Don Loucks seeks a re-match election against County Judge Paul Pape, having been previously defeated 2-1 in the Republican Primary of 2012. The County Judge is the presiding officer of the Commissioners Court and is the chief budgeting officer of the county. If elected it would put Mr. Loucks in charge of proposing a countywide budget for all county departments, including that of his wife, who currently serves as our District Clerk.
In my view, the County Judge race this election is not about philosophy or issues, it is about leadership and methodology. While Mr. Loucks attacks Judge Pape incessantly on any decision over which they might disagree, and indeed has been doing so for years, there is also a record of leadership from Mr. Loucks to examine from which you can determine if you want his style of leadership taking over the helm of the Commissioners Court.
Here is the list of issues I have observed in Mr. Loucks that convince me he is not the best candidate for the office, notwithstanding what issues he raises:
- Party Policies - Mr. Loucks served on our party’s executive committee this last term, and supported Chairman Raley’s policies for our party. That includes centralizing power in the chairman and away from the executive committee, closing the Republican office in a Presidential election, discontinuing monthly meetings of the party, failing to support our candidates, curbing of party communications, refusal to fundraise for the party, resisting re-opening the Republican office, resisting hiring the county to assist with our primary, and even seeding public doubt as to whether the county elections department was legally hired. In so doing, he has supported the Chairman’s noncompliance with party bylaws, Robert’s Rules of Order, and majority votes of the executive committee. It appears asserting control is more important than actually working to benefit the party. For this reason alone, he should be demoted, not promoted, in my opinion.
- Candidate Support – Chairman Raley made Mr. Loucks chairman of the party’s candidate support committee. While Mr. Loucks trumpets project management as being a forte, he failed to convene his committee to conceptualize or offer any candidate support to our nominees in the 2016 Presidential election. Our voters' guide, already prepared for the primary, was ignored and not distributed. Local data services to the nominees from our local party disappeared. With no office, no regular meetings, and no special party events, local nominee sign distribution was not supported centrally at all. Our pictorial directory of candidates, with its Vote Republican message, which we have been publishing in the paper for years, didn’t happen. After the Presidential election, he then convened his committee to conceptualize support projects for candidates in the primary election of 2018. Projects were considered, timelines proposed – then nothing else happened. He did not have his committee follow through on a single idea. He is a self-described adrenaline junkie. He appears more interested in stirring controversies than tending to the mundane business at hand.
- Fundraising – He and Chairman Raley both refused to participate in the party’s Boots & BBQ fundraiser last Fall. The event was initiated by one of our state-level Republican representatives. She expressed to the executive committee her personal disappointment that some of our members, including Chairman Raley and Mr. Loucks, had refused to participate. Mr. Loucks responded that her “interference” was duly noted. In other words, he resented her aid to help the party raise money.
- Breach of Decorum – In executive committee debates, Mr. Loucks breached decorum in almost every meeting. Robert’s Rules of Order characterize calling your fellow committee members names, impugning their motives, and questioning past decisions of the committee as all breaches of decorum. Mr. Loucks regularly employs all three in debate. Chairman Raley, who as chairman is charged with keeping decorum, refused to hold him in line. Consequently, with a steady diet of such rhetoric, relationships were greatly strained.
- Hardball Politics – Mr. Loucks employs hardball politics. I’ve seen that play out in these ways:
- Intolerance of Disagreement – In my view, you advocate respectfully for your position, and allow votes to decide issues. Mr. Loucks does not tolerate those who disagree with him, and with him, a personal fight is never over. When he served as County Commissioner he would use his web site to attack viciously members of the public who disagreed with his stances. He has used his newspaper column similarly. Long is the list of current officeholders and county employees I have personally heard him speak against. If elected, I fear he intends to attempt to clean house based on his list of personal grudges and desire for payback. Most of Mr. Loucks’ attacks on Judge Pape relate to decisions made by the Commissioners Court, rather than just Judge Pape personally. That informs me that Judge Pape is just the beginning.
- Fake Issues – One of Mr. Loucks’ tactics is to propose a good-sounding policy, but laden it with unacceptable baggage. When his fellow members object to the baggage, he accuses them of not supporting the good-sounding policy so as to try to tear them down in public opinion. He and Chairman Raley are using this technique against your party’s executive committee over the Blue Santa vote. Chairman Raley proposed supporting four charities at Christmas time. Sounds good. Problem was, one of her proposed charities didn’t exist, she wanted to include her controversial exclusive club in an attempt to legitimize it, and some were concerned that we should focus on one charity, not multiple. The Chairman and Mr. Loucks proposed a one-size-fits-all resolution that included all the baggage, and the executive committee voted no. Chairman Raley immediately called for adjournment allowing nothing else to be considered. Mr. Loucks then posted an edited video (excluding the portion of him shouting at his fellow members) and they have been campaigning stating your committee opposed Blue Santa. What they don’t tell you is in the next meeting, the executive committee voted to support the Tree of Angels program run by the Sheriff’s Office, and they did. And what they don’t know is that some individual members who voted no made personal contributions to the Blue Santa programs in the party’s name.
