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Texas: A Brave Candidate Who Is Running in a Ruby-Red District

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2026 //
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Michelle H. Davis has been writing on her blog “Lone Star Left” about people who are running for the Texas legislature. I find her portraits compelling, because I learn a lot about districts that Democrats have written off and forgotten.

I hope you find this portrait of a district and the candidates as interesting as I did:

This series is called Meet the Candidates. Over the next three months, I’ll spotlight a handful of Democratic races each month, mainly in the Legislature and in Congress. These aren’t endorsements. They’re introductions, a way to understand who’s running, the districts they hope to represent, and what’s at stake for people across Texas.

Who is Laticia Ambroz?

Laticia Ambroz has lived in Texas for over 60 years. She’s from Quitman, out in Wood County, deep in the piney woods of East Texas. She and her spouse raised three kids. Now she’s got eight grandkids and a great-grandbaby on the way. 

Growing up, her mother taught her a simple but powerful lesson. Always leave things better than you found them. That’s her whole campaign. And when Ambroz looks at the state of Texas government right now, she says she can’t in good conscience leave it to her grandchildren, or to yours, without doing something about it. 

Here’s the part that matters. Ambroz is running in Senate District 1, a nineteen-county stretch of deep East Texas covering Bowie, Gregg, Harrison, Smith, Titus, Wood and more, currently held by Republican Bryan Hughes. The last Democrat to even show up on the ballot against him was Audrey Spanko, back in 2020. This isn’t a swing district. It’s a district Republicans have gotten used to not having to defend.

So why run somewhere the deck is stacked six ways from Sunday? Because somebody has to, and because Ambroz isn’t pretending otherwise. Her pitch is refreshingly unglamorous. Revitalize the East Texas economy, fight for a living wage, get rural healthcare within driving distance of the people who need it, fund public schools like they matter. It’s the kind of platform that used to be called common sense before that phrase got weaponized by the other side. Ambroz wants it back.

The district. 

Is District 1 winnable in 2026? Almost certainly not, not with the current partisan lean and Hughes sitting comfortably unopposed the cycle before. But “unwinnable” and “not worth covering” aren’t the same thing, and a Democrat willing to put her name on the ballot in a district this red deserves the same fair hearing as anybody running in a toss-up.

Here’s what these nineteen East Texas counties are actually made of. Four counties do the heavy lifting. Smith County (Tyler) alone carries about a quarter of the entire district. Gregg County (Longview) adds another 124,239. Bowie County (Texarkana) brings 92,893. Harrison County (Marshall) chips in 68,839. Those four counties together are well over half the district. Everything else, Cass, Panola, Rusk, Upshur, Wood, Camp, Franklin, Delta, Red River, Marion, Morris, Titus, Fannin, Hopkins, Lamar, is small-town and rural East Texas, none of them cracking 70,000 people on their own.

If Democrats are looking for where the bodies actually are, it’s Tyler and Longview. That’s the floor of any real strategy here.

This district is old. 18.5% of the population is 65 or older, against 13.4% statewide. Working-age adults (18-64) are underrepresented at 57.7% versus 61.6% statewide. That shows up again in the household data: 35.1% of households here draw Social Security income, compared to 25.4% statewide. This is a retiree-heavy district, and retirees vote. Reliably. 

Racially, it’s 62.9% Anglo, 37.1% non-Anglo. Black residents make up 17.0% of the population, actually higher than the state average of 14.1%. Hispanic residents are 16.7%, well below the state’s 39.7%. But that Hispanic population isn’t evenly distributed either. Titus County is the outlier of the entire district: 57.1% non-Anglo, 43.8% Hispanic, driven almost certainly by the poultry processing industry around Mount Pleasant. 

Spanish-surname voter registration is only 6.8% of registered voters districtwide, against a state average of 24.7%, even though Hispanic residents are 16.7% of the population. That’s a registration and organizing problem. There’s a gap between who lives here and who’s on the rolls, and closing it, even partially, is base math.

Per capita income is $33,672, a full seven grand below the state’s $40,752. Only 22.8% of adults 25 and up hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, versus 33.8% statewide. This is a working-class, non-college district, and it is not a wealthy one. Poverty sits at 14.4%, slightly above the 13.8% state rate, and single-parent families make up 51.3% of families in poverty, with women heading the overwhelming majority of those households.

2024 general election: Trump 76.6%, Harris 22.5%. Cruz 74.7%, Allred 23.5%. Down the entire ballot, every statewide Democrat lands in that same 20-23% band, Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, Railroad Commission, all of it. This is a straight-ticket district. Nobody’s splitting tickets for a good Democrat down-ballot. Turnout was 63.5%, meaning roughly 405,000 people showed up, and roughly three out of four of them voted a straight Republican line regardless of the specific race.

This is not a competitive seat in 2026. 

Forget flip math. Focus on three things. First, Tyler and Longview are where turnout operations get built, because that’s where the population is and where a Democratic floor already exists at the county level even if it’s thin. Second, the Spanish Surname VR gap in Titus County and beyond is real, uncontested organizing turf, registration work that doesn’t require converting a single Republican, just registering people who are already there. Third, message on the material conditions, income below the state average, education access below the state average, a manufacturing and healthcare workforce that depends on public investment staying intact. Culture war framing is a losing bet in a district like this. Kitchen-table economic populism, rural hospital access, wages, cost of living, is the only politics that has any shot of moving a number that currently sits at 23%.

Ambroz isn’t going to flip SD1. Nobody is, not this cycle. But if the goal is building infrastructure for the next decade instead of just showing up to lose gracefully every four years, this data tells you exactly where to plant the flag.

The incumbent. 

Being a third-generation city girl myself, there’s one thing in the Texas Legislature that always gets under my skin. And that’s these country hillbilly lawyers who grew up deep in Klan Country, who run for office for the sole purpose of taking our state back to Jim Crow, while enriching all of their oil-loving, country club buddies back home. And if there ever were one, that would be Senator Bryan Hughes. 

In 2021, when Republicans were ramming through SB1 and all of their voter-suppression laws, Hughes spearheaded a provision to keep Black churches from voting on Sunday (Souls to the Polls). After a ton of public pressure, that provision was stripped from SB1, but by golly, he sure did try it. It was Bryan Hughes who put it there, specifically him. 

In the same session, Hughes fronted the ban on teaching critical race theory in Texas schools, along with an attempt to bar Texas corporations from adopting board diversity quotas. 

Some Democrats described SB7’s provisions as “the new Jim Crow,” saying the bill amounted to voter suppression targeting Black voters specifically. Hughes’s response wasn’t to engage with that. He called it unfortunate that Texans were injecting “national political stuff” into what he framed as a straightforward policy discussion. 

Hughes told CNN half a dozen times that the Texas Attorney General’s office had 400 open voter fraud cases, calling it documented fact beyond question. The actual number of pending voter fraud charges in Texas was 43, with only one stemming from the 2020 election in which more than 11 million Texans voted. He inflated the crisis by nearly tenfold on national television to justify a bill critics say targets Black and disabled voters. 

And really, it’s only the tip of the iceberg with Hughes. He loves to write laws that will harm marginalized communities most. 

In Laticia Ambroz’s own words.

Below are some questions I asked Ambroz, based on previous reader polls, along with her answers.

Q: Do you support a statewide minimum wage increase to at least $15/hour?

Absolutely, this is basic to helping Texas families survive. A livable wage is essential to a healthy economy. If people, moms and dads, are not having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, they have more time to spend at home supporting their children-with homework, enjoying family meals, and instilling family values. Raising the minimum wage ensures that families and individuals can afford groceries, rely less on state benefits, and can keep a roof over their heads. Increasing the minimum wage to $15/hour should just be the starting point. People need to be able to afford housing, food, and medical care, which means a wage that keeps up with inflation, and we need to aggressively figure out how to slow inflationary costs. 

Q: Should Texas end tax subsidies and abatements for large corporations?

This should be #1 on our list. Texas government is selling the People of Texas short. The State of Texas is so vast and has so many natural resources; in our own right, we are a wealthy state. We need industry to continue to be a healthy and wealthy state, but careful consideration has been thrown out the window. Why are we giving everything away? Why do we continue to line the pockets of the billionaires who are bleeding us dry? If you want to do business in Texas, Corporations must pay their fair share in taxes, be responsible stewards of our natural resources, and provide good-paying jobs and benefits for the people of Texas. If corporations cannot do this, then Texas does not need them. The Lone Star State should attract corporations that want to be partners with us.

