Burnt Orange Report

David Cain will _not_ be running for county judge, last I heard. His name was floated about this summer and, at that time, I understand he indicated he would not run.

I also think Coggins would be a good candidate, but I believe she's also looking at DA or a district judgeship within the county. I hadn't heard her name mentioned in context of CJ until recently.

And, just as a note, the position of County Judge is only all administrative in some counties. In counties without a court-at-law, the county judge functions as a court at law judge over the county court, but can only hear misdemeanor cases (Cs, Bs, and As), mental commitments, some juvenile matters, uncontested probate and small civil cases.

I believe, even in some counties with courts at law, the county judge still hears mental commitments if needed.

All the bad press the County Judge and Commissioner Dist. 4 have gotten is real good news for us. The County is the first order for the provision of health and human services as well as elections administration and from a policy standpoint very important to us. A democratic majority on the Court, or at least a Judge, would allow us to make progressive changes in HIV services planning, corrections and rehabilitation programs. It would also allow us to make Health & Human Services more professionalized - surely we could do alot better than the erstwhile H&HS director Betty Culbreath. And maybe we could get a consumer representative on the Parkland board instead of the Republican donors we now have.

By virtue of numbers we really should have 1 solid Dem commissioner District and one toss-up leaning Dem - but the 4 to 1 partisan ratio has meant 1 commissioner district with a huge Dem super-majority, 2 safe Rep districts, and 1 Rep leaning district.

The bad news is that when I looked at the 2004 numbers for District 4, they didn't change much from 2002 - it's still irritatingly republican. No Democrat wins the District. Mayfield may be vulnerable, but it's still a real tough race and the candidates that have surfaced thus far don't seem particularly strong.

Bill Hill, the District Attorney, has also gotten bad press. I've heard two strong candidates wanting to run - looks like the Republicans are going to have to program a lot of resources defending those two seats possibly leaving other local Republicans much more vulnerable.

Now if Lupe Valdez would kindly focus on the job she was elected to do, we'll be well set for the remainder of the decade.

Sorry for the redundancy - for some reason I just now read the last paragraph of Byron's blog.

I doubt Cain runs. Haven't confirmed it with him but I'm pretty sure he enjoys practicing law and doing some lobby work in Austin. I think you can say the same about Dale Tillery. But he would be a good judge as well.

I think Councilman John Loza will likely run against Ken Mayfield in precinct 4. I predict now that the Dems will win the county clerk position. The Dallas Realtors and other groups are pissed with Cynthia Calhoun. She may have opposition in the GOP primary.