(C) El Paso Matters.org This story was originally published by El Paso Matters.org and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . El Paso lags behind on state board appointments, representation [1] ['Special To El Paso Matters', 'El Paso Matters', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar'] Date: 2024-06-11 By Olivia Dilley When then-Gov. Rick Perry appointed Ted Houghton to the Texas Transportation Commission in 2003, El Paso didn’t yet have a completed highway loop around the city, while other cities had already started on their second or third thoroughfares encircling their cities. . Ted Houghton Over his 11 years on the commission, Houghton worked to raise awareness of the region’s needs as a major commerce hub, pointing out that much of the traffic from the huge ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach ends up on Interstate 10, making transportation funding crucial for the city. “You have to bring awareness to the leadership down in Austin,” Houghton said, adding that El Paso is underrepresented on state boards and commissions. An analysis by El Paso Matters of appointments made by Gov. Greg Abbott between January 2022 and January 2024 shows that El Paso has lagged behind many other communities in representation. In those two years, El Paso received 19 of the 866 gubernatorial appointments to state boards and commissions – about 2% of the appointments made over those two years, despite being the sixth largest city in Texas and having almost 3% of the state’s population. The information was obtained through an open records request to the governor’s office. Comparatively, the data show that cities such as Austin, the fourth-most populated city, received almost five times as many, or over 9% of those appointments. Fort Worth, with only slightly greater population than El Paso, had almost 4%, or 32 appointees. Houghton, a financial consultant who last year was appointed to the Texas Historical Commission, said many people he served with on various commissions have never been to El Paso and have little knowledge of its resources and needs. It’s why being appointed and bringing attention to the region is critical, he said. The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso. (Photo courtesy of TTUHSCEP) If El Pasoans had not been involved in the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents, the area might not have a health science center, medical school or dental school, Houghton said. A few El Pasoans have served on the board over the years, notably, banker Rick Francis, who was appointed by Perry and served from 2003 to 2019. El Paso attorney Pat Gordon was appointed to the board in 2021. Raising awareness of El Paso’s needs helped fund many roads in the city, such as the César Chávez Border Highway portion of Loop 375 on the south side of the city and various overpasses. “Funding made a huge difference in moving people and goods around the community and through the state and giving them alternative transportation corridors to use and for the local community to traverse to and from where they need to be,” he said. Influential state boards Even among El Paso’s 19 appointments – two of which were reappointments – not all were for what are considered significant boards and commissions, the ones that can make major policy or spending decisions. Only about four of the El Pasoans ended up in major positions. Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson said the most consequential appointments are to the state university system’s Board of Regents, oil and gas, and parks and recreation related boards. The governor makes around 4,000 appointments in an eight-year cycle, but only 500 of them are “seriously consequential” and involve real policy and administrative decision making, said Harvey Kronberg, founder of the capital newsletter The Quorum Report. “For the 500 that count, typically there’s a price tag,” Kronberg said. “If you’ve contributed less than $100,000 to the governor, the odds are pretty good that you’re not going to be appointed to the board of regents.” The governor’s office declined repeated requests for comment regarding the appointments. Former state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, echoed the idea that most appointments El Paso receives have little influence. “It’s not that big of a deal to get a gubernatorial appointment unless it’s one of those handfuls of big important ones,” Pickett said. Pickett said he wishes El Paso legislators would ask more questions and press state officials harder to ensure the region is considered when decisions are being made. El Paso legislators are Democrat, often facing an uphill fight with a majority Republican state government. Among the listed El Paso appointees is Republican Bill Hicks, whom Abbott in December 2022 named district attorney of the 34th Judicial District, which includes El Paso, Culberson and Hudspeth counties. Hicks was appointed to replace Democrat Yvonne Rosales, who resigned after a controversial tenure, through the end of the term Dec. 31 this year. Also counted among the appointees is Hani M. Annabi, who was named student regent of the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents. Student regents are not considered official board members and don’t have any voting powers on the board. A seat at the table Outgoing El Paso Chamber CEO Andrea Hutchins also said El Paso has to work to get attention because of the geographic distance between it and the rest of Texas. The city is in a different time zone than the rest of the state. For example, while representatives from other cities can often drive to Austin, El Pasoans usually have to fly, she said. Having a “seat at the table” for El Paso, “is paramount for our economic prosperity here,” Hutchins said. Andrea Hutchins Hutchins said that El Paso has many different assets — a border, a military installation, a major metropolitan area, an interstate highway — whereas many other cities only have one or two of those. “Those assets require upkeep and advocacy, and so the more folks that we can have in Austin advocating for our assets and resources here in El Paso the better,” she said. Appointees’ jobs are to watch over the organization or agency they were appointed to and advocate for the needs of the area they come from, said El Pasoan Jerry Romero, who has served on various boards since 1996, when he was appointed to the Texas State Affordable Housing Corporation. Romero said one of the most important things he did on the board was to advocate for using state funds to help first-time homebuyers by matching a participants’ savings. He used the example of a single mother from El Paso who entered the program with a goal of saving $5,000 to buy her first home. For every dollar she saved, she was matched $2, Romero said. “At the end of six months, she had enough money for her down payment. We found her a home,” Romero said. “That was probably the most satisfying time for me, knowing that this person had gone from ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to provide a home for my kids’ to having a home.” But Romero said he isn’t sure that program would have happened in El Paso if he hadn’t been on the board. Without representation, funding and resources for the city get overlooked, he said. ‘Battling for attention’ Marisa Marquez Former state Rep. Marisa Marquez, D-El Paso, said appointments are important for communicating the needs of a region and competing with other areas. “We’re probably one of the furthest communities from Austin, so we have to rely heavily on our legislators to make the argument for funding for our area,” Marquez said. In addition to distance, El Paso also is a Democratic stronghold in a strongly Republican state, which political observer Kronberg said makes it sometimes difficult to catch the governor’s eye. “El Paso is always battling for attention,” Kronberg said. “It seems to be very hard for El Paso to get on boards and commissions.” Kronberg said he can’t think of many significant senior policy making appointments in recent years. “Folks say I-35 is the spine of Texas, so I-35 plus Houston is always going to capture their attention more,” Kronberg said. “It’s a bigger pool of voters. It’s typically more organized, and there’s substantially more wealth concentrated in those areas.” For El Paso, the importance of having a voice in the decision-making can help determine its share of infrastructure, education and research spending. “I think people need to be aware of the good things representation brings to your community,” Houghton said. “It really does bring good things.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/06/11/el-paso-lags-texas-state-board-appointments-abbott/ Published and (C) by El Paso Matters.org Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0 International. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/elpasomatters/