When good politics turn bad

What started out as a spirited race to become Gonzales County’s next state representative has seen the frontrunner come under fire from his main opponent and a third-place finisher. Manners seem to evaporate as the election season toils on and desperation creeps in.

Many Gonzales residents have received mailers in the past weeks praising the virtues of candidates John Cyrier and Brent Golemon. While county residents at this end of the district are told that the focus is on education spending and water rights, an ugly battle has been waged in Lee and Bastrop Counties over a perceived bout of voter suppression and over who the “real” water rights warrior is.

Unsurprisingly, it is the losing candidates who sent out slick mailers warning of “water grabs” and howls of selling out to developers.

Voters may remember independent candidate Linda Curtis as having appeared on the initial Jan. 6 special election ticket. By reading some of the information that has been directed against her former opponent Cyrier, one would think that she was still on the ballot.

Not quite, but she does have skin in the game.

Curtis has long been a player in big-city politics, founder of the website ChangeAustin.org. It is an Austin-based political action committee that gathered signatures to oppose subsidies to The Domain shopping center, bemoaned Austin political cronyism and credits itself with the recent change Austin’s city council makeup.

Now, it appears that she wants to bring her self-styled activism out to the country.

Brent Golemon chatted about his wants for the district in a recent visit here prior to the annual President’s Day Dinner hosted by the local GOP. His thoughts on water issues and quality education were the crux of the conversation.

“There’s nothing more local, in my mind, than control over your water and education,” Golemon said.

He explained that schools are now burdened with delivering a message and testing students rather than paying attention to the needs of teachers. Those traits seem to line up with Republican talking points, so it is a wonder why he would link up with the liberal-leaning Curtis and her latest political action committee, Independent Texans.

Curtis is no stranger to city agendas, striking a populist stance on urban issues like single member voting districts, stadium referendums and petition gathering. Gonzales County residents can be forgiven if they haven’t received her automated calls that focus on the more suburban Bastrop than rural Gonzales. Though Golemon said that he did not resort to robo dialing, those automated calls that have been made clearly advocate him for the election.

“This is a voter and water alert from Independent Texans asking you to vote for Brent Golemon to fight for our water and our rural way of life here in Bastrop County,” said one. That particular call warned of voter suppression while another referred to moving groundwater to the I-35 corridor and turning rural Texas into a “dumping ground.”

Prior to the Jan. 6 special election, the commissioners court in Bastrop County, led by Republican County Judge Paul Pape, decided on a deal with the county elections division where four early voting sites would be available county-wide with four polling locations coming available on election day. The reasoning was to save money on an election where few voters were expected to turn out, and a configuration that they had used in prior off-year elections with low voter participation.

The same process is being used here in Gonzales County, where County Clerk Lee Riedel is using one early voting location and six election day precincts. Considering that less than 350 had cast ballots during early voting, it seems that her reasoning was sound.

The multiple special elections have depleted Riedel’s election spending, so she is forced to cut any corners where she can.

“It’s kind of eaten my lunch this year and my budget is blown,” she said. “I’m trying to cut the costs down as much as I can.”

For this election she has ordered 1,000 ballots, usually a low number by election standards but overly optimistic considering expected voter participation.

Since Gonzales County does not have an elections administrator, Riedel is forced to do it herself with her staff. This is on top of her daily duties like finding records for oil leases— and she is stretched thin. She is almost a one-woman show when it comes to conducting elections in Gonzales County.

Interestingly enough, her plight seems to not have caught the attention of Curtis, who dismisses Gonzales County as having too few voters to warrant much attention in her crusade.

Earlier this month Curtis filed a complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct against Judge Pape, accusing him of conspiring to suppress the Bastrop County vote. Interestingly enough, Curtis was accused of suppressing the vote herself in 2002 when she sued Austin HEB stores for not allowing her for-profit petition gathering service to do business on their property.

Rather than arguing the point with her, HEB dropped the community outreach that they were performing, which allowed the use of their stores as a neighborhood polling locations in minority Austin neighborhoods. Community leaders blamed Curtis for the loss of this ballot access.

One of the latest fliers that have hit mailboxes is direct from Golemon’s campaign and goes as far as to quote Curtis on one side. The piece attempts to tie $55,000 worth of campaign contributions to Cyrier as coming from developers with dubious intent.

What is dubious is an omission from Curtis’ past. In one of her Austin campaigns in the late 90s, she co-founded the group Priorities First! which took $40,000 from developer Bill Pohl, who was looking to her group in help with defeating a publicly funded baseball stadium proposal. The loss would be Pohl’s gain, for he wished to build a stadium of his own.

Interestingly, Curtis had no qualms about taking the money, laying blame at the feet of a corrupt system, and portraying herself as having no choice but to play the game.

Golemon counts one more interesting character in his lineup, John Higgins, the former chief of staff to State Representative Tim Kleinschmidt. Higgins is listed in Golemon’s latest campaign finance report as having been paid an $1,800 fee for “consulting expense.” He was also compensated $1,500 in December for the same service.

In April 2013, Higgins was charged with 11 counts of tampering with a government record and one count of securing execution of a document by deception dealing with his chief of staff duties. Both offenses were state jail felonies that could have carried a two year jail stint and up to a $10,000 fine.

The charges followed accusations that Higgins pocketed more than $9,000 in travel reimbursements for tips that he did not make in his official capacity. Higgins said that the errors were the result of a disgruntled former Kleinschmidt employee. Eventually Kleinschmidt suspended Higgins from his Capitol office.

Informed decisions should be based on deep scrutiny and evaluation of a candidate. Fancy campaign mailers by third-party groups and attack ads often discolor a candidate and cover them with so much question that they appear to be covered in mud. Hence the political term, “mudslinging.” It is an unfortunate occurrence in politics that is nothing new.

Voters, in this case, may be the ones with the best manners. It may take a bit of research and consideration, but the truth is out there amongst the lies and deceit that accompany a hard-fought campaign. But if you’re tired of this, don’t fret. We have a whole year until we do this all over again