Q: Do you oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education?

This is the worst! 95% of our school children are in public schools. Our schools are already underfunded; the student-to-teacher ratio needs to be addressed, and teacher salaries need to be adjusted for the professionals that they are. This is our future, the future of Texas, and every child in Texas deserves the best education that we can provide. Texas is sadly lacking in education, and private and public schools are not the answer. Do not let Austin politicians run our public schools; they are not educators, and the school system should not be a for-profit entity, which is what they will turn it into.

Q: Should Texas guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students, regardless of income?

Yes, Children learn better with a full belly. School breakfast and lunch should be provided. This is a very small price to pay for quality schools.

Q: Do you support closing or downsizing state prisons and redirecting that funding to community-based alternatives like mental health care, housing, and youth programs?

Yes, so many of the people incarcerated need mental health assistance, and incarceration is not the answer. Getting the help needed beforehand and assisting in therapy and training would be a good start. Addressing affordable housing is a must across the board, and keeping our youth involved, educated, and supported is essential. People are lonely and looking for a place to belong, we need to provide that place, we need to support programs that provide that place.

Bonus Question: What does being a Democrat mean to you in 2026?

Being bold, thinking outside the box, considering all available options; actions speak louder than words.

Here’s what you’re actually looking at in SD1. 

A retiree-heavy, working-class district that Trump carried by 54 points, represented by a man who spent every session trying to keep Black churches from voting on Sunday, banning honest history in classrooms, and lying to CNN about voter fraud by a factor of ten. Bryan Hughes is the honest face of what the state party has become when nobody’s forced to answer for it.

Laticia Ambroz is not going to beat him in 2026. Pretending otherwise insults both her and you. But somebody has to be on that ballot saying a $15 minimum wage isn’t a radical idea, that gutting corporate tax abatements while East Texas families choose between groceries and gas is a policy failure and not an act of God, that a fully-funded public school beats a voucher scheme every single time. Somebody has to be the name Democrats in Bowie, Smith, and Gregg County see when they open their ballot, so the muscle doesn’t atrophy completely between now and the year this district finally becomes contestable.

That’s infrastructure. It’s registration drives in Titus County where the Spanish surname numbers don’t match the population. It’s a floor in Tyler and Longview that doesn’t currently exist. It’s making sure the next Ambroz, or the one after her, isn’t starting from zero.

Hughes is betting nobody’s watching this district closely enough to notice what he’s spent a decade building. Ambroz is betting he’s wrong. 

You can find out more about Laticia Ambroz from her website, Facebook, or Instagram.

Laticia Ambroz doesn’t have much of a chance but I’m sending her a contribution for her courage.

Categories Education Reform, Politics, Supporting public schools, Texas

Please Help This Candidate in Texas

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2026 //
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Texas has a legislature with a Republican super-majority. Republicans endorse policies that benefit the wealthiest people and big corporations. That is why Elon Musk moved from California to Texas.

The only way to change the political climate in Texas is to break the hold of MAGA and help Democrats get elected to the legislature. On the education issue, Democrats are strong supporters of public schools. When Texas Governor Greg Abbott wanted school vouchers, he faced strong opposition from moderate Republicans, mostly from rural districts. With the help of Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass, Governor Abbott funded hard-right competitors against the moderate Republicans. He defeated enough of them to get his voucher bill. It is available for all, with no income limit. As usual, most vouchers are now claimed by students who never went to public schools, most of whom are students in religious schools.

Here’s a candidate you should consider supporting, as described by Michelle H. Davis, whose blog is titled “Lone Star Left.”

She writes:

This series is called Meet the Candidates. Over the next three months, I’ll spotlight a handful of Democratic races each month, mainly in the Legislature and in Congress. These aren’t endorsements. They’re introductions, a way to understand who’s running, the districts they hope to represent, and what’s at stake for people across Texas.

Who is Cecilia Castellano?

Cecilia Castellano is a third-generation Texan from Atascosa County. Her family’s been on this land since before “flippable seat” was a phrase anybody used, as she watched good people in her community leave because there’s no work.

She runs AZTECA Designs & Construction, has been married for twenty-three years and counting, has two grown kids, three grandkids, and has taught Bible study at New Life Christian Center since 2014. Castellano is a small business owner and a churchgoing grandmother running on public schools, rural hospitals, and property tax relief. 

Ken Paxton’s office sent search warrants to her home in 2024, as well as elderly LULAC volunteers in their seventies and eighties. This came from a referral from a district attorney who took campaign photos with Castellano’s own opponent. She’s maintaining innocence and running again regardless. The raid was intended to put fear in front of a community that already votes at abysmal rates, and put Castellano’s name next to the word “investigation” nineteen days before an election, as part of an attack ad the McLaughlin campaign paid for and Henry Cuellar’s sister starred in. That’s the environment she’s running in. 

Think about that. 

In 2024, weeks before what was supposed to be a competitive election, the Republican AG raided the homes of Democratic candidates, campaign staff, and elderly LULAC volunteers in their seventies and eighties, in one of the poorest areas in Texas. The referral came from a DA photographed campaigning with Castellano’s Republican opponent. Nineteen days out, that Republican opponent’s campaign funded an attack ad starring the sister of a sitting congressman, Rosie Cuellaer. In 2025, Castellano was indicted on two counts of vote harvesting. She pleaded not guilty. The charges are still active.

And she stuck out her chest (and maybe her middle finger), and she put her name on the ballot again in 2026.

That tells us all who Cecilia Castellano is. She’s someone with a spine. 

The district. 

HD80 is across six counties (Atascosa, Dimmit, Frio, Uvalde, Webb portion, Zavala). Hispanic population is 83.2%, compared to 39.7% statewide. Anglo population is 14.0%. This is one of the most Hispanic districts in the state legislature.

Age skews young. 22.2% of the district is 5-17 years old versus 18.6% statewide, and only 11.7% is 65+ versus 13.4% statewide. 

Language matters here more than almost anywhere else in the state. 65.6% of the district speaks a language other than English at home, and 11.2% doesn’t speak English well or at all. 

This is one of the poorest districts in Texas. 23.9% of the district lives in poverty versus 13.8% statewide. Per capita income is $22,813 against a state average of $40,752, roughly 56 cents on the dollar. 

Housing: 63.8% owner-occupied, average home value $201,508 (about 55% of the state average), average rent $1,033. Cheap housing, low equity, low wealth accumulation. 22.3% of owners are cost-burdened at 35%+ of income, actually worse than the state rate of 17.3%, despite the lower home values, which tells you incomes are dragging harder than housing costs are.

November 2024 results:

Now compare that to the top of the ticket in the same district, same election:

Castellano ran 2.5 points ahead of Harris and roughly in line with the down-ballot judicial Democrats, but 1.9 points behind Allred. 

Trump is underwater with Hispanic voters right now, badly. Nationally, Democrats are running ahead on the generic congressional ballot by mid-to-high single digits, depending on the poll. Put that next to a district that’s 83.2% Hispanic, and you have one of the biggest swing opportunities available in this election cycle.

None of that means anything without turnout, and turnout is where HD80 has bled Democrats for a decade. In 2024, a presidential year, the district saw only 48.3% turnout. Turnout is the biggest problem this district faces. Total voter registration in HD80 sits at 116,791, and 73 percent of that roll is Spanish Surname Voter Registration, nearly triple the statewide share. Close even half that turnout gap in a district already trending back toward Democrats nationally, and Castellano’s 9,949-vote loss from 2024 starts looking very different.

Castellano is running into a shift that’s already underway in a district that overlaps TX23 and TX28, both of which are Talarico and DCCC targets (translation: it’s raining money). Castellano’s challenge will be to target the same Democrats and make sure they vote down-ballot. 

The incumbent. 

The day after 19 kids and two teachers were murdered at Robb Elementary, Beto confronted Greg Abbott when he was speaking and said, essentially, saying that Abbott’s inaction got those kids killed. He was right. Firearms remain the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in Texas.

McLaughlin, then Uvalde’s mayor, stood up and called him “a sick son of a bitch that would come to a deal like this to make a political issue.” McLaughlin later said that it wasn’t the place or the time. But notice what actually offended him. Not the deaths. Not the 77 minutes cops stood in a hallway while kids bled out. The politics of pointing out Republicans’ poor governance leading to that year’s mass death of children.

McLaughlin is the one on the left:

Before being elected, McLaughlin spent a lot of time on Fox News talking about the white supremacist “great replacement theory.” 

