Today is the day that campaign finance reports are due for candidates in this November’s city of Houston elections. Some early filer’s reports are already up on the city’s Campaign Finance webpage. I’ve uploaded copies of these reports to my 2011 Election page; January reports are already uploaded and linked there. I will add more as they come in. In the meantime, here are a couple of highlights:
– CM Jolanda Jones took in $113,586, with $85,166 on hand. (See her report here.) That’s a much stronger showing than what she had at this time in 2009, when she reported raising $64K and having $54K on hand. Of course, she’s in a tougher position now than she was then, so this makes sense. She took in quite a bit from other elected officials and candidates – Farouk Shami contributed $5,000 to her, which was the biggest single donation I spotted. Among her opponents, Laurie Robinson and Jack Christie both had reports on file, but neither did any fundraising of consequence.
– CM Brenda Stardig was the only other early filer among incumbents. (See her report here.) She took in $52,315 and has $56,499 on hand.
– Among other candidates, Eric Dick had the most interesting report. He raised $20,620 and had $19,000 in outstanding loans, and also spent $63,695. A huge portion of his report is Schedule G, “Political Expenditures Made From Personal Funds”. He also made numerous contributions to other candidates’ campaigns, including those of Jolanda Jones, Ellen Cohen, Larry Green, and Annise Parker. (Chris Carmona reported receiving a contribution from Dick as well, but I didn’t see a corresponding expenditure, so perhaps that came from personal funds rather than campaign funds.) He also contributed to several incumbent judges and Republican candidate for Sheriff Carl Pittman, and gave $1000 to the Harris County GOP.
– Mayoral candidate Fernando Herrera raised $4,550. A grand total of twelve individuals contributed to his campaign. For a guy who’s a Deputy Chief in a fire department that doesn’t much care for the incumbent Mayor and who ran as a Republican candidate for State Rep last year, that’s pretty pathetic.
– I could not find a January report for CM Al Hoang. For whatever the reason, Hoang’s reports always seem to be late, but this is the first time I have not seen any report for him. The most recent report I can find for him is dated April 15, 2010. Why he filed one on that date (he did file a January 2010 report, on January 12) and not in July I could not tell you.
– All reports that I found were electronically filed. There were no non-electronically filed reports for 2011, at least not as of when I looked.
That’s all for now. Check out the 2011 Election page for further updates as they come in.
Hi Mr. Kuff,
Somehow you missed reporting on Jack O’Connor running for City Council #5.
You can find information about him and his campaign on his website http://www.jackforhouston.com.
Best regards,
Judy
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Jack O’Connor is a principled business man who has the best interests of Houston at heart. Please update your list of those who are running for City Council. Thanks.