#TXSEN: Bobby Francis O'Rourke; typical Texas Politician (an ongoing series)

"Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord,
But a just weight is His delight."
Proverbs 11:1

From Roll Call:

O’Rourke didn’t win [his initial Congressional campaign in 2012] because of anti-establishment fervor. He was the preferred choice of an influential group of local elected officials.

Former state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh (*) and former El Paso Mayor Ray Caballero led a movement to elect more liberal Democrats to state and local office and created a powerful political machine. Defeating an old guard politician like Reyes was just a continuation of the plan, and O’Rourke was in place to do it.

[Note: Emphasis added.]

[* -- Fun Fact: Eliot Shapleigh is Mayor Adler's former boss.]

It gets better:

But one of the biggest reasons why he hasn’t faced a serious primary is because many aspiring Latino candidates were also allies of Shapleigh.

For example, El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar, state Rep. Marisa Marquez, state Sen. José Rodríguez and others were mentioned as potential primary challengers in 2014, considering the 16th District has a Hispanic voting-age population of 79 percent. But none of them ran.

O’Rourke was unopposed in the primary that year. And in 2016, he defeated Ben Mendoza, who was coming off a failed run as an independent for the state House and didn’t raise or spend more than $5,000 in his primary bid.

Aspiring congressional candidates in the 16th District knew O’Rourke wouldn’t be in the seat for long.

Read the whole thing here.

Bottom Line: The more you learn, the more you realize you've seen this movie....