The Craddick Wars: Mixed Results
If the primaries were in part a referendum on House Speaker Tom Craddick (and those Democratic reps seen as too close to him), the results were mixed. While Dawnna Dukes pummeled challenger Brian Thompson (who ran much of his campaign on claims of links between the two) in East Austin, there were closer races in Hidalgo County for accused Craddick cohorts. Incumbent Aaron Peña defeated Eddie Saenz in House District 40 by six percentage points, while Kino Flores edged challenger Sandra Rodriguez in HD 36 by only four. The big prize of the night for opponents of the speaker was the defeat in HD 140 of Kevin Bailey, by former congressional staffer Armando Lucio Walle. Early voting looked to have sealed the deal for the incumbent with 54% to the challenger’s 46%; on election day, Walle reversed the count, scooping the nomination with 57% of the vote and no Republican opposition in November.
The orthodoxy test of loyalty to Craddick was not restricted to Democrats: Among the major Craddick-backing Republicans facing challenges, Charles “Doc” Anderson (HD 56) and Charlie Howard (HD 26) comfortably dispatched their opponents, but freshman rep Nathan Macias in Bulverde was dragged down to the wire by Doug Miller, the former mayor of New Braunfels, and wound up losing by 0.13%.
Several Republicans who had taken a public stand against Craddick faced challenges themselves. Corsicana’s Byron Cook, along with Jim Keffer, had requested an attorney general’s opinion on the limits of Craddick’s powers: Tuesday he defeated Bobby Vickery by a better than 2-to-1 majority. Similarly, Craddick critics Delwin Jones (HD 83) and Charlie Geren (HD 99) defeated opponents by double digits. But El Paso’s Pat Haggerty, who lead the quorum-busting walkout against Craddick last session, has lost his place to Dee Margo, a Rick Perry-endorsed businessman who lost to Democratic state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh in 2006. And 13-term legislator Al Edwards, who lost his District 146 job to Borris Miles in 2006 in part due to his closeness to Craddick, got it back Tuesday night, with 61% of the vote.
The balance of House power may in the end come down to Odessa, where retired state District Judge Tryon Lewis leads incumbent Buddy West 44%-38% in a four-way race, forcing a run-off on April 8. – R.W.
This article appears in March 7 • 2008.
