S. Side election a ‘battle of families’
Dems’ primary for constable a matchup of veteran politicians who’ve clashed in past
Ruben C. Tejeda doesn’t want to go anywhere.
At 70, he’s been the constable for southern Bexar County for the past 32 years, and he’s again seeking the Democratic nomination for the office.
“I just leave it in God’s hands,” Tejeda said. “Whatever is going to happen, happens.”
Past political opponents of his might wonder where that Ruben Tejeda came from. The one they’d grappled with was a fierce fighter with a formidable political network in Precinct 1.
But indications are he hasn’t gone soft. “I always prepare as if 10 people are running, and I work very hard,” he said.
His challenger in the March 5 primary is Sergio “Chico” Rodriguez, who was ousted as Precinct 1 county commissioner in 2020 after serving four terms near the top of Bexar County government. Rodriguez, too, is a political pugilist.
Tejeda and Rodriguez are one-time allies. But they also come from families that have helped define South Side politics for decades, and they have clashed before and are doing so again. Former campaign consultant Christian Archer called the race “a classic battle of families.”
Rodriguez’s brother, Ciro Rodriguez, is a former U.S. representative, Harlandale Independent School District board member and justice of the peace. Tejeda’s cousin, the late Robert “Bobby” Tejeda, was also a former county commissioner and a judge, and the late and legendary U.S. Rep. Frank Tejeda was one of his cousins. At different times and for different offices, Ciro ran against Frank, Chico challenged Bobby (twice) when the latter was an incumbent, and Bobby challenged Chico when he was the officeholder.
Nevertheless, Tejeda and Rodriguez, 68, both are quick to say this race isn’t about past an
imosity.
Rodriguez didn’t make himself available for an interview, but in a brief phone call with the San Antonio Express-news, he said describing this race as a fight between two families was inaccurate.
“Don’t get confused,” Rodriguez said. “You know what I’m trying to say? There’s no tension with me and Ruben.”
In an email Friday in which he accused a reporter of misrepresenting the reason he’s challenging Tejeda, Rodriguez added: “My platform is about increasing visibility in our neighborhoods and helping to bridge that gap and to help close that feeling of mistrust of law enforcement that has grown in the past few years.
“I feel that my purpose is to help bring needed change into the Bexar County Constables Precinct 1 office and I know that I can provide that leadership that is currently lacking,” he wrote.
Near the end of the earlier phone conversation, he also asserted that Tejeda isn’t actually related to Frank or Bobby Tejeda.
Robert Tejeda and Ruben Tejeda long had said they were cousins, although Robert denied it for about 15 years, until 2007. They’d squabbled a lot over the years, but Ruben Tejeda said they forgave each other years ago.
Robert Tejeda’s youngest brother, Armando Tejeda, 59, said he and Ruben are related through their great-grandfathers, who were brothers.
The rivalry
Archer said constables, especially on the South Side, are powerful and exert a lot of political influence. When Archer ran countywide or citywide campaigns, he frequently called up Tejeda for help meeting people.
“I needed his grassroots organization,” Archer said.
This is the first time Tejeda and Rodriguez have directly squared off. But members of their families have run against each other several times over the years.
Chico Rodriguez ran against then-county Commissioner Robert Tejeda in 2000 and lost. The next time, Rodriguez took him down. Rodriguez fended off Tejeda in 2008 when he tried to win his seat back.
But the tension between the two families goes back further — to 1984, when Ciro Rodriguez challenged Frank Tejeda, the incumbent, in a Texas House race. Rodriguez lost.
Armando Tejeda sees Rodriguez’s campaign in light of that history.
“I believe that right there is a big mistake on the part of Chico and whoever his following is, because that’s not putting the community and people first,” he said. “That’s putting their self-interest first. I really think people are sophisticated enough to realize that family rivalry is what it’s about, and not really about serving the people.”
For his part, Ruben Tejeda insisted he held no grudge against Rodriguez, though he complained about Rodriguez allegedly supporting candidates who have run against him in previous elections.
Tejeda, who started his law enforcement career as a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy in the 1970s, said his main gripes with Rodriguez the candidate have nothing to do with his name. He said it’s Rodriguez’s lack of law enforcement experience and his voting history when he was a commissioner.
Before being elected to Commissioners Court, Rodriguez worked as a CPS Energy electric lineman and a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy for three years.
Rodriguez never earned his peace officer license, which is required to be a constable. If elected, he would have to get a license within 270 days or forfeit the seat.
Tejeda supported Rodriguez when he ran for commissioner in 2004 against his own cousin, Robert Tejeda. Ruben Tejeda was constable for the Precinct 5 office at the time, and Robert Tejeda was leading the charge — ultimately successful — to abolish the office. (Ruben Tejeda won in Precinct 1 after his original office was dissolved.)
Tejeda sued the county after the Precinct 5 office was shut down, and Chico Rodriguez signed on as a co-plaintiff.
