Category Archives: Texas

Houston, Texas, Texas Politics

Texas Leftist 2018 Endorsements

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After much consideration, and several requests from loyal readers, Texas Leftist has decided to issue endorsements for the 2018 Election.  And yes, this endorsement list is being compiled without having completed a general election questionnaire series, known as the TLCQ.  But knowing how important this list is to some readers, for one final time, I am happy to provide it.

Below is the full list of Texas Leftist endorsements for 2018.  I may follow up with more in depth posts for a few of the races.

Lastly… for so many reasons, the 2018 General Election is the most important vote that Texans will take in more than a generation… it could, indeed, be the most important vote of our lives.  Thank you for taking it seriously, and an incredible thank you for consulting Texas Leftist as you head to the polls.  Please encourage everyone that you know to do their research, and be sure to vote.  With an historic number of Texans registered, the final step is to make sure that we ALL show up.

Election Day 2018 is Tuesday November 6th, and Early Voting runs from October 22nd through November 2nd.  For Houston area voters, here’s early voting information for Harris County, Fort Bend County, Brazoria County, Montgomery County, and Galveston County.  For other areas, visit the Texas Secretary of State’s Elections Page for your county information.

Federal Races

U.S. Senator:                                                    Beto O’Rourke (D)

U.S. Rep. District 2:                                      Todd Litton (D)

U.S. Rep. District 7:                                      Lizzie Pannill Fletcher (D)

U.S. Rep. District 8:                                      Steven David (D)

U.S. Rep. District 9:                                      Al Green (D)

U.S. Rep. District 10:                                    Mike Siegel (D)

U.S. Rep. District 14:                                    Adrienne Bell (D)

U.S. Rep. District 18:                                    Sheila Jackson-Lee (D)

U.S. Rep. District 22:                                    Sri Preston Kulkarni (D)

U.S. Rep. District 29:                                    Sylvia R. Garcia (D)

U.S. Rep. District 14:                                    Dayna Steele (D)

 

Statewide Races

Governor:                                                                Lupe Valdez (D)

Lieutenant Governor:                                       Mike Collier (D)

Attorney General:                                               Justin Nelson (D)

Comptroller of Public Accounts:                Joi Chevalier (D)

Commissioner- General Land Office:      Miguel Suazo (D)

Commissioner of Agriculture:                     Kim Olson (D)

Railroad Commissioner:                                  Roman McAllen (D)

 

Justice, Supreme Court Place 2:                  Steven Kirkland (D)

Justice, Supreme Court Place 4:                  R. K. Sandill (D)

Justice, Supreme Court Place 6:                 Kathy Cheng (D)

Presiding Judge, Ct Criminal Appeals:    Maria T. Jackson (D)

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 7:          Ramona Franklin (D)

 

State Legislative Races

State Senator, District 7:                                David Romero (D)

State Senator, District 15:                             John Whitmire (D)

State Senator, District 17:                             Rita Lucido (D)

 

State Rep. District 15:                                         Lorena Perez McGill (D)

State Rep. District 27:                                         NO ENDORSEMENT

State Rep. District 129:                                      Alexander Karjeker (D)

State Rep. District 130:                                      Fred Infortunio (D)

State Rep. District 131:                                      Alma Allen (D)

State Rep. District 132:                                      Gina Calanni (D)

State Rep. District 133:                                      Marty Schexnayder (D)

State Rep. District 138:                                       Adam Milasincic (D)

State Rep. District 144:                                       Mary Ann Perez (D)

State Rep. District 147:                                       Garnet Coleman (D)

State Rep. District 148:                                       Jessica Christina Farrar (D)

 

District Judicial Races

1st Court of Appeals, Place 6:                           Sarah Beth Landau (D)

1st Court of Appeals, Place 7:                           Julie Countiss (D)

1st Court of Appeals, Place 8:                            Richard Hightower (D)

1st Court of Appeals, Place 9:                           Peter Kelly (D)

