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David Bruce Collins for US Senate—the Official Site

Updated List of Green Candidates for 2020

20/12/2019

We have an update to last week's entry on candidates for nomination by the Green Party of Texas in 2020. (Actually, we had it several days ago, but I'm just now getting around to posting the information.) There are two more names on the list, bringing the total to four:

Dan Lyon, State Representative, HD-45 (Hays and Blanco Counties)
Forrest John Hampton, State Representative, HD-66 (SW Collin County)
Brody Mulligan, State Representative, HD-92 (Eastern Tarrant County)
Hal Ridley, Jr., US Representative, TX-36 (SE corner of the state)

Apart from Ridley, I don't recall ever meeting these guys. I may have met them, but the names are not familiar. But then, I haven't been to a state meeting or convention since 2017. Mulligan has participated in discussions on the GPTX Slack channel.

In recent Slack discussions, former GPTX co-chair Laura Palmer and others have observed that the paucity of paying candidates strongly illustrates the dampening effect of filing fees. This is useful information to present in the pending lawsuit against the Secretary of State's Office.

Meanwhile, Texas Libertarians have considerably more candidates, putting their fundraising apparatus to good use and making sure money was available to cover fees. Sadly, lptexas.org does not have a list of candidates online where I can find it—but then, neither does txgreens.org yet. No candidate listings really became official, vis-a-vis the state, until yesterday (19 December).

Months ago I noted (somewhere in this blog) that the Greens need to start devoting more time and energy to active fundraising, via NationBuilder or other means. We cannot count on a favorable outcome to the lawsuit. If I had any fundraising acumen at all, I would be among the first to get the effort underway.

More to follow, I'm sure.

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2020 Green Candidates

13/12/2019

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Per Green Party of Texas co-chair Alfred Molison, two people have filed to run as Green candidates in 2020 and accompanied their applications with the requisite fees. Neither of the paying candidates has applied to run in a statewide race, although eight Green presidential candidates have filed in Texas. Despite rumors that Charles Waterbury would make another run for Supreme Court, he is not among those listed as having filed.

Those Who Paid
Golden Triangle hellraiser Hal Ridley, Jr., will make his third run for Congress from House District 36, which extends from eastern Harris County to the Louisiana line and up into the Piney Woods a few counties. Democrat Rashad Lewis has also filed to run for the extremely safe seat that Republican Brian Babin, D.D.S., currently occupies.

In Texas House District 92, northeastern Tarrant County, Brody Mulligan has filed to run for that seat. Incumbent Jonathan Stickland is not seeking re-election; he also is not seeking higher office. Two Republicans and three Democrats are contending for the nominations of their respective parties.

The Rebels
The other prospective Green candidates have filed in hopes of the pending lawsuit succeeding in overturning the fee requirements imposed by HR 2504. Keep in mind that this may not be a complete list, although it does include two instance kat gruene. Longtime Greenie gruene has not been active with GPTX for a while, pursuing other projects, but she has filed for a statewide position and a districted position, both without paying a fee.

To see where the various legislative districts lie, see the District Viewer site for Texas House , Senate, and State Board of Education.

US Senate
David B. Collins

US House of Representatives
Alfred Molison District 8
Tommy Wakely District 21

State Positions
katija "kat" gruene for Texas Railroad Commissioner
Debbie Russell for State Board of Education, District 5

Texas State Senate
Corey Bowers, District 9

Texas State House of Representatives
Dan Lyon, District 45
katija "kat" gruene, District 51
Forest Hampton, District 66
Kashif Riaz, District 67
Jamar Osborne, District 103 (I hope he hasn't also filed with the Libertarian Party this time.)
Antonio Padron, District 119

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Cognitive Dissonance Sunday

9/12/2019

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This past Sunday, Rev. Dr. Collin Bossen, interim senior minister at First UU Houston, delivered one of a series of sermons on the topic of hope. He began his talk with reminiscences of his participation in the massive "Teamsters & Turtles" protests against the World Trade Organization's meeting in Seattle 20 years ago last week. I loved reliving the Battle of Seattle with him, although in 1999 I was watching it all via IndyMedia from 2,000 miles away.

After all the warm-fuzzy nostalgia, I became a little perturbed and more than a little perplexed.

