Primarily Speaking, Part II

It’s a long ballot this primary season. Yesterday we only got through the statewide races. We still need to cover judicial and local/county races. And I’m ignoring for now the races with no challenger in the primary. (Technically that includes my uncontested race for precinct chair; I’m told that at the close of voting day, that makes me official. Yay me!)

By way of review, among other sources, I’ve been looking at endorsements from several sources. CCHC is the Conservative Coalition of Harris County, and is a self-funded grassroots group, including several people I know personally; they try hard to get to know the candidates and share what they find. They do a silent ballot, and offer the percentage of the vote; 70% or more means endorsement. TFR stands for Texans for Fiscal Responsibility, which gives scrutiny to taxes and other fiscal issues. TCR stands for Texas Conservative Review, and HRBC stands for Houston Realty Business Coalition. These both claim conservative credentials. I vary in how much I agree with them, but they give me additional data. I also have personal resources: DA stands for a couple of friends in the DA’s office who share their inside opinions on judicial races with friends who ask. PC is a neighboring precinct chair with quite a lot of experience, so I add her endorsements to the data. 

Texas is set up with a two-part Supreme Court, consisting of the Supreme Court, which handles mainly civil cases, and the Criminal Court of Appeals, which is the “supreme court” for criminal cases. 

going through the avalanche of info

In Harris County (which includes the Greater Houston Area), the courts are divided into district courts, with numbers based on whatever number came up when the division was made. Different courts typically have a specific assignment, like criminal courts, or family courts. 

Usually when there’s a primary challenger, it’s because there’s an open seat: a judge has retired or been appointed to another court. Candidates don’t necessarily know who their challengers are prior to signing up to run. So sometimes we find a number of really good people in one race. We’ll eventually get to a couple of those.

 

Chief Justice, Texas Supreme Court:

I am struggling to make a decision here. Nathan Hecht is the incumbent, recently appointed by Governor Perry. He has been a justice on the court since 1988. Among my sources, DA, TFR, and HRBC support Hecht. His opponent is Robert Talton, whom I became aware of during his tenure as a Texas representative. He was a brave standard-bearer of conservative causes. He left the Texas House to run for US House, a race he didn’t win. Because I recognized his name, my first reaction was to lean toward him. He also gets 60% support from CCHC, as well as support from TCR and PC. However, there ought to be a good reason to take out an incumbent. Last time around, David Medina had come to our Tea Party and talked about his position on the Supreme Court. He had been appointed by the governor as well. I liked him. I thought he was the better candidate, from what I could find. But he lost—because he’d been appointed rather than elected to the position. While I don’t think appointments just need to be rubber stamped, I think judges need to be taken on their actual merits. I can’t find a significant reason for removing Hecht, who has served well as an elected Supreme Court Justice for so long. So I am inclined, right now, to vote for Nathan Hecht.

 

Supreme Court Justice, Place 6:

The two choices are Joe Pool and Jeff Brown. CCHC gives Brown 100% support. He also gets support from all of my other sources. No one gives anything positive about Pool. I can’t add any additional knowledge to this race. So I’m voting for Jeff Brown.

 

Supreme Court Justice, Place 8:

Phil Johnson gets 100% support from CCHC, plus support from TFR, HRBC, DA, and BC. Only TCR supports Sharon McCally. I am inclined to go with Phil Johnson.

 

Court of Criminal Appeals 3:

Bert Richardson gets 85% support from CCHC, plus DA, TCR, and HRBC support. PC supports Barbara Walther. I haven’t met either one, but I think I’ll go with Bert Richardson.

 

Court of Criminal Appeals 4:

This is an open seat with three people running: Richard Dean Davis, Kevin Patrick Yeary, and Jani Jo Wood. All of my sources support Yeary, with CCHC giving him 100% support. Incidentally, the Houston Chronicle thinks Yeary is a nice guy but prefers Wood. I don’t know what criteria they use, but I seldom agree with them, so an endorsement might be a point against. I think I’ll vote for Kevin Yeary.

 

Court of Criminal Appeals 9:

David Newell and W. C. “Bud” Kirkendall are running for this position. I met David Newell at a judicial candidate forum recently and found him quite impressive. I haven’t met his opponent. David Newell gets 90% support from CCHC, plus support from DA, HRBC, and TCR. PC goes for Kirkendall. I think I’ll go with my personal opinion and go for David Newell.

 

That finishes the statewide races. Now we’ll go to more local/regional.

