The campaign ads will write themselves.
Rep. Lacey Hull
Prominent anti-LGBTQ+ attorney and former Harris County GOP chair Jared Woodfill is running for the Texas House and to replace House Speaker Dade Phelan.
Woodfill announced his candidacy for House District 138 this week, touting his legal challenges to COVID-19 mandates and LGBTQ+ legislation, and the four “Republican sweeps” that Harris County Republicans saw during his tenure as the local GOP’s leader from 2002 to 2014.
He’s running against incumbent Republican Rep. Lacey Hull, who was first elected to represent the northwest Houston district in 2020 with backing from Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston. Hull was ranked as one of the most conservative members of the Texas House this year based on an analysis of voting records by Rice University political scientist Mark Jones.
Woodfill’s campaign has already tried to frame Hull as a Republican in Name Only — RINO — by citing D ratings from two conservative activist groups. His campaign also accuses her of conspiring with Phelan — a longtime nemesis of Woodfill and other ultraconservative Texas Republicans — to “undermine” conservative legislation and impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton.
[…]
Woodfill has for years been at the helm of conservative Christian and anti-LGBTQ+ movements in Houston and Texas. In 2015, he and well-known Houston GOP powerbroker and anti-gay activist Dr. Steven Hotze played key roles in the defeat of an ordinance that would have extended equal rights protections to LGBTQ+ Houstonians, during which they compared gay people to Nazis and helped popularize “groomer” rhetoric.
The two have remained close, leading a pro-Paxton fundraising group during the attorney general’s impeachment this summer and spearheading legal challenges to COVID-19 closure mandates and election results in Harris County. Woodfill is also representing Hotze in a criminal investigation stemming from a 2020 incident in which a private investigator, allegedly acting at Hotze’s behest, held at gunpoint an air-conditioning repairman who he believed was transporting fake ballots.
Woodfill has faced his own legal issues: He has for years been at the center of an ongoing lawsuit in which a man accuses Woodfill’s former law partner and Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler of decades of sexual abuse. In March, The Texas Tribune reported that Woodfill testified under oath that he was alerted in 2004 about child sexual abuse allegations against Pressler, who Woodfill was representing at the time in an assault lawsuit that was settled for $450,000. Despite that, Woodfill continued to work with Pressler, providing him with a string of young, male personal assistants who worked out of Pressler’s home. The lawsuit is set for trial early next year.
We know that Woodfill is a piece of shit, and he is also a pedophile enabler. There are very few people I’d like to run a campaign against more than him. I hope this primary is so ugly and nasty it makes the entire state want to take a shower.
Beyond that I will just say this: As the story notes, Lacey Hull won re-election last year by a 57-43 margin. That was better than Greg Abbott, who carried the district 54-44. It was also better than Ken Paxton, who carried it 53-44. Go ahead and tie yourself to Paxton, dude. In 2020, HD138 was more purple, as Trump beat Biden 52.0 to 46.6. I’ve fallen into the trap of rooting for the worse Republican to win in a primary on the theory that they’ll be easier to beat in the general before, but this time I think it might be different. I’m willing to take that chance if the Republicans in HD138 are willing to throw away an objectively stronger candidate who is also an incumbent in favor of this bucket of toxic waste.
Also, too: Stephanie Morales, who was a fine and hard-working candidate who didn’t get enough financial support, will be running again. If she doesn’t get a lot more love from the donor classes, especially if she ends up against Woodfill, that will be a shocking and unfathomable failure on our part. We cannot screw this one up.
The D lost by 14% points, is there something to suggest she could win.
Thank you for this! Nope, not going to let him show his face at an appearance without a Truth Squad showing up to oppose “Madame Jared.” Get ready evil Jared –we will bring out Brooks, Toby, Duane, and all the others still alive who were raped and damaged the many years you kept the big pedophiles fat secret. Never forget Madame Jared that God, every Baptist, and every voter hates Pedophiles and their Enablers. GOD may even think “what kind of POS hangs out with Texas’ original homophobe liar denier hate watch member stirring up my most stupid believers with nonsense lies regarding trans folks in bathrooms while he’s 100 % aware that his prick of a partner pompous Paul Pressler III is luring young boys and his own new law partners into pricey members only saunas, Galleria T rooms, vacation Bible school church closets, or out to the ranch to hobnob with other Council on National Policy (CNP) cock gobbling preacher hypocrites. I can see the signs now in Fred Phelps font. We gays are going to ACT-UP at every appearance or presser you call. All that time you’ve spent Madame Jared out spreading all the evil lies about our gay lives and relationships and families while protecting the most evil disgusting pathetic and tragic closeted case turd shall be exposed. It’s sad that this old creep is not in jail and will skate his entire life never being held accountable for any of the lives he ruined as a pedophile enabled by Jared Woodfill Candidate for the State House. How sad that the Presslers liquidated their foundation a few years back giving almost a million dollars only to Christian organizations – some run by men who can’t even call a gay person anything other than a “sodomite”. We pity you Paul Pressler III. You’re a certified piece of shit – just like your law partner. Here Ye Here Ye – May It be known . It is hereby ordered. ### The End. cc: Randy Rainbow – (girl this is good one for ya!)