By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas | Get to know Mark Gonzalez. Yes, he just resigned as district attorney for Nueces County, but that was because he didn't want to play the "rigged" Republican games, which means Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, wanted Gonzalez gone.
It's an intriguing story about a spirited, educated Chicano who isn't done.
He just declared his candidacy for U.S. Senator, for a shot at Texas Senator Ted Cruz's job. The initial salvo: shots at Cruz's tone-deaf Cancun vacation during the state's frozen winter crisis two years ago. Campaign videos he has issued to the press take the same harsh tack against the state's junior senator. That's his way.
This from dailykos.com: [ Gonzalez, a Democrat who has spent the last seven years as one of Texas' most prominent progressive prosecutors, unexpectedly announced Tuesday that he was joining the March Democratic primary to later take on Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. Gonzalez, who had to quit his current post because of the state's resign-to-run law, joins a nomination contest that includes Rep. Colin Allred and state Sen. Roland Gutierrez. A May runoff would take place if no one wins a majority of the vote in the first round.
Gonzalez, a criminal defense attorney who touted himself as a "Mexican biker lawyer covered in tattoos," first won office in a tight 2016 race even as Donald Trump was narrowly carrying his South Texas community, which includes Corpus Christi. Soon after, he began to attract national attention.
In 2018, he was the subject of a Politico profile in which the writer noted that he belonged to the Calaveras, a group that touts itself as a charity biker organization but that the state classifies as a gang. "At least once last year, he had to explain to a police officer who pulled him over for speeding that he would come up in his system as a known gang member - and, full disclosure, that he was also the county’s district attorney," the profile writer wrote.
Gonzalez never apologizes.
"I try to find a bit of balance," he has said. "How do I carry this office with responsibility and honor and distinguish it, but not lose who I am being this tattooed, Hispanic, Calaveras, criminal-defense guy who grew up in a small town?"
Gonzalez defied critics by pulling off a 51-49 reelection win in 2020 as Trump was taking Nueces County 51-48, which prompted conservatives to instead try to remove him from office without an election. Local Republicans filed a petition in January that, among other things, alleged he'd failed to properly oversee his office and tried to win grant money by dismissing cases. (The petition originally also blasted him for joining four other Texas district attorneys in refusing to prosecute abortion cases, but the argument was later dropped since there were no instances of such cases coming before the county.)
Gonzalez responded to the New York Times, "We’re dismissing cases because it’s the right thing to do." ]
But it was that ceaseless drumbeat of politically-motivated criticism from county Republicans that eventually angered and then inspired Gonzalez to take the fight a step higher - into statewide politics, against a guy he's never liked.
His district attorney term (he won his first election in 2015 and a reelection in 2020) was supposed to end on Dec. 31, 2024, next year. Gonzalez enters the race with plenty of unknowns, a key one being whether he can raise the sort of big money needed to wage a believable campaign and not simply be one more name on the ballot.
He has the fighting spirit and the harsh political lingo of the day.
The unanswered questions are many, but he does have the motivation...and a motorcycle...
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