14th Court of Appeals, Place 3:                         Jerry Zimmerer (D)

14th Court of Appeals, Place 4:                          Charles Spain (D)

14th Court of Appeals, Place 5:                          Frances Bourliot (D)

14th Court of Appeals, Place 6:                          Meagan Hassan (D)

14th Court of Appeals, Place 8:                          Margaret Poissant (D)

55th Judicial District:                                                Latosha Lewis Payne (D)

113th Judicial District:                                             Rabeea Collier (D)

157th Judicial District:                                             Tanya Garrison (D)

180th Judicial District:                                             DaSean Jones (D)

182nd Judicial District:                                            Danillo Lacayo (D)

184th Judicial District:                                             Abigail Anastasio (D)

190th Judicial District:                                             Beau Miller (D)

208th Judicial District:                                             Greg Glass (D)

209th Judicial District:                                 Brian Warren (D)

230th Judicial District:                                 Chris Morton (D)

232nd Judicial District:                                Josh Hill (D)

234th Judicial District:                                 Lauren Reeder (D)

246th Judicial District:                                 Angela Graves-Harrington (D)

263rd Judicial District:                                  Amy Martin

269th Judicial District:                                  Cory Sepolio (D)

295th Judicial District:                                   Donna Roth (D)

245th Family Judicial District:                    Tristan H. Longino (D)

247th Family Judicial District:                    Janice Berg (D)

248th Family Judicial District:                    Hilary Unger (D)

257th Family Judicial District:                    Sandra Peake (D)

280th Family Judicial District:                    Barbara J. Stadler (D)

308th Family Judicial District:                    Gloria Lopez  (D)

309th Family Judicial District:                    Linda Marie Dunson (D)

310th Family Judicial District:                    Sonya Heath (D)

311th Family Judicial District:                    Germaine Tanner (D)

312th Family Judicial District:                    Clinton “Chip” Wells (D)

314th Family Judicial District:                    Michelle Moore (D)

315th Family Judicial District:                    Leah Shapiro (D)

District Clerk:                                                         Marilyn Burgess (D)

 

Harris County Races

County Judge:                                                              Ed Emmett (R)

County Commissioner: Pct. 2:                           Adrian Garcia (D)

County Commissioner Pct. 4:                            Penny Shaw (D)

County Clerk                                                                Diane Trautman (D)

County Treasurer                                                     Dylan Osborne (D)

County Probate Court No. 1                             Jerry Simoneaux (D)

County Probate Court No. 4                             James S. Horwitz (D)

County School Trustee Pos. 3-AL:                  Richard Cantu (D)

County School Trustee Pos. 4-P.3:                  Andrea Duhon (D)

County School Trustee Pos. 6-P.1:                  Danyahel Norris (D)

 

Propositions

City of Houston Prop A                             FOR

City of Houston Prop B                             AGAINST (yes, a tough choice)

 

 

 

Texas Leftist has chosen to endorse candidates because they have demonstrated a commitment to advancing public policies that will improve the lives of Texans.  Though each person’s individual positions vary, they are generally candidates that stand for equality, social justice, healthcare expansion, living wage, economic prosperity and common-sense governance.

The following resources were also consulted for the 2018 Texas Leftist endorsements: Off The Kuff’s 2018 interview series, Dos Centavos, Houston GLBT Caucus, Project Vote Smart, The Texas Tribune, The Houston Chronicle Endorsements, The Dallas Morning News Endorsements,  The League of Women Voters Guide, The Longview News Journal and Ballotpedia.

 

Texas, Texas Politics

Texas-Sized Leap: Voter Registration Approaches Presidential Year Levels, BUT…

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We’ve said it before on this blog, but Texas is *not* a ‘Red State’.

Its a Non-Voting State.

If even a simple majority percentage of eligible voters in the Lone Star State actually decided to show up and vote, the political structure of Texas would look very different than it does today.  At least, that’s the theory.

