Challenger surging in hotly contested Williamson County DA's race

Grits has no firsthand knowledge of Williamson County District Attorney race, but judging from endorsements and fundraising, incumbent John Bradley appears to be on the ropes in his primary battle against insurgent challenger and current County Attorney Jana Duty. The headline in today's Statesman story on the race calls it "unparalleled in intensity," declaring the race more heated than any election in living memory according to Williamson courthouse watchers.

Police unions remarkably began to line up against Bradley after he had to retract ill-informed, ham-handed comments about civil service at the Cedar Park PD. He said a difference between him and Duty was he opposed them getting it, but Cedar Park voters had already authorized it. (Ironically, this is an issue where my views jibe more closely with Bradley's than the unions'; his ignorance of basic facts, IMO, is a greater indictment of a candidate than the politically incorrect view he expressed criticizing civil service.) In any event, the array of law enforcement interests stepping up to endorse Ms. Duty over the incumbent has grown quite impressive.

Source: janaduty.com.

The challenger has proven to be a diligent fundraiser and has a substantial lead in that regard, though neither candidate appears to be raising TV money so far, which must be spent in the relatively expensive Austin market:

Duty said in February that she had raised about $113,000, but she has declined to say how much she has raised since.

Duty has a history of successful fundraising. When she ran against an opponent in the 2004 primary, she raised about $47,000, winning with 63 percent of the vote.

By comparison, Bradley raised more than $27,000 for his 2002 primary battle, according to campaign finance reports.

Bradley said last week that he has about $68,000 and expects to raise an additional $10,000 to $20,000 by election day. Bradley has attacked Duty's fundraising, noting that it has come in part from her own staff and from loans to herself, but Duty said she has a broad base of supporters, including residents and attorneys who have left the Bradley camp.

The race is far from over and I'd still give the incumbent a 50/50 chance to remain in office, mainly because of incumbency advantages and because even Duty's greater fundraising totals appear too low to ensure voters all enter the polls understanding what's at stake. Even so, Bradley's reputation has been battered - in some cases thanks to vicissitudes of fate beyond his control, but in most cases as a result of his own missteps and misapplied ambitions - and he'll need more resources than he's projecting he'll have to pay for sufficient communication to overcome it.

The practical reason money matters in elections, and the reason it's often viewed in political and legal circles as almost a proxy for "speech," is that the MSM offers quite poor coverage of most elections, which are treated as in this story more as a horse race than a choice between public policy visions. Not only is campaign coverage poorly structured, it's also infrequent. We might see one more story featuring the race in the Statesman before election day, for example, but likely no more. Most information voters receive about candidates comes from paid advertising. When candidates in third-or-fourth tier races like this one can't afford campaign communication in sufficient volume to actually get voters' attention - be it direct mail, door hangers, radio and TV ads, etc. - voters go to the polls utterly ignorant, as opposed to mostly ignorant, which is a terrific contributor to high reelection rates among incumbents. (Voter attention confoundingly skews toward presidential, senate, congressional and legislative races much more than local contests.) So Duty's fundraising edge matters a great deal, and so does keeping and extending it as the end of the campaign nears. If she actually raised enough money to go on TV with an attack message or deliver several rounds of targeted direct mail, it could drive a stake into the heart of the incumbent. Unless Mr. Bradley somehow pulled a financial rabbit out of his hat, he simply wouldn't have resources to respond.

For those interested, here's Bradley's campaign website (he also has an active Facebook page) and challenger Jana Duty's campaign site.

Police unions finding renewed opposition after years of bipartisan kowtowing

In a local story from the Valley about a change of leadership at the police union in the McAllen police department ("Police officers union to move forward under new leadership," Jan. 7), I was interested to see a reference to the union's losses in their recent contract negotiations. Reported the McAllen Monitor:

Sgt. Joe Garcia, the union’s president since 2009, will be replaced by his vice president, Officer David Alvarado.

They helped negotiate the union’s four-year collective bargaining agreement, which runs until Sept. 30, 2015.

The agreement, inked July 18 after negotiations failed and the union unsuccessfully sued McAllen, was widely seen as a victory for City Hall.

“One thing I’ve learned is you’ve got to pick your fights with the city,” Garcia said, referencing the contentious negotiations.

The contract phased out a health insurance subsidy for some retired officers and eliminated a union information session for police cadets, an important recruiting opportunity. Union officials had pushed for an across-the-board raise and permission to work security at downtown bars while off duty, but city officials rejected those proposals.

With the contract behind them, Garcia decided to step down, and Alvarado ran unopposed to succeed him. Alvarado will be officially sworn in later this month.

