It isn’t going to be easy to succeed longtime Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, whose record 21-year run in the office capping a 50-year public service career will likely never be matched.
Funny thing, though: The race between former Bexar County District Court Judge Peter Sakai, the Democrat, and former County Commissioner Trish DeBerry, the Republican, seemingly has been about everything but following in Wolff’s footsteps.
Of late, the campaign has become a telenovela, a soap opera detracting from the real issues. How did this happen?
Sakai, an acclaimed family court judge, is one of the most selfless public servants I’ve observed in San Antonio. DeBerry has enjoyed success as the owner of a small business and in her public relations work, representing such A-list clients as H-E-B.
At the outset of the race, I was surprised to see Sakai declare his candidacy, moving from the judicial bench to a position that is the county’s equivalent to mayor, overseeing Commissioners Court, the executive staff and a $2.8 billion budget.
Sakai has proven to be a formidable campaigner in the primary and the current campaign. He’s an impressive fundraiser and a confident presence in candidate forums.
DeBerry also surprised me with her last-minute departure from her county commissioner seat after less than one year in office to seek the county judge position, a secure Democratic seat. I still don’t understand her alliance with former city councilman and mayoral candidate Greg Brockhouse, a onetime consultant to the police union and an unwelcome political figure in some establishment circles, although his presence hasn’t hurt DeBerry’s political endorsements.
His own wife’s domestic-abuse call to police in 2009, an incident Brockhouse first denied and later acknowledged, makes him an odd choice for DeBerry, who has made her gender and alleged attacks against her as a woman a campaign issue.
“Greg Brockhouse will have no role in my campaign,” DeBerry told me shortly after she registered as a candidate with Brockhouse in tow when I asked her about his role. Brockhouse has since become a well-established political adviser in the campaign.
And then there are the $250,000 “dark money” ads targeting DeBerry introducing mudslinging into county politics. I detest the significant role anonymous attack ads play in American politics, but I also am cognizant that while both political parties now engage in such activity, it was the conservative nonprofit Citizens United that prevailed in a landmark 2010 Supreme Court case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, that reversed decades of boundaries on outside spending on political campaigns.
In that respect, DeBerry has been victimized by conservative donors who won the right to spend big and spend anonymously on candidates and elections. Her press conference allegations targeting personal injury attorney Thomas J. Henry and advertising agency head Bob Wills as the individuals behind the campaign spending and ad placement were vigorously denied by both Henry and Wills, further muddying the waters.
Meanwhile, the campaign took two more strange turns in the closing days before early voting begins.
The San Antonio Current published two articles that will not help the DeBerry campaign.
The first article alleged that DeBerry’s complaint to San Antonio Express-News Publisher Mark Medici about a soon-to-be-published profile of her by veteran Texas journalist Bruce Selcraig led to the profile being spiked and another reporter assigned to the story. Selcraig, who said he refused to meet with Medici afterward without a labor lawyer representing him, was subsequently fired.
The second article focuses on DeBerry calling Sakai “Dr. No” in a candidate forum, highlighting, she said, his resistance to moving the county jail and his lack of support for construction of a downtown minor league baseball stadium.
Dr. No, the 1962 film that became the first in the James Bond series, featured a half-Chinese mad scientist in a stereotypical role seen as demeaning to people of Asian descent. Sakai took issue with DeBerry’s use of the pejorative name detailed in the Current article.
Others followed in calling out DeBerry for the offensive remark.
“From our perspective, [DeBerry’s use of the nickname] was unequivocally deplorable and a racist statement,” Genaline Escalante, president of the Asian American Alliance of San Antonio, told the Current.
Most voters have probably made up their minds by now. If most vote their party affiliation, the office will remain firmly in the hand of Democrats.
I wish the campaign had focused more on the post-pandemic management of hundreds of millions of federal stimulus dollars allocated to the county, with a substantial amount yet to be spent. I wish greater city-county collaboration had been more thoroughly explored.
And yes, a growing number of community leaders believe moving the jail away from its current location as the gateway to the city’s West Side would lead to greater inner-city investment there.
Sakai and DeBerry offer sharply contrasting personalities that would help define their role as county judge. Unfortunately, melodrama rather than a focus on public policy has dominated the closing weeks of the race.
Early voting starts Monday and runs through Nov. 4 before Election Day on Nov. 8.
