Posted on 01/05/2008 9:44:31 AM PST by flattorney
A conservative member of the state board of education is the newest entrant in the race for the Congressional seat held by Nick Lampson, D-Stafford. Richmond's Cynthia Dunbar joined the race for Congressional District 22, squaring off with nine other Republican candidates in the March primary. Dunbar won election to the SBOE in 2006, the same year Lampson wrested Tom DeLay's former Congressional seat from decades of Republican control. Also new to the race is Kevyn Bazzy, a U.S. Army reservist with a background in military intelligence. By the filing deadline Tuesday, here are the candidates, along with details of their hometowns, occupations and Web sites, if available:
1) Kevyn Bazzy, Houston, Army/military intelligence;
2) Cynthia Dunbar, Richmond, attorney;
3) Dean Hrbacek, Sugar Land, attorney, www.deanforcongress.com;
4) Brian Klock, Nassau Bay, Navy/finance;
5) John Manlove, Pasadena, advertising, www.johnmanloveforcongress.com;
6) Pete Olson, Sugar Land, attorney, www.olsonforcongress.com;
7) Ryan Rowley, Houston, information technology, www.ryan-rowley.com;
8) Shelley Sekula Gibbs, Houston, medical doctor, www.sekulagibbsforcongress. com;
9) Jim Squier, Houston, attorney, www.squierforcongress.com; and
10) Robert Talton, Pasadena, attorney/state representative, www.taltonforcongress.com
Lampson, who won the office after losing his previous Congressional seat in Beaumont, does not face a Democratic challenger.
Republican voters in portions of north and west Fort Bend County will be casting ballots for the Congressional District 14 race between incumbent Ron Paul of Lake Jackson, and two challengers - Friendswood City Councilman Chris Peden and Mark Mann. Though Paul is currently in a spirited campaign for the GOP nomination for president, he has indicated his intention to run for reelection in District 14 if he does not receive his party's nod.
1 seat going back to the right side of the column.
Should be an easy flip.
Prior to redistricting, Texas 22 was a safe district at 62% republican.
Delay needed some of those GOP voters in another district and 22 is now 52% republican, which was not a problem as long a Delay was the GOP candidate.
This doesn't mean that another GOP candidate can't win the district, it will just be more expensive. The dems are well funded and will be throwing lots of money at Delay's and Bonilla's old seats.
Now that the charges have been dropped against Tom, he should run again, and really shake things up.
??? The charges have not been dropped. - - Asked whether he can wrap up the DeLay case before he leaves office January 2009, Earle said: “I hope I can. If not, I’ll offer my services (on the case) pro bono to my successor.” - TAB
In one of the earliest deadlines in the country, the period to qualify for Texas’ March 4 primary election ended on Wednesday, and it’s clear that Republicans will fight hard to reclaim the two Texas districts they lost in 2006. The 22nd is a Houston-area district that is represented by Nick Lampson , and the 23rd District is a San Antonio-centered district that is held by Ciro D. Rodriguez . Those are the districts the Democrats wrested from Republican control in 2006 en route to winning a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Few if any Democratic victories in 2006 were more embarrassing to Republicans than Lampson’s win in Texas’ 22nd, a Republican-leaning area that had been represented by Tom DeLay, the former House Majority Leader who resigned in June 2006 after becoming politically weakened by ethics controversies. The strong Republican interest in reclaiming the 22nd is demonstrated by the ten Republicans who qualified to run in the primary election. The candidate roster includes former Rep. Shelley Sekula Gibbs, who was elected in a November 2006 special election that was scheduled after DeLay resigned in June. Sekula Gibbs served for just two months, though; she had to wage an ultimately unsuccessful write-in campaign for the full two-year term because DeLay resigned after the 2006 Republican primary election and left the GOP ballot slot vacant. Lampson won by 10 percentage points.
The rematch-minded Sekula Gibbs will be vigorously challenged in a March GOP primary that includes Pete Olson, a former chief of staff to Republican Sen. John Cornyn ; Jim Squier, a retired judge; state Rep. Robert Talton; Dean Hrbacek, the former mayor of Sugar Land, a Houston suburb; Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer; John Manlove, the former mayor of Pasadena; Ryan Rowley, an information technology worker; Kevyn Bazzy, an intelligence analyst; and Brian Klock, a former Navy officer.