When Rodriguez first ran for Commissioners Court, Tejeda backed him, thinking that his experience working in the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office would make him sympathetic to constables.
But Tejeda and Rodriguez ended up clashing several times during Rodriguez’s 16 years on Commissioners Court. Tejeda is still critical of Rodriguez’s vote in 2020 for an annual budget that eliminated 19 of 69 deputy constable positions across the county.
The cut was a major blow to his office, Tejeda said, adding that prevented him from staffing a night shift.
Months before the budget vote, Tejeda had gotten upset with Rodriguez for something else entirely. Rodriguez spoke out after a deputy in Tejeda’s office — which he shared with the Precinct 1 commissioner and the county tax assessor-collector — caught COVID-19. Rodriguez told reporters that Tejeda had been secretive and uncommunicative during the episode. The county then sent a crew in hazmat uniforms into the Pleasanton Road building to spray the offices with disinfectant.
Tejeda insists he handled the matter properly, and he said the deputy with COVID never entered the office when he was feeling sick. The constable said he had told the deputy to stay home until he had a chance to get tested.
The fiasco was one of many reasons Tejeda decided to back Rebeca Clay-flores, who was a political newcomer when she managed to push Rodriguez out of his seat four years ago.
Clay-flores, now in her first reelection campaign, is urging voters to cast ballots for her and Tejeda.
“Our offices have worked really well together, and we partner on different things,” Clay-flores told the Expressnews, citing the annual National Night Out neighborhood event. “It’s a really good working relationship, and that’s how you get things done.”
Clay-flores gave $2,500 of her campaign funds to Tejeda’s war chest in September, according to her latest campaign finance report.
She chalked up Rodriguez’s decision to run for constable to “South Side politics.”
“You cut a third of their workforce. Why are you coming in now?” she said, referring to Commissioners Court’s 3-1 vote in 2020 to eliminate constable positions.
Clay-flores faces five challengers in the Democratic primary.
She said she pushed for more constables during her first term. The 2023-24 budget that she voted to approve in September added four new constable deputies for each of the county’s four precincts.
Rodriguez defended his handling of funding for constables.
“As Commissioner, I provided not one but two offices for the Bexar County Constable office, one downtown and one on the southside, the current building on Pleasanton Road,” he said in his email to the Express-news. “Previously, the constable office had been placed in a mobile unit at the Target parking lot on Southwest Military Drive.”
A shoe leather race
Tejeda’s barbecue fundraiser in early February, which sold more than 500 plates at $10 a piece, felt like a gathering of old acquaintances.
“It’s mostly to see people,” Tejeda said.
Campaign signs lined the outside of the VFW on Commercial Avenue, and there was a stack of campaign flyers near the barbecue plate pickup counter. The few dozen people gathered at midday were mostly family members and old classmates from Tejeda’s time at Harlandale High School.
Volunteers included relatives and three brothers Tejeda mentored during his 30 years of coaching Little League on the South Side.
Families took photos with the constable, who was dressed casually in a button-down shirt and jeans.
Tejeda was up at 2 a.m. that morning. He chopped wood and did much of the cooking. This year was tough, though, because it was his first fundraiser without his wife, Rebecca, he said. She died of cancer two years ago.
Meeting voters face to face at such events and at their front doors will be critical for the candidates, and Tejeda’s done it many times before.
Tejeda is walking into the March 5 election with a longtime incumbent’s advantage. He’s also tough.
“Man, that guy is a street fighter — he knows how to win elections,” Archer said.
But Rodriguez also has strong backing and a history of winning elections.
“Under no circumstances should you count Chico Rodriguez out,” Archer said. “It really gets down to how badly does he want it, and is he willing to put it all on the line.”
For people in the Thompson Neighborhood Association, there isn’t a lot of chatter about the constable race, Vice President Rudy Lopez said.
Neighborhood associations do not endorse candidates, but Lopez has more than a decade of experience running his and has a sense of which candidates residents are leaning toward.
Lopez said he thinks Tejeda might have a better chance at winning votes from people in his neighborhood. In his opinion, Tejeda has built up a strong staff and has been reachable.
That’s more than Lopez could say for Rodriguez, who he said was fairly absent during his time as a commissioner. He plans to vote for Tejeda. Not Julie Rodriguez, treasurer of the Harlandale-mccollum Neighborhood Association. She’ll vote for Rodriguez. Based on the number of yard signs for the candidate she has seen lately, she thinks most of her neighbors will, too.
She is not related to Rodriguez.
She recognized his name from when he was a commissioner and called him up recently to talk about why he was running for constable.
Julie Rodriguez liked his pitch. She said he talked about wanting to ensure that the constable’s office did more to engage community members and increase the office’s communication with other law enforcement agencies.
Overall, Julie Rodriguez said she thinks things should be shaken up.
“It’s just time to make some changes,” Julie Rodriguez said. “It’s one of those legacy things that may not always be a positive thing, and we won’t know that until we give someone else a shot.”