Free Republic

AUSTIN, February 3, 2006 — A trusted aide of U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett has admitted to taking at least $166,000 from his campaign coffers and thousands more from other groups, her attorney confirmed on Thursday. Kristi Willis is a Democratic consultant in Austin who worked for the congressman in his re-election campaigns and in his district office in Austin from late 1998 to 2004, said James Cousar, campaign treasurer for Doggett. It was during her work with the campaign office from 1999 to the first quarter of 2004 that she embezzled the money, Cousar said. For a decade, Willis was...

McALLEN — Democratic voters in South Texas had a message this election for U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — it’s going to take more than a new congressional map in Texas to get rid of 10-year veteran Lloyd Doggett. Doggett, an Austin Democrat who had to jump out of the new Republican-leaning District 10 in order to run in the new District 25, beat Republican challenger and former Public Utility Chair Becky Armendariz Klein of Austin. DeLay, a Republican from Sugar Land, baptized and then pushed congressional redistricting legislation through the Texas Legislature in October 2003, succeeding only after...

Doggett, Klein focusing on minimum wage, environment. The race for the District 25 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives pits a five-term veteran congressman against a relative newcomer in a newly drawn district. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, 57, was one of the targets of a Republican-led redistricting plan meant to obliterate several key Democrats in Congress. Instead, before the ink was dry, he declared his intention to run for the newly redrawn congressional district and charged south picking up endorsements from key Rio Grande Valley politicians and the United Farm Workers. The district now covers Caldwell, Duval, Gonzales, Jim...

McALLEN — If campaign signs could vote, Becky Armendariz Klein might have an advantage in the race for congressional District 25. Klein, an Austin Republican, is running against U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, for the newly drawn fajita stripshaped district, which runs from southeast Austin to McAllen and Pharr. And her signs are everywhere, located at busy intersections in staunchly Democratic Hidalgo County, standing alongside those of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who are making their second White House run. Klein described herself as "fascinated" by the District 25 campaign, knowing she has the potential to be the first...

EDINBURG — Temperatures were in the triple digits all last week but baseball fans didn’t care as they packed the Edinburg Baseball Stadium Thursday night to watch their local professional ball team. U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett didn’t seem to mind the heat, either, as he threw out the first pitch and took the opportunity to work the crowd by walking around and listening to the concerns and complaints of Hidalgo County residents. In November, Doggett, D-Austin, will face Republican Becky Armendariz Klein of Austin in the race for newly drawn congressional District 25, which includes most of Hidalgo County. And...

AUSTIN — Democratic primary voters in congressional District 25 have a choice of voting for an Anglo outsider or a mudslinging pariah disdained by elected officials in her own county. At least that's the impression being left by a spate of negative radio and TV ads, many in Spanish, hitting the airwaves in the Rio Grande Valley, where the outcome of this suddenly bitter race likely will be determined. Days before Tuesday's election, former state District Judge Leticia Hinojosa of McAllen and five-term U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin were arguing over the accuracy of each other's ads, and even...

McALLEN — The new 25th Congressional District has been described as the "bacon-strip" district. But some who live at the southernmost tip tend to see it as a "fajita strip." And that pretty much sums up the district’s cultural diversity. In the northern part, which stretches to Austin, the demographics show a predominantly Anglo population with a higher income average and higher education levels. But travel south in the district about 350 miles and you’ll find a mainly Mexican-American population still struggling to overcome language barriers, low employment rates and one of the lowest per capita income rates in the...

Rep. Lloyd Doggett fights for his political life against Leticia Hinojosa. PALMVIEW — With a practiced smile and outstretched hand, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett recently greeted two cleaning ladies at the newly dedicated Garcia Middle School in this booming Hidalgo County town. Nervously, they retreated. But with shy smiles, they shook his hand after Libby, the candidate's wife and a longtime bilingual education teacher, told them in Spanish, "My husband's a congressman, and we'd appreciate your support." Doggett, who hasn't lost an election in 20 years, began campaigning in South Texas two months before the newly drawn 25th Congressional District...

