LUCIOS, OLIVEIRAS, ORTIZ, AND NOW THE VELAS THINK THEY ARE THE CHOSEN

By Juan Montoya
It's getting to the point where one needs a scorecard to keep track of who's a Democrat and who's a Republican in Cameron County.
Take for example, Judge Rolando Olvera, of the 455th District Court. Twice Olvera was appointed to the bench by Gov. Rick Perry, and faled to get elected as a Republican. When he jumped shop and took the Democratic oath, he was welcomed with open arms back into the fold. He easily won office and now has no opponents in this election cycle.
Does than make him a Democrat? Probably not. He just recognized that it was easier to swim with the tide than against it, political philosophy notwithstanding.
He, like the Lucios (Eddie Jr. and Eddie III), Solomon Ortiz (Father and son), Rene Oliveira, and now Filemon Vela, is in for the long run, and see the political landscape and elected office as their birthright and domain.
How can Filemon, who is listed as the treasurer for Connie Scott, currently the Republican candidate for State Representative in House District 34, run as a Democrat?
In 2010, Connie Scott was elected to her first session in the Texas House of Representatives serving district 34, which includes a segment of Corpus Christi, as well as Agua Dulce, Banquete, Bishop, Driscoll, Petronilla, and Robstown. Fil, as his friends in Corpus Christi call him, has contributed thousands of dollars to the Republican cause. As it obvious in the oja suelta that is being distributed in the county, his wife Rose Vela is a Republican candidate running against Democrat Judge Rogelio Valdez.
His brother Ralph is a Republican. Poor cousin Manny Vela is left holding the bag as the only Democrat in the family, and a patented nice guy who was at one time the chairman of the Cameron County Democratic party.
Vela, Jr. Is a Republican who has organized and supported many Republican candidates in Nueces County for at least 10 years. He convinced his wife Rose, originally elected as a Democrat, to run as a Republican. Does he think the voters here in Cameron County do not know any better, a reader asked?
When I first came back home to work at the Brownsville Herald I got the chance to cover the federal courthouse beat and met his father Filemon Vela Sr. Despite the myth built by the Velas around this man, he was a cranky, and sometimes downright mean judge toward some of the defendants, especially local Hispanics who were charged with transporting aliens.
(It's not as bad as it sounds. Sometimes this involved taking the Matamoros maid to the bridge, or picking up the gardener by the side of the Rio Grande. At one time or another, many local families employed people from Matamoros top help out with the kids and do chores around the house while the heads of the families worked.)
After browbeating them mercilessly, he would issue punishment that usually meant a stiff fine and a probationary period.
His assistant Butch Barbosa inherited some of the man's illusions of grandeur and once tried to deny me as a reporter access to the case files. It wasn't until the judge was approached that Barbosa relented and let go of the files.
I attended a political function once at the Padre Island Convention Center. Filemon Sr. had just given a moralistic speech about staying is school that was politely received. His forte was not public speaking. However, I was seated next to him and out of politeness complimented him on the speech.
He literally glowed in the adulation and asked me if I had had the pleasure of hearing the one he had given the students at Vela Middle School. I said I hadn't.

"Now that was a good speech," he said. "You would have loved it."

Fil Sr. comnsidered himself a devout Catholic and often attended Mass at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Brownsville. Yet, this same man was the only Hispanic federal judge who issued the death penalty to Brownsville resident Juan Garza for his crimes running a pot-smuggling operation between Mexico and the Midwest. Garza was the second federal inmate who got the needle after Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City and killed 168 people, including 19 children under the age of 6, and injured more than 680 people. During the trial, over the objections of Garza's defense, Fil Sr. allowed testimony from co-defendants who testified against Garza admitted their self-serving testimony claiming Garza had ordered the killing of two or three fellow drug runners in Mexico to be heard by the jury.

Regardless of your stand on the death penalty, can one really equate the massive destruction of the federal building and the loss of life to disputes over territory and money among common criminals?

The Velas have a sense of self-importance that carried over to the other members of the family. I was a campaign manager for Lucino Rosenabum when Ray Ramon ran against him for commissioner of Pct. 1. The race was head to head and went into a runoff that Rosenbaum won by a mere six votes.
Ray asked for a recount and assigned Moises Vela, Filemon Sr.'s brother, to act as his representative. I represented Lucino as we went through the machines at the county warehouse. Melchor Chavez was the recount judge.
We were starting the recount when suddenly, Mo turned around and looming over both of us (Melchor was just a mite shorter than me), he said livid with anger: "You know, you stink!"
Chavez and I stopped in out tracks. What to say? Mo was a respected politician who was once county judge. We just made believe we hadn't heard anything and continued with our chores. But that was something I would never forget when someone mentions the Velas.
And who can forget the high-stakes arm twisting that went on when the family moved mountains to have Filemon Sr.'s name share top billing with Reynaldo Garza at the federal courthouse.
The family showered then-congressman Solomon Ortiz with trips to China and political contributions to get the process and recognition of their patriarch emblazoned on the new federal court house. It wasn't until they found out that hapless Ortiz did not know how the process worked that they finally turned to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson to turn the trick and fulfill their wishes for recognition for posterity.

And now, carrying the memory of Fil Sr. as one hangs on to coattails, Fil Jr. is making a run for Congress and asking us to put aside our political philosophy to raise the Vela name to its rightful place as true leaders of the people.

Sorry Fil Jr. We're not buying.