Free Republic

Oct. 4, 2003, 1:34AM Scheme to confuse voters in mayor's race is thwarted By JOHN WILLIAMS Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle Political Writer An aborted scheme to dilute support for a major candidate by putting another man with the same name on the Nov. 4 ballot has touched two campaigns and is roiling the rhetoric in Houston's mayoral race. It is a bizarre tale that includes a Democratic U.S. congressman, a secret tape recording, a $5,000 campaign check and a floppy straw hat sold for $1,200. And it is a tale that raises as many questions as it answers. At the...

In Search of Bogus Bill How a would-be dirty trick became campaign comedy BY TIM FLECK Even by Houston's offbeat political standards, it was a very strange meeting indeed. In Internet whistle-blower Brenda Flores's humble Spring Branch-area bungalow sat an unlikely confab of political power: Congressman Chris Bell, mayoral candidate and millionaire executive William H. "Bill" White and Metro board member Janie Reyes. They had come calling on a Sunday afternoon, the day before the municipal election filing deadline, to implore Flores not to follow through on her confessed scheme to recruit another Bill White to run for mayor. In...