal Martinez has a Latino heritage, and he does speak Spanish. He does not look Hispanic. He claims that Mealer can’t get the Latino vote. She is, however, second generation American; her grandfather fought against the Franco regime in Spain, if I'm remembering right. It was over the issue of speaking Spanish that led to the discussion about the donations to Hidalgo. Mealer said,

What I would say to all that is, when you start donating to Democrats such as Lina Hidalgo and Sheila Jackson Lee, you’re speaking in their language. And what is that language? Divisive identity politics. You do not grow this party and win by saying, “You do not speak fluent Spanish.” I do not speak Spanish. But you don’t get to define how I define myself. I’m a second generation, 50%. And if you look at whose backing me, OSSO, Organization of Spanish Speaking Officers—they didn’t do that because of my ethnicity. They did it because they trusted me to enforce law and order. If you need to talk about identity politics, and want a quota on what you look like, you’re in the wrong party.

All that military background—I think she’s definitely a fighter.

 

Calling Out Corruption

We were speaking of calling out corruption, so I’ll mention, Lina Hidalgo is much worse than simply incompetent. And much worse than simply favoring all the wrong policies. She’s also all about crony corruption. This month we’ve had to deal with her personally appointed Election Administrator—a position she rammed through the Commissioners Court, taking election duties away from the elected County Clerk’s office, where there was accountability to the people. She hired a crony, Isabel Longoria, who had zero election experience and failed abysmally, to the embarrassment of the whole country. The Primary was not her first try; she started with the December 2020 runoff and has been getting worse. Longoria is under a lawsuit from the Harris County Republican Party for failing to meet contractual agreements to run the Primary Election. And Longoria has resigned—as of July 1^st. The problem there is, we have a special districts election on May 7^th and this runoff election on May 24^th. That’s two more elections for her to screw up before she stops taking our money while ruining our democratic right to vote. She says it’s so there will be less disruption, and they can take the needed time to get a replacement—who at that point will not have the practice of those two smaller elections before facing the very challenging midterm election in November.

But that’s not the worst. The same week as the bungled election, Texas Rangers and the DA’s office served a warrant and searched Hidalgo’s offices in the investigation into her crony deal last  year—a contract that she was forced to cancel because it stunk so badly, and she got called out by Commissioner Cagle for it. She chose a political ally, one-person company run out of a room, to receive an $11 million contract for COVID response. That wasn’t just a bad decision—less experience at higher cost than the other bids, including the higher scoring UT Health. Hidalgo and her staff—not her staff only as the media are claiming—were involved in crafting the language of the bid contract. That’s illegal. And very corrupt. And now they have the evidence in hand.

State Senator Paul Bettencourt put out a video giving some of the details. And Alex Mealer's campaign did another one.  Both are brief and worth watching. What I said about Mealer being willing to fight—yeah, she’s not afraid to draw blood.

Lina Hidalgo, screenshot from here

These things move at a glacially slow pace, unfortunately. Hidalgo should be under indictment. Will that happen by the November election? We can only hope.

Better than just wishing is to get out there and vote in the runoff, and then campaign from May to November, to—as Alex Mealer says—"get people excited about good governance,” which she has spent the last half year doing. When it’s something we’re sorely missing, it is something to get excited about.

Primary Picks, Part II: Congress and County Races

In part I we covered the statewide races. Today we’ll go over the nearby congressional and Harris County races. In part III later this week, we’ll go over the contested judicial races and the ballot propositions. Have I mentioned that we have the longest ballot in the nation? Feel free to scroll down to races you’re interested in.

Congressional Races

Congressional District 38

I’ve spent the most time on this race—the newly created district here in northwest Harris County. I’ve written about it here, here, and here.

It’s a tree-shaped district; the top branches cover Jersey Village, Cypress areas, and Tomball, reaching almost to Montgomery County. I’m in the stem, or trunk, area, which is a pretty narrow connector to the southern section, the tree roots, which includes the Energy Corridor along I-10 and parts of Memorial. There is no incumbent, since it’s brand new.

