Last week, with the Central Labor Council endorsements looming, former state Rep. Glen Maxey again went on the offensive against 16-year incumbent Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Nelda Wells Spears, whom he is trying unseat in the March 4 Democratic primary.
“For the past 16 years, Nelda Spears has operated the Tax Assessor-Collectors office as an At-Will employer,” Maxey wrote in a Jan. 10 campaign e-mail labeling her a “Johnny-come-lately” on employee protections. “Every time AFSCME has asked Spears to change to a Just-Cause employee policy, she has refused. While Ms. Spears has kept the power to fire her staff at-will, she herself has failed to show up for the taxpayers. Now that she is facing a stiff challenge for re-election, she’s suddenly now promising to ‘consider’ changing her attitude toward employees and changing the policy.”
The charge fell on deaf ears: Last weekend, the CLC endorsed Spears.
“Glen Maxey has been a great friend of labor,” said Louis Malfaro of Education Austin, a CLC member organization. “But the sense was that we tend to support incumbents who have supported our issues. It’s hard to argue that Nelda has not done a good job. … If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Malfaro said Spears’ resistance to privatizing tax collections weighed heavily in the endorsement, although Maxey also opposes privatization.
“While Nelda has had a written ‘at-will’ policy, she has practiced ‘just-cause’ in disciplinary matters in her office,” said Spears spokesman and former county judge Bill Aleshire, who was also Spears’ predecessor as tax assessor. “As an elected county official, her written policy has been the same as many of the other elected officials, based on the legal advice she got over the years.
“Last year, Nelda instructed the County Human Resources Director to update her office’s written policy to match her ‘just-cause’ practice. … Maxey, not the County workers, tried to create this as an issue and it failed. It shows how desperate Maxey is to come up with some excuse for him running against Nelda.”
This article appears in January 11 • 2008.