Home > Trail Blazers Blog

Tag Archives: 2014 elections

Republican Morgan Meyer beats rival by double-digits in race for open Dallas legislative seat

Update at 11 p.m.: With all but one precinct reporting, Republican Morgan Meyer will roll up a double-digit victory over Democrat Leigh Bailey. He’s got 61 percent of the vote.

Update at 10:20 p.m.: Meyer, the Republican, is still leading in House District 108. He’s got 60 percent of the votes with 40 of 66 precincts reporting.

Update at 9:50 p.m.: Republican Morgan Meyer continues to hold on to the lead as election returns roll in. He’s got 60 percent of the vote with 26 of 66 precincts reporting.

Update at 7 p.m.: Morgan Meyer is in the lead with 61 percent of early votes. His Democratic rival, Leigh Bailey, trails behind with 39 percent of early votes.

Original post: Texas House hopefuls and political newcomers Morgan Meyer and Leigh Bailey face off Tuesday for an open Dallas legislative seat.

Morgan Meyer and Leigh Bailey

Meyer, 40, the Republican, has an apparent edge in the GOP-heavy House District 108. The district covers central Dallas, the M Streets, the Park Cities and Preston Hollow. It’s been held by a Republican for over a decade.

But Bailey, 35, the Democrat, said she’s reached out to the area’s new and sporadic voters to try to make inroads. She said she’s run a more aggressive campaign that other Democrats who have competed in the district.

During the general election, Meyer and Bailey — both University Park lawyers — have clashed on abortion and fair pay laws. On abortion, Bailey supports it. Meyer opposes abortion except when the life of the woman is in danger.

Bailey knocked Meyer for opposing fair pay laws, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. In a mailer, she said Meyer’s policies “would set Texas back decades.”

Meyer rejected her criticism. He said he would support an equal pay bill, if it doesn’t duplicate federal law.

They also disagree on same-sex marriage, raising the minimum wage and whether Texas should issue driver’s permits to undocumented immigrants. Bailey favors all three, Meyer opposed.

Bailey says that Texas should accept federal money to expand Medicaid under the new health care law. Meyer backs Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to decline the funds.

In House District 107, Republican Kenneth Sheets fends off challenge by Democrat Carol Donovan

Update at 11:10 p.m.: Incumbent Rep. Kenneth Sheets looks like he’ll hold onto his seat in House District 107. He’s got 55 percent of the votes with 44 of 55 precincts reporting.

Update at 10:20 p.m.: Sheets has got 56 percent of the votes with 33 of 55 precincts reporting.

Update at 9:20 p.m.: Sheets has 56 percent of the votes with 10 of 55 precincts reporting.

Update at 7:10 p.m.: Rep. Kenneth Sheets, an incumbent Republican, is in the lead with early votes. He received 57 percent of them.

Democrat Carol Donovan, who is trying to unseat him, received 43 percent of early votes.

Original post: State Rep. Kenneth Sheets is trying to hold onto his seat in House District 107.

Kenneth Sheets

Sheets, an incumbent Republican, was elected in 2010. He faces a challenge from Democrat Carol Donovan in House District 107, which stretches through middle-class neighborhoods in northeast Dallas, Garland and Mesquite and affluent areas near White Rock Lake.

Donovan, 60, a lawyer, saw an opening after Sheets narrowly won re-election two years ago. Sheets won by less than 1,000 votes out of 50,000 votes cast.

Carol Donovan (Carol Donovan)

Sheets, 38, a lawyer, has emphasized economic policies during the campaign, such as keeping taxes low and limiting regulation. He said that Donovan underestimates concerns about border security and illegal immigration.

Donovan campaigned on access to health care and support for public education and infrastructure. She criticized Gov. Rick Perry for refusing to accept federal funding to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. She said the Legislature should restore all $5.7 billion in cuts to education funding.

Van de Putte edges Patrick, barely, in recent fundraising

Lieutenant governor rivals Dan Patrick, left, and Leticia Van de Putte shake hands last month at their only televised debate (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Update at 12:48 p.m.: I have inserted the two campaigns’ reactions.

Original item at 11:27 a.m.: Democrat Leticia Van de Putte raised more money — barely — than her GOP rival for lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, in the latest reporting period, according to reports posted Tuesday on the Texas Ethics Commission website.

