Winning in a district long held by Democrats, Republican John Lujan outpolled Tomás Uresti in Tuesday’s special runoff in Texas House District 118.
Filling a seat vacated last year by former state Rep. Joe Farias, D-San Antonio, the GOP candidate will serve out the remainder of Farias’ unexpired term, through the end of the year.
Another election is set for March 1 to fill the seat for a two-year term starting in 2017. Lujan and Uresti are seeking their parties’ nominations in that race, and each has a primary opponent, so the winner won’t be decided until Nov. 8.
“The district with about 87,000 voters handed Lujan the win by a 171-vote margin.”
State District 118 is three-quarters Hispanic and largely suburban/exurban, and in the 2012 election it went 60/40 for Democrat Joe Farias, who resigned in August. Why he resigned, triggering a special election, is a good question, as he had already announced he would not run for reelection this year, and the House is not scheduled to convene until 2017.
Despite the fact that the district is going to be hard to hold in November, it’s still an impressive feat for Republicans to have captured it at all. Proving that Republicans can win in clear majority Hispanic districts, and forcing Democrats to devote the time and resources necessary to effectively contest the seat, counts as a big win.
Welcome to the final week of traditional summer. Of course, it used to be that everything (school, football, the new TV year, etc.) started after Labor Day Weekend, but that’s not the case any more…
Oh, and he wants to give the Falkland Islands to Argentina. Why, it’s almost as if the hard left yearns for nothing so much as undoing every conservative foreign policy triumph out of spite…
And he also called Osama Bin Laden’s death “a tragedy.”
During the second quarter, Texas employers added 148,200 net nonfarm jobs—an average of 49,400 per month. This amounts to an 18 percent share of all jobs created nationwide over this period in a state with only 8 percent of the country’s population and about 10 percent of total economic output. Over the last year, the addition of 382,200 net jobs in Texas was more new jobs than any other state. These employment gains increased the annual job growth rate to 3.4 percent, which is higher than those of the national average and other highly populated states.
The city of Los Angeles is at an impasse over police raises: the police union (naturally) wants raises, while the city says they can’t afford them. So what happens next? The issue goes before the Employee Relations Board, which just happens to be packed with union-approved appointees. In one-party Democratic cities and states, it’s always government together with unions against taxpayers. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
A FAQ on Costa Mesa’s pension situation. Including answers to such questions as “How could the $228 million in unfunded pension liabilities affect the city budget?”
Firefly Space Systems is relocating from California to Burnet County, Texas. “King said Firefly was attracted to Texas partly because of its business and regulatory climate.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out California offers a lousy climate for business. Or to put it another way: My days of underestimating California’s ability to improve its business climate are certainly coming to a middle…
Alarm bells have been ringing loudly in the heads of municipal bond investors…If you’re the chief of municipal bond investing for a big bank, whether on Wall Street or in San Francisco, Los Angeles or Chicago, this gets your attention. You might hesitate to lend hundreds of millions of dollars to other cities and counties if you fear they might go the Stockton route. Even if you proceed, you might insist on higher interest rates to compensate for what now appears to be added risk. That can translate to higher local taxes.
Current California pension reform proposals are only a start.
Sacramento proposes to spend $447 million on an arena for a losing, mismanaged basketball team. “It’s 60 to 75 percent public subsidies.”
Problem: California’s politicians spend money like drunken sailors with a stolen credit card. Solution: Eliminate Proposition 13 so they can spend even more.
Indeed, that was just one of the many pro-economic suicide measures passed at the California Democratic convention.
As previously reported, the Texas 23rd Congressional District is one of the most closely watched races in the country. As such, it’s no surprise that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is rolling out attack ads against incumbent Republican Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco on behalf of Democratic challenger Pete Gallego.
And, much like the national Democratic attack ads, it’s filled with lies.
But don’t take my word for it. WOAI in San Antonio has done the heavy lifting in debunking team Gallego’s claims:
The most important Texas political race is obviously the Texas Senate race. Barring any unforeseen catastrophe, I fully expect Ted Cruz to soundly thump Paul Sadler in November.