Lampson, who is unopposed in the Democratic primary, had a more centrist voting record in 2007 than he did during his first House tenure, when he represented a district in and around Beaumont and Galveston that was more friendly to Democrats than his current district, which gave Bush 64 percent of the vote in 2004.
In the 23rd, a Hispanic-majority district that also takes in much of Texas’ border with Mexico, Rodriguez is unopposed in the Democratic primary and will face the winner of a Republican primary in which the candidates are Francisco “Quico” Canseco, a wealthy lawyer, and Lyle Larson, a commissioner in the county that includes San Antonio. A federal court in August 2006 redrew the boundaries of the 23rd to include more Hispanic voters after the Supreme Court invalidated the district’s configuration for the 2004 election as a violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. The court-imposed changes made the 23rd decidedly less Republican-leaning and enabled Rodriguez, who represented a different House district from 1997 through 2004, to unseat Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla in a runoff election in December 2006. But Rodriguez is far from safe — Republican Gov. Rick Perry narrowly carried the 23rd in the 2006 election, and Bush would have won 57 percent of the vote had the 2004 presidential election been replayed under the 2006 district lines.
Among the 13 Democrats in Texas’ U.S. House delegation, only Lampson and Rodriguez appear to have difficult re-election bids. CQ Politics presently rates the 22nd and 23rd districts as Leans Democratic.
Democratic Rep. Chet Edwards , whose 17th District takes in mostly conservative precincts of central Texas — including the presidential ranch in Crawford — is strongly favored to win a 10th term in November against Republican Rob Curnock, a video business owner who lost Republican primaries for the seat in 2000 and 2002.
Bush took 69 percent of the vote in Edwards’ district in 2004 — the president’s best showing in any district presently held by a Democrat in the U.S. House. But Edwards’ strong campaign skills and emphasis on veterans’ issues helped him prevail in 2006 over Republican Van Taylor, an Iraq War veteran and wealthy businessman, by 18 percentage points — a landslide win that surely made it difficult for Republican campaign recruiters to entice top-flight Republican candidates to the race.
Most if not all of the 19 Republicans in Texas’ U.S. House delegation should win new terms easily. One district to keep an eye on is the 10th, which includes part of Austin and some suburbs of Houston and where Republican Rep. Michael McCaul is seeking a third term after taking a somewhat modest 55 percent of the vote in 2006. McCaul is expected to face the winner of a Democratic primary that includes Dan Grant, a consultant who has a background in international affairs, and Larry Joe Doherty, a lawyer and judge who is the star of the courtroom reality show Texas Justice.
- - Primaries. A few Texas incumbents face intraparty challenges in the March 4 primary. One of them is Rep. Ron Paul , who is seeking re-election in the southeastern 14th District even as he wages a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in which his libertarian and anti-Iraq War views have attracted national attention and a loyal online following. Chris Peden, an accountant, is challenging Paul’s renomination. Texas law allows Paul to seek both offices simultaneously, though we’ll know by March 4 whether Paul’s presidential candidacy is still viable.
Republican Rep. Ralph M. Hall , who represents the Republican-leaning 4th District in northeastern Texas, has drawn four primary challengers: Kathy Seei, the former mayor of Frisco; Gene Christensen, a businessman and Republican activist; Kevin George, a businessman; and Joshua Kowert, a graduate student. Hall, who became a Republican in 2004 after a long career as a conservative Democrat, is the oldest member of the House of Representatives (he will turn 85 in May).
The Democratic candidates in Texas’ 4th are Glenn Melancon, a history professor, and VaLinda Hathcox, a lawyer who was the losing 2006 Democratic nominee for Texas Land Commissioner.
- - Senate. Republican Sen. John Cornyn is seeking a second term in a state that has not elected a Democratic senator in 20 years. Larry Kilgore, who took 8 percent of the vote in a 2006 primary challenge to Republican Gov. Rick Perry , opposes Cornyn in the primary.
The likely Democratic nominee for the Senate seat is Rick Noriega, a state representative and a military veteran whose candidacy was promoted by the liberal “netroots” activists. Noriega will be heavily favored in the primary election over lesser-known opponents Ray McMurrey, Gene Kelly and Rhett R. Smith.
http://cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002651527
Posted for FlAttorney by TAB
More quality reporting by the Fort Bend Herald. /sarc
Andy Mann dropped out of the CD 14 race and is endorsing Chris Peden.
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