While the union doesn’t attract much attention when there isn’t a contract to be negotiated, it’s a major player within the Rio Grande Valley’s largest police department, which has 275 certified police positions. The union’s contract sets pay and benefits, and the union provides work-related legal services to members.

In the wake of the contract losses, the new union president "said he wants to build closer ties between the police union and the public, in part to improve the image of public employee unions, which have been under attack nationwide." McAllen snubbing the union in contract negotiations is a notable contrast to the way elected officials from both parties in recent years have kowtowed to police unions in larger cities. Being a "right to work" state, Texas has few strong unions anymore in the private sector and our public-sector unions are incredibly weak compared to those in other large states. (E.g., our prison guards are virtually unorganized and unconsidered compared to their powerhouse counterparts in California.) As a result, police unions in Texas elections often are the only union interest with significant political muscle, money to spend, etc..

These unions - particularly those under the CLEAT umbrella - historically in Texas have tended to garner bipartisan fealty among politicians at all levels. I understand why Democrats strongly support unions; less so why Rick Perry does, except to associate himself generally with law enforcement. In Austin, then-Mayor Kirk Watson's extravagant handouts to the police union were the driver for a decade and counting of continuous property-tax growth since the turn of the century, with more of the same projected in the foreseeable future. From the 30,000 foot level, there's a growing resistance by taxpayers to paying - usually through local property tax hikes - for the kind of lucrative pay and benefit packages they themselves lost to corporate restructuring and the recession.

Like the new McAllen police-union president, ever since the budget fights in Wisconsin Grits has been wondering if and when anti-public employee sentiment within the conservative movement might bubble up as feuding with local police associations. To hear CLEAT Executive Director John Burpo tell it, the fight is already here, and the barbarians are at the gates:

A little background is in order. From the 1960’s to just a few years ago, law enforcement pensions were improved significantly and then maintained. Law enforcement officers and their unions advanced and state legislators pushed the proposition that policing is a tough, dangerous job that deserves decent retirement benefits greater than other public employees.

Unfortunately, private sector unions have declined significantly over the last 20 years, and with that decline there has been an attendant decline in private sector defined pension benefits. The majority of private sector employees no longer have retirement plans – they are now fortunate to even have a 401(k) and a meager contribution by the employer. Sadly, most folks in the law enforcement world did not pay attention to this development because it was their problem, not ours.

In the past 2 years public sector pension plans have come under attack, including law enforcement retirements. These attacks have taken place in other states so once again, it was their problem and Texas law enforcement officers didn’t worry.

But it is definitely now our problem as antiretirement forces are on the march right here in Texas. A cabal of anti-union, anti-public employee businessmen out of Houston are leading the charge to take away your long held and much deserved retirement rights. This cabal doesn’t care that each one of you lays your life on the line every day; or that the Memorial Wall on the State Capitol grounds is filled with the names of heroic law enforcement officers who have sacrificed their lives protecting Texas citizens.

CLEAT will lead the fight to take on these Forces of Darkness. We have a battle plan that is eloquently outlined in Todd Harrison’s article on page 2 of this edition of The Police Star (pdf). Please take the time to read this important article so that you understand what we will be doing over the course of the next 2 years.

I find Burpo's language wonderfully hyperbolic, if sadly typical of much internal police-union rhetoric: Anyone with a different opinion on something they care about is generally considered by CLEAT to be part of the "Forces of Darkness," which in this case includes a "cabal of anti-union, anti-public employee businessmen out of Houston." Who knew? A shadowy cabal! Throw in a few references to the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group and he could write for Alex Jones.

The schtick about dangerous jobs will only get them so far when garbage collectors, whose jobs are statistically far more dangerous, are paid much less and get no comparable memorial on the capitol grounds. (In 2009, according to the most recent Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (pdf), "refuse and recyclable materials collectors" died on the job at a rate of 26.5 per 100,000, compared to 12.9 for "Police and Sheriff's patrol officers.")

CLEAT's plan includes backing electoral opponents to run against incumbents who support restructuring retirement benefits (through their PAC), extensive polling to craft messages that will sell with the public, creating a "Truth Squad" to quickly attack critics who question the viability of large police pensions, fundraising for their PAC (surprise, surprise!), and engaging union locals in their message delivery. The plan, or at least its public, fundraising-letter version, notably does not contemplate any path to compromise on the kinds of issues (ethics, accountability, public information) that might demonstrate the union's commitment to the sort of professionalism expected of government workers who make more money and have better pensions than the average voter. Instead, the plan is to attack anyone who questions them.

In McAllen, the city manager said part of the union's trouble was a simlar us-against-the-world mentality:

City Manager Mike Perez said the relationship between the police union and city leaders has been “rough at best.”

