#gpffq16

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Early Voting

We did it. Before, we got pizza and chicken bakes from Costco. After, we bought board games and comics.

The End.

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Texas Supreme Court Position 69

Last one!

The Four Candidates

Eva Guzman (Republican)

Savannah Robinson (Democrat)

Don Fulton (Libertarian)

Jim Chisholm (Green)

Guzman is in favor of revising Bar rules and procedures, increasing transparency, and improving access to the law to the poor. Solid (+). She also specifically calls out her conservative judicial philosophy which... I don’t know how I feel about?* (~)

Robinson says essentially nothing except for a very specific statement about improving assistance to self-represented parties, eg providing better forms for people to do their own legal filing. It’s an unusual place to focus on improvement but I guess I can get behind it. She also wants more and better interpreters for South Texas.

Chisholm didn’t respond and he basically doesn’t exist on the internet. Insta-no. Just get a Squarespace site or something, it’s not that hard.

Fulton has a LOT to say about fixing Bar procedure, literally says “I have more suggestions than space.” #fermat The suggestions he gives are pretty solid and I would be OK with them being put into place. He also has a specific complaint about some 2013 amendments that I don’t know anything about. Also, when he has space, he provides answers in Spanish as well as English, which is neat.

This is the first one to give me a lot of trouble. Fulton has actual specific things he wants to fix about the current system, which is good, except he doesn’t talk about anything else so I don’t know exactly what he’s about. Guzman explains her position very broadly and she has the experience. Nothing she says I really disagree with* but she’s also politically vague. Robinson is, again, weirdly specific but not in any way I disagree with. Leaning towards Guzman, will have to talk it over with the missus to sort through my thoughts.

*Things I learned about in this election: I don’t like when judges declare loyalty to a party. That is horrible. I have mixed feelings about judges declaring political ideology, which is entirely different from political party. Also, there’s a difference between a conservative legislative philosophy (which can suck my queer dick) and a conservative judicial philosophy, which says you should only interpret the law as written and previously interpreted and not try to change its meaning. I’m undecided on that issue.

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Texas Superman Court Position 5

The Four Candidates

Paul Green (Republican)

Dori Contreras Garza (Democrat)

Tom Oxford (Libertarian)

Charles E Waterbury (Green)

Green didn’t submit any answers so I had to go look up his website, which said nothing about his rulings as was basically a big “look how conservative and specifically Republican I am” ad (-).

Garza promotes herself as even-handed and hard working, smart choices for a judge. She also promotes herself as a liberal candidate but she does it in a clever way, by saying how the court has been run by conservatives for 20 years and she would provide a different perspective. Well played. She also has nice response to how to fix the Texas Bar, by saying current rules are adequate but need stronger enforcement. I like it.

Oxford avoids campaign contribution corruption by not accepting campaign contributions. His response to the Texas Bar question is similar to Garza but without as much detail. He talks about protecting the place of the jury in civil cases and not letting the Court overrule jury decisions in favor of big business and big government.

Waterbury is entirely about how the court is currently run by money and is entirely vague about how to fix it.

Vote: Garza

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Texas Supreme Court Position 3

We are back!

The Four Candidates

Debra Lehrman (Republican) Mike Westergren (Democrat) Kathie Glass (Libertarian) Roldofo Rivera Munoz (Green)

Munoz’s brief bio blurb says, and I quote, “Autochthonous [native, indigenous] Advocate; litigation experience in Personal Injury, Civil Rights, Discrimination, and development of governance by European Invaders under guise of the rule of law.“ All of his responses continue on in the same vein. So no*.

Glass has a lot of fiery rhetoric about Justice serving the people, not the party, which I’m pretty in favor of, right up until she says that the TX Supreme Court should be considered a higher authority than the US Supreme Court. So again, voted no on the grounds of crazy.

Lehrman’s reaffirmation of how she will stay neutral and impartial despite campaign donations is basically a fancy “Trust me” (-). Her efforts to improve the judicial system mostly focus on the procedural (+) and she is active with the Access to Justice Commission (+).

Westergren’s method of combating his own corruption is to cap donations at $50, which is both simple and actionable (+). The only other thrust of his platform is that the law is only available to the wealthy, which is partially true but slightly more complex than his rhetoric, and that laws are too complicated, which is not really a thing you can do a lot about as a judge? (-)

My vote goes to Lehrman.

*Things I learned this election: There is no excuse for the horrific violence the US committed and is still committing towards Native Americans, which is arguably, somehow, even worse than the violence against blacks. I see your slavery and raise you ethnic genocide. Christ our country is awful. With that said, the place to redress that violence is from the legislative branch of government, not the judicial. Proclaiming a crusade from the judge’s stand doesn’t show that you are justly committed to a good cause, it shows that you don’t respect how government works and are willing to overstep your legal bounds to make a point; which means in turn you will not be effective in your efforts; which in turn implies you care more about looking like the Good Guy than actually doing good.