So for 2018, we must ask once again. Will November 6th finally reveal a new, BLUE Texas?

We’re still not sure.  But what we do know is that Texas Voters, so far, are already bucking the trends from previous elections.  Here’s more on that from Ryan Ordmandy of KLTV News East Texas…

NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) – Almost 16 million Texans are registered to vote in the upcoming midterm election. East Texas elections administrators say they’ve seen a sharp increase.

“There’s definitely a lot of excitement in the air and a lot of people have gotten registered to vote,” said Todd Stallings, the Nacogdoches County elections administrator.

That excitement is state-wide. This year, the Texas secretary of state reports that almost 16 million Texans are registered to vote this fall, 1.6 million more than the previous mid-term election in 2014.

“What we’re seeing this time is a lot more like a presidential election than a midterm election,” Stallings said. “It’s pretty phenomenal for a midterm year for the numbers to be going as high as they are. We broke the record here in Nacogdoches County for our voter registration. We’ve gone from about 35,000 in 2016 to 37,000 now.”

 

It’s a significant leap for Nacogdoches County, as well as across the entire state. Per Texas Tribune reporter AlexaUra, last count saw the state’s voter registration soaring to historic heights for a Mid-Term Election. The difference in registrants actually on par with Presidential election years, like 2012.  From the Texas Secretary Of State’s Office, here’s the data…

Texas Registered Voters For Primary Season, the General Election, and the difference between them from 2000 to 2018 (the final official number for 2018 is still pending.

Like the data above, this shows the difference between voters registered during Primary season to the General Election. 2018 is clearly historic for a Mid-Term in this measure… just shy of the gains made during the 2012 Presidential Election.

In previous years, Texas has even seen the number of registered voters drop off significantly from the Presidential voting year to Mid-Terms. But 2018 looks to show an impressive gain from the 2016 count… nearly double that of the difference between 2012 and 2014.

But we’ve seen something similar before…

In 2014, Texas voter registration also surged to historic levels for a mid-term election, but then also ended with shockingly low turnout at the polls.  For leaders in the Democratic campaigns and in Battleground Texas, it was a tough lesson to learn.

So is an even more impressive number of registrants another sign of true change across the state?  Was the last minute surge due to the Kavanaugh hearings, the “Taylor Swift effect”, or some strange combination of both?

Regardless of the particular question, the answer is still the same.  Don’t wonder about it… WORK FOR IT.  The time is NOW to Block Walk, phone bank, talk to your friends and family, and even people you don’t know and share with them how critically important this election will be. Let’s get these voters turned out, and bring the new Texas to bear!!

 

Texas

Missing Out: Texas High Schools Way Behind On Voter Registration Mandate

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Ask any teacher or principal at a Texas High School, and they can immediately tell you that in their job, they have a lot to do.  Teaching course curriculum, supervising their classrooms, meeting benchmarks, planning for the safety of their schools.  It’s a lot to contend with in most any machination.

Given that this is the case, it’s probably not a surprise that most Texas High School Administrators are paying less attention to the state laws around voting than they are the state graduation requirements.  As Ashley Lopez of KUT Austin reports, this seems to be the case for an overwhelming majority of our state’s high schools.

Roughly a third of Texas high schools have requested voter registration forms from the Texas Secretary of State’s office, a new report from the Texas Civil Rights Project finds.

Requesting forms from the state agency is the first step schools must take so they can register students to vote. Texas law requires schools to give eligible students these forms at least twice each school year.

While the percentage of schools following the law is low at 34 percent, it’s higher than what it was in 2016 – a mere 14 percent.

Researchers looked at requests for voter registration forms by high schools “from the close of voter registration for the last presidential election (October 2016) to the close of voter registration for this year’s first round primaries (February 2018).”

