San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Back from exile, Chan leads in GOP house race
As election results came in Tuesday night for the Texas primary, a realization struck me pretty quickly: I underestimated the Texas House campaign of former North Side Councilwoman Elisa Chan.
I did so for several reasons. Chan hadn’t run for office in eight years; and when she last did so, she was handily defeated by Donna Campbell in a GOP primary for Texas Senate.
That humbling defeat happened only a few months after Chan endured the public embarrassment of a leaked audio recording, first written about by Express-News reporter Brian Chasnoff, that captured Chan discussing LGBTQ issues with her staff.
The conversation was in anticipation of a 2013 council vote on a proposed nondiscrimination ordinance, and it revealed Chan to be thoroughly ignorant on matters of sexual orientation and gender identity.
When one of her aides suggested it was possible to identify gay men by looking at their faces, Chan said that “hormone shots” were the cause.
She said that when gay and lesbian couples adopted children, they created an environment that was “suggestive for the kids to be corrupt.”
Chan said straight people were born with their sexual orientation, but she couldn’t accept the idea that anyone was born with a same-sex orientation.
Chan’s long exile from electoral politics — and the bad taste of her final days as an elected official — made me question how viable her candidacy would be in the race to fill the District 122 Texas House seat being vacated by Republican Lyle Larson.
I was also swayed by the emergence of Adam Blanchard, a trucking industry executive who had Larson’s endorsement and the backing of key players in the business community.
Nonetheless, when the votes were counted, Chan scored a comfortable plurality in the Republican primary, with 37 percent of the vote. She’ll compete in the May 24 runoff against former Bexar County Republican Party Chairman Mark Dorazio, who received 27.5 percent. (Blanchard finished third with 23.4 percent.)
Chan’s strong performance was a reminder of why voters had been drawn to her in the first place.
Because Chan became so identified with the anti-LGBTQ sentiments heard on the leaked conversation, and because San Antonio culture warriors rallied with great vehemence to her defense in 2013, it became difficult to remember the Chan who burst on the San Antonio political scene in 2009.
Chan didn’t run on social issues and never emphasized them in her public messaging.
As both a candidate and a council member representing District 9, she spoke about economic development and relieving traffic congestion, boosting international commerce and keeping taxes low.
She entered the 2009 race with the support of Democratic County Judge Nelson Wolff (whose wife, Tracy, was Chan’s campaign treasurer) and entrepreneurial superstars such as auto dealer Red McCombs, retired AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre and NuStar Energy Chairman Bill Greehey.
“She’s going to bring a voice that we’ve not had before,” Wolff said at the time.
Chan was born in Taiwan, studied in mainland China and emigrated to Texas in 1988. She earned degrees in software engineering and computer science. With her husband, she founded a successful San Antonio engineering design firm called Unintech Consulting Engineers.
Before running for office, she served on the city Planning Commission and was president of the Alamo Asian Chamber of Commerce.
Her personal story was so compelling and unique that political observers quickly identified her as a potential future mayor, a bit of speculation she seemed to enjoy.
As a council member, Chan could come across as tone deaf. A prime example occurred in February 2010, during a discussion of a CPS Energy ratestructure proposal that would place a greater burden on the biggest energy users.
When Chan expressed hope that CPS would be sensitive to how the rates were structured, South Side Councilwoman Jennifer Ramos said residents living in large homes could afford a rate increase.
“Those of us who choose this lifestyle work hard for it,” Chan shot back.
Nonetheless, Chan was elected to three terms in convincing fashion, largely because she kept her focus on the basic concerns of her district. She might have inadvertently become the hero of culture warriors, but she didn’t run for City Council to make social statements.
During her current run for Texas House, Chan has sounded very much like the pro-business fiscal conservative who campaigned across the North Side in 2009.
She hasn’t made much of a fundraising push, choosing instead to sink $750,000 of her own money into the campaign. That might explain why the North Side has been a sea of Chan campaign signs in recent weeks.
A runoff victory over Dorazio is by no means assured. But Chan already has rehabilitated a political career that, as recently as six months ago, looked moribund.