Van de Putte banked $2.086 million in contributions, compared with $2.052 million pocketed by Patrick, the reports showed. So her edge was about $34,000.

“This is what an upset looks like,” Van de Putte campaign finance director Nikki Bizzarri said in a statement. More than 5,200 different donors gave to Van de Putte during the reporting period, which was Sept. 26 through Saturday.

Patrick, though, outspent her by nearly $1 million and enjoyed a better than $1.3 million cash advantage at the period’s close.

“We’re running hard, all the way to the finish line,” Patrick said in a statement. It said nearly 1,000 individuals gave money to him during the period.

Patrick entered the period with nearly $4.3 million, to Van de Putte’s $2.2 million. He spent $3.1 million and had just over $2.8 million in the bank as of Saturday.

She spent $2.2 million during the period and wound up with just less than $1.5 million in cash.

Patrick’s campaign still owes him more than $2 million. Van de Putte hasn’t borrowed for her campaign.

Both candidates are state senators — Van de Putte, from San Antonio; and Patrick, from Houston. They are competing to succeed Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, whom Patrick ousted in a hard-fought Republican primary.

Van de Putte: Davis detractors haven’t seen “magical Wendy”

Democratic lieutenant governor hopeful Leticia Van de Putte (AP Photo/The Daily Texan, Ethan Oblak)

Lieutenant governor aspirant Leticia Van de Putte pooh-poohs assertions that gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis has campaigned poorly, depressing the hopes of down-ballot Democrats such as herself.

“Absolutely not,” Van de Putte said in an interview aboard her campaign bus early Friday.

She said Davis, a fellow state senator, has inspired legions of Texas women to roll up their sleeves and canvass their communities.

“It’s going to benefit all of us,” she said, referring to Democrats running statewide.

The Washington Post reported that some state Democrats are complaining Davis “has become a drag” on candidates such as Van de Putte, whom it described as “a Hispanic lawmaker who is popular with the business community.”

Her GOP rival, state Sen. Dan Patrick, has said he, not Van de Putte, is the favorite of business groups. Patrick points to his anti-tax fervor, while Van de Putte says she would be better at satisfying employers’ worries about workforce readiness and infrastructure that’s stretched to the limit.

The campaign of Davis’ Republican opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, seized on the Post story. It issued a press release that highlights the unnamed Democrats said to be grousing about Davis as a damper on ticket-mates.
Van de Putte, though, wasn’t buying it.

“I have been in those ballrooms with 900 women, 1,000 people, where the magical Wendy Davis is at work,” she said. “She is motivating so many people. Wherever I go, there are Team Wendy T-shirts and people calling and block-walking.”

The activity wouldn’t be happening, Van de Putte said, “if not for Wendy motivating so many.”

Groups ramp up push to get disabled Texans to vote

Disability advocates, from left, Mark Cundall, Bob Kafka and Bryson Smith speak about mobilizing disabled Texans to vote at a Capitol news conference Wednesday. (Robert T. Garrett photo)

More than 50 disability rights advocacy groups and Texas nonprofits have banded together to try to mobilize the state’s more than 3 million disabled residents to vote on Nov. 4.

The groups have created a website promoting a Texas Disability Issues Forum, which will be held in Austin next week.

So far, only Democratic hopefuls seeking the top three statewide offices on the fall ballot have agreed to appear at the Sept. 24 event.

GOP nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general — Attorney General Greg Abbott and state Sens. Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton, respectively — have declining the invitation, citing scheduling conflicts, said event organizer Bob Kafka of ADAPT of Texas.

“We can’t force them to come,” he said at a Capitol news conference.

Organizers, though, have offered to let the let candidates citing schedule conflicts to participate using videoconferencing technology, Kafka said. Organizers also told the GOP candidates’ campaigns that they would let the absentee candidates tape an appearance at an earlier date, he said. Forum moderator Ben Philpott, a political reporter with Austin’s public radio station KUT-FM, would interview them “under the same type of setting,” Kafka said.

“We’re disappointed,” he said, noting the forum is a nonpartisan effort.

