Politics

City Elections Are Nonpartisan, Right?

But that’s not stopping the Travis County
Democratic Party from helping candidates

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2014
Posted Wednesday August 13, 2014 3:01pm
Updated Tuesday August 19, 2014 8:45pm

In Deep Blue Austin the apprehension about having a Republican on the City Council was exploited by political consultant David Butts at a meeting of the Central Austin Democrats, back in 2012 when he was stumping for passage of the 8-2-1 plan. Peck Young was on the same program, pushing for passage of the 10-1 plan brought to the ballot through a petition drive conducted by Austinites for Geographic Representation.

Butts said, you know if we have 10 council districts we’re going to have a Republican on the City Council, surely a statement meant to strike fear into the hearts of the Democrats listening.

Sitting in the audience and hearing this, I thought to myself, well what’s wrong with a little political diversity, to go along with the geographic diversity that we’re going to have with council districts?

Turns out there’s a lot wrong with it, according to J.D. Gins, executive director of the Travis County Democratic Party.

Gins believes the Travis County Republican Party is recruiting candidates to run for Austin City Council and fears if elected they will be able to build a platform to later run for state representative. Then the Democratic Party will have to spend a lot of money fending them off.

“There’s no way the GOP can’t see this as the only way to build a base in Travis County,” Gins said in a July 22 interview.

Travis County Democrats Upbeat

Pep rally revs crowd to achieve
the dream of turning Texas blue

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2014
Posted Tuesday July 22, 2014 1:59pm
Updated Wednesday July 23, 2014 1:24pm to link recording of speeches

Well you can’t blame the Democrats for wanting what they haven’t won in the last two decades, and that’s the election of the governor who will succeed Rick Perry.

The year 1994 marked the end of an era for Democrats. Governor Ann Richards lost her reelection bid to George W. Bush, but, in a last hurrah, Democrats Bob Bullock, Dan Morales, John Sharp, Martha Whitehead, and Garry Mauro all won another term. Ever since then every statewide race on the ballot has been won by Republicans.

Yet hope springs eternal in eternally deep-blue Travis County, the scene for a Saturday evening Democratic Party rally featuring the tried-and-true combination of barbecue, beer, and stump speeches, all emceed by State Senator Kirk Watson of Austin. A crowd estimated at more than 400 sprawled out over the grounds of the new party headquarters on East Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.

In introducing U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin), Watson said, “Here we are in the heart of Travis County, the heart of the city of Austin, but we ain’t in his congressional district, because we’re sitting in the congressional district of somebody from Fort Worth.” (This is the result of the last legislative redistricting that left Central Austin in the congressional district of Representative Roger Williams, a Republican whose district stretches from almost to Cowtown all the way to Wimberley and includes the State Capitol.)

“This is really a place of hope, right here,” Doggett said. “And every time we walk another block, we call another person who might not otherwise have voted, you write a check, you put up a sign, you expand that hope for Texas. But it’s not just hope for Texas. It's hope for our entire country.”

Hotze a Persistent Political Voice

Houston physician’s lawsuit challenges Obamacare,
continuing a lifelong pursuit of conservative causes

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2013
Posted Wednesday May 8, 2013 3:56pm 

Steven F. Hotze, M.D., has made conservative causes his life’s work and his latest endeavor is filing a federal lawsuit in an effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

The Austin American-Statesman reported yesterday that Hotze, “founder of the Conservative Republicans of Texas and a leading donor to GOP candidates, said Tuesday he had filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act.”

The Statesman reported that Hotze’s lawsuit “raises different issues than were considered when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld most aspects of the Affordable Care Act last summer.”

While it means nothing in a court of law and certainly will not affect the outcome of Hotze’s lawsuit, it seems worthwhile to let the public know a bit more about Hotze. And, as it happens, I wrote an in-depth feature story about him and his politics more than 30 years ago.

Austin Citizens for Decency

Hotze was front and center in my first big political story. The piece I wrote for Third Coast magazine was published in January 1982. “Decency Ordained: Austin’s Anti-Gay Crusade,” focused on an initiative that was on the ballot that month as a result of a successful citizens petition drive. (Click on the title to access the story and a lengthy sidebar, “Conscience of a Conservative,” that provides deep insight into his origins and motivation.)