The last day to file to run in the Texas Democratic primary was Monday and although few surprises emerged about the candidates running for office, a minor controversy erupted at the last minute which some have characterized as an attempt to “coronate” a new party chairman.
By the time the dust settled, a candidate’s goal to run for another office, reluctantly settled for staying on as the El Paso County Democratic Party Chairman for another term – Michael Apodaca. What happened was that Apodaca had decided to run for Justice of the Peace Precinct 1. That office has a crowded field of six candidates seeking the office. Apodaca would have made it seven candidates. And up until a few minutes before the deadline, two potential candidates were primed to file for Apodaca’s spot if he ran for the justice of the peace seat.
That they did not file both exposes the behind-the-scenes deal making inside the El Paso Democratic Party apparatus and how El Paso’s “party bosses” still hold on to the party’s political power. That telephone calls were made and two people ended up not filing further exposes the party’s inability to be transparent and upfront with their constituency, and instead continue to rely on backroom deals to control the party’s political power in the city that they dominate.
Only minutes from the deadline, El Paso’s “party bosses” imposed their will on who should run for office in El Paso and who should wait their turn. It was the classic display of political corruption that rarely sees the light of day, except for hushed whispers shared at party meetings.
To understand what happened, El Paso News spoke to several people who either had firsthand knowledge of the events or heard about it after the fact. Because it involves the internal politics of the El Paso County Democratic Party, many of the people we spoke to either spoke to us on the condition that we use their information for background only or refused to talk to us.
Two key individuals involved in this backroom deal ignored our attempts to get their version of events.
From this we have pieced together this narrative of the events of what transpired that night.
The story starts around 20 minutes before the 6:00pm deadline to file to run for office on Monday evening. In the room sat Emma Acosta file stamping last minute applications. Milling about were several people, some were candidates anxiously looking to see who would be challenging them in the upcoming elections, some were political operatives and a few were political opportunists ready to pounce on unsuspecting candidates.
One of the persons in this assemblage was El Paso’s Democratic Party Chair Michael Apodaca. Apodaca was not there as an observer for the party. He was there to file paperwork to conclude a deal made sometime before.
The deal was simple enough. Apodaca would be filing to run for Justice of Peace Precinct 1 resulting in him vacating the leadership of the party. Filing so close to the deadline ensured that the carefully orchestrated backroom deal would come to fruition because by the time anyone noticed it would be too late to stop his “anointed” successor from picking up the mantle of the party’s leadership – Richard Genera.
But things conspired against the conspirators when an unexpected interloper appeared ready to challenge the anointment of the party’s next chair. The interloper sat next to Acosta ready to pounce on her with his paperwork should Apodaca not have the right answer for him.
The question was simple enough, are you running for JP?
Apodaca ignored him as he walked away to talk on his telephone.
With less than five minutes to go, Apodaca came back, and simply said, “nope, I’m not running.”
With that, the interloper smiled and walked quietly away without filing their paperwork. But he could not stay silent so he called several people about what had transpired. That is how we heard about this backroom deal. This is how chismes magnify eventually landing in our inbox.
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The Plan
The plan, according to our sources, was that Richard Genera was to be appointed as the party’s chairman and run for the position once Apodaca filed paperwork for the justice of the peace office. Genera is a CD-16 committee member for the party. He previously ran for the El Paso City Council District 5 seat in 2022. He came in second with 19% of the vote. Genera also ran the El Paso Beat podcast for several years. The podcast seems to have ended sometime in 2024. He now works in the District Attorney’s office.
Genera ignored our numerous requests asking for information about his interest in becoming the party chair. Although Genera previously submitted his candidate profile to us in 2022, he refused our requests to comment on this story.
Although Apodaca had made the decision to run for the JP’s office sometime before, he appears to have waited until the final moment to keep other people out of the party chair’s election. It wasn’t until after a telephone call, or two, and with only minutes left on the clock that he made the decision to stay on as the party chair because their deal had fallen apart.
It is not known who Apodaca spoke to before making his decision, but two names have come up. One call may have been to Genera to inform him of the developments, likely to let him know he wasn’t going to be next party chair.
The second call was to “party boss,” Veronica Escobar.
In a telephone interview today, Wesley Lawrence confirmed many of the details for us. Lawrence is the party’s CD-23 Committee Member and is actively involved in the party. He agreed to speak to us on the record.
Lawrence described the events leading up to Genera’s appointment as the party chair as a “coronation.” He was not the only person to use the word to describe what Apodaca was trying to do. Lawrence told us that he “suspects, without a shadow of a doubt,” that El Paso’s “party boss” is congresswoman Veronica Escobar. He added that what happened was at the “behest of the party boss.”
He added, “party leaders knew of the plan…formulated a plan” ignoring “what was best for the party.” Noel Rosenbaum, of the Westside Democrats, advised Apodaca not to run for JP, because Apodaca didn’t have “the money to run for office at a higher level,” and that Apodaca abandoning the Chair “would fracture the local Democratic Party.”
Lawrence added that Apodaca should have had the “moral courage to file on the first” because at the end of the day, “Democracy should not be decided in the dark.”
As for the interloper? They got a phone call the following day from Escobar saying, “I heard you were running for party chair…”
We asked Apodaca for comments for this story. He did not respond to our request.
He is the only candidate on the ballot for the Democratic Party primary meaning that he will serve another term as party chair after the election. However, that does not sit well with people in the party we spoke to. First, they don’t like the party politics of backroom deals like the attempt to “coronate” Genera. But they also see the party in decline under Apodaca.
Apodaca led the local Democratic Party last year when voter turnout among local Democrats dropped while local Republican voter participation surged. Apodaca additionally allowed a Republican-backed PAC to significantly fund Renard Johnson’s mayoral race without having the party take a position on the large amounts of Republican money pouring into that race.
The question asked by a few of the people we spoke to was why is Veronica Escobar so invested in Genera taking over as party chair that when the plan fell apart, she apparently told Apodaca to stay where he was.
Photo credit: Richard Genera picture posted to Reddit on August 28, 2022.