There are 10 candidates. What you need to know is that this is a David and Goliath-type contest. The Washington, DC, establishment has put their money and push behind their candidate, and they’re assuming the money will buy them what they want. Their candidate is Wesley Hunt. He ran two years ago in CD 7, losing against Democrat Lizzie Fletcher. This was not my district, but looking at that race, here’s what I wrote about this DC candidate at that time: 

Wesley Hunt looks good on paper. He’s an African-American military veteran, the kind of person you want to be pleased about voting for. However, his voting record shows never having voted in a Republican primary. Maybe we have to forgive him for 2008 (although I’d rather not), but all other primaries? It’s hard to convince me of your dedication to the Constitution without even that minimal record.

Since then he has voted in the Republican Primary—the one in which he was on the ballot. 

I was willing to give him an honest chance, but he failed to show up at two candidate forums in December, and then failed to show up as scheduled at the Cypress Texas Tea Party, despite confirming the night before. The only forums I know of where he has shown up have been fundraising dinners, usually with other Washington, DC, picks, Dan Crenshaw (CD 2) and Morgan Luttrell (CD 8). I get emails from Hunt, but rather than talking about issues, it’s all about fundraising.

There was this one that caught my eye a week ago (Wednesday, February 9, 2:12 PM). The subject line said, “every $5 = 1 new voter”:

What exactly is his Voter Registration Fund? Is it separate from his campaign fund? Because, I’m a deputy voter registrar. There are rules. You can’t distinguish between parties you’re willing to register. You can go to events where there are a lot of people of one party, but you can’t do anything partisan while registering voters—that includes campaigning for a candidate. And, like I said, he’s not going to events where there are Republicans. Also—I don’t get paid for that; it’s volunteer work. So what is this money he’s collecting going to? And why is he equating contributions to this fund to a certain number of new voters? He thinks he can buy votes? If somebody wants to pursue this with election law people, feel free. I’m putting my energy elsewhere, but this seems both offensive and pretty fishy.

So, enough about him. What about the other nine candidates? Most—all but one—lack experience. I’m behind the experienced candidate, Mark Ramsey.

There’s another candidate (Lopez) who has been trying to paint Ramsey’s long years of grassroots volunteer service as “being part of the establishment” “part of the problem.” Really? So, I’m asking, personally, when does a grassroots volunteer suddenly cross over into the establishment? I made this comment on such a post:

Being involved in politics for me has meant being a convention delegate, a citizen lobbyist to my representatives in Austin and their local offices, making calls and emails to my representatives, being a poll watcher, a poll worker, eventually stepping up as precinct chair when mine was moving, volunteering to help on the platform committee. At what point of volunteering my time as a citizen do I step over some line and become "100% part of the problem"? If you're talking about Mark Ramsey, you're saying his experience and success as a volunteer citizen makes him some part of the establishment that he's been fighting for decades. Exactly where does a person cross the line from good citizenship to problem—and would you think of such citizens as problems from Washington?

When you look at voting records—publicly available information—only Mark Ramsey has consistently voted in Republican primaries. Hunt failed to vote even in a general election between 2008 and 2018. His military service was 2004 to 2012, so it wasn’t all the inconvenience of deployment.

Mark Ramsey has these endorsements:

·         Texas Right to Life

·         Texas Home School Coalition

·         Texas Values Action

·         Grassroots America, We the People

·         Americans for Parental Equality

·         Kingwood Tea Party

·         The Conservative Republicans of Texas

·         Texas Conservative Review

·         The Link Letter

·         Conservative Coalition of Harris County

Those are the groups. These include the three "slates,” which people sometimes call pay-to-play. But Mark tells us that was not his experience. They interviewed him, gave the endorsement, before any talk of buying ads. No ads were required for the endorsement. He was told the more ads they sell, the greater their reach. But there was no pressure. I don’t know if that is always the case, but that was his experience.

