As the former congressman from El Paso seeks the presidency, his GOP ties are likely to be an issue with other Democrats.
Robert Francis “Beto” O'Rourke points the camera toward Juarez, Mexico, as he streams a Facebook Live video about migrant children being released from the tent city in Tornillo, Tex., on Jan. 11, 2018.
“We shared a common goal,” said Ted Houghton, a local financial adviser and longtime O’Rourke donor who raised money for former Texas governor Rick Perry, a Republican, and helped steer millions in state transportation funding to the city. “The common goal was we needed to move El Paso in a different direction.”
Republicans are also piling on. A recent ad by the Club for Growth, a conservative group with a focus on cutting taxes, described O’Rourke’s pushing a redevelopment scheme “to bulldoze a poor Hispanic neighborhood.” The plan initially called for seizing land in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods through eminent domain — the same tactic that O’Rourke has opposed as part of the Trump administration’s plan to build a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Faced with accusations of a potential conflict of interest, O’Rourke eventually agreed to recuse himself from city council votes on the plan, which was later shelved as real estate struggled during the 2008 recession.
The state’s political power structure at the time was dominated by Republicans, so the Democrats began to recruit local business leaders to the cause. “We don’t think there is a pay-to-play issue,” said Houghton, who now describes himself as a political independent. “But you have got to be a part of the team, show you are part of the team.”
“None of us are Republicans. None of us vote Republican. None of us had ever given money to Republicans before. But we like what these guys are doing,” Ortega said of the city’s GOP business leaders back in 2005. “We all got contributions from those guys. I’m proud of that.” The slide presentation portrayed El Paso with a picture of an older Hispanic man in a cowboy hat, next to a caption that described the city’s image as “gritty,” “dirty,” “lazy” and with people who “speak Spanish.” The city’s future appeared on another slide, with photos of the Texas-born actor Matthew McConaughey and the Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, who were described as “educated,” “entrepreneurial” and “bi-lingual.
The group, the Campaign for Primary Accountability, received $37,500 in donations from a firm controlled by Sanders and $46,500 from other El Paso business executives. A spokesman for O’Rourke said Reyes was the candidate whom voters identified with entrenched power. “Beto defeated a 16-year incumbent and received more than 50 percent of the vote in a five-person race because the people of El Paso wanted a representative who would put the interests of the community above special interests,” Evans said.A view of Chihuahuita, a neighborhood south of El Paso’s downtown that abuts an expressway, on Jan.
Until then, troops who lived in the privatized units on bases would receive a monthly stipend equal to their projected rent. But when the cuts became law in 2014, the stipend was to be gradually reduced. As a result, providers of base housing were faced with either reducing their rents and losing revenue or risking the loss of tenants by asking soldiers to pay out of pocket.
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