With 66 percent of Texas High Schools not requesting a single Voter Registration form for eligible students, the news can seem pretty bleak.  But a couple of factors can affect this particular law.  For one thing, the Texas Civil Rights Project report strongly suspects that most high schools don’t even know this law exists, as it has not been enforced in recent memory.  Because the state never talks about this law, there’s a good chance many principals do not know about it.  So putting the knowledge out there will help to recruit some school administrators that may not have previously known to comply.

But as disheartening as the news maybe, it also presents a rare opportunity.  With more than sixty days to go before the 2018 General Election Voter Registration Deadline (October 9th), parents, students, and concerned community members have the ability to inquire about these practices at their local schools.  With some careful planning and hard work, there is still time to get many more interested students access to Voter Registration Forms.

If you’re an administrator reading this post, here is the direct link to the form needed to request official Voter Registration Forms be sent to your High School.  Though we all hope the day when the Texas Secretary of State will simply send the forms to our schools and HELP our students to exercise their rights as citizens, we can still make an impact right now.

Most voting age citizens of Texas also have the ability to become Volunteer Deputy Voter Registrars, which is a great way to encourage voter registration in your community.  Many groups even organize workshops to help citizens through the process, but here are the steps to become a VDVR directly from the Texas Secretary of State website.

Culture, Houston, Texas, United States

Eid Mubarak! Texans Mark The Close of Ramadan

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(Originally posted on June 15th, hackers apparently  deleted this post over the weekend. So it is being reposted, with a very slight title change)

The state of Texas is home to a sizeable Muslim population, last officially noted at 422,000 persons during the 2010 Census.  As we approach the next Census, all estimates indicate that the Texas population has grown in significant number, with the majority of Muslim Texans living in the Greater Houston area.

Like Christianity, Judaism or any other of the world’s major religions, Islam is composed of many diverse groups and variations within the religion.  But one major observation that is common for all is the holy month of Ramadan, a month of fasting, prayer and religious traditions.  At the conclusion of Ramadan comes one of Islam’s biggest holidays, Eid Al-Fitr.  It is a joyous time where the worldwide community celebrates with family, worship and fellowship.

For Muslim Texans up and down the Gulf Coast, this also marks the first observance of Ramadan and Eid Al-Fitr since Hurricane Harvey.  Many communities were affected, and some even devastated by the storm.  But just as common was the response of Texans answering the call to help those in need.  As the President of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston and former Houston City Council Member M.J. Khan said at the time, helping Houstonians in the wake of Harvey was a “total no-brainer”.   So for a host of reasons, this year’s holiday is special indeed.

U. S. Senate Candidate Beto O’Rourke, still garnering press for the completion of his trip to all 254 of the state’s counties, was also in Houston to mark Eid Festivities  with his fellow Texans.   As expected, Beto and his team live streamed on their way to the event.

To all those who celebrate, Texas Leftist wishes you a most joyous, most blessed Eid Al-Fitr.

Eid Mubarak!

A prominent Mosque in Southwest Houston, one of few in the region flanked by the two small towers, or minarets.  

 

(if you like this Texas Leftist post, please consider a donation!  Help us encourage Progressive, common sense ideals in the Lone Star State!!)

 

Texas, Texas Politics

GOALS: Beto O’Rourke Visits all 254 Texas Counties

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Texans are known for having quite a bit of pride in their state.  Most are quick to site the myriad of ways in which Texas is bigger and/or better than other areas.

While most of us know that the Lone Star State is BIG, very few of us can say that we’ve experienced the true size of Texas

But as David Yaffe-Bellany of the Texas Tribune reports, one politician just made some impressive news, and fulfilled an impressive campaign promise at the same time…

After tens of thousands of miles on the road, hundreds of town hall meetings and innumerable cups of coffee, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke made the final stop on his much-ballyhooed tour of all 254 Texas counties on Saturday, visiting Gainesville in his continuing bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz this fall.

Over the last 15 months, O’Rourke’s county-by-county driving tour has taken him all over the state, from his hometown of El Paso on the Mexican border to Cooke County in the north, where he held a town hall on Saturday afternoon.

