Ron Harris, former Collin County Judge, to possibly run for state senate

by Vince Leibowitz of Capitol Annex

Ron Harris

In a pretty classic case of putting the cart before the horse, Ron Harris, the Collin County judge who lost his re-election campaign in the 2006 GOP Primary and has since been serving as a consultant to T. Boone Pickens, has announced he will seek the District 8 seat in the Texas Senate presently held by Florence Shapiro (R-Plano).

Of course, Harris says, he’ll only seek the seat if Shapiro runs for the U.S. Senate Seat held by Kay Bailey Hutchison.

The problem? That’s more than an “if.” For one thing, Hutchison has to announce a run for governor and vacate the seat in the Senate in time for the 2010 election cycle. Otherwise, Hutchison can opt to run for Governor while remaining in the U.S. Senate, meaning the seat won’t likely be vacant until she’s sworn into office–and is able to appoint someone to the seat (a someone who is not likely to be Florence Shapiro).

Of course, via the McKinney Courier-Gazette, this guy seems to think he knows exactly what Shapiro will do:

Harris said that he will not run against Shapiro if she chooses not to run for Hutchison’s U.S. senate seat and to instead seek re-election for her state senate seat.

“I think Florence wants to run for the US Senate. I don’t have any criticisms of Florence Shapiro. She is one of the strongest local government advocates in the state senate,” Harris said.

His goals for office would be to find more water sources and to conserve electricity for North Texas, and use renewable sources of energy and improve the growing transportation needs throughout the areas of Collin County and Dallas County that are in Texas Senate District 8.

A tremendous potential liability for Harris is his connection to T. Boone Pickens and his scam to sell water from West Texas to cities in Dallas:

Harris is currently working as a consultant for the Mesa Power Pampa, LLC, that is owned by Boone Pickens, who wants to sell and transport water from a West Texas reservoir to North Texas cities, and is building wind turbines in Northwest Texas and using them as wind power. He served as the county judge over the Collin County Commissioner’s Court from 1991 to 2006 and was on the Plano City Council from 1985 to 1990. He has also served on many North Central Texas Council of Governments’ committees, including the NCTCOG’s Regional Transportation Council.

“I think there is a lot of work to be done. Now, that I’ve been working with Boone Pickens I’m aware that we’ve got big water supply and electricity needs in North Texas. His water and electricity is going to be little more expensive, but what would it look like if the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal had headlines that said, ‘North Texas is out of water’,” Harris said.

He believes that the water districts, politicians and consultants have been planning for obtaining more water supplies to support the demand in North Texas for too long, and that it is time for action, Harris said.

“The water districts need to put meat on the bones and I think we’ve been planning too long. I want the water districts to take some action rather than just planning. My goal is to ensure that we no longer have to worry about our water needs. We need the water it will take to support the future,” Harris said.

Given it will be late 2009 or 2010 before we know what Hutchison will do (which will determine what everyone else will do), we’ll have to wait and see what happens.