 

State Senate District 7:

This position opened up when Dan Patrick decided to run for Lieutenant Governor. Paul Bettencourt and James Wilson are running for the position. Paul Bettencourt, former Harris County Tax Assessor, was nicknamed the Tax Man, and was known for going out of his way to inform people on how to get their property assessments lowered. Locally, we’ve liked him a long time, and he has name recognition. James Wilson used to work with the legendary Phil Gramm. He seems like a nice guy. But he doesn’t have the fire to overcome Bettencourt’s name. I hope he’ll do some other good work in the future. But I’m voting for Paul Bettencourt—who also got 100% support from CCHC, plus HRBC, PC, and TCR.

 

State Representative District 150:

I’m not in this district, and wouldn’t comment, except that I want to give a good word for Representative Debbie Riddle, who has been a treasure. It’s hard to overstate how hard-working she has been, and responsive to the very issues important to us grassroots conservatives. Her opponent, Tony Noun, was scheduled to speak at a recent Tea Party meeting and didn’t show. I can’t figure out why he’s running.

 

State Representative District 132:

I’m not in this district either, but it’s close to mine. I have a lot of friends in this district. It’s an open seat, because of the retirement of Bill Callegari. Of the four candidates, I think I like Michael Franks best, a lawyer, very logical and well spoken. However, I think the leading candidates are Justin Perryman and Mike Schofield. People feel strongly positive about both; Schofield is new to the district, but has been active nearby for a long time. Perryman has a resume that looks like a character on NCIS—varied and talented, with some military, some business, some out-of-country experience. There may be some family challenges going on there, however. All I can say is, good luck deciding.

 

County Treasurer:

The incumbent is Orlando Sanchez. He has been quietly effective as a conservative in liberal-run Houston for many years. I know very little about his opponent, Arnold Hinojosa. Sanchez gets the support of all my sources (100% CCHC), and my support as well.

 

District Clerk:

Chris Daniel came from among us in the grassroots. I think he was a law student his first time as a state delegate, the same time I was. I think he’s done a good job as District Clerk. I like his opponent, Court Koenning, who offers suggestions for technological improvements. However, most of those improvements are already underway, within the constraints of the actual budget, but making what looks to me like real progress. So I’m going to stay with Chris Daniel. All of my sources agree (82% from CCHC), except PC, who likes both and won’t endorse.

 

OK, we’ve gotten through the statewide judicial races and most of the local non-judicial races. But the interesting races, the ones, I’ve wanted to write about in order to think through them fully, are still to come. There are some additional county judicial races as well, but I need one more post to cover the 247^th Family Court, the 311^th Family Court, and the Justice of the Peace Precinct 4 Place 2 race. And after all those, I’ll render my decision about the County Republican Chair. I don’t usually post on Saturdays (or Fridays either, this year), but it’s a long ballot, and now is the time, if it’s going to be useful to people getting ready to vote. So stay tuned for Part III.

Texas Runoff Races

I gave my recommendation for Texas’s US Senate race last Wednesday (I’m going for Ted Cruz). But I was putting off the rest of the ballot until after Saturday’s tea party meeting, where we had one last chance to hear from candidates.

So, this is last minute, with election day tomorrow, but some of these races will be deciding the new occupant of the job, where there is no creditable democrat opposition. So your vote in this runoff is not only important, it will count for more than usual, because so few people go to vote in a runoff election.

Note: There are fewer voting locations open, because a runoff has fewer voters, so locations have combined. If you go to your regular voting day precinct voting location, it might not be there. So look up ahead of time where to go: harrisvotes.com.

Texas Railroad Commissioner Races

The RR Commissioner is not about railroads; it is about oil and gas and resource management. You want someone in this job that understands how Texas’s economy is tied to energy, gas, and use of natural resources. Texas is set up with three statewide commissioners; they are 6-year terms coming up for election in alternating years. However, because one of  the commissioners stepped down with an unexpired term, there’s more than one position on the ballot.

Michael Williams had stepped down to run for a congressional seat (after serving as RR Commissioner for more than one term), and Governor Perry appointed Barry Smitherman to fill that slot; he is now on the ballot for that unexpired term. He didn’t receive 50% of the vote in the primary, so is now facing opponent Greg Parker. This is one of those cases where I recognize I am influenced by meeting people in person. I voted for Smitherman in the primary, based only on what I found online. He was the appointed incumbent, and I couldn’t see that the position was causing any particular issues.

