The Texas Primary is March 5, with early voting starting this coming Tuesday, February 20. I’m finding this primary season less contentious, or maybe simply with fewer contested races, than in past primary seasons. So there are fewer races to focus on.
I’m going to go through my Republican sample ballot below,
and share my views, in hopes of helping to inform other voters, starting at the
top of the ballot, the US and statewide races, on down to local, and finally the propositions.
I look back on this blog, started in 2011, and feel pretty
solid about what I’ve said. The few places I look back and feel like maybe I
was wrong had to do with candidates. I have always been cautious about
supporting candidates. It’s easy to trust God; it’s not so easy to trust
people. But you do have to decide who is the best candidate at the time, based
on the information available to you, added to your own feelings. Maybe even in
the times I look back with disappointment on past candidate choices, those
might have been the best at the time. Maybe they were worth trusting—until they
made trust-losing decisions. This is to say, add my comments to what you
already know, and make the best, most informed decisions you can.
I use a standard in trying to decide on candidates. I write
this in more detail here. I don’t always get a chance to go
through these questions with a candidate—in fact, I rarely do. But I try to
discern what their answers might be from whatever else I can learn about them,
from their campaign literature, sometimes candidate forums, sometimes from
friends and other sources I trust. In the past, I’ve even had grids showing at
a glance what various sources choose. I won’t this time, simply because there
aren’t as many controversial decisions. Where I can, I’ll share the
endorsements of other sources.
I suggest iVoter Guide. Put in your address and get the races on your ballot. If you click on “View
Candidate Profile,” you’ll get more info, including the candidate’s responses
to a questionnaire related to conservative issues.
Also, True Texas Project offers their choices for about 40
counties, here, and a one-page sheet for statewide races, here. My choices align pretty closely with
theirs.
For the most part, I won’t be covering races with no primary
challenger, but I will be voting for those candidates. The races I’m paying the
most attention to are Harris County Sheriff, House District 138, and Harris
County Republican Party Chair. Plus, it turns out there’s some info worth
discussing related to three Criminal Court of Appeals races.
This piece is long, so use it as a resource and scroll to
the races you’re trying to learn about. I’ve highlighted my choices. And my
sample ballot is available on my precinct chair campaign website; scroll
down to see it.
US RACES
PRESIDENT
This is often the most contented and important race on the
primary ballot. Those tend to be open years, when the other party has many
candidates. We have many candidates on the ballot this year too, but it’s more
like a second-term presidency year. Donald Trump is far and away the favored
candidate. As far as I can tell, every other candidate except Nikki Haley has
dropped out, so a vote for those candidates will be wasted. There are two on
this list—Ryan L. Binkley and David Stuckenberg—are totally unfamiliar to me. I
didn’t watch the debates, although I paid attention to some follow-ups to them.
But Trump wasn’t there, so what was the point? I did watch his interview with
Tucker Carlson, which coincided with a debate and received a much higher
viewership.
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| from Donald Trump campaign website |
Some of these people I have liked, in the past or even
still. I liked Nikki Haley as ambassador to the UN. But what I really wanted
was for us to withdraw from the UN. Since then, she seems to me to be a RINO
who never finds a war she doesn’t want to fund—at our expense. In other words,
even if Trump were not in the picture, I would not consider her.
I think Ron DeSantis has been a good governor in Florida. He
didn’t run a good presidential campaign. I think we are all better served with
him continuing as governor. He seemed to grasp that too, after the Iowa
Primary, which left him in a distant second place to Trump.
To make this short: I’m voting for Donald Trump for
President. And the more the Democrat machine attacks him with lawfare, the
more determined I am to support him.
US
SENATOR from TEXAS
I was surprised to see Ted Cruz has two challengers, Holland
“Redd” Gibson and R E (Rufus) Lopez. I haven’t heard of either of them. I’m a
precinct chair, so my contact info is easily available to any candidate, and I
wasn’t even aware of them. Nor do I recognize their names, at all, from the
decades I have participated in Republican politics in Texas.