A towering majority of my congregation identify as Democrats. It's practically assumed that UU's are Democrats by default, a great many of them on the progressive wing. Voting for Democrats and cheering on favored candidates in primaries are practically autonomic reflexes in this crowd. I noticed a few fellow-congregants in the sanctuary yesterday getting the same nostalgic feels from Rev. Bossen's recounting of anti-corporate demonstrations and the movements they sparked.

So why the perplexity and perturbation? It boils quickly and neatly down to this:

How the Olympic-size fuck does anyone who agrees with the sentiments of the WTO protesters—not to mention the Occupy Wall Street activists of 2011-12—justify continuing to vote for Democrats in our national elections? or even our state and local elections?

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Shortest. Candidacy. Ever.

9/12/2019

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Hi y'all. This blog is back in business, although its proprietor may have to return it full strength gradually.

Two months ago, I put this thing on hold. A week before that, I was making noise about running as a Green for the US Senate currently occupied by Texas's senior senator John Cornyn. The plan was to run on the standard Green platform but make a lot of noise about Instant Runoff Voting and Move to Amend's proposed "We the People" Amendment.

Today, 9 December, is Texas's deadline to submit to the Secretary of State's Office (or the various County Clerks' offices) applications to run in the 2020 elections. Last Wednesday I gave mine to Green Party of Texas co-chair Alfred Molison, so that he could take it to Austin today. However, unless something changes very dramatically and very soon, my candidacy will be over before it has even begun. Click the Read More link to get the details.

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Blog, Calendar on Hiatus

9/10/2019

Due to some recent changes in life circumstances, DBC won't be able to post to this blog very much, if at all, for the next few weeks. The Activist Calendar section has also been hidden for the time being.

Alert the Prog Blog Squad, We're In for 2020

2/10/2019

Greenings, y'all! Sorry it's been a while since I last had time just to sit & blog. There has been plenty to keep me busy lately, between health issues, computer issues, & occasional gigs. Amid all that, I am trying to get my candidate muscles working again, starting a campaign for US Senate from Texas in 2020. This is the seat that John Corny currently occupies.

Consider this a soft opening for the campaign. We'll have a louder opening soon, after dbcgreentx.org undergoes some refurbishment.

Please Understand the Following

I need to submit 5,000 petition signatures or $5,000 by 9 December, the deadline for candidate filing.
I don't have $5,000. Sometimes even $5 is hard to come up with.
I'm not good at asking people for money. If you are, I could use some help in that department. But I'd rather get on the ballot via petition.
Very important: Those who sign the petition will be ineligible to vote in the big-party primaries or be delegates to any other party's conventions. That's the law. They also may not sign petitions for any other Green candidates for Senate.
About 70% of registered voters in Texas typically don't vote in primaries anyway. The trick is finding them.
If a stronger Green candidate emerges between now and December, I will end my campaign & help that candidate instead. There's no reason to try collecting 10,000 or more valid signatures for the same office.
If Sema Hernández wins the Democratic nomination in March 2020, I do not plan to campaign against her, but will instead use my position as Green nominee to campaign for Instant Runoff Voting in Texas.

Climate Strike in Houston, Featuring TS Imelda

21/9/2019

High school student as the Climate Strike rally at Houston's City Hall holding up a pasteboard saying,

Climate Strike Houston was promoted as a family-friendly event. One young activist pushed the envelope a bit.

Well, we did the thing. In our own small-town-in-a-big-city way, we did the thing. More than a thousand of us, probably closer to two thousand, skipped school and work (which for many was closed due to the remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda) to gather at City Hall.

Imelda showed up too, about 45 minutes into the rally. By 1 pm, quite a few of us were soaked through, as if we had all cannonballed into the reflecting pool at Hermann Square without stripping down first.

The young climate-strikers gave some speeches, ranging in quality from pretty good to excellent, on a barely adequate public address system. There were clever signs and lots of sincerity. After about an hour and a half, some young'ns started a slippery game of tag on the lawn. A few elected officials and candidates showed up, but they wisely did not try to hijack the proceedings from the young leaders.

Through the downpour, there were chants of "We're Still Here!" As, indeed, we were.