“I think the approach they take is: City Hall is the enemy,” Perez said. “The fact that they’ve gotten involved in politics and supported candidates hasn’t helped the relationship.”

Perez said he’s heard second- and third-hand reports that officers thought Garcia wasn’t tough enough on City Hall, and backed Alvarado because he’d take a harder stance.

When the GOP took over Texas state politics, police-union interests never missed a beat and continued to wield significant power, thanks in large part to their influence with Rick Perry and the advisers surrounding him (as well as a few, key, senior legislators, many of whom have now departed). Will that continue to be the case as a radicalized GOP base sends more Tea-Party types - Burpo's "Forces of Darkness" - to the legislature and city councils? Or will the police unions, perhaps for the first time in a generation, finally be forced to learn the art of compromise, both at the capitol and at city hall? Time will tell.

Judges, legal experts rebut union critique of Lykos crack-pipe policy

At the Houston Chronicle today, Brian Rogers has an item ("Crack policy puts Harris DA at odds with police") on the debate between Harris County DA Pat Lykos and local police unions over charging low-level drug users with "possession" for residue on a crack pipe. His report confirms Grits' assessment last week that the unions and their hand-picked DA candidate Mike Anderson made a political misstep by making this moderate and widely supported policy the centerpiece of their Lykos critique. For starters, by foregrounding an issue where Lykos agrees with the majority of local GOP judges, they get quotes like this one from Judge Michael McSpadden rebutting the unions' extremist stance:

State District Judge Michael McSpadden has presided over Houston's criminal cases since 1982. In that time, he said, the "War on Drugs" has been lost and he has changed his mind about his "get tough on crime" stance. He urges a policy of treatment and second chances for addicts.

"Pat Lykos and I are not close, and in fact probably don't like each other, but she's right about this," the veteran jurist said this week. "Almost everyone's in agreement except, I guess, the police unions."

McSpadden said he, not Lykos, has led the charge to change how these trace cases are handled.

"No one respects law enforcement more than I do, but they're wrong about this," McSpadden said. "I want them out there going after the career criminals, the sex offenders, the people who pose a real threat to our society, and not someone who has a residue amount of drugs."

Hear, hear!

Encouragingly, the reader comments under the Houston Chronicle story were, with few exceptions, overwhelmingly supportive of Lykos' stance and critical of the unions. Given the usual bent of Chronicle commenters, I found that surprising, but it confirms my sense that the issue the unions and Anderson chose to portray the incumbent DA as "soft on crime" will at best fall flat and potentially even backfire.

MORE: From Drug War Rant.

Houston police union rolling in cash, but six-figure thefts went unnoticed for years

In August, Grits criticized a phony-baloney charity called the Texas Highway Patrol Association for misrepresenting themselves in phone solicitations they claimed would raise money for the families of dead troopers, but which mostly go toward fundraising costs and into charity organizers' pockets. Now we get word that a Houston police officer was convicted last week of stealing $656,000 from the Houston Police Officers Union, including $400,000 from a phone solicitation arrangement similar to the THPA and another quarter million from the union's PAC. Reported the Houston Chronicle:

Testimony showed [Matthew] Calley stole more than $400,000 from an account dedicated to helping officers in dire financial straits and providing scholarships. It was funded by telephone solicitations of citizens and businesses.

The rest of the money Calley took was from the group's political action committee's account. Speaking to Calley, state District Judge Michael McSpadden said the 20-year sentence was because of the amount taken and "the betrayal of trust."

Calley faced punishment ranging from probation to life in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree felony theft in excess of $200,000 and misapplication of fiduciary funds.

Remarkably, this isn't the only such recent case involving Houston police union officials, reported the Chron:

Former Houston police officer Ronald L. Martin, 55, was sentenced to 10 years probation and restitution of $40,000 after pleading guilty in February to theft by a public servant.

Martin and his former son-in-law Jeffrey Larson, 43, both union officials, were indicted in 2008 on felony charges of misapplication of fiduciary property, accused of allowing between $100,000 and $200,000 to be stolen from the union.

Larson's case is pending trial.

Amazingly, union officials downplayed the impact of so much money being stolen:

Gary Blankinship, the union's president, said emergency union funds were not affected because the money was stolen gradually and not in one large amount.

"We've always had money in that account,'' Blankinship said. "Realize this went on for years and years to reach that amount. ... We were always able to meet obligations."

Blankinship said the thefts could have affected the number of scholarships awarded to children of police officers, but added they stayed "fairly consistent" over the years the theft occurred.

For union offiicials not to have noticed so much money missing from their charity and PAC tells this writer two things: 1) The union is rolling in cash, and 2) there's no meaningful oversight of how union funds are spent.