Ted Cruz has remained strong and rational. I enjoy his
podcast, Verdict, which often offers useful inside information. No need for
more discussion here. I’m voting for Ted Cruz for Senator.
US
REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 38
Wesley Hunt has no challenger this year. This is the end of
his first term—the first term in the existence of CD 38, which was created
after the 2020 census. I had supported a close friend and strong conservative
in the primary two years ago. Wesley Hunt was always a no-show at any of the
several forums where I expected to hear from him. I had met him years before,
running for a different position, and I didn’t think he was the best choice
then either. He won the primary but lost that election. He has also been
closely aligned with Dan Crenshaw—both military guys. I supported Dan Crenshaw
in 2016, but he has been one of my candidate disappointments. All that said, Hunt
hasn’t been a disappointment. His votes are typically conservative. He has
spoken up on a few key issues and appears to represent us well. My expectations
were low, but he has surprised me and some friends with how well he’s doing.
There’s no choice here, but I’m glad to vote for Wesley Hunt.
US
REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 7, and Other Congressional Districts
This is a nearby district, challenging a Democrat incumbent,
Lizzie Fletcher. Other than a candidate forum this past Tuesday (I didn’t
attend; I was out block walking), I haven’t really noticed the race. But
Ballotpedia offers links to the four Republican candidates:
You can get more information, and better detail, from iVoterGuide. True
Texas Project has endorsed Caroline Kane.
TEXAS
STATEWIDE RACES
RAILROAD
COMMISSIONER
This is a strangely named position in Texas. It has mainly
to do with Oil & Gas. There are three RR Commissioners, who come up on the
ballot in different years. The incumbent on this year’s ballot is Christi
Craddick. I’m pleased with her work. iVoter Guide rates her as next to highest
level conservative. The one challenger who provided information, James Matlock,
is less conservative. True Texas Project has unanimously endorsed Christi Craddick. I’m voting for Christi Craddick.
JUSTICE,
SUPREME COURT, PLACE 4
John Devine and Brian Walker are the two candidates. True
Texas Project has unanimously endorsed John Devine. Texas Home School Coalition
also endorses him. He was first elected to this position in 2012 and continues
to be a solid member of the court. His campaign site is here. I am
voting for John Devine.
PRESIDING
JUDGE, COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
The two candidates are David J. Schenck and Sharon Keller. Keller
is the incumbent of 21 years. Keller will reach age 75 during the upcoming term
and would be replaced at that time by a governor appointee. I voted for her in
the past. However, this year there is strong support among my conservative
friends for David Schenck.
It appears the deciding factor was the Texas v. Stephens
case, in which there was election fraud, the county DA declined to prosecute,
and Attorney General Paxton prosecuted in an adjacent county. The Court of
Criminal Appeals voted 8-1 that he couldn’t do that, based on Article II of the
Texas Constitution, which says no member of the state’s executive, legislative,
or judicial branches of government “shall exercise any power properly attached
to either of the others, except in the instances herein expressly permitted.”
Paxton disagrees with the ruling, saying it gives power over election fraud
cases to Soros-funded DAs, and it will be devastating for Texas elections in
the future. [You can read the entire case decision here; Judge Yeary’s dissent
begins on p. 22.]
I tend to agree with Paxton on this one—and with Yeary’s dissent (as far as a lay reader can understand it). It seems to me, Paxton, while technically an elected official under the executive branch, is akin to the DOJ in the federal government. It would be like saying the DOJ has no power to prosecute, because that’s a judicial function, even though prosecuting crimes against federal law is the express purpose of the position. AG Paxton is called on to represent Texas in the law, including to prosecute cases against Texas law, but these judges are saying, “You can’t do it without the permission of the local officials complicit in the crime.” Texas Scorecard points out, “The ruling upended more than seven decades of precedent and has been criticized as activism disguised as originalism.” This affects Harris County, where we have a DA that refuses to prosecute election fraud, or illegal immigration, and sometimes violent crime. Democrats think Kim Ogg isn’t extreme enough for them, so she’s being challenged in the Democrat primary by someone even much worse.
