Burnt Orange Report

Thieves and Thugs

By Byron LaMasters

Otherwise known as the Texas Republican Party.

A lot of readers have emailed me, encouraging me to take a harder line in my previous posts on the Heflin / Vo race. I actually agreed with the Republican commenters who asked why it was alright for Al Gore to ask for a recount, but not for Talmadge Heflin. Asking for a recount was the right thing to do. Any race decided by 500 votes when millions are cast, or by 32 when over 40,000 are cast should have a recount. If I were a candidate on the short end of such a situation, you can damn well bet I'd want a recount, if for no other reason than to have peace of mind in defeat.

So, Talmadge Heflin asked for a recount, and I had no problem with it.

Now, Talmadge Heflin wants to usurp the democratic process, ignore the will of the people of house district 149, and steal an election that he lost to a Vietnamese-American immigrant and first time candidate Hubert Vo.

That makes Talmadge Heflin (and his lawyer Andy Taylor, and their buddies in the Texas GOP) a thuggish thief in my book.

Last year, Texas Republicans engaged in an unprecidented mid-decade congressional redistricting so that politicians could pick their voters, instead of voters picking their politicians. This year, Texas Republicans are taking things a step further. As Jim noted, there is talk of contesting not one, not two, but three elections in the state house. This is worse than politicians picking their voters. This is having the politician with the most money hiring the toughest lawyer to argue which votes count in front of a rigged jury. Pure thuggery.

So what can you do? First of all, donate to Hubert Vo. Vo will need to spend tons of money on lawyer fees to defend his election in the state house. Second, head on over to Greg's Opinion for a whole list of things that you can do.

Finally, I've archived the Houston Chronicle story on the race today in the extended entry, so we'll have the full story here once the Chronicle archive expires.

State Rep. Talmadge Heflin asked the state House of Representatives today to overturn the results of his failed re-election bid and either order him returned to the Legislature or call for a new election.

Heflin's attorney, Andy Taylor, said the election results in state House District 149 in southwest Harris County were fraught with voting irregularities and potential fraud, most of which occurred in predominantly Democratic precincts.

"The true outcome of this election was stolen from the voters in House District 149," Taylor said Tuesday. "We will prove that Representative Talmadge Heflin was re-elected."

Heflin, a Republican member of the House since 1983 and chairman of its Appropriations Committee, lost to Democratic businessman Hubert Vo by 32 votes earlier this month. But Heflin's campaign alleges that those election results include at least 248 irregularities that could have altered the outcome.

Taylor said he will file notice today that the Heflin campaign intends to contest the election in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. That will require that House Speaker Tom Craddick order a House committee to investigate Heflin's allegations.

After the committee reports its findings, the full House will decide whether to seat Vo or Heflin or call for a new election. The House's decision will be binding, said a spokesman for the Texas secretary of state's office.

A decision by the House committee, which would have subpoena power and take depositions, would likely come no sooner than late January. The Legislature is scheduled to convene Jan. 11, and Vo would be limited to voting only on procedural matters until the dispute is resolved, the secretary of state's spokesman said.

Although there have been several election contests in the Texas House in recent years, none has reversed an election result, and most were withdrawn after they were filed.

Officials with the Vo campaign have said they are confident that their candidate won a fair election and have called on Heflin to concede.

Taylor said a review of county voting records from the Nov. 2 election shows that 101 voters were allowed to vote in the district illegally despite having moved out of Harris County. Twenty-seven voters were allowed to cast their ballots twice, he said — once in early voting and again on Election Day.

The Heflin campaign also found at least 120 other cases in which ineligible voters were allowed to vote or eligible voters were not allowed to cast ballots, Taylor said. The overwhelming number of those irregularities occurred in Democratic-leaning precincts that supported Vo's election, he said.

"I don't know if that's the result of human error, negligence or outright intentional wrongdoing," Taylor said. "We won't know until evidence is obtained under oath in connection with our election contest."

Heflin and Taylor have scheduled a news conference this afternoon to discuss their plans for the contest. Taylor said the campaign also intends to forward its findings to Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal.

Heflin's decision to contest the election is part of a two-pronged effort to return him to the Legislature. On Monday, Heflin requested a manual recount of all ballots cast in the election.

His best chance for recapturing his House seat probably lies with the election contest because the recount is not allowed to go into the issues of voting irregularities but must focus exclusively on the ballots cast in the election.

Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt, the county's voter registrar, said Tuesday that he was somewhat familiar with the Heflin campaign's allegations.

Bettencourt, a Republican, agreed that many of the allegations raised by the campaign would involve illegal votes, but he said such votes are not uncommon in large elections.

Bettencourt said that in the heat of conducting an election, precinct judges often mistakenly allow ineligible voters to cast their ballots or reject ballots from eligible voters.

The number of such complaints is usually too small to affect an election's outcome, he said, although it could have an impact in an election as close as the Heflin-Vo race.