MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR:
Party Chair Publicly Calls on Democratic Candidate to Withdraw

As county chair, my role is generally to be mutually supportive of all Democrats – even when they are running against one another. After all, we need all the Democrats we can get, and mending fences and helping heal rifts which invariably result from internecine battles is ordinarily a more productive role for a party chair than taking sides and making ill feelings worse.

But there are – and must be – exceptions. Sometimes a particular candidacy is so bad for the party, the chair must speak out and say so. We have just such a situation in this cycle: an ostensibly well-intentioned, but badly misguided candidate has filed to run against Rep. Scott Hochberg for legislative district 139. He should withdraw that application immediately.

Now, ordinarily I wouldn't take someone to task for filing to run for any office – even if the opponent is another Democrat (and an incumbent at that). There are even circumstances in which I would personally regard a Democratic challenger running against an incumbent Democratic as a good thing.

In this case, however, the primary contest is downright harmful to the Democratic Party. Here's why. Scott Hochberg has been an absolutely top notch member of the Texas Legislature. There's no one in the state of Texas, for example, who knows more about school finance issues. But the Republicans, more greedy to increase their power base in the state House than in assuring quality representation for the citizens of Texas, have targeted this seat as the only one in Harris County they think they can possibly take away from a Democratic incumbent. And they plan to devote lots of money to the effort of trying to do so. They have two candidates in their primary vying for the opportunity to try to unseat Rep. Hochberg and thereby increase their majority in the legislature.

Now, Rep. Hochberg's Democratic opponent, Bernardo Amadi, can't possibly win the primary race against him. But he can sure make Scott spend money, which should be used in the general election, to assure his nomination by the party in our primary election. What a waste of precious and limited resources! And this is a tough district for Democras: it was was drawn by the Republicans to be a Republican district. So after he wins the primary, Rep, Hochberg will need all the resources he can raise and muster up to retain this critical seat .in the fall general election.

Now if Mr. Amadi had a legitimate complaint with Scott Hochberg or a realistic chance to win himself or some valid reason for running in this race, I wouldn't hold it against hm to try (even if I personally favored the incumbent – which I do). This is, after all, America where we Democrats believe in voting and elections as a fundamental institution of government (unlike the Republicans, but that's a diatribe for a later article). But the explanation Mr. Amadi gave me for filing for this office was simply that he wanted to show other members of the immigrant community that they could participate in the democratic process. To be sure, they should be encouraged to do so – but not by significantly harming the chances of a fine Democratic incumbent to win re-election.

Mr. Amadi should have chosen another place to make this demonstration of civics. Here he is affirmatively hurting the party, because he is causing Rep. Hochberg to spend money on a primary race he could far better spend on the hotly contested general election In this case, that could actually be the margin between victory and defeat for a terrific Democratic incumbent.

So I publicly call on Bernardo Amadi to withdraw from this race immediately. Candidates have until this Wednesday to withdraw the applications they filed to run in this year's primary election. Make your civics class point by running for Congress against John Culberson instead, for example. (Although Mr. Amadi doesn't live in Mr. Culberson's district, you don't have to be a resident of the district to run for congress). Congressmember Culberson needs a Democratic opponent far more than Rep. Hochberg does! Mr. Amadi can't win a congressional race against Culberson either, but at least he wouldn't be hurting the Democratic party's chances in the upcoming elections by running in that race and who knows what silly things Rep. Culberson may do between now and November which get him into trouble with his constituency. (Remember Jim Westmoreland and Beverly Clark?)

So I urge Mr. Amadi to withdraw and I encourage all Democrats to e-mail him Amadi and demand he do so. His email address is votebernardo2002@aol.com. Let him know he is harming the Democratic party by jeopardizing the chances of a good Democrat to win against stout Republican opposition next fall. Is this really the lesson he wishes to teach the immigrant community by his example?

Scott Hochberg is truly one of the "good guys" in the Democratic party. It's a shame a misguided fellow Democrat is so consumed with his own personal agenda he's doing the Republicans' job for them.

Gerry Birnberg
Chair, Harris County Democratic Party
January 5, 2004

P. S. Since writing and posting this article, I have learned that there is another race in which a Democratic incumbent is being challenged by both a Democratic opponent in the primary and a Republican in the fall election. This same situation is at hand in the 142nd state legislative district race, where Chand Khan has filed to run against incumbent Harold Dutton, with the winner having to face a Republican in the fall. I have no idea why Mr. Khan (no relation to M.J. Khan who just won the Houston City Council District F race) would want to oppose Rep. Dutton, who has served his district nobly and well for many years, earning a reputation as one of the most effective Democratic legislators in criminal justice areas (and one of the most outspoken and eloquent spokespersons against injustice in the criminal “justice” system). Fortunately, I think this is a safe district for the Democrats, so Rep. Dutton shouldn’t be as badly hurt by having a Democratic opponent in the primary as Scott Hochberg is, but I still don’t understand why we can’t help our good incumbents, rather than making their jobs harder.

Archive of Gerry Birnberg's Messages

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