Burnt Orange Report

Primary Time in Austin

By Byron LaMasters

It looks as if Democrats in Travis County will have a primary for the County Commissioner Precinct 1 seat. I live in the precinct, and I have not yet decided who I will support. The incumbent is Ron Davis (article is from his 1998 primary race. I could not find a current article/website extensively profiling him). The challenger is Celia Israel. The race is just developing. A friend of mine involved with the Israel campaign tells me that she's running because Ron Davis just doesn't do much, and Israel would be more of an activist for the district. While I don't follow commissioners court politics very closely, I rarely hear much about Ron Davis. He seems to have taken a low-profile. Then again, maybe I just don't pay enough attention. He could be doing all sorts of things that I don't know about. Israel has an impressive resume (in addition to having a good friend of mine helping her campaign), so I'll definitely highly consider supporting her regardless.

But having said all of that. It's hard to overlook the fact that Davis is Black and Israel is Hispanic. Democrats redistricted the county commissioners seats in 2001 (map, here pdf file) to create one heavily Republican seat (3) with most of the western half of the county, one Hispanic (Democratic) majority district (4 - southeast), one White Democratic majority district (2 - central and northeast) and one Black influence district (1 - east). The problem with that seat, however, is that while Blacks have held the district in recent years, there simply aren't enough Blacks in Travis County to have a majority-Black commissioners district. The district is only 21% Black Voting Age Population. (33% Hispanic and 39% White. Population breakdown for all county commissioner districts is here). While I doubt that Israel or Davis will resort to race-baiting, no doubt, some of their supporters will. Interestingly, White voters will decide which candidate wins. So, as a White Democratic Primary voter, here's my deal. The first candidate to resort to race-baiting tactics will automatically ensure my support of their opponent. Hopefully, we won't have any of that, and I'll be able to make a decision based on the merits of the candidates. We shall see...

Update: It's interesting to see the establishment support that Israel has already lined up in a race against an incumbent this early. The support includes Austin City Councilman Brewster McCracken, Bettie Naylor, former state reps. Lena Guerrero, Glen Maxey and Ann Kitchen and current State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez.