Council eligibility rules still loosely enforced
Felony conviction, residency restrictions are openly flouted
It was one of the more unusual videos made for a Houston City Council race.
Throughout much of his campaign for the District J seat, Nelvin Adriatico had been dogged by one question: Why do you claim to live in a day care center?
Google searches for Adriatico’s address yield a photo of the Shining Stars Academy, not a home or residence. Some detractors quickly assumed he was listing the business to skirt the requirement that he actually live in District J.
It is the two-bedroom apartment above the day care center that Adriatico listed on his form. Amid the constant chatter last month, he posted a tour of the apartment on Facebook Live.
“We can just get this out of the way because I’m sick and tired of responding and answering to this,” he said in the video. “You’re more than welcome to come and visit me at my home.”
The debate over Adriatico’s residency has been the most public of this year’s election cycle, but at least five other candidates are directly flouting the city’s residency rule or capitalizing on its loose interpretation. The rule requires candidates to live in the district they hope to represent for 12 months before election day.
At least four others have felony convictions that would seem to bar them from running under a state law that prohibits convicted
felons from seeking office.
All 10 will appear on the November ballot.
That is because the residency and felony requirements rarely are enforced.
When candidates file for office, city attorneys verify that they have checked the box swearing they have not been convicted of a felony. They also ensure the address candidates list is within the district they hope to represent. Eight candidates were disqualified after those checks, according to the mayor’s office.
The lawyers do not, however, investigate further to determine whether candidates are being truthful.
Most of the enforcement is left to the candidates themselves, who can sue opponents with potential residency or criminal issues in an effort to remove them from the ballot. That rarely happens.
Even when it does, both rules contain enough ambiguity to make a court ruling difficult.
Amid evolving discussions about criminal justice, candidates with felony records successfully have reached the ballot in Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The state law that forbids their candidacies invites interpretation and has not been thoroughly tested in court.
The city’s residency requirement, while more clear-cut, seems to qualify any candidate who can claim he or she has ties to a property in the district and “intends” to live there, according to attorneys familiar with the rule.
“Every election, someone calls me to ask about this particular issue,” said Doug Ray, special assistant attorney for Harris County. “It’s very hard to establish that somebody doesn’t have residency if they have some physical tie to the address and state that that’s their intent.”
The questions over the council candidates’ residency arise in myriad ways.
Nelvin Adriatico, District J
Adriatico provided a lease to the Chronicle that shows he began renting the Beechnut Street apartment in October of last year, fulfilling the 12-month requirement.
Fort Bend County records, however, still show a homestead exemption on a brick house Adriatico and his husband own in Sugar Land. Adriatico said they tried to rescind the exemption last year, but it will not be reflected until next year’s tax period.
Adriatico said he splits his time between the two residences, but he actively pursued a residence in District J when he decided to run for office because he has community ties to the area that exceed how long he has lived there.
Michelle Bonton, At-Large 5
Bonton lives in an area of Harris County annexed for limited purposes by Houston. That means she can vote in city elections and is represented by District E Councilman Dave Martin.
She cited her eligibility to vote as evidence of her eligibility to run for city office.
The Texas Local Government Code says otherwise: “A resident of an area annexed for limited purposes is not eligible to be a candidate for or to be elected to a municipal office.”
After an inquiry from the Chronicle, the city informed Bonton she was “ineligible” to run. Bonton still will appear on the ballot because officials missed the deadline to remove her, but votes for Bonton will not count.
Jeremy Darby, District D
Darby, who is a write-in candidate, said he lives at the home his family has owned for decades in South Acres.
Court records show he was evicted from an apartment in neighboring District K in January 2019, which would suggest he lived outside the district within the required 12-month window.
Darby said he ran business meetings out of the apartment but never actually lived there. He says he has always lived at the South Acres home.
Anthony Dolcefino, At-Large Place 4
Dolcefino lives with his parents at a home they bought in Braeswood Place. The family moved there from Katy in February.
To fulfill the requirement for the full year, Dolcefino said he switched his residence last year to his father’s Kirby Drive office building.
“We’ve consulted with election lawyers about the situation. … They didn’t seem to have a problem,” Dolcefino said.
His father, former TV investigative reporter Wayne Dolcefino, acknowledged his son spent much of his early period of residency in Houston at addresses other than the Kirby Drive office he claimed. Still, he said the law allows that location, with an Ashley HomeStore couch, to pass muster.
“It complies with the statute. If anyone wants to make it an issue, ‘Bring it on,’ I say,” the elder Dolcefino said.