Once elected, he signed the “Contract on Texas,” a pledge backed by donors with documented ties to Tim Dunn’s Defend Texas Liberty PAC, the same PAC that spent seven hours meeting with Nick Fuentes, promising to strip political power from “Democrats” in the Legislature. Of course, McLaughlin DID vote in favor of the racist mid-districting maps. 

He told the Texas Tribune he wasn’t going to gut public schools. Then he signed on as a co-author of the voucher bill anyway.

McLaughlin spent two years savaging DPS for the Robb Elementary response. But when his own city commissioned a report, and it exonerated local police, he didn’t like that either; he said leadership failed and blamed the acting police chief. Meanwhile, when actual grieving fathers showed up to a city council meeting demanding real answers, he got into a shouting match with one of them, blamed the school board for stuff under his own authority, and dismissed another father with “I don’t know that man’s relationship with his daughter.” He called the slow release of the shooting footage “one of the most chicken things” he’d seen. Families in the room said the real chicken thing was the police response he’d spent two years defending politically while criticizing everyone else. 

And nineteen days before the 2024 election, McLaughlin’s campaign funded an attack ad starring Rosie Cuellar, timed to a Paxton-office investigation referred by a DA who’d posed for campaign photos with him. He won by 19 points off the back of that. It happened for him, on schedule, funded by his own campaign, aimed at a district too poor and too worn down by a broken healthcare and education system to fight back at the ballot box the way a wealthier district might.

That’s the case against Don McLaughlin. A pattern of cruelty when it’s politically convenient, absence when it’s not, and a comfortable relationship with whoever’s willing to do his dirty work for him.

In Cecilia Castellano’s own words.

Below are some questions I asked Castellano, based on previous reader polls, along with her answers.

Q: Should Texas end tax subsidies and abatements for large corporations?

Yes. Large corporations should invest in the communities where they do business and pay their fair share. Texas taxpayers and small businesses should not have to subsidize large corporations that have the resources to pay their own way. Economic development should benefit the community, create good-paying jobs, and strengthen local infrastructure—not shift corporate costs onto taxpayers.

Q: Do you oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education?

Yes. I oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education. Public tax dollars should remain in our public schools, where they can support teachers, classrooms, special education, school safety, and student programs. Our priority should be fully funding and strengthening Texas public schools, not diverting limited resources to private institutions.

Q: Should Texas guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students, regardless of income?

Yes. No child should have to learn while hungry. Texas should guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students so every child has access to nutritious food without stigma or unnecessary paperwork. Feeding students helps them focus, learn, and succeed in the classroom.

Q: Do you support closing or downsizing state prisons and redirecting that funding to community-based alternatives like mental health care, housing, and youth programs?

Yes, where appropriate. I support reducing our reliance on incarceration for nonviolent offenses and investing more in mental health care, substance-use treatment, housing stability, and youth programs that can prevent crime before it happens. At the same time, Texas must maintain secure facilities for individuals who pose a serious threat to public safety.

Q: Do you support publicly financed elections to reduce corporate and PAC influence?

Yes. I support reforms that reduce the influence of corporations, PACs, and wealthy special interests in our elections. Public financing can help qualified candidates compete without being dependent on large donors, while giving everyday voters a stronger voice. Any system should be transparent, voluntary, and include strict accountability for how public funds are used.

Bonus Question: What does being a Democrat mean to you in 2026?

Being a Democrat, to me, is not about a party label. I believe people are tired of politics being divided into red versus blue while the issues affecting their families continue to go unresolved. Housing affordability, veterans’ services, water infrastructure, public education, healthcare, wages, and the rising cost of living are not Democratic or Republican issues—they are Texas issues.

I am especially concerned when government decisions benefit powerful interests while communities are left carrying the consequences, whether that involves data centers placing additional demands on our water and electrical infrastructure or BESS facilities being developed without adequate safety protections.

I believe we need to get back to talking about the things that matter to people and creating real pathways to opportunity—quality education, skilled trades, good-paying jobs, affordable healthcare, reliable infrastructure, and stronger communities. My goal is to help build a Texas that works for everyone, regardless of political party, income level, or ZIP code.

That’s the choice in front of HD80.

On one side, a legislator who found his voice in a hallway full of grieving parents and used it to call a concerned citizen a “sick son of a bitch,” who’s spent four years managing the optics of a massacre instead of the aftermath of it, who took the voucher money and signed the pledge and voted for the maps, and who benefited, whether he ordered it or not, from a Republican AG’s office turning a search warrant into a campaign ad nineteen days before an election.

On the other side, a woman who watched her own community get hollowed out for lack of work and decided to run for office anyway. She had her phone taken and her home raided, and her name dragged through an indictment, and she filed for the seat again regardless. You don’t have to guess what Cecilia Castellano is made of. The state already tried to find out, and she’s still standing.

The math says this district is winnable. Trump’s underwater with the exact voters who live here. Democrats are running ahead nationally. HD80 sits inside the same map as TX23 and TX28, both drawing national money and attention this cycle. And the district didn’t lose in 2024 because voters rejected Castellano, it lost because less than half the registered electorate showed up. That’s a door-knocking problem, a ride-to-the-polls problem, a somebody-asking-you-twice problem.

Cecilia Castellano is on the ballot again. Whether HD80 flips depends on whether the rest of us do our part.

You can learn more about Cecilia Castellano from her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

Open the link.

Categories Education Reform, Elections, Politics, Supporting public schools, Texas, Unions

Shiloh Salazar Is Running in One of the Reddest Districts in Texas

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2026 //
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Michelle H. Davis writes a blog called “Lone Star Left,” where she fights an uphill battle against Republicans who control every statewide office, including the legislature, where they have a super-majority.

For years, many legislative districts were so staunchly Republican that Democrats didn’t bother to field a candidate.

This year is different. The Texas Democrats are fielding a candidate in every district.

Michelle Davis describes one of the rural, poor districts where Democrats didn’t run a candidate for many years.

I wish there were a Michelle Davis in every state. I would like to know more about the candidates. I’m grateful Davis is providing profiles like this one.

The candidate is Shiloh Salazar.

Davis writes:

Who is Shiloh Salazar?

Shiloh Salazar is a mom, small business owner, former educator, and lifelong West Texan who’s had enough of watching corporate interests get a seat at the table. In contrast, working families get the short end of the stick.

Salazar spent years organizing and showing up on public schools, early childhood programs, water security, agriculture, healthcare access, economic stability, the unglamorous stuff that actually determines whether a rural community survives. She’s testified about early intervention programs on Capitol Hill. She’s stood up at community meetings packed with residents furious about a data center project. She’s the reason there’s a paper trail on FCI Big Spring’s closure and what it’s doing to the families who depended on those jobs. This campaign is built on a record of actually being in the room.

She’s also a parent of a child with special needs. That’s not a talking point Austin Republicans can fake, no matter how many times they slap “family values” on a bill that guts the programs families actually need.

Her platform reads like a checklist of things Texas Republicans have spent a decade underfunding or ignoring. Protecting public schools, investing in rural healthcare, strengthening agriculture, planning honestly for a water future, and backing paid family leave and affordable childcare.

Salazar’s whole pitch is people-first solutions rooted in West Texas, not culture-war talking points imported from a cable news green room. 

The district. 

HD72 covers Coke, Coleman, Concho, Glasscock, Howard, Irion, Reagan, Runnels, Sterling, and Tom Green counties, basically the Concho Valley and the ranch and oilfield country around it, anchored by San Angelo (Tom Green County, roughly two-thirds of the district’s population) and Big Spring (Howard County). It is Drew Darby’s seat. 

Demographics are 51.8% Anglo and 48.2% non-Anglo. Hispanic residents make up 40.3% of the district. Median household income runs well under the state average. Per capita income is $34,894 versus a state figure of $40,752, and nearly 22% of households earn under $25,000 a year. 

It’s an older district. 17.1% are 65 or older versus 13.4% statewide, and it’s a heavily veteran district; over 11,000 veterans call it home. The economy runs on agriculture, ranching, and oil and gas (7.4% of employment versus 2.3% statewide) and on government jobs (18.6% of the workforce versus 14.1% statewide, driven in no small part by FCI Big Spring before the feds gutted it). 

Housing is cheap by state standards. The average owner-occupied home value is $221,027 versus $366,039 statewide, but rent burden is brutal. 34% of renters pay more than a third of their income to keep a roof over their heads.

