Sayonara to John Wiley Price hack Toni Pippins-Poole

Incompetent / grifter Dallas County elections administrator Toni Pippins-Poole is FINALLY retiring, nine years after being foisted on the county's voters for political reasons by Our Man Downtown, John Wiley Price.  It's also sad that the county's elections board never met to oversee her or do a performance review in her nine years. The link is from a wingnut website, part of the Mucus empire, but it's the only one I saw mentioning her retirement that also mentioned the lack of review. Here's more on her incompetence, magnified in this spring's primary.

Having lived in Dallas in the 2000s-oughts, I remember her predecessor, Bruce Sherbet, the acme of professionalism. I had moved away by the time JWP got him fired. But I still blogged about it. Per a Dallas Observer piece linked in that, current, and then newbie and JWP-puppet, County Judge Clay Jenkins was the one who actually swung the axe. I don't know if Jenkins' increasing independence from JWP led him to threaten a similar axe behind the scenes this time or not. Whether he did or not, he could still go further and offer a semi-apology while still walking the necessary political tightrope. Jenkins also convened the election commission that has not met since TPP's appointment to officially convene to whack Sherbet.

Kuff touts the idea of having an appointed elections administrator rather than an elected overseer, as is the case in Harris County. I told him, per my background, that this doesn't necessarily depoliticize the office.

I know Stan Starart was a joke down there before being defeated by Diane Trautman. And, he's running again. But, Toni Pippins-Poole was a joke, too. OTOH, I don't think the Harris County Comn Court has a blatant grifter on it, unlike JWP.

As for who will replace TPP? Jenkins, counting himself, has three Democrat votes on the Dallas County Commissioners Court who are not named JWP, so, it won't be a nutbar. It will still be someone who takes election issues seriously; Pct. 1 Commissioner Theresa Daniel has ties to the NAACP, LULAC and League of Women Voters. She also is a former staffer for former House Majority Leader Martin Frost.

As for JWP? The man's 70 and will have been in office 28 years as of the start of next year. If he doesn't plan on making this term his last, he seriously needs to be primaried. (Just for shits and grins, let's post Laura Miller's long-ago takedown of Our Man Downtown. As part of that, we have a former assistant of his using antisemitic stereotyping language, something JWP never, AFAIK know, reprimanded her for.)