Category: Election 2020

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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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.

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.

Sec'y of State Releases New Candidate Guidelines

26/8/2019

Psst. Hey you. Wanna run for office as a Green or Libertarian? There's an app for that.

As of this writing, the Secretary of State's Office has not released the petition sheet for candidates in convention-nominating parties who are too broke or cheap to pay the filing fee. That will supposed be ready next week.

The important dates to remember right now, if you are even contemplating a run for office, are 9 November and 9 December. Those are the beginning and ending dates of the period for filing an application with your county or state party. The November date is the earliest date you can walk into the SOS Office with your filing fee, the amounts for which are displayed in a table on the paged linked above.

It's Not a Real Clown Car If It Doesn't Make You Laugh

24/8/2019

The DNC honchos are having a meeting; they'll have to decide who they'll next be unseating. It's all been decided: Jay Inslee must go; his climate agenda's a threat to our Joe. The next to be booted is young Andrew Yang. Screw him and that nasty Millennial gang! And Beto, and Cory, and Julian, and Amy? No problem with them. They're so safe and so

The situation of the world is dire, but we still need a chuckle now and then to keep us from (insert preferred method of suicide here). Fortunately, the Democratic pre-primary reality TV series is providing us with a few laughs amid all the WTF and SMH moments.

With permission from the author, I present this bit of Seuss-esque anapestic fun that Trudy Hess wrote for the Movement for a People's Party. Trudy and I both contribute to Caitlin Johnstone's Patreon and frequent the secret Facebook group for Caity's patrons.

Regarding the text, I have just one quibble worth raising: The Democratic Party doesn't always nominate the world's biggest chump, even for president. Maybe substitute "As always..." in that verse with "Like last time...."

As of this week, we can add to Bernie Sanders's bullet-point agenda his own variation of the Green New Deal. If he wins the nomination, we can hope that he will implement it without too much pushback from the two corporate parties; if the Dems nominate someone who doesn't advocate the GND, we can kiss our future as a species toodle-oo.

Because I have become more sensitive to accessibility in recent years, I have transcribed the entire poem in the Alt text.

GPUS National Convention: Detroit 2020 Maybe

22/8/2019

The National Meeting Committee of the Green Party of the United States has selected Detroit MI as the venue for the next Green Presidential Nomination Convention, to be held 9-12 July 2020.

Or has it? So says Green Party Watch, anyway. Ballot Access News has a very short item, completely lacking in links.

For what it's worth, there's more detail on Wikipedia. The wiki also notes that this choice marks a return to Detroit after the Annual National Meeting there in 2010.

The decision was announced on the GPUS Facebook group page earlier this week. As of today, I can't find anything about it on gp.org, but the website crew may be waiting for more details to fall into place. There is also plenty of Election 2019 to discuss, and this year's ANM just ended a month ago.

Is Al Gore Officially a Prophet Yet?

2/8/2019

Remember what Al Gore said about Greenland in "An Inconvenient Truth"? It's happening. https://t.co/2p5Dpr2QAE
— David Bruce Collins □☮ (@dbcgreentx) August 2, 2019

Back in 2016, former Vice President Al Gore came to Houston to deliver the two-day Climate Reality Project speaker training, and Kayleen signed up for it. She got to spend some time with one of her heroes: She had shown excerpts from An Inconvenient Truth to her World Geography students back in her teaching days.

Gore, a Democrat to his very marrow, became less of a hero in her eyes when he came out in favor of his old friend Hillary Clinton in her quest for the presidency. The whole movement lost its luster as Kayleen discovered that the overwhelming majority of those present for the training placed their faith in the Democratic Party and its candidates to solve the impending climate crisis. Cuz we know that President Barack Obama dedicated his entire eight years in the White House to reversing climate change, starting at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in 2009--NOT!

So Kayleen, dejected, never did any Climate Reality speaking gigs. As consolation she did meet a new friend who came to the training from Zimbabwe, and who is now studying climate science in Paris. So we may have someone to visit if we ever make it to France.

None of the text below, which mentions several Democrats by name, is meant to imply that I'm turning into a Democrat. Generally, I vote for Democrats in local races in which there is no Green running. I will promote candidates and elected office-holders whose views I find genuinely progressive—regardless of how the Democratic Party establishment may treat them, regardless of occasional votes that seem at odds with the progressive agenda. I will defend them from baseless smears propagated by any party or media outlet. (Your findings of progressivity may vary, and that's OK: even Greens don't agree on everything.)

<<Previous

Updated List of Green Candidates for 2020

2020 Green Candidates

Cognitive Dissonance Sunday

Shortest. Candidacy. Ever.

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

Hawkins Completes Texas Tour in Houston

Sec'y of State Releases New Candidate Guidelines

It's Not a Real Clown Car If It Doesn't Make You Laugh

GPUS National Convention: Detroit 2020 Maybe

Is Al Gore Officially a Prophet Yet?

DBC Sez...

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