So this is a poorer, older, heavily rural, heavily veteran district with real pockets of Hispanic and Black population concentrated in specific counties, especially Howard and Reagan, sitting inside a state that is trending the other way politically even as its demographics shift.

In 2024, Trump led by 56 points here, Cruz led by 51 points, and Drew Darby ran unopposed. Turnout was only 62.1%. Darby also ran unopposed in 2022. 

I’m not going to sit here and tell you this is a swing district, because it isn’t. The biggest goal in this election cycle should be to move the margins as far left as we can and see where we land, but this district would need a fundamental realignment to flip.

To make real gains, Salazar should focus where coalitions already exist, like Howard and Reagan Counties. They’re already majority non-Anglo with heavy Hispanic populations. That’s turnout work, and turnout is exactly where rural Democratic campaigns bleed out. 

She has to run on material conditions since this district is poorer than the state average, older, more dependent on government jobs, and just got hit with a federal prison closure that gutted Big Spring’s employment base. That’s the actual local economy that may have a chance of cutting through in a district where “Democrat” has been a slur for two decades.

Democrats would be doing themselves a lot of favors to exploit the local fights the GOP has created. The Dove Creek data center fight, the water transparency mess, the “sanctuary county for the unborn” ordinance. These are all local controversies where the incumbent’s party is on the unpopular side, and where Salazar has already shown up in person. 

Salazar’s campaign looks less like a Hail Mary and more like the first real investment anyone’s made in finding out what this district actually looks like when someone bothers to organize it. It’s a really good thing, but it isn’t easy. 

The incumbent. 

Drew Darby (R), an attorney and businessman, runs Drew Darby and Associates Law Firm and owns Surety Title Company out of San Angelo. He’s held HD72 since 2007. He chairs House Energy Resources, sits on House Administration and State Affairs, and got a seat on the special committee investigating the July 2025 flooding disaster. In a district built on oil, gas, and increasingly on data centers hungry for both power and water, chairing Energy Resources is a savvy bit of self-preservation.

And I didn’t catch on to how much until, in 2025, he had the gall to imply that the oil industry is taxed TOO MUCH. 

Too much. Like killing millions of people a yearand destroying our planet deserves less tax. 

Before Austin, he chaired the San Angelo Water Advisory Board and the Lake Nasworthy Advisory Board. This is a man who has literally chaired the region’s water planning bodies and now, decades later, is presiding over a district where residents are showing up to town halls furious about opaque data center deals and where Salazar is out there saying West Texas needs “honest water policies now.” Darby’s been the water guy all along.

In Shiloh Salazar’s own words.

Below are some questions I asked Salazar, based on previous reader polls, along with her answers.

Q: Do you support a statewide minimum wage increase to at least $15/hour?

I support this, but I actually think we need more of a sliding scale because in some areas even 15 is not enough. As someone who lives in West Texas, in the rural areas, I’m tired of a one-size-fits-all when it comes to things like the economy.

Q: Do you oppose school vouchers and efforts to privatize public education?

As a former public school educator at a Title I school, I’m against vouchers. I have a daughter who was in special education with a district that had only online therapists because they couldn’t afford to hire someone to keep them in rural West Texas. I’m actually in favor of doing a sales tax on the data that data centers acquire and store, and using that sales tax to fund our schools. 

Q: Should higher education in Texas be free or debt-free at public institutions?

100%. As a student whose parents worked in public service and just over the threshold of too much for aid but not enough to help support me through getting a degree, I became an unconventional student who took classes online a little here a little there when I could afford them because we lived in that predicament. It wasn’t that I didn’t want a degree; I’m still a few classes shy of that degree because money got tight, but we were always just over that threshold and never quite made enough to keep going. 

Q: Should Texas guarantee free school meals to all K–12 students, regardless of income?

100%. Again, I live in a Title I area where over 69% of the population is below the poverty line. I was pregnant, making only 669 a month working at the ISD, feeding kids some of my pregnancy snacks because lunch wasn’t enough, and they knew dinner would be short-handed. If we are going to force families to send their kids to school 8 hours a day, we better feed those babies. 

Q: Should Texas end tax breaks and regulatory loopholes for oil and gas companies, including exemptions from emissions reporting and waste disposal standards?

Yes. We should go one step further and make sure that they are not doing in-house testing, and make sure a third party is testing and sending those results in a way that can be requested as open records if a need should arise. We should also be taxing oil and gas a lot more on the routes they take and helping rural counties that are primarily oil industries keep up with the county roads that were not made to handle that load. For example, in 2019, Howard County had $ 57 million dollars worth of road damage to county roads and had one of the worst safety ratings on those roads in the state of Texas. Many roads were deemed deadly because of their conditions, yet Howard County doesn’t have the tax base to fix those roads. 

Bonus Question: What does being a Democrat mean to you in 2026?

Look, I’m running in 10 counties, and only 3 have party chairs; of those 3, they’re very small and not very active. I am in an R+56 area. I don’t have time to worry about the title or the party. To me, I’m a Democrat because I’m pushing to get people back at the kitchen table and talk about what we are going through and how we can work together and fix it. I don’t play party politics, though. I will call out both sides when they aren’t doing the right thing. I have told thousands of voters I don’t need you to become a Democrat; I need you to vote for the person that actually cares. Being a democrat out here means you get hated the moment you open your eyes, until you put the party aside and start talking about an electric bill that’s $500 that we both can’t afford. 

Shiloh Salazar is running because the electric bill is $500 and nobody in Austin is losing sleep over it. 

Meanwhile, Drew Darby, who’s had nineteen years and a chairmanship over the region’s own water board to actually fix something, spent 2025 arguing the oil industry gets taxed too much while his district’s roads crumble and his constituents ration lunch money.

HD72 isn’t flipping this cycle. That was never the pitch. But somebody finally showed up to find out what happens when you organize a district everyone else wrote off, and that alone is worth paying attention to. Watch this one.

You can learn more about Shiloh Salazar on her website, Facebook, or TikTok.

Categories Democrats, Education Reform, Elections, Texas, Trump

Texas Evangelicals Lead the Fight to Eliminate Separation of Church and State

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2026 //
1

Robert Downen wrote for The Texas Monthly about the Texas-hatched plan to make the United States a “Christian nation.”

He opened:

Dan Patrick calls the separation of church and state a lie and has worked to infuse Christianity into Texas institutions. Trump is helping him take that strategy nationwide. 

Dan Patrick is the state’s powerful far-right Lieutenant Governor. Before he entered politics, he was a talk-show host and was considered a mini-Rush Limbaugh, completely lacking any trace of compassion. His goal now is to spread Christian nationalism.

Anyone who has studied American history knows that the Founding Fathers had no intention of creating an evangelical Christian nation. If they did, they would have written it into the Constitution. Indeed, the word religion appears only twice in the document:

The First Amendment says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

Article VI, Clause 3, of the Constitution says:

“No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

But prominent religious extremists claim that the Founding Fathers actually wanted a decidedly Christian nation with no separation of church and state.

They must have forgotten to write it down.

Texas evangelicals are intent on imposing their views on everyone, and not just in Texas.

Robert Downen of The Texas Monthly wrote:

Flanked by a coterie of pastors, lawyers, a self-described prophet, and a former talk show host, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick stood in the Oval Office in June and boldly proclaimed the beginning of a new era for religious liberty. For far too long, he said, Americans of faith had been trampled underfoot by secularism, their sway over government held at bay by weaponized disinformation. “The separation of church and state is not in the Constitution,” Patrick said as President Donald Trump nodded from behind the Resolute Desk. “From this day forward, that phrase should have no power over people of all faiths ever again.”

It was a monumental moment. For decades, leaders of Texas’s religious right have argued that the Founding Fathers were primarily conservative evangelicals and that the First Amendment’s establishment clause was meant only to prevent the adoption of a specific Christian denomination as the national religion. Led by David Barton, an Aledo-based activist and self-described amateur historian, the movement contends that because the words “separation between church and state” do not appear in the U.S. Constitution, the notion that the founders intended to maintain a wall between the two is a myth that has been used by secularists to obscure America’s true Christian heritage. Rather than a bulwark against theocracy, they claim, the founders envisioned a wall that extends only one way—protecting the church from the government.