Then there are the individuals, a long list, including:

·         Sid Miller, Texas Agricultural Commissioner

·         Wayne Christian, Chairman, Texas Railroad Commissioner

·         Mayes Middleton, Representative Texas House District 11, Chair of Texas Freedom Caucus

·         Steve Toth, Representative Texas House District 15, Texas Freedom Caucus

·         Briscoe Cain, Representative Texas House District 128 Texas Freedom Caucus

·         Kyle Biederman, Representative Texas House District 73 Texas Freedom Caucus

·         Rick Miller, Former Representative Texas House District 26, Navy Aviator

·         Derek Townsend, Tomball City Councilmember

·         Gail Lowe, Former Chair Texas State Board of Education

·         Ken Mercer, Former Texas State Board of Education

·         David Bradley, Former Texas State Board of Education

·         Charlie Garza, Decorated Navy Submariner, Former School Board of Education Member, SREC

Add in a lot of members of the SREC members (representatives from each state senatorial district who work on state Republican committees), precinct chairs (76% of those who have committed), grassroots activists, and regular citizens. And me.

He’s strong on all things constitutional—and knows what he’s talking about. And he’s especially strong on energy, being an oil & gas engineer, having run his own consulting business for the last couple of decades.

He has been a mentor to me. I’ve worked with him several times on the district resolutions (platform) committee, and he pulled me along to edit the state platform when he chaired that committee. Here’s a detail you might not see elsewhere: we pray at every campaign meeting, and even at meet and greet events. We have a sense that we need to take back our country—and that God will support such efforts. I guess I just can’t say enough good about him as a candidate. I’m so glad we can choose him, instead of the one Washington thinks they are choosing for us. Here’s the campaign website: RamseyForTexas.com.

Candidate Forums:

The video of the December 1^st HCRP CD 38 Candidate Forum is available on YouTube. The video of the December 15^th forum is available here. Below are links to the videos of the candidates who spoke at our Tea Party in December and November:

·         Mark Ramsey 

·         Jerry Ford 

·         Richard Welch 

·         Roland Lopez 

·         Damien Mockus 

·         Brett Guillory 

 

Congressional District 8

I’ll have less to say about these other districts, since they aren’t mine. But I’ve heard from some of the candidates. After redistricting, many of my friends and neighbors got moved into CD 8, which is west and south of much of CD 38. It should be a strong Republican district, so, again, the decision is essentially being made in the Primary.

There are quite a few candidates. The main three are Christian Collins, Jonathan Hullihan, and Morgan Luttrell. Collins and Hullihan both spoke at our Tea Party. Morgan Luttrell has been campaigning alongside Crenshaw and Hunt. He’s also a former Seal, as is Crenshaw—and his rather famous brother Marcus Luttrell, who wrote Lone Survivor. Morgan Luttrell is colorful. The first I’d heard from him was a forum this past week—linked below—with just these three candidates. On many issues he seems conservative. But there were some points where he just didn’t know enough to be convincing. Both of the other two know conservatism thoroughly.

Hullihan also has a military background, having served as a JAG lawyer. In that position he has actually written legislation. Collins is young, and I expect he’ll have a future. He’s the Christian conservative and pro-life choice of many, although I believe Hullihan could fit that description as well.

People in this district can do what you like, but if I were voting in this race, I’d be leaning toward Hullihan.

Candidate Forums:

These three candidates participated in this candidate forum. These two spoke at our Tea Party in November:

·         Christian Collins 

·         Jonathan Hullihan 

 

Congressional District 2

CD 2 is no longer my district, although I guess Dan Crenshaw is still nominally my representative the rest of this year, because we won’t swear in a representative for CD 38 until next January. Crenshaw has some challengers. I know next to nothing about any of them. I’m aware there is some displeasure with Crenshaw over some votes (related to climate and red flag issues) and some statements that made it sound like he disdains anyone who believes there was significant election fraud. (That would include me.) There have also been some attacks on his faith, and I think that’s out of line. I’ve read his book. I know what he’s been through. God helped him through that. And I pray for him. Heritage Foundation still gives him a 98% rating on votes. If I were in that district, being me, I’d have a hard time pushing him out. But those in that district can make their own decisions on that.

