Locke backers funded Hotze

Nice.

The finance chairman and a finance committee member of Gene Locke’s mayoral campaign helped bankroll the conservative political action committee that sent out an anti-gay mailer targeting City Controller Annise Parker and other municipal candidates earlier this month, according to Texas Ethics Commission documents.

[…]

Locke has been dogged by Parker, her supporters and some uncommitted Democrats for seeking the endorsement of conservative activist Steven Hotze, who has a long history of opposing gay candidates and causes. A mail piece Hotze sent out last week urged voters not to choose Parker and several others seeking municipal offices because they were “endorsed by gay lesbian political action committee,” a reference to Houston’s Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Political Caucus. It labeled others as “radical liberals” and supported some candidates based on a record of fiscal conservatism.

According to financial documents, Hotze’s political action committee received a $20,000 donation about a week before the mail pieces went out from Ned Holmes, finance chairman of Locke’s campaign, and $20,000 from James Dannenbaum, who is on Locke’s finance committee.

Hotze’s PAC, Conservative Republicans of Harris County, lists $56,000 in donations between Oct. 25 and Dec. 2. Only two other donors, who contributed a total of $16,000, are listed.

Martha has scans of the Hotze mailer, while Erik has the finance report for Hotze’s GPAC, which shows the contributions. Surely no one thinks the timing of the donations is a coincidence, right? Maybe Hotze could have found some other sugar daddies to help him peddle his bigotry, but he didn’t. It’s now clear why Locke never denounced Hotze.

As for the countercharges from Locke’s campaign that Annise Parker helped pay for the Roy Morales mailer, well, that’s true. You can see the disclaimer on the mailer that it was paid for by his campaign and hers. Roy’s a twit, but he’s no Hotze. Team Locke complains in the story that Roy demanded an unreasonably large fee, which they claim and he denies would have gone towards Roy’s campaign debt, to be included in the mailer. Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. If their objection was the price, they’re not claiming a parallel to Hotze. The answers Parker gave on Roy’s mailer are consistent with what she’s been saying on those issues all along, so I’m not sure what the problem is. Stace and John have more.

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7 Responses to Locke backers funded Hotze

  1. Mainstream says:

    At the Harris County Republican Party meeting last night (the Executive Committee meeting of about 160 precinct chairs from across the county), a Gene Locke supporter asked the group to suspend the rules to allow Locke to be recognized as being in attendance. The meeting loudly by voice vote rejected the motion. If the Locke campaign is counting on GOP voters, he may be in for a surprise. In fact a former congressional candidate and a number of the precinct chairs indicated they planned to vote for Parker. I suspect the angry no vote means that many of these activists, most of whom worked hard for Morales, will skip the mayors race.

    Also in attendance was Suzanne Testa from the Locke campaign passing out a new David Wilson attack mailer which makes a point of noting the “homosexual lifestyle” of candidates Lewis, Parker, and Lovell. It is similar to the earlier mailer with an appeal to voters to defend the traditional family and marriage, and a picture of the hands of a couple marrying. I am not aware that these were mailed to anyone, but they appear to target only voters in District A. No mention of District F at all.

    Pastor Rick Scarbrough of Vision America has sent out a shrill email attack on all the candidates endorsed by the GLPT Caucus, accusing those candidates of being supporters of NAMBLA, pedophilia, radical agenda, etc.

  2. Baby Snooks says:

    I doubt any Democratic candidate would be recognized at an executive committee meeting but besides that the reality is the vast majority of Republicans will not vote. They want a liberal lesbian as mayor knowing that she will worsen the situation she created as controller and they would love to be able to use that as the foundation to see a Republican elected mayor in 2011.

    As for the position of the Harris County Republican Party you need to get a copy of the platform of the Texas Republican Party. It’s the same platform Gary Polland has followed all these years despite having endorsed Annise Parker.

    I have no idea what transpired last night. I do know those who know Gene Locke believe he is “going through the motions” and at this point is so disgusted with “public life” that nothing would please him more than to give a concession speech on Saturday and return to what was a very nice “private life” but that may not happen because one thing that has become abundantly clear to a growing number of people is that at this point if you raise a question about Annise Parker’s record, she responds with this “my opponent has accepted the endorsement of a homophobe” despite the fact that she has as well and that hypocrisy is becoming equally clear to a growing number of people who are tired of hearing that they are a homophobe when questioning her record.

  3. Joe Birkofer says:

    For the record, I’m the precinct chair of 222 and I introduced the motion. I’ve been a Locke supporter since day one — pre-Morales — for many reasons. The voice vote was loud on both sides, though I concede that the “nays'” had it – and that should be no surprise given the audience. I met quite a few precinct chairs last night who were for Locke, and saw exactly ZERO negative literature being passed out.

    As I pointed out to an undecided chair last night – I’d rather have a mayor whose whose leadership and coalition building skills are strong and proven, and whose focus is the mayoralty as a career cap-stone, rather than a mayor whose executive skills are limited, and who is focused on the mayoralty as a career stepping-stone, paved with generous issue-specific outside monies.

  4. Mainstream says:

    Not only did the Locke campaigners pass out several hundred of the blue Dave Wilson mailer cards at the GOP meeting last night, but today it arrived in the mailboxes of Republican voters in District A. The title of the card is the Edmund Burke quote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” It urges a vote for the traditional family and marriage, by supporting Locke [who ironically sought the gay caucus endorsement and supports gay civil unions and affirmative action and minority contracting based on sexual orientation), Stardig (who has shied away from such divisive issues), and Andrew Burks (who is touting his pro-life and “pro-family” views to GOP audiences) and makes the statement: “There is no activist movement that exists worldwide today to legalize theft, adultery or lying.” an apparent equating of homosexuality with these crimes or sins.

  5. Mainstream says:

    Just for the record, Baby Snooks is completely mistaken when she suggests that Democrats are never recognized at Harris County GOP Executive Committee meetings when running for non-partisan offices like City of Houston council. In the past Peter Brown, Carroll Robinson, Michael Yarbrough have campaigned at such meetings, and Andrew Burks was introduced and campaigned there last night.

  6. Alan says:

    Regarding the mailer, I found it mildly amusing that the right-wingers, increasingly fact-challenged, falsely attributed that quote to Edmund Burke. In fact, there’s no evidence he ever wrote any such thing.

    In other words, not only was the language in the mailer full of falsehoods, even the quote was falsely attributed.

  7. Pingback: Holmes fibs about his donation history to Hotze – Off the Kuff

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