Jasso does the right thing the wrong way.

Dallas City Council member Delia Jasso ... caught in the cross-hairs

I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. The resolution introduced by Dallas City Council member Scott Griggs supporting gay marriage has absolutely nothing to do with marriage or gay rights. It was nothing more than Griggs displaying just how low he would go to win an election. And fellow City Council member Delia Jasso’s initial reaction to Griggs move was nothing more than a display of how spineless a city council candidate she was.

In fact, the only person on the council with the smarts to see through this entire subterfuge is Mayor Mike Rawlings who maintains, quite correctly, debating gay marriage is a complete waste of the council’s time because there is absolutely nothing legislatively the council can do about the issue.

For the 93 percent of the registered voters in Dallas who slept through the most recent elections, here’s what’s going on.

The Dallas City Council went through its every 10-year redistricting battle and when the smoke cleared, lo and behold, two incumbents, Griggs and Jasso, wound up in the same district. In a major bit of pandering, the city fathers tried to convince the world this was a Hispanic district because its population was 66 percent or so Hispanic. What the city fathers hid under the covers was the fact that the voting population of the district was at least 60 per cent white.

In an attempt to make sure as many of those white voters came to the polls as possible and do it with free media, Griggs announced his resolution only a couple of weeks before the election. However, in order to get it on the council’s agenda, he needed the signatures of four other council members. (The city charter allows only the city manager or the mayor to place voting items on the agenda. The only exception is if five of the 15 council members sign a petition to get an item on the agenda.) Of course, Angela Hunt signed on — she’ll sign anything Griggs puts in front of her (and vice versa). Then Griggs challenged Jasso, effectively telling her sign or right in the latter stages of the campaign I will brand you anti-gay. Instead of doing the right thing and echoing the mayor’s view, she collapsed under the pressure and signed on.

But, as expected, she lost the election so, according to a front-page story in today’s Dallas Morning News, she shouted "Screw you, Scott Griggs," and said she no longer wanted her name on the petition.

Hunt, who is term limited and will be leaving the council, proved again she hasn’t a clue as to what’s going on by calling Jasso’s decision "a slap in the face" to the gay and lesbian community, fulfilling her buddy Griggs’s plan to unfairly brand Jasso. Jasso is just as guilty, however, by failing to stand up and say what she should have said right from the outset.

It will be interesting to see if Griggs continues to pursue this swiss-cheese issue. The election is over. He won quite handily with 60 percent of the vote (go figure). He no longer needs to pursue it and it’s no surprise he’s been silent on the issue since the election. But if does pursue it, that will mean only one thing. He believes Rawlings only plans to serve one four year term as mayor and two years from now Griggs will run for the top elected post in city government.

Now that’s a real scary proposition.