12.02.09
Statewide filing speculation
The filing period in order to become the Republican or Democratic Party nominee for the 2010 primaries begins tomorrow, December 3, 2009 and runs through January 4, 2010. This link from the Secretary of State web site has all the information.
There’s quite a bit of speculation this from today’s TexasTrib brief.
With the filing deadline fast approaching, are Democrats beginning to feel some holiday cheer?
With Houston Mayor Bill White expected to announce a run for Governor on Friday, suddenly the party has hope that the still empty down-ballot races might fill out in a meaningful way.
Here’s what Democratic consultant Harold Cook told The Texas Tribune on Tuesday: “With White’s emergence as the probable Democratic nominee for governor, you have a newfound excitement among the activists but you also kind of have this realization among other A-team Democratic leadership that this could be a good year for us on a statewide ballot.”
The Dallas Morning News reports that former U.S. Congressman Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, is now mulling a run for comptroller — which would be a start.
Democrats have four candidates other than White running for governor — Hank Gilbert, Kinky Friedman, Felix Alvarado, and Farouk Shami — but empty slots for lieutenant governor, comptroller, and land and ag commissioners (a list that includes three positions on the important five-person Legislative Redistricting Board).
The Texas Tribune’s Ross Ramsey notes, “If the Democrats don’t pull a full and serious ballot together, the LRB — and the Republicans — will be in position in 2011 to set the political maps they want for the next decade.”
Rumors are swirling that Gilbert might make a move for land or ag commissioner, though his gubernatorial campaign staff says he’s got no plans to leave that race. The future of state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, is also an open question since he announced he would not seek re-election.
Houston lawyers Barbara Ann Radnofsky and Jeff Weems are expected to file on Thursday for attorney general and Texas Railroad Comissioner, respectively. Radnofsky will likely not face a challenge from former state Rep. Steve Wolens, D-Dallas. His wife, former Dallas mayor Laura Miller, tells the Austin American-Statesman that he’s not running for statewide office this year, though she hopes he does “sooner or later for the good of the state of Texas.”
Of course the 2010 elections are extremely important because of redistricting, Where is Everybody?
Expect to see Gov. Rick Perry filing on the first day (Thursday), and Hutchison filing for governor on Friday. And with Hutchison’s decision to remain in office until after the first of the year — more importantly, until after the end of this filing period — the rest of the statewide Republicans will likely file for reelection, with visions of U.S. Senate appointments dancing in their heads. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Attorney General Greg Abbott, in particular, were making plans based on Hutchison’s expected resignation. They’ll have to bide their time.
That leaves the Democrats without candidates, for now, for lieutenant governor, comptroller, and land and ag commissioners. Three of those spots — a majority — are automatically members of something called the Legislative Redistricting Board. That’s important: If the Legislature can’t agree in 2011 on new political maps for the House and Senate, the decision falls to the LRB, which includes the lite guv, the attorney general, the speaker of the House, the comptroller and the land commission. At the moment, all five are Republicans. And if the Democrats don’t pull a full and serious ballot together, the LRB — and the Republicans — will be in position in 2011 to set the political maps they want for the next decade.
The political filings start on Thursday and run through January 4. Statewide candidates and candidates running in districts that cross county lines all have to file with the Republican and Democratic parties in Austin. Candidates for county offices — and for state offices that don’t cross county lines — can file in their home counties. The parties will firm up their ballots and turn them over to the Secretary of State in mid-January. The primary is March 2, and early voting starts on February 16. Libertarians do this differently: They’ll choose candidates at a convention next spring.
Harvey Kronberg talks about the purity tests in the upcoming primary filing season.
The real fun will be watching the bi-annual attempts at purification conducted by both parties in the Texas House.
Since Tom Craddick is out of the Speaker’s chair, I don’t expect as much heat as before. However I think there will be an effort to replace some Democratic incumbents in their primary with more tort reform-friendly candidates.
On the Republican side, the teabaggers and the just plain angry make the GOP primary look especially interesting. GOP activists have spent most of the decade trying to pick off moderates in the primary. That probably has something to do with Republicans losing seats in the House in each of the last three general elections.
Aside from the normal purification efforts, we fully expect some time honored political mischief this year, like incumbents announcing for re-election but failing to file. Then, in what must be a coincidence, one of their friends or their political consultants’ clients end up filing minutes before the January deadline.
Local folks who might have jumped at an opportunity to run for an open seat are simply deceived about the incumbent’s intentions so succession can be safely engineered.
It’s not pretty, but it is Texas politics.
I’m not sure how many primaries there will be on the Democratic side this time, as they try and hold and possibly gain a few seats in the House. On the GOP side there will likely be many perceived moderates getting primary challengers.