 

Congressional District 7

CD 7 is held by Democrat Lizzie Fletcher, who by all reports, from friends who have needed her help, has been utterly useless. Redistricting changed CD 7 from a close district (that Hunt should have been able to win in 2020, if he’d been such a great candidate) to a D+24 district—which means the Democrat (even non-incumbent random Democrat) is expected to win by 24 percentage points. There are nonetheless a number of candidates willing to go up against the odds. I don’t know much about any of them, unfortunately. So you’re on your own. The candidates are Tim Stroud (campaign info here; article here), Rudy A. Atencio (campaign info here), Tina Blum Cohen (campaign info here), Benson Gitau (campaign info here), Laique Rehman (campaign info here), and Lance Stewart (campaign info here).

 

Harris County Judge

Possibly the most important race in Harris County is to unseat Democrat Lina Hidalgo as Harris County Judge. This is an administrative position, working with the county commissioners to handle logistics and infrastructure. Hidalgo has managed to use it—under the direction of a commissioner who controls her—to take elections away from the County Clerk and put it in the hands of an unelected election bureaucrat that she appoints. She has managed to turn Houston into the crime capital of the nation—wresting that dubious title from Chicago—by insisting on releasing violent criminals without bail. She is far more concerned about implementing woke rules than solutions to flooding after Harvey. If there is something that obviously needs to be done to solve problems in the county, she is likely to do exactly opposite.

So I’ll take anyone who can beat her. But I’d really prefer someone who can do the job as well as recognize the importance of conservative principles—which work every time they’re tried. I think Alexandra del Moral Mealer, Martina Lemond Dixon, or Vidal Martinez could do the job. Mealer seems to be the actual true conservative.

In the forum at our Tea Party, Vidal Martinez spoke first. His resume looks like he’s especially made for the job. He has the right experience and track record. Then, during the Q&A someone asked him about donations he’d made to Lina Hidalgo—after her first year. Really? He says he was trying to be hopeful and supportive, hoping she would improve in the job. I think it’s more likely that, as a corporate lawyer, you use donations like that—sizable to us regular folks—just to smooth the road, so to speak. But I’ve been trying to decide since then if it was a deal breaker.

Martina Lemond Dixon is a black female, relatively new to conservatism. She has handled some challenging school board issues and looks like she might be effective. But her voting record concerns me a lot. She was also asked about Democrat donations. She admitted them (there are nine such donations) but claims they were made by her husband using her credit card. Hmm.

Alexandra del Moral Mealer is former military, where she has leadership experience that actually translates into County Judge duties. She led a bomb squad, and handled logistics, managing personnel in high-stress circumstances. She’s a bit unpolished, but she has improved as the campaign has gone along. She’s getting my vote.

Here is campaign info for all the candidates in this race: Martina Lemond Dixon (campaign info here), Vidal Martinez (campaign info here), Alex Mealer (campaign info here), Randy Kubosh (campaign info here), Oscar Gonzales (campaign info here), Robert Dorris (campaign info here), H. Q. Bolanos, George Harry Zoes (campaign Facebook page here) and Warren Howell (campaign info here).

Candidate Forums:

The Cy-Fair Republican Women are hosting a candidate forum for County Judge candidates on February 26, 1:00-3:00 PM, at Steve Radack Community Center.

There was a candidate forum for Harris County Judge on Sunday, February 6, for two of the candidates: Martina Lemond Dixon and Alexandra del Moral Mealer. Video here or here.

Five candidates spoke at our December Tea Party meeting:

·         Vidal Martinez 

·         Martina LemondDixon 

·         Randy Kubosh 

·         Alex Mealer 

·         Warren Howell 

 

County Treasurer

The only other contested county race this year is for County Treasurer. The two candidates are Kyle Scott (campaign info here) and Eric Dick (campaign email ericbdick@gmail.com).

