On October 18, the Bastrop Chamber of Commerce is holding an alleged “candidate forum”. Don’t waste your time. It won’t help you see the differences between the candidates.
The Bastrop Chamber of Commerce is running a candidate forum for County Judge and for House District 17 at which NEITHER Republican candidate can be there. Both Republicans let the Chamber know quite a while ago that this date was not acceptable. But the Chamber scheduled it anyway.
The Chamber purports this initiative to be “A Resource for Fair, Impartial and Informative Information”, a statement posted prominently on the BastropVotes.com website. It goes on to say “The Bastrop Chamber of Commerce has historically not endorsed political candidates and will not be using this website to do so.”
So, the October 18 forum will be nothing more than an echo chamber, with only Democrats participating. The “Independent” for County Judge is actually a Democrat who chose not to run in a primary but has previously served as, and run as, a Democrat, and whose voting record is strictly Democrat. The “Independent” running for HD-17 voted Democrat in the 2020 primary.
The Bastrop Chamber should have found a date acceptable to all candidates or not run the forum. Doing it this way is a choice, subtle, but a choice nonetheless.