Van Huynh, District F
Huynh listed his address as a house he rents just off Brays Bayou, but he and his wife have owned a home in Brays Oaks for two decades.
That home — in District K — is where they still claim a homestead exemption, according to property records.
Huynh said he stays in the rental he listed on his filing form two to three nights a week because it is “more convenient” for his work in District F, where he is chief of staff to incumbent Steve Le.
“Sometimes we have a late meeting and everything, I don’t have to go to the other place,” he said of his primary residence on Wrenthorpe, a 15-minute drive away.
Huynh provided a copy of his lease for the rental within the district, which likely qualifies him under the law. That lease says Huynh has his “main address” at the home outside the district.
The family is in the process of moving to a new home on Turtlewood Court, which is in the district, but they did not purchase that home until July of this year.
George Harry Zoes, District A
Zoes lists his address in the shopping center where he owns Ruby’s Wig Salon.
He owns a home nearby on Westview Drive that is less than a one-minute drive from the store, but that house is located in the small city of Spring Valley, outside Houston city limits.
Reached by phone, Zoes said he lives in the strip mall on Bingle Road.
“What are you checking on, exactly?” he said. Then he said he was getting a call on another line and agreed to call back later. He did not respond to questions when reached later.
His lawyer, Joe Synoradzki, said Zoes has been forced to live in the shopping center because his Westview home flooded in Hurricane Harvey.
Felony restriction
Four other candidates are testing a state law that forbids people with felony convictions from running for office.
The Texas Election Code says that candidates for public office must not have been “finally convicted a felony” from which the person has not been pardoned or otherwise “released from resulting disabilities.”
The latter phrase has been subject to interpretation. The secretary of state’s office has said completing one’s sentence does not qualify as a release from those “resulting disabilities.”
“While the right to vote can be restored upon completion of the terms of one’s sentence, Texas law does not provide for a similar automatic restoration of an individual’s right to hold public office or serve on a jury,” wrote Adam Bitter, general counsel in the office of the secretary of state, in a January guidance.
That must be done explicitly by an executive pardon, a writ of habeas corpus invalidating the conviction or through judicial clemency, Bitter wrote.
That law thwarted the candidacy of William Dennis, the former Geto Boys rapper who cited it in his decision not to turn in needed paperwork to get on the November ballot for the District B race. It did not stop others.
Cynthia Bailey, District B
Bailey was convicted in 2007 of theft over $200,000 and sentenced to 10 years in jail, though she did not have to serve the full sentence.
Bailey declined an interview, but provided the Chronicle with a statement.
“I am eligible to run to serve the great people of District B, as I have paid my debt to society, my voting rights have been restored and I meet all necessary criteria to run and serve,” the statement said.
Derrick Broze, Mayor
Broze was convicted in 2008 of possessing between 1 and 4 grams of methamphetamine, a third-degree felony. He had been given deferred adjudication for the original 2005 charge, but he violated parole and was convicted three years later.
The mayoral hopeful has been open about the felony, mentioning it in forums and discussing how difficult it is to find housing with a felony record.
He said he believed he was eligible after finishing his sentence. Broze said he hopes his candidacy and honesty about his past continues the evolution of public opinion on criminal justice reform.
“The reason I’m hopeful about it is because the conversation is shifting in some circles and I’m hoping to contribute to that by running openly as a felon,” he said. “I don’t think I should have anything to be ashamed about.”
J. Brad Batteau, At-Large 5
Batteau is a perennial candidate on Houston City Council ballots, making his sixth consecutive bid for a council seat this year.
His 1987 conviction for armed robbery, which happened when he was 17, is well-documented from his previous campaigns. Batteau has cast it as a mistake from which he has moved on.
He has said he believes he can run because the felony conviction was set aside in 1995 after eight years on probation.
That interpretation would seemingly conflict with the the one taken by the Secretary of State’s office, but no one has ever sought to remove Batteau from the ballot.
Ralph Garcia, At-Large 5
Garcia has two felony convictions: one in 1999 for theft and another in 2014 for tampering with a government record.
He served eight months of a 10-month sentence for the latter charge, which involved filing false petition signatures for a judicial candidate to get her on the ballot. He said someone else confessed after his conviction.
“Nobody’s told me nothing,” he said of the state law forbidding felons from running for office. He said he believes he is eligible because others have run with felony records.
“I don’t see why not, unless they changed the rules,” he said.
Garcia had a more recent run-in with the law this month. He said he was arrested Tuesday and spent the night in jail, accused of stealing 50 campaign signs from Councilman Robert Gallegos. He is facing a misdemeanor theft charge in that case. He denied responsibility for the missing signs.