A good decision, in my opinion.
Rep. Lon Burnam
After months of legal wrangling, state Rep. Lon Burnam announced Thursday that he will not continue with his challenge of his primary election loss.
Shortly after losing on March 4 by 111 votes to local businessman Ramon Romero Jr., Burnam, D-Fort Worth, sued, saying the election for state House District 90 was tainted by illegal mail-in ballots.
Now, after three courts — including the state’s top civil court — refused to order the release of the applications for those ballots, Burnam has asked his legal team to drop the case.
“I did not make this decision because I believe my opponent won fairly, or that our suspicions of illegal conduct in the election have not played out,” Burnam said in a statement.
“I made this decision because the Texas Supreme Court has denied our final appeal for a subpoena to see county vote-by-mail records, making it impossible to prove that more than 111 ballots were illegally cast.
“These records will become public after the general election in November and I plan to revisit the issue at that time.”
Romero said he’s glad Burnam is dropping the lawsuit.
“We ran a race fair and square,” he said. “We asked people to vote for us and they did.
“I’m excited to begin the work of the district.”
See here for the last update. Not the most magnanimous exit by Burnam, and I’m not sure what the point of revisiting the issue after the November election is, but whatever. I’d feel more sympathy for Burnam if he hadn’t come close to parroting Republican talking points on vote fraud during the litigation. Having said all that, Lon Burnam was a strong progressive voice in the Legislature and he served with honor. He’ll be missed, and Rep.-elect Romero will have some big shoes to fill. The Texas Election Law Blog, who thinks Burnam got a raw deal from the courts and who has some thoughts about using iPads for absentee ballot applications, has more.