Will The GOP Pull A “DeLay” In HD 48?

Subscription-only Capitol Insude is reporting that there are moves afoot to play some shell games down in HD-48, where there is reportedly a move “afoot among local Republicans” to remove Dell exec Ben Bentzin from the November ballot in favor of someone with better chances at defeating Donna Howard.

Holy Jeeeeebbbus of Nazareth. Someone up there please have mercy on us and say that ain’t so.

I’d say this was a load of shit, but consider this: Bentzin isn’t campaigning. Capitol Inside reports his website was last updated around the time of the primary.

Here is who they are speculating Bentzin may be replaced with:

Democrats initially speculated that the GOP would try to replace Bentzin in the HD 48 race with Gail King, who’s worked in the banking industry and served on the Eanes School Board in the Westlake area of Austin for the past three years. More recently, however, the speculation about a possible replacement candidate in HD 48 has turned to Pamela Waggoner, a Leander school trustee and former PTA president who runs a family-owned insurance business. Democrats theorize that the GOP would prefer to have a general election challenger with experience as an educator to help neutralize Howard’s background as a former Eanes School Board member herself.

First of all, remember that in order for a candidate to be replaced, they have to want to be replaced. Otherwise, they won’t do anything (move out of district for example) to cause themselves to be replaced.

Second, I think Bentzin is quite for two reasons:

1.) I think the state party has determined his race is not one of their focuses this fall and that the seat is a lost cause, regardless of who runs against Howard.

2.)  He’s waiting to dump his load at the last minute; the typical Republican strategy of filling the mailboxes with garbage and trying to win.
I found this from Capitol Inside, however, humerous:

If Republicans do try to replace Bentzin on the November ballot, the opinion that Sparks’ issued in the DeLay case may not preclude them from doing so. Sparks ruled that Texas Republican Chairwoman Tina Benkiser did not have the authority to declare DeLay ineligible to seek re-election in November based on the grounds that he moved to Virginia in April before resigning from Congress last month.

There is no “may not” to it. The Sparks opinion would not, under any circimstances, prevent Bentzin from being replaced. If he literally uprooted and moved out of district or appeared to do so, and it could be proven (and keep in mind the burden of proof would be fairly low given this is a Texas law) that he did so within some fraction of something that seems like truth, Bentizin could easily be replaced.

Now, if this happened, could the GOP be taken to court? Yes. If not the GOP, then Bentzin. The GOP could be taken to court with a claim that they are using the state’s withdrawal provisions to create a pattern of replacing candidates who may lose general elections. Bentzin could be taken to court by GOP voters in his district (in my view) with the claim that he’s violating the unwritten contract of primary candidates who run in primaries and win to also be the party’s nominee in a general.

Literally, right now, the GOP and Dems could, in theory, run all around the state and replace candidates who “move out of the districts” they live in right, left and center. Will it happen? no.

Why not?

This is one Pandora’s Box even the GOP doesn’t want to open. If they replace Bentzin in such an obvious “fake withdrawal”, what’s to prevent a marginal Democratic candidate in a race against a true GOP House power from “disqualifying” themselves and being replaced by a multi-millionaire willing to spend three million bucks to defeat an incumbent? Don’t think if this happens with Bentzin that it won’t happen in other races on the other side of the aisle.

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