Kyle Scott was our Lonestar College Trustee from 2013 until term-limited out. He made some good conservative inroads—mainly by standing his ground on budget issues—during that time. We met him at the Tea Party even back then. I’m glad to see him back in the battle. He wrote a recent article on why the county treasurer position is important, here. 

His opponent, Eric Dick, filed later in the process. We never heard from him at the Tea Party. I got one mailer, not particularly informative. He has no campaign website, only a Facebook page. The only endorsement I’ve seen for him is the Houston Chronicle, which he seems proud of (the Chronicle, of course, leans Democrat, even when they offer their choices in the Republican Primary). He is a Harris County Department of Education trustee; we’re trying to get rid of that money funnel. I don’t know what his position is even about that. He works as an insurance lawyer.

So it’s a clear choice. I’m voting for Kyle Scott. You might enjoy his talk at our November Tea Party meeting, here.  

 

House Districts

Most House district in this area (north and west Harris County) are uncontested, so I won’t mention them. The contested ones are 132, 138, and 150. Mine is 138, so that’s where I have the most to say. Then I’ll cover the others just briefly.

HD 138

This has been a painful year of disappointment in elected officials: Governor Abbott, Lt. Governor Patrick, to some extent my US Rep. Dan Crenshaw. Add to that my State Rep. Lacey Hull. This was her first term in the legislature; two years ago I was trying to decide whether she had my vote. I decided late in the Primary process, but I did vote for her. I like her personally. She’s sweet and appears to be the kind of person I’d like to go to lunch with. We could talk homeschooling, and conservative politics, and, I thought, Christianity. But, some months ahead of the 2021 legislative session, I was in a meeting where I said I thought she was going to be good. And someone blurted out that she was now divorced—her fault. Pretty ugly. I didn’t know if it was true; I didn’t want it to be. It was later corroborated by enough sources that I believe it. No need to share sordid details here. I have been praying for her. I believe in repentance; I also believe that takes time.

During the legislative session, her notable accomplishment had to do with connecting with a national database to find John Does, the unidentified dead, to give their families closure. It was a nice piece of legislation. Very non-partisan. She supported school choice—but did not sign on as a co-author. There are things she supported that related to maintaining a lack of transparency—or what looks that way to us out here. The question is, did she fall into the swamp in Austin and get caught up there? I don’t know.

While I’ve gotten campaign literature from the Hull campaign, I’ve also gotten anti-Hull literature. Abolish Abortion Texas points to her broken signed pledge to support and co-author legislation to abolish abortion. I don’t know what her votes were on the heartbeat bill, which passed; but she did not get the endorsement of Texas Right to Life either. A group called Defend Texas Liberty PAC pointed out that she voted to allow Democrats to have some committee chairmanships. That’s a tactical thing. The very conservative Rep. Oliverson told me and a friend, near the beginning of the session, that it’s to keep them from putting all their energy into obstructing Republicans. Personally, I don’t think that strategy is working, but Hull may have taken advice from someone who thought it would be the right thing to do.

She has two challengers. Both are people of remarkable integrity and ability. Christine Kalmbach worked on the district platform committee two years ago, which is where we became acquainted. Josh Flynn ran for this seat two years ago but just didn’t make it on my radar. But then he worked with the RPT during the convention two summers ago—that messy online one. There would have been no way to finish our online caucuses without his technical help and innovation. He’s now serving as secretary in the Harris County Republican Party.

We heard from both of them at our January Tea Party; Lacey Hull was invited but didn’t come. Don’t hold that against her; our reminder to get a final commitment came late and she was committed elsewhere. Here are the two videos:

·         Christine Kalmbach

·         Josh Flynn    

Josh was less comfortable speaking than I expected. Still, he’s very capable. Christine, I thought, got better as she talked more. She was fully conversant on issues of the legislature, and had done her homework on important House votes. I’ve talked with her a couple of times (I initiated the conversations with her) to talk about why she was running. What, legislatively, was bad enough to challenge a Republican incumbent? I took serious notes. She knew what she was talking about. They were things I hadn’t been aware of, as much as I try to pay attention during the legislative session. The transparency issues—she had specific legislation, specific votes even on amendments.

