Posted on September 15, 2009
On Sunday, state Rep. Norma Chavez held a campaign kick-off event on El Paso’s East Side. Often seen as controversial or polarizing, Chavez’s event was several things all at once
-- party / political event / show of political strength.
The event attracted more than 800 people by the time it finally ended. If you’ve never attended a Chavez function and have attended similar events by other candidates and elected officials, you’d notice that Chavez does things differently.
You won’t find wine and cheese with a string quartet playing softly in the background. No hors d'oeuvres. What you will find is beans, beer, and brisket. Instead of a string quartet, there was a band and a DJ and no shortage of seniors cutting the rug.
I always knew Chavez was strong in her district; all you have to do is look at her numbers to see that. In her last contested race against Marty Reyes, she didn’t lose a single precinct and her smallest margin of victory in a precinct was over 60 percent of the vote. But the turnout at her event still surprised me.
Chavez took the opportunity to recognize several people who had done as Chavez recently has, completed their education later in life.
The other thing that makes a Chavez event unique is that you rarely leave empty-handed. Chavez is a big on door prizes. Funny thing about door prizes, turns out County Judge Anthony Cobos was in attendance and his name was drawn for a door prize. Unfortunately, he left before I got there and I didn’t get a chance to ask him if he was running for re-election.
But it’s really too bad that he wasn’t there to collect his prize, especially because I’m pretty sure he won’t be winning anything else in this town.
Most of the various candidates for the upcoming election made the obligatory stop at the Chavez event, including Sergio Coronado, Larry Medina, Beto Acosta, Norma Favela, Connie Telles-Odom, and the U.S. Senate candidate John Sharp.
Rumor has it that there may be a challenger against Chavez. The buzz is that Naomi Gonzalez is being courted to run against Chavez. Gonzalez last ran against city Rep. Emma Acosta in a previous special election to replace Jose Alejandro Lozano.
Speaking of Lozano, I was critical of him in the past because his campaign signs in his last attempt at public office looked to me to be a total rip-off of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign logo. So I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that things seem to have come full circle in El Paso. Coronado, a candidate for county judge, has some identity issues of his own. His campaign logo looks very much like President Obama’s during the campaign.
To add to the irony, his new campaign headquarters is located on Missouri, near downtown. That building also formerly housed the McCain/Palin headquarters.
Only in El Paso!
On a quick sidebar, I recently wrote a column that mentioned several El Pasoans that have a reputation for being government watchdogs. Well, another civically involved El Pasoan and former candidate for City Council, Walt Phillips, has taken ill. He is fighting prostate cancer and has several treatments ahead of him. When I spoke to Phillips, he told me "It was divine providence that I didn’t win because I wouldn’t have been able to serve." Phillips’ spirits are high and he ended our conversation by saying he’ll be around for a long time yet.
That’s Why They Call Her the People’s Rep
It drives some people nuts, not just those who comment here and on my blog, but other elected officials and politicos, that I refer to Chavez as the People’s Rep. For some insane reason, a few people even thought I was the one who came up with that label, but she’s been called the People’s Rep before I even came to El Paso.
Chavez has plenty of detractors and you could fill a phone book with legitimate criticisms of Chavez, but to be fair to Chavez, there’s a lot she’s done that people don’t know about. It's stuff that flies under the radar because it doesn’t involve a public meltdown, text messaging, or a fight with Congressman Silvestre Reyes, state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, state Rep. Marisa Marquez, or County Commissioner Veronica Escobar.
As I mentioned earlier, I was late to the event, but I stuck around while people were cleaning up. I noticed that several people that were serving food earlier (and helping Chavez hand out cake to kids) were lined up in front of Chavez who was sitting at a table. I realized Chavez was writing checks. Turns out Chavez was paying them for their work.
Normally, there is nothing remarkable about paying labor, DJ’s, etc after an event. But this was different. I talked to the workers and found out that they were from La Mujer Obrera and were women who needed work because of the situation over at Café Mayapan. Chavez has publicly supported them, which one would expect from an elected official. Sadly, she’s one of the few who have done so publicly.
But after talking to the women, I remembered something I had heard Cesar Chavez tell my dad once. He said that there was dignity in work, all work, no matter what it is. He also said that when you give someone the dignity of work, you feed their spirit.
It’s one thing to issue a press release or attend a public event with cameras and reporters in support of these women, but it’s a whole other thing to put your money where your mouth is. Chavez backed up her words with deeds. Chavez directed Lily Ruiz, a senior staffer, to collect the names of the women so that they can be given more work at a later date.
The food that was served came from Sin Fronteras, another local Latino-based organization. There’s a lot of criticism about Chavez when it comes to money, but one thing is for sure, she makes sure she supports her local community by spending money with people who need the business.
It wasn’t meant to be made public and she’ll probably be mad at me (again) for making it public. But it's something that needs to be made public, because for every meltdown or email fight she’s involved it, there are probably 100 acts of this nature that no one ever hears about.
So when people approach me with a stink-face and ask me, "Why do you keep calling her the People’s Rep?" I’ll tell them to ask those women.
