Burnt Orange Report

The Craziest HD-48 Scenario

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

There will be a lot going on behind the scenes in the next few days. There is some talk about consolidating the field and having one person run. This is the process that will happen this spring that you all should be aware of, as I understand it.

The January Election is an open free for all election. All Republicans and Democrats run against each other. The top 2 go to run off in February. The winner of all that then is the State Rep for the Spring Special session that will likely be called for March-June because of the school finance ruling that set the June 1 deadline or else schools shut down.

BUT

There is still the regular primary in March which will decide the nominees for the November general election.

SO

Say it is Bentzin (R) Howard (D) Brown (D) & Rider (D)

They duke it out in the open special, winner wins. They all could potentially run again (and have new challengers) in their party primaries in March. So given that, the following is actually a possible scenario.

January Open Special Election: Bentzin & Brown go to run-off
February Run-off: Brown wins, serves as elected Rep for any Spring Special Session
March Primary: Bentzin wins the Republican nomination, Brown goes to run-off with Howard for an April Run-off, forcing him to campaign during the middle of the special session
April Run-off: Howard wins Democratic nomination and campaigns against Bentzin for November election, while Brown serves out the rest of the term as the elected lame-duck rep, while the session is still going on!

I'm not saying this is in the cards, but Rick Perry's election date enables this to be a possibility. And remember, Travis County officials estimate the election will cost as much as $250,000, plus another $125,000 or more if there is a runoff.

Rip Avery has some thoughts as well.

As I have mentioned before, Bentzin not only lacks Baxter's baggage (voting record and TRMPAC connections) but is in a position to finance a campaign before any single Democrat is ripe for candidacy in the general election. Also, as noted, there are at least three players on the Dem side, and in a special election all candidates run at once, with the winner being he/she who obtains the majority of votes. If there is no majority, then there is a runoff between the top two candidates. The three way split may not be as bad as one thinks, since the goal of the Democratic Party should be to make sure that Bentzin stays below 50%. Votewise, even if Howard and Rider took some votes from the left, Brown should be ok if he can suck enough votes from the center to prevent a Bentzin victory in the first round. The problem, of course, will be the expense (consolidating elections analogous to a primary and possibly general in such a short time frame).

While Bentzin lacks Baxter's "baggage," he did take money from Texans for Lawsuit Reform (and Bob "Swift Boat" Perry) in 2002. TFLR is bankrolled by Dr. James Leininger, and it contributed heavily to Baxter as well as Craddick and others in the Texas GOP leadership. Leininger was he mojor influence behind issues like school vouchers, and reportedly pulled GOP reps off the floor to lecture the Legislators on the importance of voting for them and his other pet issues. Oh yeah, Leininger contributed heavily to TRMPAC and Stars Over Texas PAC (TRMPAC's successor and a Baxter contributor). So, Bentzin (despite his reputed $37m "fortune") is still connected to the same policy "puppet masters" as Baxter. If you like Tom DeLay and Tom Craddick (and their buddy, Rick Perry, another beneficiary of Leininger largesse), then you should vote for Bentzin. If you, like me, don't care for the Right Wing's influence in Texas, then you should support Andy Brown.