In Texas those theories have helped fuel a massive infusion of Christianity into public life, particularly in schools. State lawmakers have in recent years passed bills that require the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms; grant voluntary, school-sanctioned prayer time; and allow districts to replace counselors with religious chaplains. At the same time that Texas leaders have successfully pushed for school-voucher legislation that sends taxpayer money to private, often unregulated, religious schools, they have focused intently on what is taught in public classrooms. Barton, for example, served as an adviser to the State Board of Education’s recent overhaul of K–12 social studies curricula, a process that experts said inserted revisionist history into lessons and downplayed the contributions of non-Christians.

Patrick’s Oval Office remarks, delivered as part of the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission, which he coleads with Trump’s former housing secretary Ben Carson, were a high-water mark for the movement. Now, with a friendly president and U.S. Supreme Court, Patrick and his allies are working to codify their views into federal policy. The result would be an America that looks a whole lot more like Texas.

A few decades ago, the ideas championed by Patrick would have been considered fringe, even to many conservative Christians, according to Joseph Locke, a historian at the University of North Texas and author of One State Under God: A History of Religion in Texas. “To see [these ideas] sponsored and supported at the highest level—and to see Texans at the head of it—is pretty remarkable,” Locke told me.

For most of the nation’s history, the church-state wall was treated as near sacrosanct by many  Christians—especially Baptists, who looked to it for refuge from the violent persecution they faced in colonial America. Texas, with its heavy concentration of Southern Baptists, was aggressive in separating faith from policy in the decades after declaring its independence. Clergy were constitutionally barred from serving in state offices until 1869. For much of the next century, Locke said, the idea of advocating for policy on explicitly religious grounds would have been anathema to most Christians. Church-state separation “is not some kind of idea that emerged from the ether in the nineteen-sixties,” he told me. “This is something that was absolutely foundational to what it meant to be a Protestant in Texas.”

But that began to change amid growing conservative anxieties over secularism, feminism, gay rights, and racial desegregation. By the late eighties, a Republican coalition of business interests and politically active Christians led in much of the South. Enter Barton, whose theories gave leaders permission to abandon the church-state wall, Locke said, and to call for Christian dominance over American life.

Many scholars have pushed back against Barton’s work, noting that it is riddled with errors and false quotes. (His 2012 bestseller on Thomas Jefferson, for instance, was pulled by its Christian publisher because “basic truths just were not there,” the company said.) Still, his theories have become increasingly mainstream as acolytes of his movement have risen to power. Mayes Middleton, the Republican nominee for Texas attorney general, repeatedly invoked Barton’s theories during his three terms in the Texas Legislature. U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has said Barton had a “profound influence on me and my work and my life.” And leaders of Barton’s advocacy group, WallBuilders, are frequently called to testify in statehouses across the country and reportedly are advising the Trump administration’s purge of “woke” history from the Smithsonian Institution.

The DOJ’s Religious Liberty Commission, which Patrick said he persuaded Trump to establish, is the latest example of the movement’s rising influence. Save for one Orthodox rabbi, its members are all conservative evangelicals or Catholics—including notable Texans such as Dr. Phil McGraw and Allyson Ho, a lawyer and the wife of hard-line Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho. Its findings are undergirded by the work of Barton, who also testified during one of the commission’s hearings. 

Released in late June and based on several hearings held over the previous year, the commission’s 224-page draft report details what it says were intentional attempts, namely by the Biden and Obama administrations, to persecute people of faith. The examples range from a Navy SEAL who was punished after refusing, on religious grounds, to get a COVID-19 vaccine to a former Texas Children’s Hospital surgeon who was federally charged after leaking information about patients, including children, who sought gender-affirming care. (The DOJ dropped the charges after Trump’s reelection.)

Echoing the work of the DOJ’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, which was formed in 2025, the report describes a wave of anti-Jewish discrimination sweeping across college campuses—including via student protests over Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. (One adviser to the commission was removed after speaking out against Israel and what she said was Zionist influence over the commission’s work; the only Muslim member resigned in protest of the removal and the war in Iran.) And the report includes dozens of examples in which conservatives faced social or workplace consequences for expressing their views on issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights, or use of gender-inclusive pronouns.

photo of donald trump and dan patrick shaking hands
Trump greeting Patrick during a National Day of Prayer event in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 1, 2025.Alex Brandon/AP

The report focuses heavily on discrimination in education—specifically in what it calls “government-run schools.” Across three sections totaling about forty pages, it describes numerous examples in which public school students, teachers, or other employees were prevented from expressing their religious views. Among the stories it highlights are that of a high school valedictorian who was told not to mention Jesus Christ during his graduation speech and a high school football coach in Washington state who was told by administrators not to pray midfield with his team after games. In both cases, as with many others mentioned in the report, the current system worked: After legal intervention, the valedictorian was allowed to give the speech as intended, and Joe Kennedy, the high school football coach, won a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld his right to personal prayer.

Still, the commission recommended a host of policy changes that may ring familiar to Texans: enacting universal school-voucher legislation, allowing school-sanctioned prayer time, and ensuring that classrooms can hang religious displays such as the Ten Commandments.

The commission also wants a massive expansion of legal and public enforcement mechanisms. Any public official who accuses someone of improperly engaging in religious expression would be required to provide, within thirty days of their complaint, a written explanation that outlines where church-state separation appears in the Constitution or what law has been violated. Commissioners also want to create another DOJ task force to “track and prioritize litigation protecting religious liberty”—sourced from hotlines established across the federal government and education system. Disputes would then be handled by a federal judiciary that, per the report’s recommendation, would ideally be staffed by judges who are sympathetic to the commission’s interpretations of religious liberty.

Most consequential, the commission calls for the DOJ to issue guidance clarifying the “understanding of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.” In other words: to make denial of the separation of church and state federal policy. To emphasize the point, Patrick has said, he may personally “print up a million bumper stickers saying there is no separation of church and state.”

Some religious experts warn that the report—and the ideas espoused in it—are dangerous. In comments submitted to the commission in July, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which advocates for the historical Baptist position on church-state separation, argued that it cherry-picks anecdotal evidence to support its claims. When I spoke with David Segal, a rabbi and a policy counsel for the BJC, he expressed concern that the report ignores the long history of attacks on the religious liberty of minority faiths, including the president’s frequent targeting of Muslims and the recent decision by the U.S. Department of Defense to drop 180 faith traditions from its list of recognized religions. “It’s very focused on anti-Christian bias at the expense of other kinds of religious discrimination,” Segal said. “They were trying to present one version of a story of how religious freedom looks or should look in this country, which is a story about how Christians are targeted by the government.” 

Please open the link to finish reading the article.

Categories Religion, Texas

Excuse Me While I Keep a Close Watch on Texas

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2026 //
5

Over the next couple of weeks, I will write several pieces about the upcoming election in Texas. More than any other state. I will explain why.

First of all, I was born there, and I’m tired of Texas being a laughing stock. Texans are better than that.

Second, if Texas flips blue, it will be a political earthquake. The state has been owned by oil and gas billionaires for decades. It’s time for a change. It’s time for leaders who care for the people of Texas, not the 1%.

Third, Texas has two great candidates in James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa. Talarico is a religious man, actually a seminarian, who speaks eloquently about our obligations to one another. Gina Hinojosa is running to give the regular people of Texas a voice.

Fourth, Gina understands the sham of Abbott’s “vouchers for all” program. She has pledged to roll back the voucher scheme and invest in the state’s public schools, where almost 90% of the state’s 5.5 million children are enrolled. Under the voucher regime, rural schools are at risk of closing. Gina will fire State Commissioner of Education Mike Morath, who has used his power to take control of entire urban districts, despite the well-documented history of the failure of state takeovers.

Fingers crossed for a new day in Texas, free of the control of billionaires, corrupt politicians, and grifters.

Categories Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Education Reform, Funding, Privatization, Republicans, Rural Schools, School Choice, Separation of church and state, Students, Supporting public schools, Texas, Vouchers

Texas: Houston Chronicle Endorses Gina Hinojosa for Governor

By dianeravitch
October 19, 2026 //
3

The polls in Texas show a close race between Governor Greg Abbbott and challenger Gina Hinojosa. Abbott has about $91.5 million in campaign funds, Hinojosa has about $21.7 million.

Abbott’s single biggest donor is S. Javaid Anwar, who has given $4,122,086. Anwar is Muslim but supports Abbott despite the Governor’s anti-Muslim rhetoric. Abbott’s top five donors have each donated at least $2 million.

Hinojosa’s biggest donor is the American Federation of Teachers, which appreciates Hinojosa’s strong support for public schools and teachers. The AFT has contributed $345,000.