Abbott, who has been confined to a wheelchair since a tree fell on him about 30 years ago, did join Democrats Wendy Davis, Leticia Van de Putte and Sam Houston in filling out an 18-question issues survey. The four candidates’ responses are posted online here.

Abbott has vigorously defended the state against lawsuits brought by disabled Texans under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. He also has supported the state’s voter ID law, which Kafka said poses problems for disabled people, who he said tend to have lower incomes and be less well educated.

Last week, Abbott unveiled a health platform last week that included support for 5 percent pay raises for personal attendants who help the disabled stay in their homes. State health and human services agencies run so-called “Medicaid waiver” programs that help the disabled remain in the community. They agencies have asked lawmakers next session to approve the additional $105 million in state spending that it would take to grant 5 percent raises. The attendants typically earn $7.50 an hour, or just a quarter more than the federal minimum wage.

State sales tax receipts grew by 8.5 percent in May

Comptroller Susan Combs, shown rendering her last revenue estimate at the start of last year's legislative session (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

The state collected 8.5 percent more sales tax last month than it did a year earlier, and receipts for the first nine months of the current fiscal year grew by 5.4 percent, Comptroller Susan Combs said Wednesday.

What she didn’t say was that last December, she projected sales tax would grow by just 3.5 percent in the current budget year, which ends Aug. 31.

Combs’ news means that if the economy doesn’t falter during the rest of 2014, lawmakers will return to Austin in January with a brighter revenue picture.

Sales tax is the state’s revenue workhorse. Instead of $2.6 billion in so-called “surplus,” as Combs forecast in December, there probably will be at least $1 billion more of unspent general-purpose revenue lying around in the Treasury at the end of the current two year budget cycle, experts say. Maybe more.

Given all the accounting tricks that have become routine in Texas budget writing over the past two decades, though, the surplus is actually a mirage, the experts say. If lawmakers actually spent about $4 billion of special-purpose taxes and fees on the causes intended, instead of hoarding them; funded Medicaid, instead of intentionally shorting it; and stopped diverting motor-fuels taxes and vehicle fees from road building, the state general fund would be running a deficit, the budget wonks say.

True, there is a cushion — the rainy day fund. It swells with oil and natural gas production tax revenues and should contain about $8.1 billion by August 2015, Combs has said. But of course, tea partiers, establishment Republicans and Democrats are divided about its proper use. That makes it hard to achieve the super-majority in both chambers that is needed to tap rainy-day dollars.

Sen. Dan Patrick, speaking to the Texas GOP convention in Fort Worth last week (Rex C. Curry/Special Contributor)

The so-called surplus in “general revenue-related” money, though, doesn’t have strings attached. Lawmakers can do with it what they will. Every time that number edges up, with any new pronouncement by Combs — or her successor, either Republican Glenn Hegar or Democrat Mike Collier — the Republican statewide officeholders and lawmakers who run Austin will face increased pressure for tax cuts in next year’s session.

Beating the drum for tax cuts most loudly is Sen. Dan Patrick, the former talk-show host and tea party-backed Republican who is the GOP nominee for lieutenant governor. But he has company.

All fiscal news from now to January is worth watching closely.

In her Wednesday announcement, Combs said May’s sales tax receipts were $2.45 billion, up from $2.26 billion in May 2013. And she spread the credit for that widely.

“Sales tax growth was evident across all major economic sectors,” she said. “The growth was led by the retail and wholesale trade sectors, the oil and natural gas mining sector, and the services sector.”

The last time the sales tax posted a decline from the same month a year earlier was March 2010, she noted.

“This marks the 50th consecutive month of increased state sales tax revenues,” she said.

Dewhurst cites DMN story as window into Patrick’s “sordid financial past”

State Sen. Dan Patrick

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst’s campaign on Saturday slammed GOP runoff opponent Dan Patrick, saying this Dallas Morning News story about his involvement with a savings and loan swindler in the late 1980s should trouble voters that they’re about to “vote a fox into the hen house.”

The newspaper reported that Patrick made his rebound from business disaster to business success with capital provided by Houston lawyer-real estate investor W. Harold Sellers, though Patrick said he didn’t know at the time that Sellers and two other men had defrauded the largest S & L in Louisiana.

Dewhurst’s campaign said the story details “the way an S&L swindler hid money from law enforcement by underwriting Patrick’s radio station purchase.”