“Here we are in Gainesville, which, as the crow flies, might be the farthest point you can get from El Paso,” he said to laughter from a packed house in the historic Santa Fe train depot.

The tour represents more than just an expansive retail campaign across the largest state in mainland America. It also marks a dramatic deviation from the political playbook employed by the majority of Texas Democrats over the last two decades.

Running a true statewide campaign is a promise Beto O’Rourke made early on during the campaign, and as of this weekend, it is a promise kept.  The trek also marks an historic accomplishment for a statewide candidate.  Though O’Rourke and his team are not the first to have visited every Texas county during a statewide campaign, it is still a rather rare feat.  So as the first known campaign to complete such a feat in the 21st century and with copious social media documentation.

As the Tribune says, Beto’s strategy is a far cry from previous Democratic (or Republican) candidates.  Most Democrats have run their statewide campaigns by sticking to the “urban triangle” of Dallas-Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston with rarely a stop elsewhere.  As a result, the Democratic party has basically retreated to only these areas of the state.

But whatever the result come November, Beto O’Rourke has laid a new course which all Democrats, centrists and Progressives should be watching.  The only way to turn Texas’ political tide is to be competitive in every single county, and you can’t be competitive if you don’t show up.

Let’s hope the originality continues.

Hey Beto!!  Thanks for showing up.

Houston Politics, Texas

Texoblogosphere: Week of April 9th

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The Texas Progressive Alliance is neither the subject nor the target of an investigation, but it is bringing you this week’s roundup.

Off the Kuff noted that Texas lost another federal lawsuit about voting rights.

Socratic Gadfly, seeing the latest anti-Palestinian violence by Israelis, looks at myth vs reality in a major piece of Jewish history.

Stace writes about Tex-Mex music Grammy winners Los Texmaniacs’ new album, Cruzando Borders, which will touch on border and Mexican American themes. It’s quite timely during this era of Trumpismo.

After more than a generation of one-party dominance, it’s tough for any Texas Democrat to predict what a winning statewide campaign would actually look like. But if Texas Leftist had to take guess, it would come pretty close to the Beto O’ Rourke campaign thus far. After a massive fundraising haul, Beto is showing that he means business in this race. And speaking of winning, more great news for Texas’ Classical Music community as the Houston Chamber Choir receives a very prestigious National honor.

Neil at All People Have Value attended, as he does each week, the John Cornyn Houston Office Protest.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Stan Spinner, Lindy McGee, and Julie Boom urge Texans to not politicize vaccinations.

Better Texas Blog explains why a property-tax-for-sales-tax swap is a bad idea.

Elise Hu remembers her first mentor and his warning about Sinclair Broadcasting.

Deborah Beck urges elected leaders to have in-person meetings with constituents.

Therese Odell grapples with the politics of Roseanne.

Texas, Texas Politics

Texoblogosphere: Week of April 2nd

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The Texas Progressive Alliance believes that everyone counts and everyone should be counted as it brings you this week’s roundup.

Off the Kuff takes two more looks at precinct data in Harris County from the primary races.

Socratic Gadfly offers some updates on what now clearly appears to be a weird triangle in Marlin between Houston real estate “flippers,” a former VA hospital building, and the General Land Office and P. Bush.

Neil at All People Have Value again made the point that there is authoritarian/Constitutional crisis on the way.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Luke Amphlett criticizes the San Antonio ISD handbook on SB4, the so-called “sanctuary cities” law.

Therese Odell sees a chance for the Roseanne reboot to open a national dialogue on important issues, but fears it will take the easy way out.

Durrel Douglas unveils a project aimed at placing more Black people on government/NGO Boards and Commissions.

The Texas Living Waters Project reminds us that urban wildlife and people need healthy creeks and streams, not channelized ditches.

Amy Pearl asks who “walkability” is for.

BeyondBones explores the origins of timekeeping.

Guest Texan Aviva Shen examines the primary ouster of McLennan County DA Abel Reyna.