County judge runoff about candidate’s identity
Bexar County should count its political blessings. At least it isn’t Liberty County, where a drawn-out primary race between two Republicans has gotten nasty.
The latest jab appeared on a billboard mimicking a Silver Alert, used when a senior citizen, especially one with dementia, is missing.
“Silver Alert,” it reads, “Old man wandering Dayton area. Thinks he’s a county commissioner.”
It pictures the incumbent county commissioner.
Bexar County’s Democratic runoff for county judge has been nothing like that.
It has been quietly respectful, perhaps controlled, as if each candidate is hoping to beat the other with kindness.
The race began with three candidates: former District Judge Peter Sakai, former state Rep. Ina Minjarez and firsttime candidate Ivalis Meza Gonzalez, former chief of staff to Mayor Ron Nirenberg.
Meza Gonzalez didn’t make it to the runoff and has since endorsed Sakai, who’s facing Minjarez in a May 24 election.
Notice that a losing Latina candidate didn’t side with the remaining Latina candidate.
The winner of the runoff will face Republican Trish Deberry in November to replace longtime Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff.
It’s as competitive a contest as in Liberty County, minus the nastiness, because for years the Democratic primary has been, in effect, the election. Though local Republicans believe Deberry has a serious chance at winning.
The Democratic race also has been vexing.
Two Latina candidates might have been seen as a triumph in political terms and talked about in the same way as Lina Hidalgo, the novice Colombian american politician who rose to prominence by becoming Harris County judge.
Not here.
That’s because a Japaneseamerican candidate, a longtime respected judge with strong ties to the Mexican American community, its politics, history and culture will probably win.
His election could be seen as a race that rose above identity politics. In this case, Latino voters will side with other Democrats and not vote for the Mexican American.
“It is fascinating,” said political science professor Jon Taylor, chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
In the primary, some Latinos split the vote between Minjarez and Meza Gonzalez. Others voted straight away for Sakai.
That’s for a couple of reasons, including his track record as a civil servant and his extraordinary life story, stretching back to a family caught up in U.S. Japanese internment camps during World War II.
It produced a young man who overcame his own struggles against discrimination and racism with hard work, ethics and by aligning himself with a group with which he had most in common: Mexican Americans and Chicanos, first in the Rio Grande Valley, then the University of Texas at Austin, then San Antonio.
Sakai has operated naturally in those circles throughout his life. In so many quarters, he’s beloved.
Sakai can also walk into the office on Day 1 and command it. Minjarez wouldn’t be far behind, though some voters wished she had stayed in the Texas Legislature.
She has won numerous endorsements, but they might not prove influential. Some of them have seemed more obligatory than sincere.
If she were to win, Taylor added, “It would set the stage for an argument, which I think would be a false argument, that it would set up a win for Deberry.”
For Democrats, all this might make Sakai a safer choice.
“That’s what could be playing in the minds of some,” Taylor said. “I don’t want to sound crass, but it’s almost a popularity contest.”
Sakai enjoys strong support from an enviable group of Latina leaders representing a lot of fields. As a pro-voting bloc active in politics, they’re fiercely independent, strong-willed and usually highly supportive of Latina candidates.
They have long memories and pay attention to details, like the fact that Sakai has been married since 1982 to longtime educator Raquel “Rachel” Diassakai. Another beloved figure, she was recently inducted into the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame for her volunteerism.
On ethics and transparency, this voting and leadership bloc also has high standards and little patience for potential conflicts of interest. In discussions with several of them, I’ve learned they’re not opposed to Minjarez but worried that conflicts of interest will arise involving her husband Leo Gomez, president and CEO of Brooks.
The mixed-use development that used to be called Brooks City Base is sure to have issues before Commissioners Court. Let’s just say also that most speak of Gomez with a degree of controlled politeness.
Taylor says it’s hard to pin the psychology at work in this race. But it’s not “about issues. It comes down to a comfort level.”
In my view, Sakai will win because he’s deserving, because he has served the county for so long.
In a race that might not be about identity politics in the traditional sense, Sakai’s identity will play a role in that he so identifies with Mexican American culture, history and the population itself.