Dewhurst campaign political director Chris Bryan said it should be a cautionary tale for voters in the May 27 GOP runoff election. Patrick is a heavy favorite going into the election, having led Dewhurst by 13 percentage points in the initial voting in March.

“As Texans get a more detailed look at Dan Patrick’s sordid financial past, it becomes clearer by the day that he is unfit to preside over the Senate and its budget-making authority. If we vote a fox into the hen house, we’ll have only ourselves to blame,” Bryan said.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, left, gestures to State Sen. Dan Patrick, right, at Houston Public Media studios during the GOP lieutenant governor debate on Friday in Houston. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Eric Kayne)

Earlier in the week, Patrick adviser Allen Blakemore told my colleague Terrence Stutz, with whom I co-wrote Saturday’s story, that the Sellers story is a Dewhurst hit job.

“David Dewhurst is clearly becoming more and more desperate,” Blakemore said. “He is now simply throwing stuff at the wall, hoping that anything will stick.”

Blakemore called the Sellers-Patrick relationship in the past “a story Mr. Dewhurst has been peddling for several months. It’s all part of his campaign of personal attacks to deflect from his record of failed leadership and not discussing relevant and important public policy issues.”

Forget polls: In this all-GOP affair, bigger Medicaid won’t do

State Rep. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe (2013 courtesy photo)

Although a poll last week showed that a plurality of Texans favor Medicaid expansion, don’t expect any of the four Republicans running in a special election for Texas Senate to salute that flag.

In fact, one of the four, Rep. Brandon Creighton, aired a cable TV ad on Tuesday that makes a virtue of his resistance last year to enlarging the Medicaid program for the poor.

“Brandon fought against Democrats and Republicans to stop the expansion of Medicaid under ObamaCare in Texas,” says the ad, which you can see below. “That’s why RedState.com said Brandon Creighton is a fighter in the mold of Ted Cruz,” says a narrator, referring to a conservative blogger’s post. It sort of simplified a tussle between Creighton, R-Conroe, and House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio. But that’s another story.

While many mainstream Republicans, including former Senate Finance Committee Chairman Tommy Williams of The Woodlands, wanted the state to take a look-see at a possible “Texas solution,” staunch conservatives considered that squishy and unacceptable. Under a Texas solution, the state would have insisted that federal officials let it use private insurance, charge co-pays and demand personal responsibility from the new adults gaining Medicaid cards.

According to the new poll, the broader public in Texas may have some appetite for trying to grab some of the additional money from the feds that the Affordable Care Act offers. The poll by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm in North Carolina, noted in its question that federal money was on the table before it asked:

“Do you think the Texas state government should accept this federal funding to expand Medicaid coverage, or not?”

By a 49-35 margin, respondents said Texas should. Sixteen percent were unsure.

While Democrats were 8-to-1 in favor, Republicans were only 2-to-1 against. Independents broke 48 percent in favor, 34 percent against.

And the only age cohort in which Medicaid expansion was losing was among those over 65. The poll of 559 registered voters was conducted April 10-13 and has a margin of error of 4.1 percent in either direction. Most of the interviews were conducted by phone, with 20 percent contacted by Internet to reach respondents who don’t have a land line telephone.

Creighton, left, drew notice in 2009 as House sponsor of a symbolic resolution re-affirming Texas' sovereignty under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But he's not the only tea party favorite in a special Texas Senate election on May 10. (AP photo/Harry Cabluck)

Williams has resigned his southeast Texas Senate seat, and Gov. Rick Perry called a May 10 special election. Although it includes the former Democratic stronghold of Jefferson County (Beaumont), no Democrat filed. All four candidates are Republicans from Montgomery County in exurban Houston: Creighton, who was elected to the House in 2006; freshman Rep. Steve Toth of The Woodlands; former Sen. Michael Galloway, who served a term in the 1990s; and businessman Gordy Bunch, who sits on The Woodlands township board.

Both Toth and Creighton, who was chairman of the House Republican Caucus last year, have tea party credentials.

Creighton earned his spurs in the 2009 session with a state-sovereignty resolution. Almost simultaneously, he and Perry foreshadowed what a rising force the tea party would become.