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| The three incumbent Criminal Court of Appeals judges targeted for replacement in the Republican Primary, from left, Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, Judge Michelle Slaughter, and Judge Barbara Hervey, image from here. |
Some are calling it political, but Paxton has targeted
specifically Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, Judge Michelle Slaughter, and Judge
Barbara Hervey, who are the three Criminal Court of Appeals justices thwarting
him who are up for re-election this year. Read more here.
True Texas Project is unanimously supporting Schenck. iVoter
Guide doesn’t include judicial races. For information about any of the statewide
or appeals district races, Texas Judges provides basic information here. Schenck’s campaign website is here. I am voting for David Schenck.
JUDGE,
COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS, PLACE 7
The two candidates are Gina Parker and Barbara Parker
Hervey. Hervey is the incumbent. For the same reasons as above, conservatives
are supporting the challenger. Hervey also will reach age 75 during the
upcoming term and would be replaced by a governor appointee. Gina Parker has
the unanimous endorsement of True Texas Project. Her campaign website is here. I
am voting for Gina Parker.
JUDGE,
COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS, PLACE 8
The two candidates are incumbent Michelle Slaughter and Lee
Finley. This is the same issue as those two criminal court races above, but
there is some disagreement on this one, I’m not sure why. When True Texas
Project first came out with their recommendations, they had selected Slaughter.
Their list was used by those handling my campaign (for precinct chair) website;
at that point I hadn’t yet done my deep study, and I couldn’t see anything to
disagree with, so I went with their picks. However, TTP has since changed to
endorse Lee Finley, and I have become aware of the issues with these judges. My
friend who did the sample ballot on my website has already changed his sample
ballot to choose Finley. For consistency with the other two criminal appeals
races, that makes sense. However, my SREC (State Republican Executive
Committee) representative is still going with Slaughter. So is Texas Right to
Life (they endorse challengers Schenck and Parker, however, in the other two
races).
Slaughter has held the office since 2018, so this completes
her first term. Lee Finley is a lawyer in Collin County (Ken Paxton’s home
county), and a former Marine (1990-1994). The link to Finley’s campaign here.
His Facebook page is also active. He gives a good brief explanation of the ramifications of the bad ruling in Texas
v. Stephens, which go far beyond election fraud, in this short video from
an event.
While I would have liked meeting any/all of the three challenger candidates for Criminal Court of Appeals, I’m willing to go with what I’ve seen. I’m voting for Lee Finley in this race.
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| From left, David Schenck, Gina Parker, and Lee Finley, candidates for Criminal Court of Appeals, photo from Finley's Facebook |
STATE
DISTRICT RACES
STATE
SENATOR, DISTRICT 7
Paul Bettencourt is the incumbent. He has no primary
challenger, which is as it should be in his case. We continue to rely on him to
help us in our cause for good limited government. I’m happy to vote for Paul
Bettencourt.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE, DISTRICT 138
Lacey Hull is the two-term incumbent. Jared Woodfill is the
challenger. I have good friends championing both. I supported Lacey Hull in her
first election. I didn’t in her primary two years ago. She had moral issues in her
personal life that conflicted with who she represented herself to be. She sides
with Dade Phelan way too often. And yet, she is part of the Freedom Caucus and can
generally be counted on for a conservative vote. She doesn’t tend to sign on to
anything as a co-author, to help move important bills along. This has brought
her an F rating from Texas Right to Life and a D rating from Texas Values
Action PAC, noting that she supports casino gambling, which typically leads to
$2 spent on social costs for every $1 of revenue brought to the state. (Sands
Casino donated $27,000 to her campaign.)
