COUNTY GOP: LATINO/AS NEED NOT APPLY FOR CONVENTION

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

We remember when Tony Garza – then an attorney and before he became Cameron County Judge, Texas Railroad Commissioner and then U.S. Ambassador to Mexico – was nominated for a position on the Cameron County Republican party.

Longtime GOP chair Frank Morris had nominated him and Garza had invited a Democratic party county commissioner and his assistant to accompany him to the meeting at the Radisson on South Padre Island to show that his selection would allow the party to make inroads into the Democrats. His opponent was an unknown from Laguna Vista nominated by local residents, most of them blue hairs and snowbirds from the Midwest. 

Garza was an eloquent speaker, and regaled the audience of his rise from lower middle class with a newspaper route when he was  a boy who had risen to his place by the dint of ambition and hard work. The other gave a mediocre speech. Garza was Hispanic. HIs opponent was a white man..

When the time came to vote, Morris was dumbfounded. Garza lost handily.

"They just don't get it, do they?," Morris whispered to the table.

Well, guess what? The new crew under Mayra Flores-controlled county chair Deborah Bell still doesn't get it either.

Take, for example, how they handled their business in San Antonio last week. Are we interested? Most would respond that not exactly, but it does provide plenty of laughter on a slow news day.

We received tidbits from this past week's Republican State Convention. Bell and her "Band Of Mean Girls" will not even send one Latino delegate from our county to the Republican National convention to be held July 15 to 18, 2024, at the Fisery Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Milwaukee, the national delegates will nominate the twice-impeached and many-times indicted (and now convicted felon) former president Donald Trump to serve as the party's presidential nominee.

Their first national delegate is none other than Brad Burkes. He moved here from corn country a few years ago. You may know him as the City of Brownsville chaplain since the days of the thankfully gone regime of Pat  Ahumada's administration at city hall. Did a miracle from the Virgin Mary keep him at that position for all these years? 

Everyone in the county's Elephant Caucus fawn over him calling him Pastor Brad, although his claim to fame he is basically a Bible thumping pastor of a small Monday night Bible study group.  

The second national delegate is another Caucasian white. Jeneria Lewis hails from Sinton, Texas, you know, right up the road from the King Ranch, almost a neighbor. Her political Facebook page says she lives in South Padre Island but serves as an elected official in Bayview. Go figure.

 The local MAGA Republicans voted to make her a member of the State Republican Executive Committee (SREC) to serve alongside Royce Albrecht, another Caucasian white, for the Texas GOP. He's from Nueces County where he allegedly volunteers (really?) as Texas Senate District 27 candidate Adam Hinojosa's campaign manager.

The third national delegate is Charles Wright.  He is a party insider from the Carolinas. He barely moved here but Debby ("Clang Clang) Bell made sure he was going to Wisconsin in the summer. As national alternate number one, they selected a Winter Texan from – of all places – Wisconsin. The Bell Posse tried to put in his wife as alternate number two but they put in a young lady from a well- known political family.

Princess Peña is the wife of Aron Pena and a Justice of the Peace candidate in Hidalgo County. Princess is really her name. She is a Latina and will serve as national alternate number two for Congressional District 34. Her husband lives in Congressional District 15 and he is going to the National Convention for that district. 

The Cameron County Republicans who made up the super majority of the congressional caucus then went and elected another white man. They say he's new here too and works as a pharmacist at CVS. This is the best of the best of the Cameron County Republicans?  No Latino/a was good enough.

Where is Mayra Flores, the Great Latina Hope, in all of this? She is taking in big bucks from all over the country on the promise that Hispanics are switching parties here in south Texas.  Well, if they are, where is the party representation of Latinos?  If they don't care, why should we?

Like Morris said so many years ago: "They just don't get it, do they?"