Last week Talmadge Heflin, an incumbent Texas Republican state representative decided to contest his 32-vote loss to Vietnamese-American Democrat Hubert Vo in a West Houston district. Now, two more Republican losers in Texas state representative races have decided to contest their elections in the Republican controlled state house. With three election contests this year, that equals the number of contests in the past twenty years. Republicans lost seats in the Texas State house this year for the first time in thirty years, so they've decided they'll do anything to usurp the will of the voters.
I posted on the story on my blog, the Burnt Orange Report earlier, here and Andrew, one of my co-bloggers, posted here.
The Austin American Statesman wrote this on the election contest:
Republican state Rep. Jack Stick of Austin has become the latest House candidate to file a challenge over his Election Day defeat.
Democrat Mark Strama defeated Stick by 569 votes. Stick filed a challenge with the Texas House of Representatives through the Texas Secretary of State's Office on Thursday.
And the San Antonio Express News:
A Republican legislator from Travis County, unseated by a challenger Nov. 2, has filed paperwork asking the GOP-majority Texas House to reverse the results and award him the seat or call a new election.
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Earlier last week, Rep. Talmadge Heflin of Houston filed a contest of his 32-vote loss to Hubert Vo, his Democratic challenger, and Eric Opiela of Karnes City filed a contest of his 835-vote defeat at the hands of Democratic candidate Yvonne Gonzalez-Toureilles of Alice.
The Austin American Statesman editorialized against one of the GOP election-stealers yesterday:
Defeated state Rep. Talmadge Heflin of Houston is giving his Republican colleagues in the Texas House a major league headache by asking them to overturn election results that cost him his job.
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It could be disastrous for the GOP if the committee recommends overturning Vo's victory and the full House membership seats Heflin. Vo is a Vietnamese immigrant who came to America after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and worked his way into a successful career in computer sales and real estate. His victory is not one the House Republicans can plunder without immense fallout.
Republicans already are accused of gerrymandering to assure the outcome of elections, of grabbing power voters didn't give them and changing the rules to protect their leaders. Awarding a House seat to a favored member who lost the vote could only be viewed as election theft through uncontained GOP arrogance.
Majority party arrogance is an issue nationally as well as in Texas. U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who strong-armed the Legislature into the redistricting mess that the U.S. Supreme Court has questioned, has serious ethical problems. The U.S. House this month changed its rules to protect DeLay in the event he is indicted for campaign violations.
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Heflin is asking his House colleagues to give him the seat he didn't win anyway. They should reject that path because it is the way to more rancor, bitterness and another disastrous legislative session.
Vince has more details over at the Political State Report, as does Sarah over at mUUsings.
Here's what the Texas Democratic Party has to say about the trio of GOP thieves:
After Democrats gained seats in the Legislature for the first time in a generation Republicans are getting desperate. Three of the defeated incumbents are trying to steal the elections right before our eyes- filing election contests in the Craddick Cartel run House. Talmadge Heflin was narrowly defeated by Democrat Hubert Vo, Jack Stick was beat by more than 500 votes by Democrat Mark Strama and Eric Opiela was defeated by almost a thousand votes by Democrat Yvonne Gonzalez-Toureilles, and now all of them want to overthrow the will of the people. Keep checking with TXDemocrats.org to find out the latest on GOP attempts to deny the people the representatives they chose!
Republicans have an 88-62 majority in the Texas House (Democrats gained one seat to make it 87-63, pending the GOP's election-stealing tactics), and the Republican Speaker is the one who appoints the committee to review any "irregularities" in contested elections. Basically, the GOP majority can decide to throw out the election results in these three races, and call new elections for all three races. It's rediculous, undemocratic and outrageous.
Check out two of these Democratic candidates who are seeing their races contested:
Hubert Vo and Mark Strama. Both were phenomenal candidates who defeated Republican incumbents in GOP-leaning districts. Both of them have campaign debt, and the election contests by their sore-loser opponents will likely cost a fortune. If you are able, send them a few bucks.