That said, even after I didn’t endorse her two years ago,
she has been friendly to me and willing to meet with me. The most troubling
thing this past session was her vote to impeach AG Paxton, on 48 hours notice,
with no direct testimony or evidence presented, and no chance for defense. The
ensuing Senate impeachment hearing, in which Paxton was acquitted and we all
saw that the evidence was innuendo and hearsay, was a waste of time and
taxpayer money that could have been avoided by more House members doing their
due diligence.
This is to say, I was willing to look at a primary
challenger. Jared Woodfill was the Harris County Republican Chair when I was
signing up to be a precinct chair. He lost his election as Chair at the same primary
where I was elected precinct chair. I didn’t see any particular problems with
him then. I tend to be amazed that there are people who would take on what is
essentially a full-time unpaid volunteer position. Since then, I continue to
see his name involved in lawsuits, particularly related to moral cases. He has
close ties with Dr. Steve Hotze. I get Hotze’s newsletter. He often has good,
conservative messaging. However, he puts out his slate of electors—as I do,
although his has much greater reach—and his choices are often at odds with
mine, particularly when I’m looking for a strong grassroots constitutional
conservative, and he goes with the long-time party insider or known Rino.
People say his slate is pay-to-play. In other words, the candidate makes a
donation or buys an ad, or whatever the requirement, and then they can get an
endorsement. I don’t know if that’s true; I just notice the difference of
opinion.
Jared Woodfill presents himself as a solid Christian
conservative. He probably has a record long enough to verify that, although not
as a legislator. He is saying he wants to replace Dade Phelan as House Leader.
We all want to replace Phelan—but we don’t all mean we want to be the
replacement, especially immediately upon being elected. That gives me pause.
I have been undecided far longer than I ought to be in this
important race. I have had opportunities to be campaigned to up close and
personal, as a precinct chair, but I didn’t go to the events, which would have pushed
me to commit and endorse. What I wanted was an open forum, with questions from
the audience. I had looked forward to a candidate forum at the Cypress Texas Tea
Party last month, but a late change in date because of a scheduling problem with
the venue led to both of them declining.
My SREC committeeman supports Lacey Hull. I have gone with
him to her office. She has been accommodating, as I said. One of my block
walking friends in my precinct strongly supports her. She shared with me a
negative piece of mail she got from Coalition for Good Government about
Woodfill. They mention a child sex abuse case involving a Southern Baptist
leader and Woodfill law partner, with stories dating April 2018 (Houston
Chronicle), March 2023 (Texas Tribune), and January 2024 (Click2Houston). The
negative add implies Woodfill knew and failed to report, and that he has had
shady business dealings and is surrounded by fake conservatives.
I simply don’t know how to tell what is true. I suspect we
will get some conservative work from either of them, along with some
disappointments. While I am not endorsing in this campaign, at this point I
am leaning toward Lacey Hull, where I kind of know what to expect.
JUSTICE, 14TH COURT OF APPEALS DISTRICT,
PLACE 3
The candidates are Steve Rogers and Tonya McLaughlin. I
heard Rogers speak at our Cypress Texas Tea Party meeting in January. (Recording
is here.)
There’s a chart of basic information on candidates in this
race done by Texas Judges here.
I'm voting for Steve Rogers in this race.
HARRIS
COUNTY RACES
HARRIS
COUNTY SHERIFF
The four candidates, as listed on the ballot, are Mike Knox,
Joe Danna, Paul Day, and Glenn Cowan. I’ve been aware of Mike Knox, former City
Councilman, and Joe Danna, who has been running essentially since the end of
the last campaign, for a long time. I’m less familiar with Paul Day. Glenn Cowan
got on my radar a few months ago. He spoke briefly at our Cypress Texas Tea
Party. And I’ve heard him and run into him a time or two since. He’s hard to
miss; he’s 6’10” tall. My husband is 6’6”, so it takes something well beyond
that to make me think, “Wow! That guy is tall!” Such is the case with Cowan. I
understand he is also the father of triplets. That could make for some fun
family basketball.
