When We Don't Demand Accountability, We Get Exactly What We Deserve

By Diego Garcia III | Editor of The Brownsville Beacon

On the heels of the "Brownsville being the 12th most miserable city in the United States" article, I went into a deeper dive thinking about why we have the perception of being one of the most miserable cities in the United States.

After some thought, it's apparent local politics and political corruption play an important part in why people are so quick to think Brownsville is a backwards, bleak place to live.

One can easily blame our politicians and shake their fists and shake their heads in disgust thinking about some of the people who hold office, as well as those who seek to hold elected office. Brownsville is notorious for recycling politicians at the different levels of local government. In back to back election cycles, it isn't at all uncommon to see the same names pop up for different local offices. You'll often times see someone run for a seat on the local school board, be defeated, then seek a seat on the city commission. You'll also see politicians who held office years ago come back around seeking elected office once again. It has gotten to the point when people are actually surprised when there are different names on the ballot as opposed to the same Tom, Dick, and Harry who show up cycle after cycle.

Politics and so many of these aspiring politicians are thought of as jokes, or, at the very least, a punchline to the joke that is our local elections. I wonder how many people even know there's an election coming up on May 1 (early voting starts April 19). But then again, why should they? People see political advertisements dotting the cityscape, but they probably think they're from a few election cycles ago, since so many of these signs are left up way past the legal amount of time.

Of the ten candidates running for office, only one has a stand-alone website outlining his platform (Roy De los Santos, candidate for city commission, District 3), while one other has a dedicated Facebook campaign page (incumbent District 4 Commissioner Ben Neece). A quick Google search of the others brings up all kinds of other stories, including one candidate's trouble with the law after being accused of embezzling funds from his former job's labor union.

And therein lies the rub. When other candidates would drop out of the race when confronted with allegations of financial impropriety or driving under the influence, local candidates embrace the attention and have absolutely no shame making jokes about their problems with the law. Subscribing to the old adage "any publicity is good publicity," they keep running for office even after resigning offices they've previously held or after being handed a resounding defeat in previous election cycles.

Like a bad penny, these hangers-on keep lingering around the  political landscape. Unwilling to take "no" for an answer, these recycled former politicians and failed candidates keep submitting their names for one office or another.

In true Robert Uresti fashion, these failed candidates must think if they keep putting their names on the ballot, eventually someone somewhere will vote for them.

And in true Brownsville political fashion, with the exception of very few candidates, hardly any of them actually bother to build a coherent political platform to present to the voters. There are hardly any flyers, or political advertisements with anything the candidates want to accomplish. Most political ads just stick political nonsense buzzwords like "RESPONSIBILITY" or "TRANSPARENCY" on them, but they don't provide any real direction they want to take the city in.

Again, I'm not talking about all the candidates. I'm talking about the majority of them.

To use an old Texas saying, these candidates are "all hat, no cattle."

Put another way, all flash, no substance.

But here's where the fault lies. The fault doesn't lie completely in the candidates; it lies in ourselves.

The citizenry does not expect, or demand, anything of substance from their political candidates, With the exception of the occasional rubber chicken plate, most candidates don't bother doing any legitimate campaigning or door-to-door introductions. People go about their days not bothering to ask what their commissioner plans to do for them. Ask most people around and they probably won't even know what district they live in.

The local news media isn't any better. The Sort-of Newspaper Formally Known as The Brownsville Herald doesn't think to do any in-depth political profiles or interviews with any of the candidates. There aren't any local political action groups that think to invite candidates to a debate or a forum, and when there is a forum, some candidates don't even bother to attend. 

When we are ignorant and apathetic to the local political process, we shouldn't be surprised when legitimate political candidates choose to stay on the sidelines rather than throw their hat in the ring to become entangled in the whirlwind of local Brownsville politics. Only when Brownsvillians rise up and demand a better caliber of political candidate will we see good, honest, trustworthy candidates who will sign up to represent us.

 A few good candidates are starting to emerge. Let's hope more will choose to join them and not be disheartened once they see how difficult it is to get anything done.

Ask the candidates questions. Demand to hear their platform. What do they want to do for the city once elected and how will they try to accomplish those goals? Until we demand answers the politicians we have now aren't going to take time telling us much of anything.

We need to be engaged in the political process and vote these politicians out if they don't live up to their promises. The era of recycling do-nothing politicians must end.