Abbott is running for his fourth term. Abbott is a hard-hearted MAGA man. He is the favorite of billionaires in Texas and beyond.

Gina is the only candidate in the nation running for governor who has made public schools her number 1 issue. She has pledged to fire Abbott’s State Commissioner of Education Mike Morath and to roll back the billion-dollar “voucher scam.”

Abbott and Hinojosa are one point apart in the polls, a statistical tie.

A few days ago, the biggest newspaper in the state–The Houston Chronicle–endorsed Hinojosa.

The Houston Chronicle said:

Here is the full editorial:

In February, when state Rep. Gina Hinojosa visited the Chronicle editorial board as one of six Democrats who imagined themselves taking up residence in the Governor’s Mansion, we were impressed but saw little reason for Gov. Greg Abbott to worry. What we saw in Hinojosa was a capable, experienced lawmaker with a passion for public education, clearly the best candidate among the six but with little name recognition beyond her Austin district. An even more daunting prospect if she happened to prevail in the primary would be campaigning in the general election under the Everest-sized shadow of a $106 million war chest the governor could avalanche onto her effort if he needed to. 

We didn’t think he’d need to. In Abbott’s quest for an unprecedented fourth term, we expected Hinojosa to be the next in a line of hapless Democrats willing to take one for the party. Hinojosa herself acknowledged that she decided to run for governor only after it became obvious that none of her fellow Democrats were willing to offer themselves up for the quadrennial double-digit beat-down the party has endured for more than three decades. If the ebullient, well-known and well-funded Beto O’Rourke couldn’t come within single digits of Abbott four years ago, why would Texans expect an earnest, relatively low-key unknown to do any better? 

For Governor: Gina Hinojosa

Gina Hinojosa ★★★★ — This Democratic challenger and five-term state representative is running one of the most impressive populist campaigns anywhere in the country. She’s fighting to put everyday Texans back in charge.

Greg Abbott  ★★1/2 — After 12 years as governor, this Republican incumbent seems to care only about billionaire donors and partisan extremists.

When Hinojosa visited the editorial board a few weeks ago, the descriptor “low-key” didn’t come to mind. She made a full-throated, confident call for change. As with her Democratic cohort, the now-nationally known U.S. Senate candidate, James Talarico, her campaign is riding a wave of Trump fatigue and economic angst that has spread nationwide like algae in a reflecting pool. The success of her populist economic message — and the fact that Abbott finally deigned to mention her name only recently — suggests that fiery-red Texas might be slipping toward something closer to crimson, or even purple, on the political color spectrum. Despite the incumbent governor’s advantages — money and name recognition, primarily — the 52-year-old Rio Grande Valley native and five-term House member is within striking distance in most polls.

And it’s not just Hinojosa who has changed: There’s also Abbott himself. The GOP candidate Texans first met way back in the mid-’90s when he ran for district judge here in Houston, the office-holder we got to know through his successful campaigns for the Texas Supreme Court, attorney general and three terms as governor, has transmogrified. In the three decades Abbott has held public office, the seemingly moderate, Bush-era Republican — who even attracted Democratic votes when he ran for the state Supreme Court — has become a relentless, hardcore MAGA standard-bearer. This is the governor whose billion-dollar border boondoggle, Operation Lone Star, pleased the true believers but did nothing to resolve the nation’s immigration remorse. The governor who, in the pursuit of absolute and centralized power, trashed any notion of “local control,” long a Republican value. The governor who sneers at urban Texas, including Harris County, despite its function as the economic engine of a growing state. 

Perhaps that’s the type of pol he has always been, but he has no interest in disguising it now, as he seeks a fourth term as governor (and perhaps a launching pad for the presidency).

But the biggest change of all — bigger than any individual candidate — is happening all over Texas, where Republicans have dominated statewide elections for the past 30 years.  Like a barnacled Moby Dick, parties in power too long grow tired, weighted down, ineffective. Poked and prodded by unrelenting schools of special-interest pilot fish, they lose a sense of a larger public-service mission.  They may be politically dominant, but in fact they’re netted and enmeshed by the privileged and powerful. Like an unfree Willy, they come to feel they have no choice but to acquiesce, even as they seek to distract the citizenry with trivialities. (The Furries Act, anyone?) In an ocean of new ideas, new directions and unfamiliar challenges, they founder. 

“I will tell you that with 30 years of Democratic rule, it would probably be just as corrupt,” Hinojosa said. “That’s what happens when you have one-party control for so long.” 

Those of a certain age will remember the Sharpstown scandal that hastened the demise of Texas Democrats. Now, after decades of near-total dominance by Republicans, a dozen years under one governor, it’s time for a change.

We had an opening question for the candidate who seeks to forge a new approach for the state: Why would we change leadership given how much Texas is growing, how strong our economy is and, overall, how well things are going?

We found Hinojosa’s answer compelling: “That narrative does not match the experience of everyday Texans. Despite the fact that Texans work more hours  than the national average, we have the most people without health insurance, we have the most children without health insurance of any state, we have the most people being disconnected from their electricity because they can’t afford to pay their bills, despite the fact that we are the energy powerhouse of this country. We have the most bankruptcies of any state in the union, and that is affecting our small businesses in a big way. Small businesses are really struggling to keep their doors open, and all this despite the fact that our property taxes have skyrocketed under Greg Abbott.”

Hinojosa has a name for those economic burdens those bankrupt businesses and everyday Texans carry constantly. She calls it “the Greg Abbott corruption tax.” 

We prefer a Watergate-era cliche: “Follow the money.” Billionaires seem to have an outsized influence on Abbott’s governing priorities. Consider natural gas tycoon Kelcy Warren, whose Energy Transfer vacuumed up $2.5 billion during devastating Winter Storm Uri in 2021. When Abbott showed little interest in determining how the gas industry managed to collect $11 billion in profit during the ensuing blackouts, the Dallas billionaire conveniently showed his appreciation with a $1 million contribution to the governor’s campaign coffers.

Or consider billionaire school-voucher zealot Jeff Yass of Pennsylvania, who donated $12 million to Abbott in apparent appreciation of his unrelenting efforts to establish a billion-dollar school voucher program. The governor got his money from Yass and other political extremists, such as the billionaire Wilks brothers of Cisco, Texas, but public schools, particularly those in rural Texas, lost out: The program siphons much-needed money away from them and into private schools.

Or consider, more recently, AI tech billionairesgetting all manner of tax goodies from our governor — to the tune of $1 billion per year — as gigantic data centers sprawl across acres and acres of the Lone Star State.   

Of course, Abbott isn’t the only governor — Democrat and Republican — who fell hard for data centers. He’s also not the only governor who suddenly feels compelled to respond to the growing rumble of unrest. He can’t help but notice that much of the opposition is coming from rural and small-town Texans, likely Abbott/Trump supporters who have legitimate concerns about water and energy use, incessant noise just across the fence line from their properties, or simply a desire to have some local control over their own communities. 

The growing grassroots fury at elected officials who initially ignored their concerns is democracy in action. We expect that a respect for a government of, by and for the people of Texas, a respect for their needs and concerns, would be the fundamental governing principle in a Hinojosa administration. 

Priorities for what Hinojosa calls her “economic populist agenda” include firing Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath “and putting an educator in that position;” freezing electricity rates and insisting that corporations and industry — including data centers — pay their fair share; and making sure that every Texas child has access to quality healthcare. 

Her most surprising priority is to write a check for $1,500 for every Texas household. The money would come from the state’s Rainy Day Fund, now at $27 billion, although in recent history it’s been closer to $10 billion. 

“The economists we talk to say it’s so irresponsible to have $27 billion hoarded in Austin,” Hinojosa said. “That money belongs in the economy, working for the economy, especially at a time when working Texans are really struggling. Not only that, but people don’t believe that government can do anything to make their lives easier.”

We asked how a $1,500 check for every Texas household differs from Trump’s proposal to send every American household a check for $5,000. 

“We have the money,” Hinojosa said — wryly, but also accurately.

An offhand remark as Hinojosa prepared to leave the editorial board meeting stayed with us. “I think people are tired of fighting,” she said. 

We agree. After a dozen years under the leadership of a governor keenly attuned to the needs of the privileged and the powerful, we look forward to a successor dedicated to serving her fellow Texans. 