- Building a Case for Firing – Often Mr. Loucks forms an opinion that someone needs to go based on very personal reasons (i.e., that person might disagree with Mr. Loucks on an issue, support a different candidate in an election than Mr. Loucks did, be a former employee who didn’t work out well in his wife’s department, have a job Mr. Loucks wants, or refuse to attack someone Mr. Loucks wants attacked, etc.). He will then begin a line of public attacks against that person’s job performance, without disclosing his true motivation. I’ve watched him initiate attacks on both the Elections Administrator and the Tax Assessor/Collector and their performance, when underlying it, I came to understand that he was actually upset that they had hired employees who hadn’t worked out well in his wife’s office. He wanted to drive the employees from county employment as well as any department head who had harbored them.
- Persistent Attacks on the Bastrop County Young Republicans (BCYR) – The BCYR endorsed another candidate against Mr. Loucks’ wife for District Clerk in a primary election. Our District Clerk took my advice as chairman, and made no public issue of it. After the election was over, I asked Mr. Loucks to treat BCYR members with a mentoring attitude rather than open hostility. He rejected my direction and has persistently attacked them since. He even filed with the county a trade name certificate in their name in an effort to steal their name out from under them. Based on that certificate, he told me, “I am Bastrop County Young Republicans.” He followed that with a cease and desist letter threatening them with suit if they continued to use their name. I believe that when he understood that, as chairman, I was not going to allow him to use the party structure to attack them, that’s when he decided that I as chairman needed to go. Curiously, he has also filed additional trade name certificates claiming to own the names of “The Bastrop County Republican Party,” “Republican Party of Bastrop County,” and “The Republican Party of Bastrop County.”
- Credibility – The reason that this is not an issues-based race for me, is Mr. Loucks has lost all credibility with me.
- False Accusations – Mr. Loucks makes false accusations against opponents. From personal experience he has falsely accused me (and Judge Pape) of rigging an election, failing to attend required training as chairman, and stealing my email list from the party, just to name a few. Our Chairman, similarly, filed a failed ethics complaint against Judge Pape, and has filed false sworn complaints against fellow executive committee members. Seeing first hand Mr. Loucks’ distortions, when he accuses others of wrong doing in public, I know his every statement must be carefully vetted before being accepted.
- Lying on Request – At the request of Chairman-elect Raley, Mr. Loucks lied to a volunteer working with the Governor Abbott campaign in an effort to get her to disclose a data source. Unfortunately for Mr. Loucks, he forgot to delete Mrs. Raley’s instructions from the bottom of the email he sent to the volunteer, so he exposed his own lie. The email may be viewed here.
- Contradictory Issues – In this very race, Mr. Loucks’ signature campaign pledges are contradictory. He is pledging to cut county spending so that your taxes decrease (not just the tax rate) while also telling the Sheriff’s office (which is the largest department in county government) that they deserve a living wage pay increase. Based on his past actions, I believe he will make another fake issue of this: I’m guessing he will propose an impossible budget, make his fellow Commissioners vote against it, and then blame them in public so as to get rid of them. If right, we are merely pawns in a game of control, and the issues are beside the point.
- As County Judge, will control be more important to Mr. Loucks than good policy?
- Will he respect the majority votes of the Commissioner’s Court when he disagrees with the decision, or will he perpetually seek to undermine majority will as he has done with our party’s executive committee?
- As presiding officer, will he enforce proper decorum so that all are respected whether or not they agree with him, or will he be the one most frequently out of line? And if he breaches decorum, how do you fix that?
- Will he lash out publicly against persons with whom he disagrees?
- Will he actually see mundane projects through, or will he perpetually seek the next controversy to supply an adrenaline rush?
- Will he abuse his position to persecute those with whom he disagrees, be they officeholders, county employees, party members, or constituents?
- When someone in county government disagrees with him, will he make them unwelcome wherever they go?
- Will he attempt a purge of county government to build a personal empire?
- Will he lie to accomplish goals?
Mr. Loucks’ past leadership has severely damaged our party. The contrast between where we were two years ago and where we are today is stark. There is good reason to believe he will take that leadership style to county government, and do similar, if not greater, damage there.
In contrast, I support Judge Pape because his leadership is entirely different. He is supportive of the party and policies that make us strong. He is not attacking our party organization or obstructing its proper function. He takes stands and makes decisions, as all leaders must, but if you disagree with him you have no fear of retaliation. He is the better candidate because he is a stable leader who puts the good of the county, as he sees it, above other considerations.
Judge Pape also has a consistent tax policy that I personally believe in. He has been persistently working to reduce the tax rate so that our rate becomes competitive. He has been doing so at a measured rate to avoid impairing county operations. As the rate becomes competitive, more business comes, and the tax burden is lightened off of the shoulders of residents. Today, we are all paying less in taxes than we would have without his efforts. This is a reasonable plan that balances considerations of both tax reduction and growth-of-services concerns. (And keep in mind that county taxes are the minor portion of our tax bill – it is school taxes that are killing us. You can gut county spending, and it will only help so much.)
If you want to see the kind of policies and politics that have distressed our party for the last two years spread into county government, too, then Don Loucks would be your choice. If you don’t want to repeat that history, then join me in re-electing Paul Pape for County Judge and electing Dianna Greenwood for County Chairman in this primary election.
If Mr. Loucks' leadership alarms you as it alarms me, then please take personal responsibility to aid your county. Link to this story on your Facebook pages at https://bcrnews.blogspot.com/2018/02/county-judge-considerations.html. Email it to your Republican friends.
The final segment of this series is as follows:
Part 3 - Choose a Direction
Albert L. Ellison, Founder
Bastrop County Republican News
bcrnews.blogspot.com
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