January 13, 2005

Ex-High Court Justice Mulls House Bid
as Pierce Raises Specter for GOP Fight

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Former State Supreme Court Justice Rose Spector appears to be on the verge of jumping into a race for an open Texas House seat in San Antonio. So does former State Rep. George Pierce, who represented a neighboring district as both a Democrat and a Republican. So do others in a special election contest that has free-for-all potential in the wake of Elizabeth Ames Jones' last-minute decision to forego a third term in the House so she can take an appointment to the Texas Railroad Commission instead.

Governor Rick Perry on Thursday announced that the special election for House District 121 would be held Saturday, February 5 - the earliest possible date that the contest could be held. The filing deadline for the special race is Tuesday, January 18 - exactly one week from the day that Jones declined another term in the seat that she claimed initially in 2000 and won again without opposition in 2004. Perry has declared that he plans to appoint Jones to the RRC after Commissioner Charles Matthews is formally offered the chancellor's job at the Texas State University System in the next two weeks.

Spector, one of the last Democrats to hold statewide office in Texas, is the second potential Democratic contestant for the special race in a district that is stacked with Republican voters. Melissa Kazen, the wife of a county court-at-law judge, is also weighing a possible bid in the special election for HD 121. The potential lineup of Republicans includes Pierce, Joe Strauss III of the well-known horse racing family and Carroll Schubert, a mayoral candidate who is feeling pressure from some local business leaders to run in the special House race instead. ,Another potential Republican contender - San Antonio attorney Hans Rickhoff - is now saying that he won't make the race after all.

Shubert indicated earlier this week that he would probably bypass an opportunity to run for the Legislature because he planned to forge ahead with his candidacy for mayor as one of the three frontrunners for the local post. But some members of the San Antonio business community are hoping that Shubert will switch to the House race because they fear that he and Phil Hardberger will split the conservative vote in the mayor's contest and give their least favorite candidate - Julian Castro - a clear path to victory as a result.

Democratic strategists do not want more than one candidate in the special state House campaign. The Democrats' hopes will hinge on getting a candidate into a runoff and then trying to beat the top Republican vote-getter in a one-on-one match. That won't be easy - considering that almost 70 percent of the voters in HD 121 backed the GOP's statewide ticket in 2002. The district contains the old-money enclaves of Alamo Heights, Terrell Hills and Olmos Park - all Republican bastions - along with suburbs that have more GOP voters than Democrats in the northeast part of Bexar County.

But Democrats see Spector as a potential dream candidate for that particular district. She was a highly-respected Texas Supreme Court member for six years until falling victim to the Republican statewide avalanche in 1998. She was a state district judge for a dozen years before winning a seat on the state's highest court and a Bexar County court-at-law judge for five years before that. Spector, whose children attended Alamo Heights schools, fared better than all other Democratic statewide candidates except John Sharp and Paul Hobby when she lost to Republican Supreme Court Justice Harriet O'Neill in the general election six years ago.

While a possible Spector campaign has some Democrats excited, a potential bid by Pierce raises the specter of a divisive GOP shootout for the open House seat. Pierce was elected to the House as a Democrat in 1979 but switched to the GOP four years later and held the HD 122 seat for 10 more years as a Republican until deciding against a re-election bid in 1992. He was replaced by John Shields, who represented HD 122 for eight years before running unsuccessfully for a seat in the Texas Senate.

The winner of the special election will serve all but the first two or three months of the current two-year House term - depending on whether a runoff is needed to decide the special election.