Now, Creighton is linking his defense of states’ rights to the Medicaid expansion allowed under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

“We’re pushing back on the 10th Amendment, using the opening [Supreme Court Chief Justice] John Roberts left us, that is the ability to say ‘no’ to Medicaid expansion,” he told me Tuesday. Creighton said he’s also urging drug testing of entitlement program beneficiaries. His new 60-second radio ad has time to plug his sponsorship of a bill requiring drug screens and tests of unemployment compensation applicants.

The maps for the Legislature and U.S. House are drawn to amplify Republican strength in Texas. That may be why you won’t hear too much about Medicaid expansion in this year’s elections.

Runoffs likely in both Democratic and Republican primaries for agriculture commissioner

Republican candidates for agriculture commissioner, from left to right: Eric Opiela, Sid Miller, J Allen Carnes, Tommy Merritt and Joe Cotten (Credit, from left to right: Opiela campaign, AP, Facebook, AP, Joe Cotten campaign)

UPDATE at 10:25 p.m.: Both Republican and Democratic primaries for agriculture commissioner appear likely to head to a runoff.

Former state representatives Sid Miller and Tommy Merritt lead on the Republican side. Jim Hogan of Cleburne and Kinky Friedman lead in the Democratic race.

Left out in the rain is Democrat Hugh Fitzsimons, as well as Republican candidates J Allen Carnes, Joe Cotten and Eric Opiela.

Barring a major turnaround, the Opiela campaign faces, perhaps, the biggest let down. The Karnes City rancher and attorney campaigned longer than all others and sank more than $1 million of his money into the down-ballot race.

UPDATE at 8:50 p.m.: Unknown Jim Hogan is edging out Kinky Friedman for the lead on the Democratic side. Hogan has about 41 percent of the vote to Friedman’s 38 percent.

UPDATE at 8:22 p.m.: Sid Miller leads the Republican pack vying for agriculture commissioner by nearly 20 percentage points. Tommy Merritt is following in second.

ORIGINAL ITEM: Competitive Republican and Democratic primary races for agriculture commissioner will likely lead to runoffs on both sides.

Texas’ agriculture commissioner oversees the state’s second largest economic sector and school breakfast and lunch programs, among other matters. The position has served as springboard to higher office in the past for Gov. Rick Perry and Comptroller Susan Combs.

Current commissioner Todd Staples is leaving the seat open and running for lieutenant governor.

We will be updating this blog to bring you the results of the primary election as they become available.

The five Republican candidates include Eric Opiela of Karnes City, Sid Miller of Stephenville, J Allen Carnes of Uvalde, Tommy Merritt of Kilgore and Joe Cotten of Dallas.

The Democratic side has Kinky Friedman of Medina, Hugh Fitzsimons of San Antonio and Jim Hogan of Cleburne.

Most Republican candidates campaigned on improving water resources, fighting federal government intrusion and illegal immigration and their own conservative credentials.

Opiela, an attorney and rancher, ran the highest funded campaign. He invested more than $1 million of his own money and was the only hopeful to run statewide television ads.

Farmer and Uvalde Mayor J Allen Carnes earned endorsements from numerous agriculture interests including the Texas Farm Bureau of baseball legend Nolan Ryan.

The Republican field attacked Carnes’ record of voting in some Democratic primaries in his home district. Carnes said he voted for Democrats in important local races lacking Republican candidates.

Former Longview representative, rancher and businessman Tommy Merritt campaigned to streamline the agriculture department and fight illegal immigration, among other things.

Former Stephenville representative Miller has the backing of some tea-party and conservative groups. He came under attack for profiting off a loan he made to his own campaign, with interest, and not disclosing on state campaign finance reports a transfer of stocks from the campaign to his personal brokerage account.  The Texas Ethics Commission said it is investigating the loan. Miller has denied any wrongdoing.

Dallas financial advistor Joe Cotten ran a lightly funded campaign.

Democratic candidates for agriculture commissioner, from left to right: Kinky Friedman, Hugh Fitzsimons, Jim Hogan (Credits from left to right: AP Photo/Eric Gay, Hugh Fitzsimons campaign, Cleburne Times-Review)

The Democratic primary pits humorist and musician Friedman against bison and honey farmer Fitzsimons and dairy farmer and insurance agent Hogan.

