Dave Wilson remains an electoral scofflaw, among other things.
Mayoral candidate David Wilson has again filed for office using an address that disqualified him from the ballot when he attempted to run for county commissioner last year.
Wilson listed his business address of 1512 W. 34th St. on his application for county office last year and on his application for a place on the ballot as a candidate for mayor of Houston. He insisted last year and continues to insist that it is his home as well. But Democratic Party Chairman Gerry Birnberg rejected Wilson’s application to run in the partisan race as a Democrat because he claimed that Wilson told him he actually lives on Lake Lane.
The mayor’s race is nonpartisan, but the Lake Lane home is not in the city of Houston. “I spend some time there on the weekends,” Wilson said of the home.
See here, here, here, and here for background on this. There’s an awful lot of people who play this kind of game to establish “residency” wherever it is they want to run for office. I’m somewhat more forgiving about it for district residency than I am for city, county, or state residency, but I’ve been dissatisfied with the way our system handles this for awhile. Owning a second (or third, or fourth, or whatever) home someplace doesn’t mean you “live” there. Having a cot in your office doesn’t mean you “live” there. Neither does having a room at your parents’ house, or your ex-spouse’s house, or at any other residence owned by a relative or former roommate. The problem is I don’t know of a way to codify this into law. Our system is just very forgiving about this. Way more so than we are about letting people vote, in fact. I don’t know what that says about us, but I do know it’s nothing good.
actually we here in houston like it when people try to run for office-i think some people just dont get it-theres an entertainment side to a campaign and infusing local law enforcement into a pack of people that want to run for office has never been wise-let me tell people why-there running for a goverment office-so typically you dont want to obstruct these people because in theory there the ones that will be in the drivers seat come election time.
I always find it entertaining when some one grabs the old “I got a cott card”so I live at my office-wow-but at the end of the day-“I say put his name on the ballot”-the man wants to run and he says he lives at his office well i am not in that place with him and lord knows what hes doing in there and iam not going to jump in there to check so put him on the ballot and lets get this show on the road.we houstonians love a good election and lots of people on the ballot-hence the old classic saying,
THE MORE THE MERRY-ER
respectfully submitted joshua ben bullard