“I come from a family of determined, hard-working migrants, people who taught me ‘we’ll get there when we get there,’” said District II City Council member Ricardo (Richie) Rangel Jr. of the lengthy legal process to challenge the outcome of the Nov. 8, 2022 elections. “I believed justice would prevail, and I had family and constituents who supported me. It’s been a relief to be able to show that we were right, and it’s a relief to move on to serving those who elected me,” said Rangel, whose swearing-in ceremony was delayed over the 12 months of an election contest.
“I thank God for this opportunity to serve. I wish my opponent the best of luck,” he said, adding, “I don’t have enough words to thank my legal team. They became part of my family, Mr. Baldemar García and Ms. Marti Cigarroa.”
The protracted election contest moved through a two-day January 2023 trial in the 49th District Court in which the Findings of Fact of visiting Judge Susan Reed recorded considerable evidence of voter fraud that had benefited Rangel’s opponent, Daisy Campos Rodriguez, the wife of former District II Council member Vidal Rodriguez. With the subtraction of six fraudulent votes from Campos Rodriguez’s Nov. 8, 2022 tally, Rangel was the winning candidate.
The election contest continued in the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals when Campos Rodriguez appealed the findings of the 49th District Court. The Fourth Court of Appeals upheld Rangel’s win, and thereafter Campos Rodriguez took the contest to the Texas Supreme Court, which on January 26, 2024 affirmed Rangel’s win and denied her request for a new election for the District II seat.
“Council Member Richie Rangel joins the Council finally and makes it complete. His perseverance not only created legal history in Texas but hopefully proved to Laredo voters that every vote matters and that the people of District II deserved to be heard and respected,” said District III Council member Melissa Cigarroa.
“This case was always about respecting the voice of the people. It was no easy feat to pursue this court case; it was a costly endeavor with no degree of certainty and requiring patience and resolve. I have no doubt that the strength of character he showed to the public during this past year he will bring to Council, and he is willing to buckle down and get to work. I for one on Council am willing to do the same,” she said.
District VII Council member Vanessa Perez commented, “I believe in the court system, and respect its final verdict 100 percent. I’m looking forward to moving ahead and to working with Mr. Rangel.”
District VIII’s Alyssa Cigarroa, one of the most outspoken Council members over Campos Rodriguez remaining on the Council, welcomed Rangel. “Richie Rangel’s triumph over corrupt campaign practices in Laredo stands as a testament to justice prevailing. His historic election overturn highlights the significance of community awareness and the consequences for engaging in illegal acts. His fight sent a strong message to our community…honesty, integrity, and fairness are alive and well,” she said.
“The evidence in Mr. Rangel’s case was very clear — that migratory voting was illegal and changed the election outcome,” said attorney Baldemar García of Person, Moher, Morales, Boddy, García & Gutierrez.
“It set precedent to apprise future candidates they will be held accountable for election fraud. We had the judicial branch wading into the democratic process of an election, which by design has many checks and balances. The margin here was only six votes. Mistakes balance themselves out, but here we had something more sinister,” he continued.
“Since we were still coming out of the pandemic in late January 2023, the trial in the 49th District Court was televised. Some of the witnesses we had subpoenaed and that had not responded heard Judge Reed say in the televised hearing that she would hold in contempt witnesses who did not come forward. She was stern, and it worked,” García said.
García characterized Rangel as patient. “He lost a year of his term. Daisy Campos Rodriguez’s case in the Fourth Court of Appeals was to have been an accelerated appeal. It was anything but that. It stalled out there. Many brought up the Martin Luther King adage that ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’ but our client believed otherwise. Mr. Rangel is also a kind man, even to his opponent, never confronting her at the 49th District Court trial. He is open-minded and doesn’t shoot from the hip. He listens and then asks questions.”
The other half of Rangel’s legal team, attorney Marti Cigarroa of the Whitworth Cigarroa law firm, was a guest on the Feb. 5, 2024 iteration of KGNS’ Beyond the Headlines. The topic focused on the work of Rangel’s legal team and the affirmation of the win handed down by the Texas Supreme Court on Jan. 26, 2024, also affirmed by two Nov. 23, 2023 opinions of the Texas Fourth Court of Appeals.
KGNS news anchor Mindy Casso asked Cigarroa why Rangel’s team worked consistently with so high a level of confidence.
Cigarroa said that an initial review of the election records coupled with a review of independent documents such as employment records brought to light a concerted effort to violate the law in District II to vote for Campos Rodriguez.
“When we rested our case in the 49th District Court, we still had 23 or 24 illegal voters who had not yet testified,” she said, adding, “more than enough than the number of the six -vote difference recorded by the Cast Vote Record on the night all the ballots were counted.” She continued, “We went back to the beginning, back to the truth, and that’s where we saw the six-vote difference. Part of the District Court trial showed that Mr. Rangel won fair and square, and that the contestee never won that race.”
In response to a question by panelist Sergio Mora regarding who will be accountable for voter fraud – the persons guilty of voting out of their district or the organizer of the effort – Cigarroa began, “By clear and convincing evidence – the highest burden of proof in the civil law – we proved that there were 9 addresses with 54 voters at those 9 addresses. In addition, we were able to prove by clear and convincing evidence that they did not live there, this verified by information on their own employment records, on their own Texas Drivers License, from their bank records, from the Webb County Appraisal District records.”
Cigarroa called the election fraud “an intentional, insidious attempt to sabotage our election laws.”
She continued answering Mora’s question regarding accountability. “Voting is a fundamental Constitutional right that we all have. So it is sacred, and it is really the basis for our democracy. It is what makes our country strong and great. When you violate our election laws, it really dilutes our democracy…what happened here should not happen again. It is a crime,” she said, adding, “It is a Class A Misdemeanor or a state jail felony if it’s aggravated, and in this case we have alleged that at least one of the voters committed aggravated perjury. It is beyond Mr. Rangel. He does not have the authority to further investigate that criminal aspect. I am confident that (an investigation) is going on, but I cannot tell you what is going on because that is beyond our purview. There are criminal aspects to all of this.”
SIDEBAR
OPINION & COMMENTARY
The sore loser’s siege of District II
Council seat: Dec. 28, 2022 – Feb. 1, 2024
She was her own cañonera and her own worst enemy
By María Eugenia Guerra
Daisy Campos Rodriguez’s sore loser siege of the City Council District II seat she coveted above self-respect, dignity, and fair play came to an end with the Feb. 1, 2024 swearing-in ceremony of the rightful winner of that race, Ricardo Rangel Jr.
What, it must be asked, did Daisy Campos Rodriguez gain in the 12 months she kept Ricardo Rangel from taking his rightful place on the Council? Probably far less than what she lost in greater measure in the Findings of Fact of the Jan. 26 and 27, 2023 49th District Court trial before visiting Judge Susan Reed – credibility and reputation – as evidenced by the illegally cast votes of the roster of fraudsters: among them City employees including Laredo Police officers, in-laws, and family, some who had selective amnesia about for whom they had voted, some registered to an address at 3303 Pecos where a total of 17 were registered to vote.
These examples of election fraud carry the stench of patrón politics.
Inexplicable, unforgettable visual: At the trial in the 49th District Court, Daisy Campos Rodriguez sat back and claimed to be the winner.
Inexplicable, unforgettable verbiage: On appeal, for the first time, she asked for a new election – conceding that illegal voting had occurred and that the true outcome of the election could not be determined.
A registrar for new voters, Campos Rodriguez was her own cañonera and her own worst enemy.