Fitzsimons’ platform centers on improving the state’s water and food supplies, among other things. Though a relative unknown, Fitzsimons raised the most cash of any Democrat.

Friedman ran an unconventional campaign focused on legalization of marijuana. He toured the state playing music and speading his message, but didn’t raise much money in the process. Friedman is, perhaps, the best known candidate on the entire Democratic ticket. He lost a gubernatorial bid in 2006 and he lost in the Democratic primary for ag commissioner in 2010.

Jim Hogan did not actively campaign or raise money.

Poll: State Bar of Texas judicial candidates

UPDATE at 10:30 a.m. Feb. 14: You can view the Bar’s entire poll, including primary opponents, here.

Original Item: The State Bar of Texas today released its poll on the many contested judicial races across the state. Bar members voted on Texas supreme court, court of criminal appeals and court of appeals races. The poll is non partisan and doesn’t represent any endorsement by the bar.

The bar’s judicial candidate poll is closely watched because voting members are some of the most informed on the down-ballot judicial races that few other Texans follow.

Of 94,783 potential voters, nearly 13 percent cast a ballot, or 12,294 bar members.

We have posted the top two candidates in each race, by number of votes cast in favor of the candidate. The bar’s poll results didn’t feature the candidates’ party affiliations, those have been added in by The Dallas Morning News. Incumbents are designated with an *.

Supreme Court of Texas

Chief justice – full term

  1. *Nathan Hecht, Austin (R)  –  5,945
  2. William Moody El Paso (D)  – 2,681

Place 6 Justice – full term

  1. *Jeff Brown, Houston (R)  – 3,907
  2. Lawrence Edward Meyers, Fort Worth (D) — 3,263

Place 7 Justice – full term

  1. Gina Benavides, McAllen (D)– 4,039
  2. *Jeff Boyd, Austin (R) — 3,435

Place 8 Justice – full term

  1. *Phil Johnson, Austin — (R) 4,244
  2. Sharon McCally, Houston (R) — 2,828

Court of Criminal Appeals

Place 3 Judge – full term

  1. Bert Richardson, San Antonio (R)  – 2,166
  2. Barbara Walther, San Angelo (R)  – 2,115

Place 4 Judge – full term

  1. Kevin Patrick Yeary, San Antonio (R)  –  1,921
  2. Quanah Parker, Abilene (L) —  1,682

Place 9 Judge – full term

  1. W.C. “Bud” Kirkendall, Seguin (R)  – 2,395
  2. William Bryan Strange III, Dallas (L)  –  1,596
  3. David Newell, Richmond (R) — 1,595

1st Court of Appeals

Place 3 Justice – full term

  1. *Jim Sharp, Houston (D)– 1,015
  2. Russell Lloyd, Houston (R)  – 934

3rd Court of Appeals

Chief Justice – full term

  1. Diane Henson, Austin (D)–  916
  2. Jeff, Rose, Austin (R) – 862

4th Court of Appeals

Chief Justice – full term

  1. Sandee Bryan Marion, San Antonio  (R) — 940
  2. Irene Rios, San Antonio (D) — 347

8th Court of Appeals

Chief Justice – full term

  1. *Ann Crawford McClure, El Paso (D) — 305
  2. Mario Alberto Gonzalez, El Paso (D) – 58

9th Court of Appeals

Place 3 Justice – full term

  1. *Leanne Johnson, Beaumont (R) – 152
  2. Earl B. Stover III, Silsbee(R)  – 134

11th Court of ppeals

Place 3 Justice – full term

  1. *John Bailey, Cisco (R)  – 125
  2. Cade W. Browning, Abilene (R) — 121

13th Court of Appeals

Place 6 Justice – full term

  1. *Dori Contreras Garza, McAllen (D) – 405
  2. Doug Norman, Corpus Christi (R) – 153

14th Court of Appeals

Chief Justice – full term

  1. *Kem Thompson Frost, Houston (R) — 1,286
  2. Kyle Carter, Houston (D) — 1,284

Place 7 Justice – full term

  1. *Ken Wise, Houston (R) — 1,719
  2. Gordon Goodman, Houston (D)– 852