Texas: General Elections 2006

Neither candidate has done much of anything as of late. Lots of the normal talking crap, no big stand (especially on President Bush’s address this past Monday), and random stuffy releases about the passing of x and the $y million smear campaign…man. I kind of figured that immigration would be big on the Texas agenda (reinforced by the practically jumping house representative today from Texas that was talking about a fence on C-SPAN), but…NASA?

NASA has provided our nation with research and innovation that goes beyond space flight and exploration and extends into our everyday lives. Nearly all Americans have advanced technology and products in their home today that were pioneered by NASA programs. NASA also provides valuable information regarding our planet’s environmental trends. We must ensure that the American public understands how important NASA’s work is for all of us. And we must ensure that the American people understand that our technological edge in the world is largely due to the work done at NASA. To abandon NASA or even allow it to be under-funded is to abandon our leadership role in technology.

(Official Lampson website)

Uhhhh, guess I must have missed a memo or something. Apparently the Republicans like NASA too.

Long standing advocate for NASA/JSC – Supports the President’s vision for space exploration

I mean, yeah, it makes sense, since Johnson Space Center is in District 22, but…wtflip. I wonder if the Kennedy Space Center is causing pseudo-ripples like this in its district election. It just seems awfully random for an election year where so much CRAP is going on in the world. Just…bah. I can’t say anything else really productive about this, I’m still just sort of in a moron-induced stupor…which isn’t made any better by this profound statement from one of our fine candidates:

Space exploration is at the heart of NASA.

Huh, you think?

Hello everyone, Bryan Comer here.

I thought that’d I’d educate all y’all (as they say in Texas) on the House of Representatives race in Texas’ 23rd district. The current Representative is Republican Henry Bonilla.

This district is the largest in Texas and includes most of Texas’ border with Mexico. It is mainly rural and the major economic activites in the district include farming, ranching, and oil and mineral extraction.

Anyways, here’s what’s going on:

Back in 2003 Texas decided to do a little redistricting. After redistricting, the 23rd picked up some very Repbulican suburbs of San Antonio (good for Bonilla). All was fine and dandy until June 28, 2006 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared that Texas had violated the Voting Rights Act when it drew in most of Laredo, TX. The court decided that this diluted the vote of hispanics.

Now What?

On August 4, 2006 a 3 judge panel proclaimed that Texas replace the district boundaries for the 2006 election. Bonilla lost the republican suburbs of San Antonio as well as Laredo and was thrilled (well, probably not) to learn that he’d pick up a substantial portion of democratic south San Antonio (Bad for Bonilla).

So what does this mean for the upcoming election? Good question!

Instead of holding the general election on November 7, 2006, the 23rd will hold an open primary. If any candidate receives more than 50% of the vote they win the seat and that’s that. But, if that doesn’t happen, the top two vote-getters will have a run-off election in December for the seat (yup, that’s probably what’s going to happen).

But why Bryan? Why won’t Bonilla get at least 50% of the votes?

Bonilla’s the man and all (being the incumbent helps) but he does have two serious democratic contenders for his seat. One is Vietnam War veteran Rick Bolanos (Texans like anything to do with the military right?… only kidding…sorta), and the other is former congressman of the 28th district Ciro Rodriguez (the dems best chance).

Any others?

Eh, yeah but I mean you’ve got a Fireman, a Rancher, a Truck Stop Owner, and some dude from San Antonio, so they don’t count.

According to a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Survey of 405 likely voters conducted August 10-15, they give Bonilla 44% and the democrats combined 47% of the primary vote with a margin of error of +/- 4.9%.

So there you have it, it should be an interesting race to keep an eye on and I will keep everyone up to date on the latest poll results, and, of course, rumors.

