Got a press release yesterday from Lane Lewis announcing that he had won an endorsement that had previously gone to his opponent.
HARRIS COUNTY COUNCIL OF ORGANIZATIONS RESCINDS STARDIG ENDORSEMENT
Houston, Texas – City Council District A candidate Lane Lewis has earned the endorsement of the Harris County Council of Organizations (HCCO) after the HCCO rescinded their original endorsement of Brenda Stardig.
“The Harris County Council of Organizations is happy to get behind Lane Lewis and his campaign for City Council,” said DeWayne Lark, HCCO President. “HCCO sees Lane as the candidate with the integrity and experience to get the job done in City Hall. Lane will be a full-time Council Member dedicated to solving problems and that is what District A needs.”
“I am proud to have the backing of the Harris County Council of Organizations,” said Lewis. “I have the support of fire fighters, multiple police organizations, and the Houston Chronicle because they all know that I am the only candidate with the proven experience to take on flooding, crime, and over-development.”
I thought it was a bit unusual for an endorsement to be rescinded out of the blue, so I got in touch with DeWayne Lark and asked him about it. He said they re-screened after the general election – he said they didn’t always do that in the event of a runoff, but did it some of the time – and they were very impressed with Lewis, whom they had not spoken to before. He said they thought Lewis had some great, progressive ideas for the city and that he was very well-informed on the issues.
He also said that the organization was troubled by the fact that Stardig had been endorsed by Steven Hotze and had not rejected it. “That’s not the kind of endorsement you want to be associated with,” he told me. “We likened it to being endorsed by the KKK.” I reminded him I was going to blog about this after he said that. He said he knew.
So there you have it. A nice endorsement for Lane Lewis to get, and evidence that Steven Hotze is bad news for people other than just Gene Locke.
I have a long history of opposing Dr. Hotze from the 1985 city elections to the 1990s skirmishes with GOP county chair Betsy Lake to the present. Brenda Stardig is not a hater, and has been endorsed by the only other gay candidate from the first round of balloting. The dilemma for Stardig is that the hard core social conservatives form a significant bloc within the Republican-leaning District A. Dave Wilson, whose harsh mailer calling for a vote for “traditional family” surfaced this week garnered almost 44% of the vote in District A in 1997 when he was running against an only slightly more moderate conservative Republican, Bruce Tatro. The district has changed quite a bit, but Lewis is still a decided underdog. Stardig’s website, by the way, makes a point to distance herself from the recent Wilson mailing.