As a lawmaker, Hinojosa has proven herself to be a smart, pragmatic and resourceful public servant, one who has realized during her decade in office that if she was going to get anything done, she had to work with the opposition, not divide and denigrate. We’re confident she’ll be a smart, pragmatic and resourceful governor. Gina Hinojosa has our wholehearted endorsement.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Corruption, Democracy, Education Reform, Elections, Extremism, Texas

Texas: Judge Refuses to Reinstate 92 Voting Locations Cut in Tarrant County

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2026 //
2

Voter suppression is active in Texas. In Tarrant County, where the city of Fort Worth is located, the Republican members of the county election commission voted to close 92 polling places. Many are located in districts that are black, Hispanic, or low-income. The vote of the commission was 3-2 to cut the number of polling places, with three Republicans outvoting two Democrats.

The Dallas Morning News reported:

Tarrant County will not be required to restore nearly 100 polling places that county officials cut, a judge ruled Tuesday, dealing a setback to voting rights advocates and minority groups weeks before a high-stakes midterm election.

District Judge Patrick Gallagher did not provide a reason in his one-page decision, handed down after a day of testimony from voters and county officials.

The ruling was in response to a lawsuit filed earlier this month that argued the cuts disenfranchise Tarrant County voters, with the heaviest burden falling on Black and Hispanic communities. 

Four women — city councilwoman Deborah Peoples, former city councilwoman Kathleen Hicks, and retired judge Maryellen Hicks, who are all Black, and Fort Worth ISD trustee Camille Rodriguez, who is Hispanic — filed the suit. 

“Tarrant County is eroding the right to vote,” Susan Hutchison, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the judge Tuesday.

After the ruling, attorneys for the plaintiffs noted the judge denied the request but did not dismiss the lawsuit outright as requested by the county. That means the case could return to court, albeit after the election. The judge also did not weigh in on whether the cuts were discriminatory.

“We have to redouble our efforts to make sure everybody votes,” they said in a statement.

Tarrant County officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Dallas Morning News.

The four women told the judge Tuesday they worried the cuts would mean longer commutes and waits to cast a ballot and lower voter turnout on Election Day, particularly in low-income and minority neighborhoods.

For example, in 2022, the 76103 ZIP Code, a predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhood in East Fort Worth, had three polling places. All three were cut this November. [Emphasis added]

In the 76115 ZIP Code, which is largely Black and Hispanic in south Fort Worth, four of the five polling places were cut. [Emphasis added.]

Maryellen Hicks, 77, said she has mobility issues and worries she will be unable to stand in a long line. Her longtime voting site was among those cuts. Asked where she planned to vote, Hicks replied, “I have no earthly idea, quite seriously.”

Tarrant County Election Administrator Clint Ludwig, who drafted the list of polling placesto cut, acknowledged that he did not assess how the reductions would affect Black and Hispanic or low-income voters, who are less likely to have reliable transportation. He also testified that he did not seek input from Black or Hispanic organizations about the reduction.  

Ludwig said he considered several factors, such as site availability, previous voter turnout, distance from other polling places and handicap accessibility.

The elections official repeatedly said it would be impossible to add polling places at this point, although he did say the county keeps five to 10 back-up options that could be added if necessary. 

Early voting starts Oct. 19, and Election Day is Nov. 3.

County commissioners voted last month 3-2 over the objections of dozens of residents to cut 92 Election Day voting sites, from 316 in 2022 to 224 on Nov. 3. It also cut early voting sites from 50 to 47.

Yet Ludwig said he expects roughly 40% more voters this year than in 2022.

Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare and commissioners Matt Krause and Manny Ramirez, all Republicans, voted for the proposal. Democratic commissioners Alisa Simmons and Roderick Miles voted against the proposal. O’Hare and Simmons are both running for county judge.

Republicans said the move saves money and improves efficiency. O’Hare called the plan sensible and said that “no Tarrant County voter should feel they don’t have enough time to vote.”

Categories Democracy, Elections, Injustice, Texas

The Sordid Voucher Scam Cheats Everyone But Billionaires

By dianeravitch
October 15, 2026 //
2

I have written about the devastating consequences of vouchers for years and the fact that they are promoted by billionaires and rejected whenever they are put to a statewide vote. So it is very satisfying that The New York Times, the newspaper of record, published this sharp opinion piece by Jessica Grose, a regular contributor. No both sides here; vouchers are a scam that billionaires love and that most public school parents loathe.

Jessica Grose wrote:

“I’ve been voting Republican my whole life. I’m superconservative,” the Pine Tree superintendent, Steve Clugston, tells the camera in an Instagram reel. “I’m going to tell you what: When Greg Abbott sold us out to the billionaires and sold out our schools, I’m done with his leadership.” In the Texas governor’s race, Clugston is voting for Abbott’s Democratic opponent, State Representative Gina Hinojosa.

The Pine Tree public school district is in the bright red small city of Longview in East Texas, between the big cities of Dallas and Shreveport, La. A majority of its 4,400 students are economically disadvantaged. When I caught up with Clugston on Friday, hours before the Pine Tree football team trounced its opponents under the lights, he was at his farm. “My wife’s a teacher. My daughter’s a teacher. My son-in-law’s a teacher. Both my sisters are teachers. My brother-in-law’s a retired superintendent. So I’d say education’s kind of in our blood,” he told me over the phone.

Clugston told me he’s sick of his fellow Texas conservatives straying from their principles of fiscal common sense and straight talk; he even attempted a run for the Texas State Senate as an independent conservative. He is particularly appalled by Texas’ voucher program, known as Texas Education Freedom Accounts, which went into effect this year. This program puts state money in accounts for Texas families to use outside the public school system: up to nearly $10,500 for children enrolling in private school, up to $30,000 for children with disabilities and up to $2,000 for those who are home-schooled.

The State of Texas has no say over the curriculum taught at the institutions that accept vouchers, and participating schools can discriminate against applicants for any number of reasons, including religion and disability status. Texas’ vouchers are universal, which means anyone can apply for them, regardless of financial means, though poorer students have been prioritized.

Around 70 percent of this year’s voucher recipients already were enrolled in private schools or were home-schooled. Vouchers are costing the state about a billion dollars this year alone and could ultimately cost $4.4 billion annually. While funding for vouchers comes from a budget that is separate from the public school pot, the state’s funding for public schools has not kept up with inflation.

Texas public schools are projected to lose $227 million just this year as they shed head count, according to The Houston Chronicle. More public schools may close as a result of vouchers siphoning that money away from them. In Clugston’s opinion, vouchers are “abillion-dollar giveaway program for the rich, and we’re going to have no accountability in it. Zero.”

Hinojosa has made saving public education central to her campaign for governor, and it is what got her started in politics. Her child’s school was on the brink of closure, and she describes her political trajectory as concerned parent to local school board member to Texas House member. If elected, Hinojosa has vowed to “end the voucher scam.”

I have long been frustrated at the way both parties barely talk about K-12 public education, despite plunging test scores and post-Covid woes. But the reason politicians don’t talk more about education is that votersdon’t care about it. What makes Hinojosa’s message on schools effective beyond irate public school parents and educators is that she ties the passage of vouchers to larger themes plaguing Republicans in the age of President Trump: corruption and the outsize power of billionaires.

Vouchers failed in the Texas Legislature multiple times, with rural Republicans tending to side with Democrats to block the measures. In rural areas “school choice,” even with vouchers, tends to be a mirage. There are few private schools, and public schools are often the biggest local employers and the heart of small-town life; nearly every Texan I spoke to for this newsletter said the reverence for “Friday Night Lights” is real.

When Abbott couldn’t get vouchers passed the honorable way, he decided to primary Republican state legislators who opposed the policy. He took $12 million from Jeff Yass, a pro-voucher Pennsylvania billionaire, got most of his preferred candidates into office and got vouchers passed in 2025, as The Washington Post noted.

The outcomes for students participating in voucher programs in other states have been decidedly mixed, but Yass doesn’t give a rip. “If the mother or the parent wants the kid to go from one school to another, who the hell is anyone to tell them not to?” he told The Post. “I don’t care what the studies say.”

Yass isn’t the only billionaire who meddled in vouchers in the Lone Star State. The religious Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris and Dan Wilks have also poured money into pro-voucher candidates over the years. As The Texas Tribune explains, “Dunn is also the founder of Midland Classical Academy, a private school that offers its approximately 600 K-12 students a ‘classical education from a biblical worldview,’ according to its website.” (It’s worth noting that many of the elite, popular and highly ranked private schools in Texas refused to accept vouchers this year.)

