Texas Democratic Primary Just Got Real

I’ve got a piece up today on a Democratic House primary in El Paso, where former councilman Beto O’Rourke is challenging 16-year incumbent Silvestre Reyes. The kicker is that O’Rourke is an outspoken critic of the War on Drugs who’s clashed with Reyes over federal drug policy; in a border district, the election amounts to a sort of referendum on the Drug War. The current polling of the race, such as it is, has the two deadlocked.

Why is a longtime incumbent facing an early retirement? University of Texas–El Paso professor Gregory Rocha suspected it was partly because Reyes has been kind of lethargic when it comes to defining himself and his opponent.

So right on cue, with election day just six days away, the Reyes campaign has gone what I think you could charitably call “scorched earth”:

The El Paso Times has a handy fact-check of the charges: The DUI came when O’Rourke was 25 (he’s 40 now) and has not seemed to hurt him in his previous races; the “attempted burglary” came when he was in college and according to the candidate consisted of him jumping a fence. The drunken spanking incident happened last June at an El Paso bar. In the grainy footage, O’Rourke is seen dancing, falling on his back, and then being spanked by a female companion. Although O’Rourke was undoubtedly spanked, it’s not clear whether he was intoxicated.

In any event, I’m fairly certain this is the first-ever attack ad to feature the phrase “he was recently videoed publicly intoxicated being spanked.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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