I know that Kelly Siegler and Jim Leitner have gotten a lot of support (in the form of endorsements) from numerous people who deal with them in the Criminal Justice world. People who have dealt with them on a professional level and who know the requirements of the job of the District Attorney have signed their names for both of them.
It made me curious as to who was supporting Pat Lykos, so I checked out her list of endorsements, and guess what . . .
With the exception of maybe one name, all of those endorsements come from people who don't set foot in the CJC.
Now, don't get me wrong. The people listed there are all fine, upstanding citizens, I'm sure.
But don't you think it's interesting that nobody who deals with criminal law and knows her in that capacity has signed up for her?
The silence speaks volumes.
10 comments:
I think the Lykos campaign is Jared Woodfill/Ed Emmett trying to play king makers. I don't think either party gives a rat's ass about the rank and file in the district attorney's office.
Yuk. Politics is such a nasty business.
YOu are so correct!!
These are the same ones along with other party "leaders" that talked Leitner out of filing the suit so that they could have Lykos on the ballot.
Let's hope it backfires in their face.
I'm way out of the loop. Would someone explain to me the whole Leitner/Lykos connection?
Sounds pretty incestuous.
Ron in houston, I agree with you. Clearly Chairman Jared and Judge Ed don't care about the rank and file prosecutors. When you look at the base of the Republican party, the group that Lee Atwater called the "extra chromosome Republicans," they value government employees just above criminal defense attorneys, ACLU attorneys and "welfare queens" (Ronald Reagan's term, not mine, for all of you who might go PC on me and claim it is a "code word").
Not to be an apologist for Chairman Jared (if you have seen my posts on the Chronicle about Chairman Jared and his conclave of republican pastors/party officials, you would not form the belief that I support the Chairman), but attacking the Chairman's choice and Judge Emmett's choice on this is not going anywhere with the party rank and file to whom they are trying to appeal to prevent a tsunami of blue. They are preoccupied, as is their base, with holding onto power and do not possess the long term vision to actually figure out how to run a government office when in this seige mode.
What the Republican base needs to understand is that picking Lykos or Doug Perry is the same as picking Michael ("You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie") Brown to run FEMA. Running the city jail, serving as a police chief or trying cases as a judge when never setting foot in a courtroom as a prosecutor or criminal defense attorney is about as useful experience for the next DA as Michael Brown's experience as the judges and stewards commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association was for his tenure as FEMA director.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Leitner and Seigler do not have surrogates making this argument to the base. For that matter, I cannot understand why Leitner is not running a more aggressive campaign. My only guess is that either (1) the press is ignoring him like they ignored Edwards, or (2) he is pissed off because of the way the Chairman Jared and his conclave lured him into filing to extend the deadline with what I presume to be promises of support only to yank the support out from under him when others jumped in the next day.
Hell, for all we know, Ed Emmett is probably still employing Lykos as an aide. That is even more incestuous than Joe Albaugh hiring his good friend, Michael Brown, at FEMA and recommending him for jobs for which he was not qualified. For a party that claims to be the party of good government, this dispensation of patronage in the form of support for Lykos after seeking out Leitner is baffling. Chairman Jared and his conclave sought out and convinced someone to save their collective bacon by filing. The guy they found is highly qualified, ethical and honorable. For that, they turn around and sh*t on him when Lykos jumps in?
For the Democrats, one question: Is Bradford the only one you could find? If Richard Murray is correct about the demographic trends, in the next few election cycles, YOU are the ones who are going to be running the county. Get your sh*t together. Try picking someone who actually set foot in a criminal courtroom in the capacity of a LAWYER. I know there are more than a few highly qualified criminal defense attorneys out there who are democrats who are infinitely more qualified than Bradford. When you are out of power, you don't have to think about "grown up" things like actually doing the job. Bradford was NOT a grown up pick. He has no experience as a criminal lawyer. His only claim to useful experience is his administrative experience as HPD's Chief. Can we really say that his HPD administration was all that good?
Advocat98, that's quite an analysis. There must be a defense lawyer out there -- other than Jim -- who burns to be DA, but I don't know who it is.
I think Bradford seemed like a viable alternative to Rosenthal. To Leitner or Siegler? Not so much.
The tough question that I anticipate we who are doing life at the Harris County CJC will be wrestling with come November is this: who's worse, Bradford or Lykos?
Ron, as I understand it the party encouraged Jim to jump into the race before Rosenthal withdrew. Then when Rosenthal withdrew and Kelly and Lykos entered the race, the party pressured Jim not to file the lawsuit that would likely have removed Kelly and Lykos from the ballot.
AHCL
Wow! See we're all in agreement.
How about a hug and a round of kumbaya?
Mark, your question, "who's worse, Bradford or Lykos?" keeps me up at night as well.
Bradford has been predictably silent this whole time. Why would he say anything right now? Lloyd Kelly and the media will keep the Rosenthal story and all of Kelly Seigler's "issues" front and center for the near future. For a guy who has never appeared in a criminal case that I know of, he sure learned the lesson to shut up when the other side is getting whacked. How many will he purge? How much of a grudge, if any, does he have against the DA's office in general after unpleasantness (directed verdict) of late?
How much will he change for the better? How much for the worse? Will he actually pay attention to the job or is this just a stepping stone to attorney general, congress or governor? How much political pressure will he face to fire everyone? Are we going to have the proverbial "dead baby" cases tried by three year lawyers because of the flight or firing of the good prosecutors as well as the bad ones? Are we going to have the other problem with new prosecutors and inexperienced prosecutor supervisors: Is every first time DWI, bar fight, crack pipe residue case, and pot bust going to be a capital offense? If so, can Pat McCann teach enough of us how to do effective appeals to handle the onslaught of cases with reversible error in the next few years? There's a whole lot of unknowns. However, the stories from those that dealt with him at HPD are not encouraging.
If Lykos wins, well, the whole county is screwed. There's no guessing about her shortcomings. She won't have the choice to fire or keep many of the good prosecutors. They will make the choice for her by quitting. Get ready for many new criminal defense lawyers. It might be like "flood days" all over again. Too many people chasing after too few cases. As for the people left or hired by Lykos, I guarantee you Pat McCann and his brethren will be busy undoing trial mistakes on writs and direct appeals for years.
So, I guess, knowing nothing more than what I do right now, Lykos is worse.
advocat98
You've raised an issue that I've always wondered about. When you get a new head of a county agency how deep do the heads roll? On one hand they're county employees with substantial careers behind them, on the other hand it's employment at will.
The most heads would roll with Lykos. If I were an ADA, I'd be scared to death of that woman as my boss.
Where do you find out who is supporting her?
I guess her and her campaign manager haven't found the internet?
Lykos' endorsement list
She has Pat Boone endorsing her! Is that the singer from the 50's?
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