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| Glenn Cowan, candidate for Harris County Sheriff, screenshot from here |
I don’t have anything against any of the candidates, but I
had been leaning toward Cowan for a while. He seems very competent in the
particular skills needed for the job. And he’s a strong constitutional
conservative. But I wanted to know more, so I was pleased that Cypress Texas
Tea Party had a candidate forum for all four this past Wednesday. Each
candidate got around 15 minutes, to introduce themselves and to take some
Q&A. I was able to record the meeting. You might find these useful, in the
order that they spoke:
·
Paul Day
I thought Cowan did well, although he doesn’t appear as impressive
here as I’ve seen before. Still, it was a good showing. Mike Knox probably looks
the part of a Texas sheriff, with a cowboy hat, handlebar mustache, and just
enough Texas accent. His most recent experience has been in city government,
and it has been a while since he was in law enforcement. He also lacks the hostage
negotiator experience that Cowan has. But with name recognition, he’s a
formidable opponent.
Paul Day is older and has hostage negotiator experience similar
to Cowan. He started out life as a Democrat and now calls himself a
constitutional conservative. I asked for his conversion story in that context;
he misunderstood and answered about his conversion for regular Lutheran in a
household that didn’t give him all the background he needed to realizing
abortion was wrong and some other things, and he became born again. That was
not the conversion story I had asked for. It’s easy to misunderstand things
when you’re in front of a crowd, but he didn’t win any points from me. Joe
Danna was OK.
I would be willing to support any of these candidates in a
general election. They would all be better than the Democrat incumbent, who is allowing
rampant crime. (Houston is now the number 1 hub for human sex trafficking in
the nation, not a distinction this conservative Christian state and community
deserves.) My guess is the top vote getters will be Cowan and Knox. All the
conservative sources seem to be aligning behind Cowan, probably for the reasons
I am. We think he has the right stuff. I am voting for Glenn Cowan.
JUSTICE
OF THE PEACE, PRECINCT 5, PLACE 1
The two candidates are James Lombardino and Arlene Hecht. This
JP district is the area south of Hwy 290 and west of the 610 Loop. Lombardino
is an experienced judge (8 years as a district court judge), one of those good
Republicans swept out in the 2018 election, which we’ve been struggling to
recover from ever since. He spoke at our Tea Party meeting in January, not on
the agenda but invited up to say something briefly. He has occasionally
attended over the years, not just when campaigning. Video here.
Hecht is a defense attorney. She ran for a district judge
position in 2020 but didn’t win. While she also claims she is running for the
JP position to clear the backlog, she doesn’t have the track record as a judge running
a docket and lowering the backlog, which Lombardino has. There’s a Houston Chronicle
story here. JP Precinct 5 has a large number of eviction cases, exacerbated by the
incumbent’s mishandling of 2020 COVID funds and rules. And it also has a high
number of debt default cases. While I have nothing against Hecht, she is less
experienced, so I’m going with a known quantity. I’m voting for James
Lombardino in this race.
HARRIS
COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY CHAIR
The two candidates are incumbent Cindy Siegel and challenger
Bobby Orr. Many of us are wondering why a disrupter would come in, in a
presidential election year, to tear down and build up. Many of us wondered that
the last time it happened, when Paul Simpson was ousted. People started talking
about changing the rules so that such elections would happen in the HCRP
Executive Committee meetings where precinct chairs are comprise the committee,
who are the people working with the Chair, rather than tossing it out there to
the primary voters, who have much less contact with the chair. It caused a mess
last time, and a resignation, with lack of funds and organization just weeks
before the November election. People don’t want that to happen again. What’s
more, people are satisfied with the way Cindy runs things.
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| HCRP Chair Cindy Siegel (on the right) gives her report at the HCRP Executive Committee Meeting, January 29, 2024. |
Bobby Orr came to our Tea Party in January. My phone gave up
during his talk; I got most of it, but in two parts, but it didn’t seem worth
posting. My impression was that what he was proposing to do was exactly what we
already did to flip our school board: block walk and campaign like crazy to
known Republican voters. Orr said that was the model he wanted to use for all
of Harris County. What he fails to see is that we did this with Cindy Siegel as
chair. We didn’t need new leadership to do it. And we didn’t need Bobby Orr
either.