Chronicle: GPTX Ballot Access and Climate Policy

19/9/2019

Chronicle photo of ten Green Party candidates with fists raised at a press conference during the Green Party's 2016 national convention at the University of Houston.

Green Party candidates from Texas and across the country hold up their fists after speaking at a press conference at the Green Party Convention at the University of Houston Friday, August 5, 2016 in Houston. (Michael Ciaglo / Houston Chronicle)

PDiddie's comment on the most recent entry alerted me to Marina Kormbaki's article in the Chronicle's online edition. (UPDATE: GPTX comrade Don Cook has informed us that the story is also in the print edition, on page A-3.) I had thought that the author would send me a message when it went to digital press; perhaps Janis Richards, Laura Palmer, and I will hear from her today.

As coverage of the Green Party in mainstream papers goes, Kormbaki's piece is above average. It contains no obvious factual errors and treats the Party as a legitimate political movement, not just a one-off human-interest story. It certainly doesn't hurt that Kormbaki works for a German news outlet aligned with the Social Democrats, a party whose role as leaders of the left is gradually shifting to the Greens, as is happening elsewhere in Europe.

The photo selected to accompany the article features some Greenfolk I love and admire, such as the late Ashely "Flashe" Gordon (on the right end, partially obscured by a camera). This photo helps bust the persistent myth that the Green Party is just for old white recovering hippies. It is a microcosm of the convention delegates and the Party as a whole: diverse in ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and other dimensions.

dbc Interviewed for Chronicle Article

13/9/2019

Too bad the headline couldn't be "dbc Interviewed for Job at Chronicle." But I can fantasize that my editorial skills are worthy of a position at the Chron.

Exchange journalist Marina Kormbaki, who also appears in this entry, interviewed me by phone today for about a half-hour. She also interviewed my Green comrade Laura Palmer and possibly some others. The interviews covered several overlapping topics, all having to do with the state of the Green Party in Texas and its positions on climate policy, in light of the Democrats' debate devoting all of five minutes to The Biggest Existential Threat Other Than Thermonuclear Annihilation last night.

I'll let y'all know when Kormbaki's article appears in the print or online editions of the Chronicle.

Hawkins Completes Texas Tour in Houston

10/9/2019

A group photo with nine of the attendees at Howie Hawkins's campaign appearance, plus Don and Laura Palmer's two children.

Presidential candidate Howie Hawkins (third from left, in the Teamsters t-shirt) met with some Houston-area Greenies at the Palmers' residence.

First, a disclaimer: I like and respect Howie Hawkins as a candidate for president, but I haven't entirely made up my mind whether I'll be a delegate for him at the Green Convention in Detroit next year. I also like and respect Dario Hunter, the other Green who has met the requirements for presidential candidacy thus far, but I have yet to meet him in person.

That said, after last night (see this hour-long video of last night if you're so inclined), if Hawkins does win the Green presidential nomination, I plan to campaign for him as hard as I did for Jill Stein in 2012 and 2016, and possibly as hard as I remember promoting Ralph Nader in 2000. This is especially true if the Democratic Party nominates yet another triangulating centrist.

I am willing to overlook recent missteps in which Hawkins echoed the establishment narrative about Russia interfering with US elections, because no candidate is going to get everything right. Folks who accuse Greens of imposing "purity tests" on candidates because we can't abide voting for centrist Democrats can stick those accusations where the proverbial sun don't shine.

More importantly, however, I have enormous respect for some of the progressive luminaries lining up to support him, including the late Bruce A. Dixon and 2016 VP nominee Ajamu Baraka of Black Agenda Report. Plus, yesterday former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, briefly a presidential candidate in this cycle, urged his supporters to back...no, not Bernie; no, not Tulsi; Howie.

<<Previous

Updated List of Green Candidates for 2020

2020 Green Candidates

Cognitive Dissonance Sunday

Shortest. Candidacy. Ever.

Blog, Calendar on Hiatus

Alert the Prog Blog Squad, We're In for 2020

Climate Strike in Houston, Featuring TS Imelda

Chronicle: GPTX Ballot Access and Climate Policy

dbc Interviewed for Chronicle Article

Hawkins Completes Texas Tour in Houston

DBC Sez...

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