Precinct 5 constable’s race heats up as incumbent tries to have out candidate removed from ballot for not filing under legal name
Beth Villarreal, left, Susan Craig, right
Dallas County Precinct 5 Constable Beth Villarreal is suing lesbian opponent Susan Lopez-Craig for filing for the office under a name that’s not legally hers.
Villarreal filed the lawsuit and an emergency application for a temporary restraining order in the 191st District Court on Dec. 26. The restraining order was issued Dec. 27, preventing the Dallas Democratic Party from printing any ballots with Lopez-Craig’s name on it. Parties appeared in court on Tuesday and Thursday for a hearing on an injunction to prevent ballots from being printed until a judge decides whether Lopez-Craig can run under that name.
Larry Friedman, the attorney representing Lopez-Craig, said the judge has to make a decision before Monday, when ballots are scheduled to be printed and then proofed.
“It’s petty politics,” he said.
As of press time, a ruling in the case had not been made. Friedman said he expected a decision by Friday afternoon. Villarreal dropped the suit Friday morning.
Lopez-Craig declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also lists Toni Pippins-Poole, Dallas County elections administrator, and Darlene Ewing, Dallas County Democratic Party chair, as defendants.
Villarreal has two other challengers, Rick Lozano and Michael Orozco, in the Democratic Primary. No one filed on the Republican side.
Ewing said she’s included in the lawsuit because she’s the presiding election officer in the primary. The parties run the primaries, and it’s her legal responsibility to certify candidates for the ballot. But she takes their applications and sends them to the Texas secretary of state. So she’s not allowed to verify if someone used his or her legal name.
“Beth is alleging that Lopez is not a legal name, and so she cannot use that name,” Ewing said. “And [she’s alleging] since she filed under an unlawful name, she should be removed from the ballot.”
Ewing said she filed under Susan E. Lopez-Craig. She said her birth certificate reads Susan Lopez, but she was adopted as an adult and her name was then changed to Craig.
“So it’s kind of an interesting question. Does the adoption decree trump the birth certificate — and the birth certificate was never changed — or is the birth certificate still a valid legal document?” Ewing said.
According to the lawsuit, Lopez-Craig’s driver’s license, peace officer’s license, voter and car registration all list her surname as Craig.
But Friedman said he discovered that Villarreal has used a variety of name combinations over the years, going from Bethel, her legal name, to Beth, and using different versions of her married name.
Names can be changed, according to the Texas Election Code, but there are limitations. People can use a nickname they’ve gone by for three years, or can use a derivative of a name like Bill for William. Ewing said whether people can add to their names instead of shortening it like a nickname or derivative is a question for the judge.
Ewing said the judge could throw out the lawsuit, order the name to stand, order it be changed to Susan Craig before ballots are printed or remove her from the ballot.
Precinct 5 is a heavily Hispanic area, so Ewing said having a Hispanic surname could help Lopez-Craig.
“Politically you’d like to have a Hispanic name, and that’s why Beth is arguing about it,” she said.
But the two will also be vying for the LGBT vote. Lopez-Craig is openly gay, but Villarreal won the LGBT vote in 2010. The precinct includes the city’s most heavily LGBT neighborhoods in Oak Cliff and Oak Lawn.
Victoria Neave, the attorney representing Villarreal, said the lawsuit was filed because Lopez-Craig is violating the Texas Elections Code by filing under her non-legal name.
“We don’t know really why that name is being used,” she said. “We really think it may be a misrepresentation of identity.”
Neave said it was wrong for that name to be used when voters wouldn’t be able to find any information on a Susan Lopez-Craig but would be able to search and find information on Susan Craig.
In a September interview about her candidacy with Dallas Voice, Lopez-Craig said that she went by that name. But in 2007, she, as Susan Craig, was fired by DART after fellow officers claimed she faked an injury to her right eye. She ended up being indicted on three charges, including falsifying a document and tampering with evidence, but she was only tried on the tampering charge and was later acquitted.
“For us it was important that anytime anybody is running for office, you’ve got to be transparent,” Neave said. “It’s about integrity. It’s about making sure that you’re honest with Dallas County voters. … That particular precinct has been plagued with many issues in the past, dealing with misconduct and things like that. Constable Villarreal has worked hard to sort of clean house. Really it’s her duty to make sure the voters know who these candidates really are.”
Precinct 5 has had its share of controversy. Former Constable Mike Dupree, who was openly gay, resigned as part of a settlement agreement with Dallas County and the Texas Attorney General’s office to avoid a trial to remove him from office on allegations of official misconduct and incompetence.
And Villarreal replaced Jaime Cortes, who faced a wide-ranging investigation and forced removal from office by jury trial. He resigned after losing to Villarreal in the Democratic Primary.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 3, 2014.