He pretty much torpedoed his campaign by being caught on a
recording saying that he hated the grassroots and didn’t want to work with an of us crazy people. So that
means, when he says he’s going to inspire the whole county to do what we did in CFISD (Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District), he’s lying to our faces.
The final nail was at the January 29 HCRP Executive
Committee meeting. There was a resolution gaining signatures ahead of the meeting in an attempt to
censure Cindy Siegel. There was a list of 8 or so items they were accusing her
of—all of which seemed to me either lies or spin. Siegel started the meeting by
going through that list, item-by-item, with charts and receipts, defending her
actions, simply as part of her Chair's report. It was very satisfying when, after other business, someone called for the meeting to adjourn
before that resolution could even be brought forward. From my viewpoint, that
was effective leadership on Cindy Siegel’s part.
Some of the accusations relate to a disagreement between
Siegel and Orr about fighting voter fraud. There are multiple cases (which I’ve written about). You can’t get good candidates, if they know they can’t win,
because their best efforts will be stolen from them and the party turns a blind
eye. But the accusation that funds were used that could have gone to
campaigning is also false. Funding to cover the lawsuits was a grant/donation
earmarked for that purpose, so the campaign funds were not touched.
Let’s hope the voting public goes with the incumbent. We
need her to stay, especially this year. I am glad to be voting for Cindy
Siegel.
PRECINCT
CHAIR 622
I’m the last race on the ballot. I think I’ve been a hardworking, effective precinct chair. Being a precinct chair means taking time to build relationships, both in the precinct and with the rest of the grassroots and elected officials. I’ve been doing that for 10 years. You can learn more at my campaign website. Those of you in my precinct, I hope providing information like this is useful to you. Vote for Linda Nuttall.
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| Linda Nuttall. That's me, from my precinct chair campaign bio |
BALLOT PROPOSITIONS
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| photo of page in the Link Letter, January 2024, Volume 32, #1 |
Ballot propositions on a primary ballot are different from
those on a November ballot following a legislative session. The November ones come
out of the legislature, bringing possible state constitutional amendments
before the people. The starting assumption on those is to vote NO unless you’re
convinced it would be an improvement to have that written into our state
constitution as law.
A primary ballot proposition is non-binding. It is a way for the grassroots of the party to tell the legislature what is important to us. This is in addition to the State Platform and the Legislative Priorities, both of which come out of committees at the State Convention. The list is approved by the SREC (State Republican Party Executive Committee), the two representatives from each senatorial district in the state. That does not mean these are approved unanimously. While the assumption is a YES vote unless you’re convinced it would be wrong, the SREC can have individually diverse opinions. My SREC committeeman, Tom Nobis, suggests voting no on Proposition 1 and Proposition 7. I didn’t get his reasoning from him.
Proposition 1 would eliminate all property taxes
without increasing Texans’ overall tax burden. That was in the 2022 State Platform;
plank 90 calls for eliminating property tax, and 91 offers an incremental way
to reach that goal. People making the argument point out many elderly people
who have had to sell their homes, which were paid for, because they couldn’t
afford the property tax. This isn’t hypothetical; it happens to people in our
neighborhoods. This denies actual property ownership and looks more like paying
rent to the government, which will evict you if you don’t pay up. There may be
some concern about the word “all.” But this is just to get the attention of the
legislature, not to write the law itself. If there needs to be some nuance,
that could be debated on any specific bill.
Proposition 7 is about access to gold and silver for
use as legal tender. Plank 46, Resistance to the Great Reset, has a bullet
point related to this. So, again, there’s widespread approval among conservatives
for this concept. So I don’t know the arguments against it.
I haven’t done a deep dive on the Propositions yet. My
plan is to vote YES on all propositions, unless I learn something between
now and voting day.
It’s important to vote. It’s even more important to be an informed voter. I hope this has been helpful.
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