EARLY VOTING IN SPECIAL CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION FOR OLD DISTRICT 34 TO REPLACE FILEMON VELA STARTS TODAY

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Just when you thought elections were over.
Think again.

Today is the start of early voting in the race in the special congressional election to complete the unexpired term of U.S. Congressional District 34 U.S. Representative Filemon Vela. He resigned effective March 31. Whoever emerges from the primary election will serve the rest of the term that ends Dec. 31, 2022.

Four candidates are running in a the special general election, two Republicans and two Democrats. (See ballot below).

Early voting ends Friday, June 10, 2022 and election day is Tuesday, June 14. If none of the candidates gets 50 percent plus one vote after the June 14 election, it will go to a runoff between the two top vote-getters, meaning that whoever wins the runoff election will serve perhaps five months of Vela's unexpired term.

The Democrats have rallied behind Sanchez, who was elected Cameron County commissioner in 2011 and previously served as a justice of the peace for Cameron County from 2003 to 2010. 

He received endorsements from Vela and U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez. 

The Republicans are supporting Mayra Flores, who's never held office. She has been endorsed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi (R) and the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund.

More importantly, the GOP and its Political Action Committees have poured $100,000s into the race trying to make inroads into traditionally-Democrat South Texas. In her last report, Flores lists $347,758 in contributions from the Republican Party as of March 31. https://ballotpedia.org/Texas%27_34th_Congressional_District_special_election,_2022

The four candidates will run in District 34 boundaries before the 2020 redistricting which covers counties from the Rio Grande in South Texas 34th Congressional District of Texas, which consists of all or parts of Bee, Cameron, DeWitt, Goliad, Gonzales, Hidalgo, Jim Wells, Kenedy, Kleberg, San Patricio, and Willacy counties;

Flores is already set to face Vicente Gonzalez in the November general election for a two-year term in the new District 34.

Confused? We don't blame you. So are we. But we have written about Flores before and we include the story below. Running on the Republican pro-gun, anti-immigrant platform in the wake of the Uvalde mass shooting of 19 elementary school kids and two teachers, the message has not resonated locally. We include the story below:

MAYRA FLORES, WITH HER "ANTI-IMMIGRANT/GUN RIGHTS" DOG WHISTLE NOW TEXAS REPUBLICANS' DE FACTO TROJAN HORSE

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

The timing couldn't have been worse.

Just last Friday, a mailer from the Republican Party of Texas in support of candidate Mayra Flores in the  upcoming District 37 special congressional election arrived in local mailboxes.

Her pro-gun, ant-immigrant message surely did not resonate among local residents who are still in mourning in the wake of the shooting deaths of 19 elementary school children and two teachers in Uvalde. 

All over the country, flags are flying at half mast and a growing call for sensible background checks to keep assault weapons from unstable people.

And it was the Republican-led Texas Legislature and Governor Greg Abbott who did away with gun permits and who lowered the age of individuals to 18 so they can purchase the weapons just as Salvador Ramos – the psychopath who caused the massacre at Robb Elementary – was able to do days after he turned 18.

"You get much more of a background check to get a driver's license," said a patron at a local bar. "They ask for citizenship, whether you take medication, owe child support, have any DWI's, and numerous other questions. That's because a car can be a dangerous weapon. How much more dangerous is an assault rifle? And Ramos was able to buy not one, but two, AR-15s without any questions and walk out. Even when you get a marriage license you have to wait for at least 72 hours so you can think it over."

Then, the woman who herself was born in Burgos, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and allowed to migrate to the United States, promises to "seal and secure the border," to keep out unwanted immigrants and asylum seekers "defend and fund law enforcement and border patrol" ostensibly to defend us, and protect the right of Texans to defend themselves" like the Uvalde gunman. 

Fact is, the Uvalde ISD and city police failed to protect the shooting victims, as it has now become clearly apparent.

Sounding more Catholic than the pope, Flores also rails at the "D.C. Democrats" who "open the border to drug and human trafficking," and destroy the right to defend your family."

Pictured among the "D.C. Democrats" is former Cameron County Pct. 2 commissioner Dan Sanchez, one of her two Democratic opponents in the special election. He is pictured with a mad-looking President Joe Biden and a confused V.P. Kamala Harris.

But wait! 

Sanchez has never been elected to the U.S. House or Senate before. So how can he be a D.C.  Democrat? Fact is, he isn't. But if he beats her in the upcoming June 14 election, he might become one.

Even if she loses in the special election, she will face Vicente Gonzalez in the November general election on the GOP ticket. With this mailer, Flores has become the de facto Texas Republicans' Trojan Horse.

Flores apparently doesn't let facts get in the way, as when she claims she picked cotton in the fields with her parents to buy clothes and shoes for school when she was 13.

If she graduated from San Benito High School in 2004 – as her website claims – then she was 18 then. Take away five years and she was 13 in 1999, some 30 years after cotton had been harvested mechanically (1969 or 1970).

We said at the outset that the mailer's timing was bad. We also say that now is the time to call her out on her anti-immigrant/gun rights dog whistle.