The Chron endorses Philippe Nassif in At Large #5.
Philippe Nassif
You have to say this about City Councilmember Jack Christie: He’s a conscientious public servant. Holding the At-Large 5 seat, the two-term incumbent is, in his words, “a workhorse, not a show horse,” is always well prepared and seems to get along with others on the council. For those reasons and others, we endorsed him in 2013 for a second term on the council. We cannot endorse him for a third.
Despite his work on the council and his record of service on the State Board of Education and on the Spring Branch school board before being elected to the council in 2011, we find it incongruous that a chiropractic physician who has taken a special interest in health-care plans for city employees opposes vaccinations. He contends that they jeopardize children’s health and that there are other, more effective ways to nurture natural immunity. He’s best known for his comment two years ago that “you don’t die from the flu.” In our view, opposition to vaccinations goes against the overwhelming scientific consensus and is a dangerous position for an elected official to hold, particularly one whose experience is in medicine.
[…]
Nassif is our choice for At-Large 5. Granted, the 30-year-old son of Mexican and Lebanese immigrants is young, but he’s been involved in public service for more than a decade. He offers voters detailed positions on transportation and infrastructure, fiscal responsibility and quality-of-life issues. He would work, for example, to address growing income inequality in Houston by advocating for affordable housing and providing incentives for developers to provide controlled-price rental units in developments across the city. He also supports the Houston equal rights ordinance (which Christie opposes).
I had Christie as a 65% favorite in this one, but I will note that I suggested the Chron might go for Nassif because 1) HERO 2) vaccines and 3) he’s good. So, I think I deserve a fair amount of partial credit. Good on Philippe for knocking their socks off.
What a shock, the Chronicle wants all City Councilmembers to be Democrats except for the 3 districts into which all of the Republican voters have been gerrymandered. Kubosh being the exception that proves the rule, and only because he is “colorful”.
Seriously Chron? It’s not like this is a new position for Christie. I pulled out the notes I had written on my 2013 sample ballot, and one was “Jack Christie, the incumbent, is against
vaccinations and is a chiropractor”.
Was this somehow a more-congruous position in 2013?