RIO GRANDE CITY — Judging by the crowd at Las Lomas, a colonia in one of the nation's poorest counties, no one would have guessed that a majority of local elected officials already had endorsed Leticia Hinojosa's opponent for Congress. The event was billed as a forum for the two Democrats, but when it came time to start, the crowd was chanting only, "Leticia! Leticia! Leticia!" "Hola, chulas (Hi, cuties)," the former state district judge told a pair of young girls who greeted her as they would a favorite tía. A representative for her opponent, U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin,...

Of the many corruptions inherent in modern redistricting, none is more insidious than the destruction of communities of interest. Take the 25th Congressional district. It's one of three congressional districts in the greater Austin area. That's the one that reaches from Southeast Austin down to McAllen. The district is overwhelmingly Democratic, so while Republicans are fielding a well credentialed candidate in Rebecca Armendariz Klein, her odds of success in November are at best remote. In all likelihood, this district will choose its representation to Congress in the primary just weeks away. You might be forgiven if you didn't know that...

McALLEN — It didn’t take long for the race for congressional District 25 to get ugly. With just 12 days left before early voting starts for the March primary, Democratic candidate Leticia Hinojosa has launched an inquiry into the voting record of U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, whom she faces in the March 9 election. Doggett was the only Texas Democrat to vote against the budget approved in February 2003 in the U.S. House of Representatives, Hinojosa said. The bill included $2 million in funding for Driscoll Children’s Hospital in McAllen and $500,000 for the South Texas Community College’s Milagro...

Majority Leader Tom DeLay's first goal in reviving Texas congressional redistricting was to simply increase GOP numbers in the delegation. But while DeLay's first mission was numerical, there is little doubt that his second mission included ending Austin congressman Lloyd Doggett's career in Washington. An unapologetic liberal, Doggett is every bit as partisan and hardball as DeLay. Doggett's rhetorical ability to turn a phrase frequently captures print and television attention. Like DeLay, Doggett can simply drip acid about the other political party. Doggett earned the ire of his Texas Democratic colleagues by ignoring the court battles over the redistricting map....

Local congressman works new area: the Valley MISSION -- When Lloyd Doggett called her in October, Sandra Rodriguez wasn't interested in backing his bid to retain a seat in the U.S. House. The politically active Hidalgo County woman had never met the Austin Democrat, whom her father supported years ago. Besides, she had a friend who also was weighing a run in the new 25th Congressional District, which snakes from Austin to the Rio Grande Valley. Then Doggett called again. And again. And again. "He was constantly calling. We were constantly talking," said Rodriguez, who threw her support behind Doggett...

Doggett releases list of Travis County supporters while rival holds first Austin press conference Leticia Hinojosa may be looking to become the first Hispanic female to represent Texas in the U.S. House but she says she hopes race does not dominate her Democratic primary battle with U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin). Austin reporters got their first opportunity to quiz the former state district judge from McAllen this afternoon when she held a press conference to announce her candidacy for Congressional District 25 at the Nuevo Leon restaurant in east Austin. At the same time, Doggett was releasing a list of...

Austin Congressman Lloyd Doggett, one of the Democrats targeted by redistricting pushed by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, has done more than just say he's running in a new district that reaches from East Austin to the Texas-Mexico border. Most recently, Doggett not only has lined up the support of several mayors in Hidalgo County, led by McAllen Mayor Leo Montalvo, but Montalvo's also cut Spanish-language radio spots plugging Doggett's candidacy. Meanwhile, state Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, D-Austin, was meeting in South Texas with Leticia Hinojosa, a state district judge for several years. Both are considering the race, but from...

Compliments Delay for being effective With a court challenge hanging in the balance, Congressman Lloyd Doggett is running -- and running hard -- in the newly drawn Congressional District 25, which stretches from South Austin down to the Rio Grande Valley. Doggett has announced he will run in the newly constituted CD 25, the only Democratic-majority district left in Travis County. And while Travis County will likely end up being the largest county in the nation without its own Congressional district, that’s not sufficient grounds for a panel of federal judges to declare the map illegal. "This map is clearly...