But then Greg Parker came to speak. This was the second time he came to speak to our group, but I’d missed the first one earlier in the spring. But the others assure me he was equally impressive both times. He’s a relatively young, very smart, very funny black guy. (Note: I mean no offense by using the term black to apply to race; African-American seems inaccurate, since Charlize Theron is an actual African-American, and to be accurate we’d need to say “descended from an African race with greater melanin concentration,” which would be unwieldy. Incidentally, we’ve had a surprising number of blacks, Hispanics, and even Vietnamese candidates speak at our meetings, and unlike the stories you get from media, their ideology as conservatives makes them completely welcome among us, and we hope they are the vanguard of many among various minorities that join us because we have so much in common.)

Greg Parker has a PhD in public policy and studied economics at MIT. As he said, “I’ve been trained by all the liberals, and I’m still conservative.” He wrote a book meant to reveal the myth of global warning (Global Warming…Really?—which I have not yet gotten hold of, but I’m interested after hearing him). This seems to be a specific difference between him and Smitherman. Both claim to be conservative, want more jobs for Texas, and want energy independence. But it may be that Smitherman’s direction toward that end is by way of “green” energy, such as wind power. I’m not against wind power, and there are parts of the state where that makes sense. But it’s expensive; it doesn’t create a lot of jobs; and it’s not a solution to government interference in the use of our state’s natural resources.

I had hoped to hear from Smitherman, to hear his version of his policies. But he didn’t make it. So, knowing what I do right now, based on meeting Parker in person, I’m giving him my vote in the runoff election.

The other RR Commissioner position was held by Elizabeth Ames Jones, who chose to run for US Senate rather than run for reelection. So this was also an open seat. The two on the ballot are Christi Craddick, a private lawyer specializing in the oil and gas world—from all directions, including land owners as well as small and large operating companies. She has helped write legislation favorable to business in the state, restricting regulation to just what is needed to protect property rights as well as reasonably clean air and water. Her opponent is Warren Chisum, a reliable conservative from the state legislature, who has run a small operator company in oil and gas.

Again, I am influenced by meeting a candidate in person. Christi Craddick is impressive, and handles questions related to various aspects of the business very well, with a wealth of information in her knowledge base. She has a successful practice, where she does a lot of good for the industry. It is probably a cut in pay to take on this job, but it is her passion, and she believes she can well serve the state. She has a lot of energy, and good ideas for meeting people in the field across the state. She grew up in Midland, in a family that has been in oil and gas for generations. She believes in hearing from the people who work in the industry; you can’t do this job from a desk in Austin.

Which brings us to what we know of her opponent. He’s a democrat who has run for RR Commissioner at least twice, and is about 80 years old; remember, this is a six-year term. In other words, the real race is being settled now, in the runoff election. I have nothing in particular against Warren Chisum. But hearing from her, I am convinced she is a good fit for the job.

Harris County Sheriff

One of the tougher races on the ballot right now is for Harris County Sheriff. Harris County, where Houston (a liberal-run metropolis) is located, is one of the largest law enforcement jurisdictions in the nation. It requires someone who is not only very strong on law and order, but also someone good at managing people among challenging circumstances. I like both of the candidates: Louis Guthrie and Carl Pittman. I have heard both of them, more than once, in person. I solved the indecision between them by voting for a third candidate (Ruben Monzon, who was also impressive and had been recommended to me, although I hadn’t met him) in the primary. Now it’s down to these two.

Both campaigns have dug up a bit of dirt on the other. I don’t have the resources to ferret out what if any is true, or maybe even important. So, setting that aside, I am leaning toward Louis Guthrie. I believe he has better experience, of longer duration in this area. And I believe he has both more management experience as well as natural leadership qualities.

Carl Pittman has been endorsed by Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio, which either hurts or helps, depending on your viewpoint. (My son Political Sphere spent half a decade in Arizona, and has mixed feelings about Sheriff Joe.) He’s a big, friendly, conservative black man. Again, totally welcome in our party. I hope that as we make a decision like this, if it goes against him, he will still be a leader in bringing other minorities who share so many of our values into the conservative camp.

This race is not one that will be settled during the runoff. The incumbent is Democrat Adrian Garcia, who got into office during the Obama sweep of county races. He will be a formidable opponent. My sense is that Louis Guthrie is best able to take on that challenge.

Judges

There are a few judges in the runoff. There are just a couple I feel strongly. One is David Medina for Supreme Court, Place 4. He spoke to our little group and seemed to me very well informed, very capable, and truly conservative in the constitutional sense. Another is Michael Landrum, for District Judge, 129th District (in Harris County area). He comes regularly to our meetings, and I like what he has to say. But also numerous other sources have recommended him, reinforcing my opinion.