THE VOTE MUST GO ON: JUDGE THROWS OUT TETREAU'S SUIT

By Juan Montoya

Despite an incumbent's protest that one of her two challengers had fraudulently signed voters' petitions for her to be n the May 4 city election ballot, a visiting judge said the vote must go on.

In ruling against City of Brownsville District 2 incumbent commissioner Jessica Tetreau, visiting judge Robert Pate said that the court found that "injunctive relief is not appropriate" in the case because it would disenfranchise the candidate running for office and the voters who signed her petition for her to be on the ballot.

Pate said that despite a handful of witnesses who said they had signed the petition and did not know who the candidate was or had signed on someone else's behalf, the majority of those signing had desired her to be on the ballot.

"Injunctive relief must be equitable," Pate said.

On February 22 City of Brownsville District 2 incumbent commissioner Jessica Tetreau filed  a motion for a court to issue an injunction to keep challenger Catalina Preas-Garcia off the ballot alleging that she had signed off on voters petitions indicating she had personally collected them .

when she had not.


The lawsuit was reviewed by 404th District Judge Elia Cornejo Lopez, who has been a constant Preas-Garcia enemy and at one time filed to run against her for trustee of the Brownsville Independent School District.

Tetreau - through her attorney and Presas-Garcia nemesis Rick Zayas - charged that act constituted fraud and asked the court to keep her off the ballot. She did not include her other challenger, former Brownsville mayor Pat Ahumada, in her motion for an injunction.

Prior to hearing the witnesses, Presas-Garcia's attorney David Willis told the court he had at least three witnesses that would say they had signed Tetreau's petition and she was not present when they did.

On Wednesday, the staff at the Cameron County Elections Office confirmed that they had mailed absentee ballots to military personnel in the United States and overseas. None of the ballots were sent to applicants from District 2. However, if the judge had followed Zayas' motion that he order the city secretary to remove the names from the valid signatures, it would have meant that the ballots would have had to be reprinted and mailed out as state rules dictate.

Pate heard arguments for and against Tetreau's motion for a temporary and permanent injunction against the inclusion of her challenger's name on the ballot. Willis argued that his client had not been notified by the city secretary of the Tetreau challeneg in a timely manner so she cure "cure" the deficiencies in her petitions as the law proscribes.

There were some notable moments during the testimony of the 17 witnesses called to the stand. One, a man whose wife said she had signed his name on his behalf, told the judge that he had just been issued the subpoena that morning and that he would not testify without the benefit of counsel to represent him. He was excused.

In a made-for-courtTV moment, when Presas-Garcia was called to the stand by Zayas and was asked if she had signed on the bottom, she pleaded the Fifth Amendment. Repeated efforts by Zayas to make her testify on the issue yielded the same response and the court upheld Willis' objections and she did not have to answer.

And despite the testimony of one witness who signed the petition and said she had signed without knowing who the candidate was, and others who said Presas-Garcia was not present whrn they signed, Pate said those irregularities were outweighed by the wishes (intent) of the majority who wanted her on the ballot.