Burnt Orange Report

Ron Wilson Must Go

By Jim Dallas

Thanks to Carl Whitmarsh for forwarding the news.

Alma Allen filed papers yesterday to challenge state Rep. Ron Wilson (?-Houston) in the Democratic Primary. Allen, a member of the State Board of Education since 1993, is eminently qualified (almost over-qualified) for this seat. Moreover, she's been (at least as I understand it; I'm not a veteran SBOE watcher) a consistent liberal voice on the board.

In 1998, Allen lost a primary challenge against Wilson by about 1,000 votes -- although given that Wilson is now anathema in the Democratic Party, I think this surely will be a competitive race. Though neither Allen nor Wilson has had anything but token opposition in the last two general elections, Allen won nearly 10 times as many votes as Wilson did in the last general election (167,000 to 18,572), and almost 100 times the number of votes that Wilson won his last primary by (he eeked out a 2000 vote margin, more or less, in 2002). Clearly, the woman knows how to line up support.

At any rate, the Houston Press printed a story this week which reads like a litany of Wilson's sins. Whether you like his politics or not (everyone's entitled to their opinions), his personal attacks against Rodney Ellis and Garnet Coleman are over the line, and he ought to be punished for that -- not as a Democrat or a liberal or an African-American (or whatever), but as a matter of basic human decency:

After a turn on the witness stand two weeks ago in the Democratic lawsuit challenging the plan, Wilson attacked colleague Garnet Coleman for his history of manic depression. Many considered it a low blow, but that was just one more unstatesmanlike wisecrack in an ongoing torrent of invective by the Houston legislator.

What hasn't surfaced publicly is an incendiary deposition in which Wilson opens up on a handful of elected Democrats, using language that makes his comments about Coleman seem tame by comparison.

Wilson took a shot at state Senator Rodney Ellis of Houston, testifying that "he's got his head up his ass half the time." Just to help the court reporter, Wilson spelled it out: "A-S-S. Ass."

Ellis "is taking a position that black people don't deserve another seat in Congress," Wilson explained later to The Insider. To describe minority officials who fought the redistricting plan, Wilson used some rather charged racial imagery:

"That's the effect of all this dancing around, shuffling and jiving, and the tap dancing. They are saying to the public, black people do not deserve another seat in Congress, even though the population is there to justify it."

Wilson was asked during his December 1 deposition whether he was supporting the plan because he intends to run for the redrawn Ninth Congressional District against 25th District incumbent Chris Bell. Wilson claimed that Coleman was spreading that rumor, sounding "like some old, whiney, 3-year old girl." A bit later, Wilson opined that "I don't consider [Coleman] an African American."

After the deposition, he contended that Coleman "has placed the interest of party politics and his own economic welfare above the interests of African-Americans, the community I represent. He's seen fit to sing the piper's tune and to be Chris Bell's boy by betraying black people."

If the plan stands, Bell would have to run for election in the redrawn Ninth District, which is dominated by African-Americans. Although Wilson denied he plans to run against Bell, he said any qualified black would win. "I think he gets his butt kicked," opined Wilson, who later said he'd bet his house that Bell will lose.

Wilson also accused Coleman of being indebted to white Democrats because he receives large cash payments through his media buying firm, Coleman Strategies.

He "takes it in and doesn't have to report to anybody how he spends it. He literally makes his living being a leech off of campaigns."

Coleman responds that most of his company's campaign work has been pro bono -- unpaid -- and he has made little from Coleman Strategies. He points out that Wilson's position, as the only one of 16 African-Americans in the legislature to vote for redistricting, speaks for itself.

"I don't know that anyone understands Ron but Ron, but it's clear that he's gone over the top in his comments, and that is unfortunate. He's really gone over the top in the policy positions he's taken vis-à-vis his constituents." As examples, Coleman cites Wilson's votes against hate-crime legislation and for a budget that eliminated health care dollars for low-income children.

Congressman Bell previously criticized Wilson for improper conversations with U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a key backer of the redistricting effort.

"Bell cannot tell me who I can and cannot talk to," Wilson told The Insider. "As a member of Congress, he talked to Tom DeLay a number of times and that's okay. That's why I say he's a racist bastard. That's the arrogant attitude he has, and why he shouldn't be in Congress."

I'm sorry, Rep. Wilson, but when you go accusing Chris Bell of being a racist (said the kettle to the pot) despite saying that Garnet Coleman "isn't an African-American" because he's interested in preserving substantive representation, well, I will not abide.