Dawnna Dukes and What Didn’t Stay in Vegas
December 18th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Quite a conversation is going on over at the Burnt Orange Report about Dawnna Dukes, Las Vegas, and the fact that the East Austin Democrat will face challenger Brian Thompson in the March 4 primary.
Thompson, a 27-year-old Austin lawyer, says he will file Tuesday for Texas House District 46. Dukes is the incumbent. She is a ‘Craddick D’ — which as you know means she is one of the dozen or so Democrats that helped Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) overcome multiple attempts on his chair in the last regular session.
BOR Editor Matt Glazer and Dukes Campaign spokesman Colin Strother spent most of last Wednesday trading arguments and accusations after Glazer posted on BOR that Dukes had missed a Medicaid Reform and Legislative Oversight Committee meeting so she could play slots in Vegas (and the post came complete with a camera-phone image of Dukes at a slot machine). Strother and Glazer have posted the majority of the 37 comments to the original article, and the Austinist this weekend picked up the thread, using the gotcha tease, “State Rep. Dawnna Dukes caught playing hooky in Vegas.
It turns out the “gotcha” wasn’t exactly true. Dukes missed the committee meeting because of a prior engagement — attending a National Conference of State Legislatures convention in La Jolla, California. According to Strother, Dukes stopped over in Vegas on her way back, on her own dime. She was in La Jolla when the meeting was held on Thursday, and she was in Vegas on Saturday. An NCSL representative confirmed she was at the conference.
Glazer admits in the thread that he took the picture on Saturday, but he insisted that the incident indicates “a pattern” when taken with Dukes’ unbelievably poorly timed vacation to France in 2005 (which allowed once and current Speaker candidate Jim Pitts (R-Waxahachie) to cast the deciding vote for Rick Perry (and John Sharp’s) property tax cut/school finance plan). Hmmm. This is definitely truthiness at work. Interesting standard for an information source…
Here are a couple of excerpts from Glazer and Strother’s unhappy dialogue:
Strother: I know you don’t like Dukes or approve of her vote for Speaker, but I’m shocked that you would use incorrect information, supposition, and baseless conjecture to say “I don’t like Dawnna”. Maybe it is because you… have an interest in her opponent. I don’t know. I would tell you that you are well respected as a blogger, but not for garbage like this.
Glazer: Why don’t you talk about why she voted for Speaker Craddick. As the chief spokes person for Turner, Pena, Flores, Dukes, and other Craddick D’s what is the reason all of them voted for the ultra-conservative Craddick? Was it because nobody in their district knows who Craddick is or because they don’t care what their constituents think? Our readers would like to know.
BOR contributor ‘Pedro’ makes a decent plea in the midst of the back-and-forth between Glazer and Strother:
You guys gotta grow up a little too. Legislators miss committee meetings all the time. You can ding someone for it. But you can’t act like it’s the most vile betrayal an elected official has ever perpetrated on his or her constituency.
Strother says Glazer recruited Thompson to run against Dukes, and he notes the facts that HD 46 is a majority African-American district and Dukes is literally the only African American representative from Travis County, while Thompson is Anglo.
“We can’t control who gets conned into filing against her,” Strother told me last week. He called Thompson “a young, impressionable guy” and said Thompson had been “sold a bill of goods.”
Glazer says Dukes’ support for Craddick along with missteps like the vacation to France are examples of her poorly serving the district. Thompson told me last week that he believes Dukes’ support for Craddick was ample reason for the voters in HD 46 to turn her out of office.
“I believe every minority group deserves representation, with one exception — Craddick Democrats. I believe being a Democrat and supporting Tom Craddick are mutually exclusive,” Thompson said.
Strother, a former campaign manager and staffer for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo), has something of a reputation for being rough and tumble with his quotes — but he also has been associated with winning — which generates its own kind of respect in political circles. There is even a list of memorable Strother quotes.
Look for more fireworks from HD 46 between now and March.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:02 am
HB 46 is not a Black district. Here’s what I get from the Texas House website:
Data: 2000 Census
DISTRICT 46 POPULATION ANALYSIS
TOTAL 141,076
ANGLO 39,421
BLACK 38,174
HISP 59,433
B+H 96,539
OTHER 5,116
December 18th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Great piece Cody. I just want to point out that I neither recruited Thompson to run nor am I working for the campaign. I wonder why the Dukes campaign keeps saying that I do. Maybe they don’t understand why I would be so angry when a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Democratic district votes for one of the most conservative Speakers in Texas history.
Her district overwhelmingly defeated proposition 2 in 2005. I don’t think there is a single elected Republican in her area, and yet she felt compelled to vote for the man who refuses to fund CHIP, has been resistant to increasing pay for teachers, and has generally been bad for Texas.
I don’t work for Thompson and I didn’t get him in the race, but Dawnna Dukes needs to renounce her pledge for Tom Craddick and start truly representing the people of HD-46.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Mr. Glazer is exactly right. Dawna Dukes has been a self serving politician from the time she first walked through those doors. She represents herself not her district. This can be seen in her voting habits: anti chip /pro-Craddick stance. Does she think that the people of her district will not hold her accountable for her actions. She even went to FRANCE during the SPECIAL SESSION. Do you know how much extra money it costs the tax payers to have a SPECIAL session and she goes to FRANCE intrusting Jim Pitts a republican to vote for her so she can go shopping in Paris. Horrible, Shame on you Mrs Dukes.
House district 46 deserves better!!!
Eric Blaire
December 20th, 2007 at 6:04 pm
The double standards and trumped up charges against Rep. Dukes send a strong signal that you are engaged with her opposition.
Was she the only person to miss the hearing? The only Woman? The only Democrat? Or was she just the one you wanted to attack.
Furthermore, when offered evidence to prove your remarks were completely fictitious, you continued to publish what you knew to be untrue.
If it looks like a duck, Matt, it’s usually a duck.
Return some appearance of reason, objectivity and intellectual honesty to your posts. That’s why we like you and look to you.
And to clarify, I misspoke. I intended to refer to Rep. Dukes district as “majority minority”.
Eric Blair doesn’t know what he is talking about or he would know that Matt Glazer, his boss at the time and leading House Dems favored Jim Pitts for Speaker. Talk about entrusting Pitts with a vote…they were prepared to entrust him with EVERY vote.