From the inbox:
Todd Litton
I hope this message finds you and yours well. After some inspiring conversations in and across our community, and a lot of consideration with Jennifer and our family, I am thrilled to share with you that I am running to serve our community and our great state in the Texas Senate (Senate District 15) in 2024.
I’m running to serve in the Texas Senate because I believe in a future Texas that is big enough for everyone. I believe in a Texas that mirrors our community in Harris County—one that includes people from diverse backgrounds and cultures working side-by-side to build a better future for themselves, their families, and our state as a whole. And I believe it has never been more important than right now to take what we do and how we do it here, in Harris County, up to Austin to change Texas.
It is not too late, but we need to act now.
The most recent legislative session and the Senate’s trial of Ken Paxton left many folks, myself included, distressed and disgusted at the direction we see Texas going.
Our leaders’ small-hearted and close-minded view of who should be able to fully live, love, learn, pray, work, compete, vote, and thrive in our state is getting in the way of passing laws that move Texas forward and benefit all Texans. They seem hell-bent on taking over and thwarting Harris County and dismantling our state’s public education system. Determined to deny access to healthcare for well over one million Texans, they insist on restricting, even outlawing, reproductive care for millions of women across our state. This, despite the fact that Texas ranks last in the nation in maternal mortality. We simply must do better for the health, education, and well-being of ALL Texans.
We have seen what the future of Texas looks like, right here in Harris County and in Houston—the most diverse and vibrant city in the country. It’s far from something to fear or hate. It’s amazing. Using our community’s collective common sense and our shared common decency, I know we can change Texas for the better.
And if we change Texas, then we will change so much more.
Litton ran for CD02 in 2018 and lost to Dan Crenshaw by seven points; no subsequent candidate has come as close, though of course the district was made a lot redder in the 2021 redistricting. As of when I drafted this yesterday evening, his 2018 Congressional campaign website is still up. I presume either that will be updated or there will be a new URL.
I like Todd. I think he’d make a fine Senator, just like he’d have made a fine member of Congress. There are two other candidates already in this race, Molly Cook and Karthik Soora, both of whom would also make fine Senators. That means that the people of SD15 will have a difficult choice next March, and that’s before we consider the possibility that the incumbent, Sen. John Whitmire, might end up running again. There is also the possibility, as we have discussed before, that there will be a special election in SD15, to complete Sen. Whitmire’s term if he is elected Mayor, in addition to the primary. What I’m saying is that I’m going to be a busy boy with the interviews in December and January.