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Interlude

The next ballots selections are all for the TX Supreme Court (x3, very important), lower justices (x2), judges (x8!!), the county Sheriff (ours retired after the BLM shootings :C ), Tax Assessor. Commissioner, Constable, and a direct vote on some kind of proposed cut to retirement plans for future City of Dallas employees.

This will be tedious and exhausting and I cannot promise I will actually do due diligence on all of them. I’m going to prioritize the TX Supreme Court positions, and after that I might just abstain on the ones I don’t do research on. This is not a responsible position but one I may nonetheless adopt.

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State Represedative District 110

Toni Rose is the only candidate running for House in District 110. Thankfully, from a brief overview of her website’s front page, she looks like the fukkin boss sauce (+).

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Railroad Commissioner Gordon

The position of Railroad Commissioner is so poorly named that one of the policy questions this election was whether to change it. The Texas Railroad Commissioner actually deals with regulating the energy industry.

|SKYPE LOG| Me: TIL that the Railroad Comissioner is the person who does all the regulating for the energy industry Me: so oil, gas, solar, etc Mrs: o.o that's a much more intense job than expected

The Four Candidates

Wayne Christian (Republican)

Grady Yarbrough (Democrat)

Mark A Miller (Libertarian)

Martina Salinas (Green)

All four candidates actually submitted responses to 411 so I don’t have to go searching the web for them, yay.

Wayne Christian has actual experience* on the Energy Resource Committee and in Regulated Industries. I’m too lazy to look up his performance in either of those roles. He’s sort of in favor of changing the name, but says it’ll be expensive(?) and that it’s actually not in the Commissioner’s hands, it’s in the hands of TX legislature (I will assume this is correct). His other answers are either vague or emphasize that the position should be held accountable to the voting public... and no other authority. Ehhhhhh......

Grady Yarbrough focused almost exclusively on improving the reputation of the Commission. He specifically mentions requesting each commissioner to sign a pledge not to take funding from any sources other than their salaries. He also says that he would recommend against fracking in sensitive areas like schools, churches, hospitals, etc, which.. like yeah, I would hope that would not be allowed? Otherwise just vague political-sounding pronouncements.

Mark A Miller is a petroleum engineer, which strikes me as a good balance between having industry experience* and not being politically motivated towards protecting industry. I dunno, I probably trust engineers more than I should. Anyways, he makes a comment about a proposed shifting of duties away from the Commission, “[...]Whether such conflicts [of interest] are imagined or real, removing such [potential] conflicts will increase public trust” which is some stellar fucking political maneuvering (+). He also pushes for increased oversight and shifting the Commission away from being an industry champion (+).

Martina Salinas isn’t from the energy industry but rather the construction industry, which is... eh? They aren’t super related fields but at least she’s not completely clueless about how things work. Her main thrust is that as an outsider she would represent the public trust better than someone from the industry. She would require that records of environmental conditions be made before and after operations (air, water quality, fault lines), and emphasizes shifting TX to renewable energy sources (+) and the failure of the Commission to protect TX in the past.

All the candidates brought up things like transparency, oversight, corruption, negligence, and industry corruption which leads me to believe that these are major issues in TX of which I have remained unaware thanks to not paying any goddamned attention, a habit which will I continue into the future. My feelings come down to choosing between Miller’s industry experience and willingness to rebuild public trust and Salinas’ push towards renewable energy and zeal for public protection. I am as of yet undecided.

*Things I learned this election: Experience in an industry is kind of a double edged sword in a candidate. On the one hand, industry insiders like Tom I-used-to-lobby-for-Comcast Wheeler who heads the FCC has, until recently, been one of the biggest obstacles to getting any kind of internet consumer protection passed. On the other hand, lack of experience results in Marsha I-don’t-know-what-DDoSing-is Blackburn being in charge of regulating The Internet. I also learned that I have a previously unconfronted bias against the Green party, which I subconsciously perceive as being naive and willing to destroy vital economic infrastructure in order to achieve an unrealistic level of ecological harmony. themoreyouknow.jpeg

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District 30 House of Representititties

The Four Candidates

Charles Lingerfelt (Republican)

Thom Prentice (Green)

Eddie Bernice Johnson (Democrat, incumbent*)

Jarrett Woods (Libertarian)

Only two candidates actually submitted responses to 411.org: Thom Prentice and Charles Lingerfelt. After going over their responses on 411, my general conclusions are that Lingerfelt is an anti-immigration warhawk and Prentice is slightly unhinged.

Johnson’s website offered very little in the way of legislative history for the candidate (-). Doing some research on Congress.org reveals that most of the bills that Johnson sponsored or co-sponsored relate to science funding, which she seems generally in favor of (+). Deciphering this was not easy and required significant mental effort, so I took a break from her and checked out Woods.

Woods’ website is the most straightforward, forthright, clearly presented of any candidate on the list. He clearly and specifically states objective he would like to achieve while in office (++). I disagree with basically all of his policy suggestions but I give him an A+ and a gold star for clarity and presentation.

My vote goes to Johnson for experience, science funding, and not being crazy.

*Things I learned this election: Incumbent means someone already holds the position they’re running for