Most of my information I was able to find on Wikipedia. The direct link is as follows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_23rd_congressional_district

Since the boys are taking their sweet time in picking a race to follow, I’m claiming the most amusing one: the scramble for DeLay’s old seat.  There has been so much random crap going on with this seat, and quite frankly, it’s approaching ridiculous. A lion with a chair and whip taming a ringmaster would be more normal than this thing is right now. I’ll summarize this as best I can, or at the very least, the crap that’s happened over the past month:

Aug. 3: The US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit says that DeLay must run as the GOP’s nomination. If you’re wondering why that’s a problem, skimming this might help; renouncing the nomination he won might also play a small part. The Republicans were trying to get him off the ballot (and far far away, but that’s another story) so that someone else could run, seeing how it’s slightly sketchy elect someone who’s resigned because of corruption accusations (in addition to the aforementioned). While we may doubt it from time to time, Texans are not stupid as posts. The party vowed to appeal to the Supreme Court…

Aug. 7 …who promptly told the Republicans to shut the hell up, the “shut the hell up” sentiment (NOTE: “sentiment.” Not actual words, for those of you who failed rhetoric) coming from Justice Scalia. Somewhat surprising, since Scalia is considered conservative. Technically, since the Court’s not in session, they had to file some sort of emergency something or other that Scalia, the justice in charge of the 5th Circuit during the break, declined to hear/consider/act on. DeLay stopped campaigning soon after he won a pathetic percent, yet still a majority, of the votes in the primary back in March. He did hint, however, that he would run if the Court didn’t take him off the ballot. Odd? Slightly, considering he allowed the GOP to find replacements for him before that.

Aug. 8: DeLay appears to have second thoughts, however, and pulls out of the race. The Republicans are now forced to mount a write-in campaign or else the district will be lost to Democratic challenger Nick Lampson, who has served in the HoR for two other districts (the 9th and 2nd, respectively). Any person wanting to be a write-in candidate must register by August 29.

Aug. 9: David Wallace announces that he will be a write-in candidate for Delay’s now-vacated seat. Wallace, at present, is mayor of Sugar Land (yes, dead serious, that is a city in Texas), which is a Houston suburb located in the 22nd District.

Aug. 10: Since we all just can’t get along, a Houston city councilwoman (Shelley Sekula-Gibbs [say that five times fast]) requests that the GOP support her in a write-in campaign for the 22nd District. The Republicans go nuts: now not one, but two GOP candidates have expressed an interest to run, and since there are no primaries to whittle the field down to one, both would appear on the ballot. Getting one strong Republican to have a decent showing was going to be hard enough, but now two of them gunning for it? Oooh boy.

Aug. 21: Wallace withdraws from the write-in campaign. Wow, something actually going the Republicans’ way?

Aug 28: The GOP selects Councilwoman Sekula-Gibbs as their special friend, dubbing her the write-in child for the November election. CQ officially changes its stance from the 22nd District being “no clear favorite” to “leans Democratic.”

Aug. 30: The governor announces that there’ll be a “special election” to vote for someone to complete the remainder of DeLay’s term. The Democrats go nuts because of Gov. Perry’s reluctance to hold such an election right after DeLay resigned. They contend that it’s a ploy to give added visibility to the Republican write-in campaign, since its attempts to get a name other than “DeLay” on the ballot have failed. Lampson announces that he too will run in the special election, which will be held the same day as the general election (Yay, American politics! So convoluted).

Sep. 1: Oh, but wait: Lampson withdraws from the special election, saying he wants to focus more on the general election, which, if he wins, will give him the seat until 2008. Sekula-Gibbs pretty much will get to finish out DeLay’s term, provided she registers for the special election.

Sep. 3: Drama’s not over yet, folks. Four other opponents, three of whom are Republican) register for the special election in addition to Sekula-Gibbs. No joke. Two (a former Air Force officer, and a doctor) are not considered serious contenders, but the other two (Steve Stockman and Libertarian Bob Smither) pose threats.

Seriously, anyone else glad they don’t live in Texas’s 22nd District right now? For anyone who’s trying to keep track of which person’s in what election (and, for that matter, why there are even two elections), here you go: