District Clerk to resign

Faced with mounting legal challenges, Galveston County District Clerk Jason Murray has announced that he will resign from office within the next two weeks. In addition to a recent DWI in League City and his probation for assaulting his wife, Mr. Murray appears to be the target of a special prosecutor retained by the Galveston County District Attorney's Office.

Mr. Murray was swept into office in the Republican sweep of Galveston County in 2010. Growth in the northern part of the county and the decline of the population along the coast thanks to Hurricane Ike have handed control of the county to the Republican party.

In their haste to vote for any breathing thing with an R after its name, Galveston County elected as district clerk, a man plagued with so many personal demons he is having to leave office in shame and as judge, a man who was on probation from the State Bar of Texas for ethics violations.

GOP-mania also caused a State District Judge to switch his allegiance from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party so that he could retain his seat. In fairness, Judge Wayne Mallia has always been just a tad-bit conservative, but, when the winds blew from the left, he signed up with the Democrats in order to win his seat and now, with the winds shifting, he's going to the other side. Just a word of caution, political expediency and ideological purity are too very different things. If he cheated on her to be with you, what makes you think he won't do it again?

Word on the street is that there is a line of candidates ready to run in the GOP primary for the bench in County Court Three in 2014 despite the fact that a Republican (albeit one that makes Barry Goldwater look like a damn liberal) is already sitting there. My sources tell me that one attorney who was in line for a district court seat was asked to step aside and run for Dupuy's seat next time around.