Previously, I gave the July campaign finance numbers for Houston elected officials who are eligible for the ballot this fall. Here now are the cash on hand figures from the January reports, with all incumbents and a few assorted extras thrown in:
Dist Name Cash on hand
=================================
Myr Parker 1,043,827
Ctrl R Green 35,753
AL 1 Costello 51,135
AL 2 Burks 2,378
AL3 Noriega 4,317
AL 4 Bradford
AL 5 Christie
A Brown 2,010
B Davis 57,983
C Cohen 29,881
D Adams
E Martin 1,486
F Hoang 4,749
G Pennington 112,275
H Gonzalez 18,769
I Rodriguez 13,642
J Laster 27,254
K L Green 6,504
A Knox 0
A Stardig 23,605
D Jolanda Jones 3,203
D Boykins 0
CMs Adams, Bradford, and Christie did not have reports available as of Monday afternoon. There’s no fundraising allowed for city officials during this time, so everyone will have a smaller cash on hand total since all they could do was spend. Mayor Parker easily spent the most, a bit over $200K, with much of it going to her campaign operations but also sizable contributions to the Metro referendum campaign ($25K), the Harris County Democratic Party ($10K), and to help retire the debt of former Judge Steve Kirkland ($4,900). Ben Hall had not filed a report as of this deadline; I don’t think he had filed his designation of treasurer until after the 15th, so he wasn’t required to do so.
As I suspected before, the cash on hand figure Ronald Green reported in July was erroneous. This one makes much more sense.
Helena Brown spent down nearly all of her stash, with $5,753 going to Premier IMS for direct mail, $4,165 to Terry Yates and $850 to Kevin Colbert for legal services, $4,000 to Institute of Hispanic Culture for “community outreach” (event), $2,990 to the city as reimbursement for the magnets, and $1,050 to Media Masters for “media consulting”. So much for parity with Brenda Stardig. Like the magnets, she had tried to bill the attorney fees to the city but was denied the reimbursement by City Attorney David Feldman. William “Mike” Knox, who spent $500 on consultant Jessica Colon, is a declared candidate against her.
Dwight Boykins in District D spent $749 on flyers and magnets. I list Jolanda Jones as District D, but her finance report left the “office sought” field blank, so take that with a large grain of salt. No other non-officeholders who might be running for something filed a report.
Most other incumbents spent only modest amounts, since there wasn’t necessarily anything to spend it on. Besides Mayor Parker and CM Brown, Ed Gonzalez was an exception, dropping $40K from July. He made a lot of donations and contributions, including $5K to CrimeStoppers for a benefit dinner, $3,500 to the HCDP, $1,500 to Resurrection Catholic School, and $1,020 to Planned Parenthood.
There are no reports posted as yet for HISD and HCC candidates. I will check back later for them.
Not much else to see at this time. Fundraising season begins in a couple of weeks, and the trickle of candidate news should pick up then as well. As always, if you have any intel please leave a comment and clue us all in.
I am not sure if I am looking forward to seeing a lot of these political candidates in the news until election day. There will definitely a lot of heated arguments again at home. Now that would at least be entertaining.