LETTER: On the Sheriff and Commissioner Pct 3 races

To the Editor:

Friends, neighbors, and fellow Ellis County citizens,

Once again, election time is upon us. Texans are casting their votes and deciding very important races across our state and on March 1st the future of our state will be mostly decided. Sure, we will likely have a few runoff elections and the general election in November, but most of the real agents of change will either win or lose their biggest race in the primary.

For most parts of Texas, the primary is when real change is made. Many full-fledged democrats have come to the realization that they simply cannot get democrats elected in places like Ellis County, so they work to make sure the moderate or liberal republicans are elected. That's why you see local democrats like Alan Fox, a supporter of Obama and Wendy Davis, commentating on the Republican Primary races and even being allowed by the Waxahachie Daily Light, a liberal paper owned by a company in New York, to do an editorial hit piece on a conservative candidate. They have figured out that if they can get their same liberal agenda accomplished by electing soft republicans then they don't need to elect democrats. This is why it is very important for us all to be able to recognize those republicans who don't adhere to Republican values. We need to be fighting liberal ideas more than ever, not aiding them by promoting them in our own party primary races.

There are two races in Ellis County which I believe are very important from a limited government/more freedom standpoint. The race for Ellis County Commissioner Precinct 3 and the race for Ellis County Sheriff are crucial races if you believe that government should be limited and that government should protect the life, liberty, and property of the citizens. The other reason why these two races are so important is that the incumbent in both races is the more conservative candidate. This means a loss in either of these races is a step backwards for those who value liberty. We must hold the line!

There has been plenty of mudslinging in both of these races, with supporters posting false information online and in letters to the editor or publicly hurling personal insults and cursing at the opposition in hate-filled rants. Local media outlets have chosen sides and even the candidates themselves have taken part in the public back-and-forth.

Some residents are taken aback by it all and some have trouble separating fact-based statements or comments from those filled with distortions, lies, and personal attacks. I honestly feel bad for them because they don't really care about public policy, they just want their friends and neighbors to get along...and I can appreciate that. However, I do believe these people need to stop and consider how important both of these races are to having good public policy in our county, friendships aside.

Before getting into the two aforementioned races, let me make something clear. I have no personal animosity or ill will towards Frank Sanchez or Wess Winn. I went to church with Frank for 7 years at the Cowboy Church of Ellis County and I have never had anything but respect for the man. I actually supported Wess Winn in his run for WISD school board because I thought he would be a good conservative voice on that mostly liberal body. I believe both of these men are good men. They are good men who have proven themselves to have bad ideas. You're going to see me talking about ideas because I believe ideas are what elections should be based upon.

On the race for Sheriff -

Our nation is at a tipping point. We cannot continue to pretend that the tax-and-spend philosophy of the left is any worse than the borrow-and-spend philosophy of so many republicans. They are both equally bad ideas. Wess Winn has proven that he supports the borrow-and-spend and spend philosophy when he supported the $125 million WISD bond. This bond was chocked full of waste and it was pushed in a very dishonest and non-transparent way. If Winn can support such waste and deception on the school board we must seriously consider what ideas he might support as sheriff.

He has also said publicly that he wants to work better with the county judge, Carol Bush. This should be disturbing to all conservatives in the county. Carol Bush has pushed for more increased budgets, higher taxes, and less transparency since she was first appointed to her seat. She does this while trying to cut the sheriff's budget and even firing his staff members by eliminating positions on the department. Anyone who wants to work well with Bush should be immediately removed from consideration for a conservative vote. Her ideas are big-government, liberal ideas and they are bad for our county.

Sheriff Johnny Brown has not always had my support as a liberty activist. In fact, I supported his opponent back in 2012 because I believed Sheriff Brown didn't quite understand his role as sheriff, the top ranking peace officer in the county, and I saw no evidence, at the time, that he took the rights of his constituents seriously. However, over the last 4 years Johnny has listened to those of us in the Tea Party/Liberty movement and he has made great strides to ensure us that he and his department will protect the rights of the citizens of Ellis County and they will serve as a firewall between us and the overreaching federal government if the need arises.

Sheriff Brown cares about our freedom, he recognizes our God-given rights, and he stands firm against those who would undermine those rights.

On the race for Commissioner Precinct 3 -

Property rights are almost nonexistent in Texas due to property taxes and eminent domain abuse. It seems that none of us really own our property because we are forced to pay rent to the state and, on top of that, our property can be taken from us against our will and handed over to a private company for anything from a football stadium to a gas pipeline to a bullet train. Now, more than ever, we need men and women in local and state government to stand against these abuses of eminent domain....but Frank Sanchez wants to expand eminent domain to build and expand churches! That's right, he wants to give the government the power to force people to give up their property on behalf of churches. I wanted to believe that Frank had simply misspoke when he said this at a recent candidate forum hosted by the Ellis County Republican Party. I was hoping he would release a public statement retracting his support for expansion of eminent domain, but he has not. This is a scary proposition. Can you imagine the government having this power? Which churches could use eminent domain? Would mosques, synagogues, and temples be afforded the same luxury or only Christian churches? What would our newly altered Supreme Court say to that? This is just one of Frank's bad ideas.

Sanchez has also said publicly that he wants to work better with the county judge, Carol Bush. Having watched the commissioners court for seven years now, I have witnessed the way the court operates. On multiple occasions, Paul Perry has been the lone dissenting voice against this county judge and her liberal policies. I hate the thought of her ideas having free reign in our county.

Opponents of Paul Perry say that he doesn't take care of bridges, roads, and drainage in his precinct. As the owner of a local business who services people at their homes and businesses and as a former candidate who personally knocked on over 10,000 voters' doors across the county, I have driven all over the county and I can say, without a doubt, that precinct 3 has better maintained roads, bridges and drainage than the other precincts, especially when you consider the record rainfall we had last year and the flooding experienced in Maypearl and other parts of the precinct. These claims are simply unfounded and untrue.

Perry's opposition says that Perry is doing us a disservice because he doesn't use up all of his budget. They want him to spend his entire budget whether he needs to or not. They don't want him to save our tax dollars! Once again, bad ideas.

I must be honest, I consider Paul Perry a very close friend and one of my mentors in my work to restore liberty and limited government. He has been active in this movement much longer than I have and he has proven himself to be a defender of life, liberty, and property rights. Paul's record on the court speaks for itself.

In Commissioner Paul D. Perry and Sheriff Johnny Brown, Ellis County residents have two men who are on our side. We have two men who will stand, not just for a few of us, but for all of us. Please, we must not be fooled by the Waxahachie establishment. We must keep these two men in place fighting for us.

Vote Paul D. Perryand Johnny Brown!

Hold the line!

— T.J. Fabby