Still, I’ve hesitated. I think it’s an uphill battle to go against an incumbent, so, regardless of what I do, chances are I’m likely going to be in the position of supporting Hull against a Democrat in a district that has been very close the past couple of elections (I’m not sure, after redistricting, how that has changed, only that my slightly R precinct is still there). I don’t want to burn bridges. But I finally decided, a few days ago, to support Christine Kalmbach in the Primary. I’m hoping they’ll be bringing a yard sign by any day. This is another race that could be decided in a runoff.

 

HD 132

Rep. Mike Schofield is one of our Tea Party favorites. He comes often. All you have to do is ask a question and let him talk for an hour. He knows the ins and outs of the legislature better than most. And he’s been an effective conservative there. He’s challenged by Erik Le, whom I do not know, and who doesn’t have a campaign website, only an email. The Primary should be a slam dunk for Mike Schofield.

 

HD 150

I’m not sure what’s going on in this race. Rep. Valoree Swanson is a member of the Freedom Caucus, and is congratulated this past session for successfully getting a bill passed to require high school sports to be according to biological sex. She has the endorsement of Texas Right to Life and Texas Home School Coalition. She was our SD 7 SREC committeewoman before running for the House. She kept in touch with me well during those years.

She’s being challenged by Valerie McGilvery (campaign into here), Bryan Le, and Debbie Riddle (campaign email debbie@rafirm.com). The only one I’m familiar with is Debbie Riddle, who held the seat for a number of years prior to losing it to Swanson. I’ve always liked Riddle, but she supported a House Speaker who was intolerably non-conservative. That struck too many people as going establishment. I’m not sure why all the challengers this year. Maybe it’s a personality thing. Maybe it’s some level of politics that I just don’t follow. I’ll let you figure it out, if that’s your district.

 

State Board of Education

District 6

Our incumbent SBOE is Will Hickman. I like him. I voted for him. The SBOE voted in November on health sciences curriculum. Those who are keeping watch to guard against woke agendas looked at the proposals seriously and recommended voting against all four. Hickman voted against three of them, and only the one passed. There seemed to be some need for a compromise just to have a curriculum to use. I didn’t follow the details closely enough to know if that fourth one should be a deal breaker. For me it isn’t. His challenger, Mike Wolfe, does not seem as capable. So Hickman will get my vote again.

 

District 7

This area is further south, but in case anyone is reading, I’ll just say I support Julie Pickren. She has the right experience, having worked and accomplished what’s needed on a school board. She helped us out up here last spring when we were beginning our fight to oust the pro-CRT board members on our school board. She showed up at a neighborhood event on September 11, where I talked with her—and she pulled me aside and prayed with me; it was a memory moment I treasure. I wish her well. She got a 100% endorsement from the Conservative Coalition of Harris County, and the endorsement of Texas Right to Life.

 

Bonus: For those of you who have actually read this far, here are some of the resources I’ve used.

Voter’s Guides, Endorsements, and Recommendations

·         TTP’s statewide and Harris County recommendations they’ve made so far for the Primary are here.

·         Texas Right to Life pro-life voter guide here.

·         Texas Home School Coalition voter guide here.

·         Conservative Coalition of Harris County voter guide here. Click on federal, state, or county for questionnaire answers from candidates.

·         iVoterGuide here. Click on “more” for each candidate to get questionnaire answers and other details.

·         Conservative Republicans of Texas PAC (Hotze/Woodfill) endorsements here.

·         Texas Conservative Review (Gary Polland) voter guide here.

·         LINKLetter (Terry Lowry) voter guide here.

·         Take Texas Back has a list of 85 candidates who have signed the Texas First Pledge. See that list here.