Mark A. Gonzalez, a progressive district lawyer in Nueces County, Texas, took an uncommon tack when he got here below fireplace from conservatives who didn’t like how he was doing his job.
He resigned — to run for the United States Senate.
Mr. Gonzalez introduced Tuesday that he would be a part of a big area of candidates within the Democratic major to problem Senator Ted Cruz subsequent yr, probably the most distinguished of whom is Representative Colin Allred. In an interview, Mr. Gonzalez stated his choice was immediately tied to efforts to take away him from his elected workplace.
“Prior to that, I hadn’t really had any more taste or want for politics,” he stated. But “with the petition and some of the stuff that’s been going on at least statewide, it just kind of — I don’t know if the word is just angered me or incited me or something — and so I just decided that I don’t want to represent or try to represent just Nueces County. I want to represent Texans that want change.”
He stated the opposite points that animated him included preserving abortion rights and voting rights, and combating conservative efforts to restrict the educating of topics just like the United States’ racial historical past.
His marketing campaign announcement video highlights Mr. Cruz’s choice to depart Texas for a trip in Cancún in 2021 whereas the state was coping with a disastrous winter storm, and contrasts that call with a clip of Mr. Gonzalez throughout the identical storm, asking Nueces County residents to inform his workplace of any incidents of value gouging. Mr. Cruz, a Republican looking for a 3rd time period within the Senate, fended off an unexpectedly fierce problem from Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, in 2018. He gained that race by about 2.5 share factors, two years after Donald J. Trump had gained the state by 9 factors.
It shall be an uphill battle for any Democrat to unseat Mr. Cruz given Texas’ partisan leanings, however his is among the few Republican-held Senate seats — together with one in Florida — that Democrats could goal amid a tricky 2024 map. By distinction, Republicans see pickup alternatives in eight crimson or swing states. Democrats at present management the Senate by a slim margin.
Mr. Gonzalez does, nonetheless, have a document of profitable tough races. He was elected in Nueces County, house to town of Corpus Christi, in 2016 and 2020, whilst Mr. Trump narrowly gained the county. He beforehand stated he wouldn’t run for re-election as district lawyer.
“I think that more Texans probably can identify with a guy like me,” he stated when requested what set him other than the opposite Democratic candidates — a man like him that means, amongst different issues, somebody from a low-income household who has a felony document.
He added: “We have strong family values, we believe in small government, but I also believe in opportunity and giving people chances, and I think most Texans feel that way.”
In his announcement video and his resignation letter to Gov. Greg Abbott, Mr. Gonzalez took the weird step of emphasizing a component of his background that many candidates might need sidestepped: a drunk-driving arrest when he was 19. In the resignation letter, he stated he had taken accountability and pleaded responsible, then been dismayed to see the identical costs dismissed for a defendant who, in contrast to Mr. Gonzalez, might afford a lawyer.
“It dawned on me that the wealthy and well-connected have a different criminal legal system applied to them and accusations against them than everyone else does,” he wrote. “My ignorance of the system was detrimental to my life and has been to so many others just like me.”
Mr. Gonzalez additionally drew consideration to an effort by conservative activists to take away him from workplace, which his resignation has made moot. The conservative petition accused him of incompetence and official misconduct.
The petition was each particular and broad. Specifically, it accused him of mishandling two capital homicide instances. But it additionally accused him of getting “intentionally nullified duly enacted laws of his oath of office,” reflecting a rising sample of right-wing makes an attempt to take away progressive prosecutors who’ve used their discretion to hunt decrease sentences or to say no to cost sure crimes.
“They want to use me as a sacrificial lamb to send a foreboding message to other duly elected D.A.s in Texas who exercise their discretion,” Mr. Gonzalez wrote of state Republicans in his resignation letter.
“I will not be used that way, nor will I run from a fight,” he added. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”
Source: www.nytimes.com