Source: Daugherty set to run for commissioner job again
Moderate Republican announcing bid today for his Precinct 3 seat.
Whether Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty will seek re-election next year has been one of the great mysteries in local politics of late.
Daugherty said he will break his silence Tuesday, and a source with knowledge of the decision told the American-Statesman that the commissioner will announce that he is running for re-election to his western Travis County-based Precinct 3, the county’s only true swing district.
If so, the moderate Republican’s months of indecision may have made his campaign an uphill battle. First-time candidates from both sides — conservative Republican attorney Jason Nassour and former Democratic legislative aide David Holmes — have stepped into the void and promised to stay in the race no matter what Daugherty announces Tuesday.
With its Hill Country landscapes and exurban subdivisions, the precinct is the front line for many of the most hotly contested battles between development and environmental interests in the Austin area.
Daugherty, who did not respond to interview requests but confirmed via text message that an announcement was planned for Tuesday, has become a savvy deal-maker as the only member of his party on the Commissioners Court. He sometimes supports the projects of his Democratic colleagues, including the $287 million courthouse bond that voters rejected last week, but has also made progress on some of his constituents’ biggest priorities, like the controversial Texas 45 Southwest project.
The 3.6-mile stretch of toll road that would connect the southern tip of MoPac Boulevard with FM 1626 is still
unbuilt, but Daugherty in 2014 orchestrated the project’s biggest leap forward by striking a deal that got the project funding from Travis and Hays counties and the state while avoiding a federal environmental review. Opponents say the road could harm environmentally sensitive land in the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone and question its effectiveness in reducing traffic. Supporters say it is a long-overdue connector to Austin for suburbanite commuters who are now clogging local roads.
Daugherty’s horse-trading ways are one reason he is being targeted by Nassour.
“Gerald maybe thinks that it’s important to give into ideas that aren’t necessarily the smartest because he’s a minority” as a Republican, Nassour said. “You can’t give in and concede your beliefs. You fight for them.”
Nassour in 2004 co-founded a law practice with former Travis County Sheriff Terry Keel, who is now an assistant commissioner at the state Department of Agriculture. Nassour said his clients include elected officials and more than 1,000 law enforcement officers from Austin, San Angelo, San Antonio, Dallas and other jurisdictions who keep him on retainer in case they run into legal trouble, he said.
Nassour, who has been the general counsel for the Texas chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he wants to cut county spending on projects such as the courthouse and increase the sheriff ’s office budget, which the commissioners recently have been reluctant to do. “Our law enforcement demands more, and they’re entitled to more,” he said.
Unlike Nassour, Holmes is emphasizing his ability to compromise.
“I’m excited about this district because you do have to talk to people on both sides, and I think that’s where things can really get done,” said Holmes, who works as a civil mediator but spent 12 years in state government working for then-Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock and several Democratic lawmakers.
He said that Texas 45 Southwest is likely a done deal from the county’s perspective, and he wants to focus on limiting the construction of more roads into western Travis County.
“Anywhere we build in Travis County, we have to be careful environmentally. A lot of Travis County needs to be off-limits to development,” he said.
It was the fight over the tollway that led the Save Our Springs Alliance in 2014 to file a criminal complaint against Daugherty. The group said the commissioner violated Texas’ open records laws by deleting some emails and text messages it had requested, and delaying before turning over other records.
Leslie Vance, a retired prosecutor who handled the case after County Attorney David Escamilla recused himself, is not pursuing charges because the records in question are related to Daugherty’s service on an advisory committee for the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, a decision that was first reported by The Austin Bulldog. Advisory committees, Vance said, are not subject to the Public Information Act.
SOS Executive Director Bill Bunch said the decision was “a serious miscarriage of justice.”
“The request was to Gerald Daugherty, who is a county commissioner. It’s all public business,” he said.