The Chron ventures outside Houston to make some Legislative endorsements.
Cecil Webster
State Representative, District 13: Cecil R. Webster
As an engineer who worked in weapons testing and procurement, retired Col. Cecil R. Webster knows his way around a firearm. But decades of experience couldn’t prepare him for the challenge of open-carry in Texas – specifically, procuring the exact state-mandated signs necessary to keep his church gun-free.
“I spent the last days of 2015 going around trying to find some cheap signs to put on my church that met the specifications so that we could tell folks: ‘Guns are not welcome inside my Rose Missionary Baptist Church,'” Webster said in his meeting with the Houston Chronicle editorial board. “I find it ludicrous that we have to do that.”
State Representative, District 26: D.F. “Rick” Miller
After two terms in Austin, retired military veteran D.F. “Rick” Miller has tried to strike a balance between his Republican conservatism and the limited time available in session to address our state’s immediate needs. During the last session, Miller, 71, promoted bills to expand higher education in Fort Bend County and to empower county officials in going after game rooms. He said he relies on local committees to keep him informed about local issues, and plans to push during the next session on improving public education funding, mental health services for veterans, health care and transportation – a key challenge in this growing Fort Bend County district, which covers most of Sugar Land and part of Richmond.
But Miller’s record isn’t sterling. He made news for pushing a bill that would rescind local anti-discrimination ordinances, earning condemnations from his own son, an HIV-positive gay activist.
State Representative, District 27: No endorsement
Ron Reynolds certainly has found a way to turn lemons into lemonade. After being found guilty of barratry – a charge that he is currently appealing – this Democratic three-term state representative had to declare bankruptcy and is now prohibited from working as a lawyer. So how has this affected Reynolds’ ability to represent his Fort Bend County district, which covers most of Missouri City and Stafford? If anything, he told the editorial board, he now has an excess of free time to focus on his constituents.
“Honestly, I’ve been a full-time legislator,” he said.
State Representative, District 85: Phil Stephenson
Beyond the bathroom debates and firearm fiascos, the next legislative session in Austin will have to tackle dry, numbers-heavy topics like fixing education funding and Houston’s public pensions. State Rep. Phil Stephenson is well-equipped to tackle these important issues, and voters should send him back to Austin for his third term representing District 85, which stretches from Rosenberg and parts of Missouri City in Fort Bend County south through Wharton and Jackson counties.
Stephenson, 71, is a longtime certified public accountant and member of the Wharton County Junior College Board of Trustees. He told the editorial board that he wants to address unfunded liabilities – specifically pensions - and the property tax burden on homeowners.
However, he did seem a bit out of touch on other issues, such as when he referred to the “Spanish community” in his district – we presume he meant Hispanic. Stephenson also said that he supported the campus carry bill last session because it maintained prohibitions on guns in classrooms – it doesn’t.
State Representative, District 126: Kevin Roberts
In this race for a Spring-area seat being vacated by five-term state Rep. Patricia Harless, we endorse Kevin Roberts. A Chamber of Commerce Republican, Roberts, 50, is charismatic and loquacious – perhaps to a fault. He’s already well-practiced at a politician’s ability to speak at length without saying much, but he demonstrated a passionate knowledge about the issues facing his largely unincorporated district, which is centered around the intersection of FM 1960 and the Tomball Parkway. Throughout his meeting with the editorial board, Roberts dropped a few key shibboleths that revealed a deep understanding of the challenges facing our state, such as confronting “intergenerational poverty” and extending the expiring 1115 waiver that allows Texas to access Medicaid funds. He also recognized that state recapture of Houston Independent School District tax revenue is, in his words, “crazy.”
An experienced businessman and deacon at Champion Forest Baptist Church, Roberts told the editorial board that he wanted to focus on the state budget, economic development in his district, the systemic problems in Child Protective Services and public education funding.
Neither incumbent Rep. Leighton Schubert in HD13 nor Rep. Reynolds’ Republican opponent visited with the Chron editorial board, which eliminated them from consideration. I don’t recall the Chron endorsing in some of these races before, perhaps because there hadn’t been a contested campaign in them, but it’s a trend I support. They had some nice things to say about challengers Sarah DeMerchant in HD26 and John Davis in HD85 – the latter has an outside shot at winning if the Trump effect in Texas is sufficiently devastating to Republicans – but deferred to the incumbents. Cecil Webster ran in the special election for HD13 that was necessitated by Lois Kolkhorst getting a promotion to the Senate; he finished third in a district that’s probably never going to elect a Democrat. He’s doing something right, however, and I’ll be interested to see if he can move the needle a bit, no doubt with help from The Donald.
‘Guns are not welcome inside my Rose Missionary Baptist Church’
Cecil Webster
I wonder if the good people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charlotte felt that way, too? Now they feel nothing. I do respect his right to make himself and his parishioners easy targets, though.
@Bill: Everyone has to make their own call and this church has made theirs, case closed. There is a wide spectrum of opinion on this as discussed in this article: http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/04/16/dylann-roofs-charleston-massacre-other-mass-shootings-have-made-some-black-people-more-acceptable-of-the-2nd-amendment/
An increasing number of Republican candidates are being advised to skip the Chronicle interview, on the grounds that the Chronicle will only twist what is said to them and use it to support the Democrat candidate, and that the Chronicle is not sincerely open to endorsing Republicans. Just as Trump rails against the “mainstream media”, activists in the GOP locally often run against the Chronicle as the embodiment of elitism and lack of balance.
If this trend continues, I would not be surprised in a couple of cycles if all GOP candidates refuse to seek support from union groups, Planned Parenthood, the glbt Caucus, and the Chronicle, and are punished in the GOP primary is they do reach out to such left-leaning entities.
PS to Bill: I am sure you mean Charleston, not Charlotte. South Carolina, not North Carolina.
@Mainstream:
Yes, you are correct. Thanks for the save!
@Voter:
I fully support Cecil’s right to ban guns at his church. No arguments from me.