Waco lawyer John Mabry is in a race to retake the State House seat he represented six years ago, but area residents surfing the Web might confuse him for the incumbent.

That’s because Mabry’s old House Web page — replete with 2004 press releases and biographical information — pops up under several Google searches for his name combined with other search terms.

Mabry said Tuesday he had been unaware the site was still live and chalked it up to a glitch.

This image is taken from the Texas House of Representatives website and incorrectly shows John Mabry Jr. as the representative for District 56.
Screen capture

Kurt Krakowian, an aide to incumbent Rep. Charles “Doc” Anderson, who Mabry is challenging, said he’d happened upon Mabry’s site before but thought it had been left up to preserve a historical record.

The candidates are vying for the State House District 56 seat, which makes up most of McLennan County.

The websites of several other representatives who, like Mabry, left the legislature in 2005, still had live pages, including legislators from Eagle Pass and Livingston.

A communications employee at the House Business Operation office who declined to give his name said “that’s been a problem but we’re revisiting it because we’re under a redesign of our website.

“It’s confusing for a constituent trying to find their member because everyone uses Google,” the employee said, even if there’s some value having the old sites archived for historical and research purposes.

He said his office was waiting for direction from the House’s Administration Committee on what to do about former legislators’ sites. Anderson sits on that committee.

Steve Adrian, the executive director of the House Business Operation office, said that until informed by a reporter, he was unaware the sites were still live and searchable.

Adrian said the sites should be taken down: “We need to look into that to see what we can do to clean that up because you shouldn’t be able to Google that to look at it.”

mshapiro@wacotrib.com

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