Some voucher proponents claim that Texas offers more choice to underprivileged children in underperforming schools. But the data we have on other states with universal voucher programs, like Arizona, suggest that they are redistributing money to the highest income and most educated ZIP codes in cities and suburbs. An Arizona ABC station found that parents were spending their voucher money on everything from trampoline parks to ski tickets.

In Iowa, which has a universal voucher program for private schools that’s similar to Texas’, the Democratic candidate for governor and the current auditor, Rob Sand, has made a similar connection among vouchers, special interests and corruption. “The current school voucher program is an open invitation to waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” he explains on his campaign website.

Sand lists his voucher stance under the headline Accountability for All, where he also talks about protections for whistle-blowers and banning stock trading by politicians. By doing so, he is saying that you don’t have to care about what’s going on in the classroom to be outraged that a New York-based company called Odyssey, which manages his state’s voucher program, allegedly got a sweetheart deal for the work. As auditor, Sand found that the company “more than doubled its rate less than a month after signing their no-bid contract, costing taxpayers an additional $2.7 million.” (Odyssey, which has ties to Yass, also administers the voucher system in Texas.)

Whatever you think about public schools, it is difficult not to seethe at the fundamental unfairness of voucher programs that give money to schools that don’t have to educate all students. The Texas Observer found that of 291 private schools approved for voucher funds from the state, over 90 percent were religious or faith-based schools, “more than 100 of those schools require or prioritize for admission students of the same faith and more than 60 have a written policy that discriminates against L.G.B.T.Q.+ students, the schools’ own data shows.”

Though the Texas vouchers prioritize students with disabilities, The Observer also noted that most of the private Texas schools they analyzed lack special education services. A Dallas Morning News analysis found that thousands of students with disabilities returned state money, in part because private schools rejected them or didn’t even respond to their applications.

Some educators I spoke to in Texas and Iowa told me that they’d already seen students ricocheting back to public schools because their private or home-school experience wasn’t all it was chalked up to be. Another outrageous part of this legislation is that Texas public schools are still required to do the disability testing for families that choose vouchers, and it’s straining their limited resources.

When put to a public vote, school vouchers have been unpopular; they’re perennial losers on the ballot. It’s maddening that ideologically motivated billionaires, who probably never sent their own children to public schools, have been able to push this policy through.

According to the latest New York Times/Siena University polling, Hinojosa was up by four points, and Sand was up by 11. Texas is obviously the tougher battle, but after spending the week talking to parents there, I’m cautiously optimistic. Rebekah Baus, who described herself as a conservative Christian and lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with her husband and two kids, told me she is so upset about the state of public school policy that she doesn’t know which way she is voting.

The State of Texas, Baus said, is trying to pretend “our public school system is failing, but in the reality, we’re failing our public school system by not funding them properly.”

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Closing schools, Corruption, Disruption, Education Industry, Funding, Iowa, Privatization, School Choice, Support for public schools, Texas, Vouchers

Is It 1950 Again? Provost at University of Texas-Austin Removes Majors in All Ethnic, Racial, and Gender Studies.

By dianeravitch
September 24, 2026 //
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Julian Vasquez Heilig is a professor of educational leadership at Western Michigan University. As a writer and scholar in Texas, California, Kentucky, and now Michigan, he has concentrated on issues of equity, inclusion, and diversity.

He writes here about the current drive to turn back the clock on civil rights in Texas. To put it mildly, he eviscerates the decision by the Provost at the University of Texas in Austin to close down

He writes:

Is the provost at UT-Austin a right wing political operative?

The University of Texas at Austin is eliminating majors in African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Race, Indigeneity, and Migration. These are not abstract academic labels. They represent the histories, intellectual traditions, and lived experiences of communities that built Texas and continue to shape the nation.

The manner in which this happened is almost as disturbing as the decision itself. Faculty members reportedly were asked to design proposals to preserve the existing majors inside the provost-initiatives consolidated Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, but the Daily Texan reported that Office of the Provost rejected that proposal. According to Professor Danielle Pilar Clealand, interim chair, faculty then discovered that the majors had already been removed from the admissions application while they were still working to redesign and save them.

That is not shared governance. It is administrative maneuvering designed to make consultation meaningless.

Vasquez Heilig explains that Provost William Inboden was imported in 2025, along with several professors from the University of Florida’s Alexander Hamilton School for Classical and Civic Education, which was part of a rightwing effort to increase the conservative movement in higher education. Inboden was director of the Institute.

Vasquez Heilig points out:

I have not seen evidence of a formal numerical quota for conservative professors. But when public resources build institutions expressly promoted as ideological counterweights, while programs studying marginalized communities are dismantled, the result resembles an ideological preference whether administrators call it an official quota or not. Political favoritism that overwhelms qualifications does not become academic freedom simply because its supporters describe themselves as restoring balance

He has faced the pressure from the right at his own university and paid the price personally:

I have discussed before that when I served as provost at Western Michigan University, I faced pressure to close Gender and Women’s Studies. The Faculty Senate recommended against closure, and I agreed with the faculty despite intense internal pressure to do otherwise. I paid a political price, and I would make the same decision again.

I also advocated for Black student success and community-centered initiatives while several deans complained about and opposed those efforts. Those complaints had consequences for me, but leadership without risk is merely management. If leaders support marginalized communities only when nobody powerful objects, they do not truly support those communities.

As provost, I said no to closing Gender and Women’s Studies because the university did not belong to me or to the loudest administrators around the cabinet table. It belonged to the students, faculty, staff, alumni, and communities whose labor, knowledge, and trust gave the institution meaning.

We must be of the people because the people are the institution. Buildings, endowments, rankings, and administrative titles are empty without them.

Please open the link and learn how pressure from wealthy alumni is reshaping higher education in states like Texas.

Categories Texas, Curriculum, Equity, Ethics, Bigotry, Evil, Censorship, Extremism, Freedom to Read, Freedom to Learn

Texas: Family of Woman who Died Because She Was Denied an Abortion Is Suing AG Ken Paxton

By dianeravitch
September 17, 2026 //
2

The family of Tierra Walker, 37, is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton because of her death. Walker died in December 2024 after she was denied an abortion that would have saved her life.

Paxton is running for the U.S. Senate against Democrat James Talarico.

The family’s lawsuit contends that the state’s near-total ban on abortion is unconstitutional.

Walker was 20 weeks pregnant. She had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia. Her high blood pressure threatened her life.

Walker repeatedly suffered seizures and blood clots. She and her family asked for a life-saving abortion but were rejected by multiple doctors, who refused to treat her because of Texas’s harsh ban on abortions. Doctors who perform abortions will not only lose their license, they may be fined $100,000 and sentenced to life in prison.

The family is also suing the executive director of the Texas Medical Board, the University of Texas health system and individual doctors.

ProPublica reviewed Tierra Walker’s files in 2025, and at best, she was the victim of state-sanctioned malpractice. Under Texas law, the life of the fetus is protected; the life of the mother is not.

ProPublica condensed more than 6,500 pages of Walker’s medical records into a summary of her care with the guidance of two high-risk pregnancy specialists. More than a dozen OB-GYNs reviewed the case for ProPublica and said that since Walker had persistently high blood pressure, it would have been standard medical practice to advise her of the serious risks of her pregnancy early on, to revisit the conversation as new complications emerged and to offer termination at any point if she wanted it. Some described her condition as a “ticking time bomb.” Had Walker ended her pregnancy, every expert believed, she would not have died. 

Many said that her case illustrated why they think all patients need the freedom to choose how much risk they are willing to take during pregnancy. Walker expressed that she didn’t want to take that risk, her family says. She had a vibrant life, a husband and son whom she loved. 

Under Texas’ abortion law, though, that didn’t matter….

Dr. Elizabeth Langen, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Michigan who reviewed Walker’s case, said a physician comfortable with high-risk pregnancies should have counseled her on the dangers of continuing and offered her an abortion. “The safest thing for her was to terminate this pregnancy, that’s for sure.”

During Walker’s many hospital and prenatal visits, 21 OB-GYNs were among the more than 90 physicians involved in her care. None of them counseled her on the option — or the health benefits — of a termination, according to medical records. 

ProPublica points out that legislators in several states who have tried to introduce medical exemptions to their anti-abortion laws have been stopped by activists who claim that any exemption is unacceptable. They say that women will seek abortions under false pretenses and that doctors will prescribe abortion for women with nothing more than a headache.

They should talk to Tierra Walker’s family or at least read the ProPublica article.

Categories Ethics, Extremism, Gender, Health, Medicine, Texas
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