The second most important Texas race is for the 23rd Congressional District, where Republican Francisco “Quico” Canseco eked out the second closest win over a Democratic congressional incumbent in 2010, beating Ciro Rodriguez by a little over 7,000 votes. Rep. Blake Farenthold’s win over Solomon Ortiz in the 27th congressional district was the closest Texas CD race that year, decided by a mere 799 votes, but the 27th was made considerably more Republican in redistricting, going from voting for Obama by 53% of the vote to a mere 40% of the vote under the new district lines.
The legislature was not able to reenforce Canseco’s sprawling district to nearly the same extent, and it was only made slightly more Republican, going from a 51% Obama district to a 50% Obama district. That, plus the power of incumbency and $1 million cash on hand (as of June 30) give Canseco a real fighting chance to hold the seat. His Democratic opponent, Pete Gallego, spent all his money to beat Rodriguez in the runoff, but this is still the only decent shot Texas Democrats have to defeat a incumbent Republican congressman this year, so expect the usual big Democratic donors (unions and trial lawyers) to come to his rescue.
Heritage ranks Canseco a solid (if not exceptional) conservative at 72%, higher than the (lamentably low) Republican House average of 65%, but 50 points better than even the best Texas Democratic representative (Henry Cuellar).
If you were looking for a Texas congressional race where your donations might help Republicans hold a tough seat, this is the one.
I always believe in telling the truth as I see it, no matter how uncomfortable. And my reading of the tea leaves (not the Tea Party leaves) is that, despite all the effort to redistrict him out of office, Lloyd Doggett will still be sworn in for another term on January 3, 2013.
Why? One word: money. Doggett’s biggest Democratic rival for the 35th Congressional District, Sylvia Romo, has $20,000 on hand. Doggett has $2.9 million on hand. Money isn’t everything, but it’s a lot. Even an experienced, popular incumbent would be hard-pressed to overcome a greater than 100-to-1 fundraising disadvantage, and Romo is neither.
For all the persistent talk of Hispanics being the future of the Texas Democratic Party, it’s still old white guys who seem to be getting the Democratic establishment juice…
In the game of District 35 Chicken, Ciro Rodriguez decided that no, he didn’t want to face off against Lloyd Doggett’s 18-wheeler full of money and swerved aside. Instead he’s going to run against Republican incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco for the 23rd Congressional District seat Rodriguez lost to him in 2010. But before that, he has to get past State Rep. Pete Gallego, who has been running for the 23rd for months and tried (unsuccessfully) to warn Rodriguez off what is now likely to be a very bruising Democratic primary fight. (John Bustamante, son of yet another former Democratic congressmen, is also running, but with only $3,000 in his campaign coffers, I see no sign that he has gotten any traction, whereas both Rodriguez and Gallego have broken the $100,000 mark.)
Now that redistricting is (mostly) settled (for this year), reverberations are still being felt around the state in various races. First a correction: Candidates have until March 9 to file, not the March 6 date I reported yesterday.
Other tidbits:
Republicans have a list of newly filed candidates, including former winery owner John Yoggerst running against Lloyd Doggett in District 35.
The Democrats don’t have a separate page, but you can sort by date on the main candidate page. So far there are only a couple of new Sheriff filings.
Following yesterday’s roundup, Democrat Pete Gallego is warning fellow Democrat Ciro Rodriguez not to jump into the District 23 congressional race against Republican incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco (who unseated Rodriguez in 2010). Rodriguez is currently running against Lloyd Doggett in District 35.
For the second election in a row, Solomon Ortiz has been booted. Ortiz Sr. was defeated by Blake Farenthold in 2010, and now Solomon Ortiz, Jr. is calling it quits from the Texas House because “District 33 has been eliminated.” I was going to make fun of him for exaggerating, but dang, he has a point: District 33 has gone from Corpus to NE of the Metroplex.
