Over on the Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, Colleen McCain Nelson points to Rep. Allen Vaught’s assertion that he did not endorse Precinct 5 Constable Jaime Cortes, although Cortes lists him as having endorsed him on a recent mailer. Since then, Rafael Anchia, Dallas County District Clerk Gary Fitzsimmons and council members Dave Neumann and Delia Jasso have also said they did not endorse Cortes, or had endorsed him in the past, but not for this election cycle.
Cortes acknowledged a “misunderstanding” with Vaught, and apologized. But what’s interesting is this quote from an e-mail Cortes sent to Nelson:
“What I’ve learned is that some people are going to stand by their word, and others aren’t,” Cortes said. “Lesson learned.”
So did he just say all those people lied?
6 comments
It’s on. Like a prawn. That yawns. At dawn.
No he hasn’t. If he did, he would have said, “those bunch of people are liars!”
What he DID do is use “weasel words” to have the reader INFER that all those people lied. That way he can legally (if maybe not morally) deny he ever call them liars.
It’s similar to how Wikipedia editors use the phrases “Some people have suggested” and “Others believe” or “It’s been rumored” and so on.
Implying something without taking ownership: Just the first requirement for working in politics.
Cortes is the last person I would believe. Anyways, isn’t he too busy doing others “dirty work”?
Can we all agree that the whole taxpayer funded constable position is repetitious and unneeded? If they are really going to get back to mainly serving warrants, aren’t there private companies that can do this much more effectively?
Consider salaries, health benefits, pension, support staff, equipment (cars & guns), SWAT training, etc. I mean is Blackwater doing anything these days? We could hire them.
In larger counties, I could see it. But in smaller counties, constables can actually save small towns and the county money. Generally, there’s just one constable, no deputies, in each precinct, and since they don’t get overtime and are elected, they can often end up being the first responder at accident scenes. In some counties, they also take turns serving as bailiffs during trials, so that saves the county a little more money.
I could see legislation that eliminates the constables office for counties of a certain size. After all, they do plenty of laws that only pertain to certain counties. I once saw a piece of legislation passed that only applied to counties smaller than 32,000 that bordered the Red River. They meant Fannin County.
Thx B, Happy weekend.