Bad Blood and Redistricting? Surely You Jest
May 26th, 2007 at 6:02 pm
It’s safe to say current Rep. Garnet Coleman and former Rep. Ron Wilson, who now serves as Tom Craddick’s second-in-command-right-hand-man on the dais, don’t like each other. While both are/were listed as Democrats from Houston, it would be hard to imagine them more at odds.
As background, consider this Observer article detailing Wilson’s helping hand in the 2003 redistricting fiasco, along with his subsequent primary defeat. Or this incendiary Houston Press piece, in which Wilson, testifying about his role in the redistricting plan, berates just about every one of his Democratic and African-American colleagues at the time. Wilson is quoted saying, “I don’t consider [Coleman] an African American.” He also accuses Sen. Rodney Ellis of having “his head up his ass half the time.” Unrepentant in a follow-up interview, he calls one-time U.S. Rep. and former Dem candidate for governor Chris Bell a “racist bastard.”
Given all that, it’s not hard to imagine how Coleman, among others, felt when they saw Wilson take such a prominent place with Team Craddick last night.
Today Coleman struck back. He issued press releases saying he filed two ethics complaint against the new assistant parliamentarian, and he plans to file 15 more. “Those ethics complaints are based on incidents, going back to as far as 1993, where Mr. Wilson consistently failed to file his campaign finance reports on time,” the release said.
The Craddick camp quickly issued a response to the one complaint, which alleged Wilson never paid an Ethics Commission fine levied against him for failing to report campaign contributions from voucher-fanatic James Leininger. Said Craddick spokeswoman Alexis DeLee in a release, “As to Rep. Coleman’s allegations that Ron Wilson owes an $8,300 fine to the State of, that claim is false. Mr. Wilson does not recall the second allegation of a failure to disclose a $10,000 contribution from the ‘All Children Matter’ PAC. However, he will check with the Texas Ethics Commission when it reopens on Tuesday.” Hmm… seems that Wilson has crossed party lines and caught a nasty case of Republican Memory Loss Syndrome. But in response to another ethical imbroglio Reps brought up last night, DeLee says Wilson filed a letter with the House chief clerk “indicating that he would not be representing clients in his law practice while he is acting as Deputy Parliamentarian.”
Coleman himself has never brought up the past animosity in his complaints, instead making a case for why these alleged violations matter now:
Mr. Wilson has shown blatant disregard for ethics in the past. I believe our House Parliamentarians resigned late last night because they could no longer stand by Speaker Craddick’s disdain for the rules. So what happened? Speaker Craddick went out and found Parliamentarians that have shown they have no problem showing disdain for the rules.
