In the protracted legal process to determine the winner in the Nov. 8, 2022 general election for City Council District II, the Fourth Court of Appeals in its Nov. 13, 2023 opinion affirmed visiting judge Susan D. Reed’s Feb. 2023 decision in the 49th District Court that Ricardo “Richie” Rangel, and not Daisy Campos Rodriguez, was the winner.
The answer to Campos Rodriguez’s appeal was answered by Justice Patricia O. Alvarez in a 52-page opinion that chronicles the District Court’s findings of fact and conclusions of law, among them that 15 of 16 votes Rangel challenged in the official tally of Campos Rodriguez were illegal votes. In that contested mix of votes were friends of Campos Rodriguez, relatives, in-laws, and ex-in-laws who did not reside in District II, including three Laredo Police officers who were suspended indefinitely for illegally voting in District II.
The opinion reiterates in detail the arguments of Campos Rodriguez and Rangel that were heard in District Court and the testimony of Webb County Elections Administrator José Castillo, whose status as an expert witness Campos Rodriguez challenged.
(READ OPINION BELOW)
The substance of Campos Rodriguez’s appeal was thus: that the trial court abused its discretion by 1) admitting the testimony of Elections Administrator José Castillo about the most accurate vote record, 2) adopting the election night count instead of the manual count, 3) attributing votes to her for voters who testified they could not remember who they voted for, and 4) finding that certain voters had voted illegally.
The Fourth Court’s Opinion focuses largely on the 81 pages of Castillo’s testimony in the District Court hearing, noting an objection by Campos Rodriguez in the first five pages of his testimony but none thereafter.
The Opinion cited Cf. Bay Area Healthcare, 239 S.W.3d at 236, noting “a timely requested running objection could have preserved the objecting parties’ complaint for appeal, but they did not seek such an objection at that time.”
The Opinion reads, “In his un-objected-to testimony, Castillo testified extensively about the details of the election night count, the CVR (Cast Vote Record), the manual recount, the machine recount, and the hardware and software that comprises the Election Systems and Software (ES&S) voting system. He again opined, without objection, that the election night count – which matched the CVR – was the most accurate record of the votes cast.”
According to the Opinion, “Because Daisy failed to object to Castillo’s additional testimony, including his opinion that the election night count was the most accurate record of the votes cast, she waived her admissibility complaint.”
The Opinion notes that in the District Court proceedings Campos Rodriguez did not object to Castillo’s testimony as subjective or speculative. “Now, she argues that she may raise these arguments for the first time on appeal.”
Campos Rodriguez asked the Court of Appeals to reverse the Feb. 2023 District Court’s judgment, render judgment that the Nov. 8, 2022 election for the District II seat is void, and remand the cause to the trial court with instructions to order the City of Laredo to order a new election.
Rangel requested that the Court of Appeals affirm the ruling of the District Court and refuse a motion for rehearing, which the Court denied, but shortened the timeline by 10 days to file any motion for rehearing.
Per the Tex. Elec. Code §232.016 the appeal of an election contest suspends the execution of the district court’s judgment pending the disposition of the appeal.
The Opinion recapped outrageous voting irregularities in the 2022 District II race, which presented this writer an unsavory view of desperate measures undertaken with considerable forethought to win an election at any cost.
Included in the Opinion was the verbatim testimony from the District Court trial of five named “voters who could not remember” in the first days of February 2023 who they had voted for in the Nov. 8, 2022 election; three police officers gambling their careers on an illegally cast vote; and a first cousin of Campos Rodriguez, a school teacher who owned a home with her husband and raised her children in District VII, but slept in District II at her parents’ home at 3304 Bartlett. A month before the election she changed her voter registration address to the Bartlett address in District II. In testimony she claimed the home she owned with her husband “as my main address,” but also said that she “resides the most at 3304 Bartlett.”
These transcripts present a jarring throwback to the not so distant past when the patrón system usurped democracy with its stranglehold on election outcomes and the lives of the voters of Laredo and Webb County.
Fourth Court of Appeals Chief Justice Rebecca C. Martinez concurred with the Nov. 13, 2023 Opinion.
Daisy Campos Rodriguez is pictured on Dec. 29, 2022 at swearing-in ceremonies for the District II City Council seat. Hand on Bible, she is seen and heard on video averring to solemnly swear she will “faithfully execute the duties of the office of City Council District II of the City of Laredo, State of Texas and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States and of this State, so help me God.” She has since occupied her Council seat, despite a Feb. 6 vote of no confidence by Council members Alyssa Cigarroa, Melissa Cigarroa, Dr. Tyler King, and Gilbert Gonzalez, and Mayor Victor Treviño. (The motion was not supported by Council members Albert Torres, Ruben Gutierrez, and Vanessa Perez.) Daisy Campos Rodriguez is pictured with her husband Vidal Rodriguez, the former City Council representative for District II, and Justice of the Peace Bobby Quintana.
Read more: 4th COURT OF APPEALS OPINION
