State law triggered an automatic resignation, but will the county judge let him finish his term?
PRESIDIO COUNTY — On Monday night, Precinct 4 Commissioner David Beebe announced his intent to run for county judge, calling for fresh leadership after a particularly tense budget drafting process. “I’ve been through a total of 15 budget cycles while in office and carefully observed a few more as a candidate and this year’s County budget cycle was the most disappointing of my career,” he wrote on his blog, where he’s chronicled the ins and outs of county politics for more than a decade.
On Tuesday morning, it was brought to the Sentinel’s attention that Beebe’s campaign announcement may have accidentally triggered his resignation from the Commissioners Court a year and three months ahead of schedule. Per the Texas Constitution, county officials that announce their candidacy for “any office of profit or trust under the laws of this State or the United States other than the office then held” more than one year and thirty days from the end of their term. “Such announcement or such candidacy shall constitute an automatic resignation of the office then held,” the law reads.
Beebe reached out to his legal counsel, who suggested that the county may not be required to appoint a replacement to fill out the end of his term. “This is a legal matter of some complexity,” he wrote in a statement. “Regardless of what the Commissioners Court chooses to do, I will continue to work my hardest every day for the bright future the people of our County deserve.”
Beebe has long been an outspoken voice in local politics, first serving as a city council member in Marfa and then as justice of the peace for the northern half of the county. He stepped down from that position in 2021 to run for a seat on Commissioners Court, where he has served ever since.
Budget deficits have defined the tone of Beebe’s tenure on the court. It’s no secret that Presidio County — and its people — are strapped for cash. Data gathered between 2019 and 2023 from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities ranks Presidio County as the second poorest county in Texas, with a staggering 33.9% of residents living below the poverty line, more than quadruple the national average.
The county’s poverty is so extreme that property taxes only bring in around $4 million a year, despite a booming real estate market in the northern half of the county. That leaves pocket change to cover expenses. As a result, budget seasons usually come and go with little public drama — there simply isn’t anything to fight over.
This year was an exception to the rule, with a series of knock-down-drag-out fights pitting Presidio against Marfa. The trouble began at the tail end of last year’s budget season, when commissioners tired of trying to squeeze water from a stone decided to take on a modest amount of debt to catch up with long-overdue maintenance needs and emergency repairs to the county courthouse.
During Monday night’s speech, Beebe gave a brief timeline: first, county officials “unanimously consented” to take out certificates of obligation for the courthouse, which has no central heating or cooling, and its legally-required elevator is frequently out of service. Behind the scenes, current County Judge José Portillo was working with grantwriters to try to build a multimillion dollar law enforcement center in Presidio in hopes of solving logistical problems faced by the sheriff’s office and the local police department, which regularly transport accused criminals an hour up the highway to the county jail in Marfa.
When funding for the law enforcement center didn’t pan out, the tone of county politics started to sour, and a group mainly concentrated in Presidio launched a petition to drive the county’s certificates of obligation to a vote. “To make a long story short, we went through this entire process—that of requiring bond counsel and having multiple meetings about how we were planning to address all these needs—and after having spent a quarter million dollars toward completing the engineering and design process, [Portillo] decided that he was opposed to the entire project,” Beebe said. “Now what we have is a quarter million dollars down the drain and nothing planned about the courthouse other than the judge saying he’s going to look into getting permission from the Historical Commission on how to put in some mini splits.”
The latest chapter in the story ended with the county opting to defund Marfa’s golf course and Vizcaino Park, sparking widespread public outrage. Beebe felt that grassroots efforts to organize and save the spaces were an example of positive leadership, particularly on the part of Precinct 1 Commissioner Deirdre Hisler, whose constituency suffered the bulk of the cuts. “I support their efforts 100%,” Beebe said. “It’s an example of outside-the-box-thinking on how to make things work when things are not working.”
At Wednesday morning’s Commissioners Court meeting, Beebe addressed his inadvertent resignation from county office, explaining that he’d consulted County Attorney Blair Park, the Texas Association of Counties and his own attorney, all of whom suggested his fate was up to the man he’d just launched a campaign against. “I can stay serving at the mercy—or whims—of Judge Portillo,” he said. “In the meantime, I can still serve my people.”
Judge Portillo was out of state this week for a required session of the National Association of Counties and opted not to comment right away to the Sentinel.