This newspaper recommended Vickers Cunningham for the Precinct 2 seat on the Dallas County Commissioners Court because we felt the former state district judge's career left him best prepared for the job.

However, recent developments have caused us to reconsider, and we are withdrawing our recommendation of Cunningham. That decision is based on several pieces of information that have come to light in the final days of this campaign, in which Cunningham is competing against lawyer and businessman J.J. Koch.

In 2010, Cunningham established a living trust for his children, the terms of which suggest a personal problem with diversity. The trust provides financial distributions to his children if they reach certain milestones, including marriage to someone who is white, Christian and of the opposite sex.

Cunningham, speaking to The Dallas Morning News on Friday about this trust, said his views on interracial marriage have evolved since 2010, thanks in part to his son's involvement with a woman of Vietnamese origin. But he said he cannot change the terms of the trust.

Additionally, Cunningham's estranged brother, Bill, told this newspaper that his brother has used the N-word for years, a claim echoed by Amanda Tackett, a former D magazine writer who is close to Bill Cunningham and worked on Vickers Cunningham's 2006 campaign for Dallas County district attorney.

While Cunningham denies using the N-word, the reporting by The News' Naomi Martin leaves us unwilling to recommend him to potentially lead and serve Dallas County.

We did not recommend Koch in either the primary or runoff because he struck us as combative and dismissive when discussing sitting members of the court. His offer to pay off campaign debts of another primary opponent, if the candidate followed through and left the race, was unseemly. And his campaign letter seeking to paint Dallas' economic challenges as the result of rampant illegal immigration seemed a desperate kind of fear-mongering.

Dallas County Commissioners Court Precinct 2 deserves better than the candidates in this runoff.

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