DE LEON NOT GIVING UP: SUES TEXAS SEC. OF STATE

By Juan Montoya

Just before the deadline to dispute the decision by Texas Sec. of State Hope Andrade to keep his name off the ballot in November as an Independent for Congressional District 34 expired, Don Del Leon has filed a petition to a temporary and permanent injunction against the state.

De Leon, who filed his motion pro se in the 103rd District Court at 4 p.m. on Friday, is asking that the state be barred from leaving him off the ballot claiming that as "a person who is being harmed or in danger of being harmed by a violation of the (Election Code) is entitled to appropriate injunctive relief to prevent the violation from continuing or occurring."

He states in his lawsuit that on November 12, 2011, he filed his letter of intent to run as an independent candidate for Congressional District 27. On February 2012, he amended his petition in order to run for the Congressional District 34 election in order to comply with the new re-districting map that encompasses Cameron County.

Then, on April 10, 2012, he said he received the prescribed forms from the Sec. of State that needed to be completed in order to place his name on the ballot.
Being an Independent candidate, he said he was not given the option of paying the filing fee and instead had to obtain a minimum of 500 qualified registered voters' signatures that reside within the district who had not voted in the primary election for the office. In fact, De Leon says, he not only complied with the requisite 500 valid voters' signatures, he actually turned over closer to 800 valid signatures of Cameron County residents as a "cushion" to hedge his bets.
In fact, he says, the Sec. of State should be well aware that all of Cameron County residents reside within the Congressional District 34. These were all delivered by is dad former City of Brownsville commissioner Ernesto De Leon within the June 29 deadline.
Yet, he said, Andrade's office on July 19 forwarded him a notification that his application for his independent candidacy for District 34 had been rejected because his petition had omitted District 34 on the "Office Sought" line on the form.
In his petition, De Leon says Andrade's decision to keep his name off the ballot will cause him to be "severely and irreparably harmed" given the fact that the Sec. of State "failed to provide (me) with an opportunity to amen.and or cure the defect."
He further claims that given the fact that he filed the petition within the deadline, the defect could have been cured then.
He asks that the court issue a temporary and permanent injunction enjoining and restraining the state from keeping his name off the ballot in November, printing election materials without his including his name, and to approve his position on the ballot for District 34 as an Independent.
He said that the two candidates who are vying for the post – Democrat Filemon Vela Jr. and Republican Jessica Puente Bradshaw – are both really Republicans and that the voters who signed his petition deserve a choice.
"Close to 800 voters in Cameron County wanted to have my name on the ballot as an Independent," De Leon said. "I could not in good faith allow the state to disenfranchise them. The constitutional right to elect a candidate of your choice surely outweighs any capricious act by the sate to deny them that right."
The state has not answered De Leon's petition and a hearing has not been set.