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Texas is our second largest state. Like all states it has two Senators – both Republican. If we adopted my plan for a constitutional amendment, Texas would have 7 Senators. Texas will have 38 Members of Congress in the next Congress – two more than they have now.
Texas does not have a US Senate race this year, but it has just about everything else.
Constitutional Office Contests for 2022
Governor
Former Democratic Congressman Beto O’Rourke (Political Note #431) v Republican Incumbent Governor Greg Abbott
Lt. Governor
Democratic Ex CFO and schools advocate Democrat Mike Collier v Republican Incumbent Lt. Governor Dan Patrick
Attorney General
Democratic Attorney Rochelle Garza (Political Note #472) v Republican Incumbent Ken Paxton
Some Congressional races (Not too many because the Texas legislature organized its districts to protect Republican incumbents rather than to create competitive races.)
Two Democratic primaries with recounts
TX 15 EVEN Democratic Businesswoman Michelle Vallejo or Attorney Ruben Ramirez v 2020 Republican candidate Monica De La Cruz-Hernandez
TX 28 D+7 2020 Incumbent Democrat Henry Cuellar or Attorney Jessica Cisneros v former Ted Cruz Staffer Cassy Garcia.
One somewhat competitive district
TX 23 R+13 Democratic Marine Vet and former government official John Lira (Political Note #424) v Republican Incumbent Tony Gonzales.
June 11th, 2022 Political Note #472 Rochelle Garza Texas Attorney General
2022 General Election
Fifteen years ago, in 2007, Rochelle Garza graduated from Brown. That did not make her part of the northeastern elite.
Less than ten years ago, in 2013, Rochelle Garza graduated from the University of Houston Law School – far from the usual passageway to elite law firms. She was not thinking about making big money or about politics. She was thinking about children. While completing law school, she enrolled in a program for a Master of Public Health from the University of Texas. She was thinking about children’s health and health care, an interest developed when health care for her brother, brain injured during childbirth, was met with obstacle after obstacle and dominated the life of her family.
Rochelle Garza fulfilled her interest in children by working for the American Bar Association in Brownsville, Texas. At the southern tip of Texas, she represented unaccompanied minor children the United States was seeking to remove from the country. In 2015, she joined a law practice in Brownsville – Garza and Garza. That was her father’s firm. And her brother’s. He passed the bar and joined the firm in 2013.
Rochelle Garza’s stay in the family firm was brief. She became a staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas in 2019 and began a run for Texas’s 34th Congressional District in 2021. Four months later, she switched gears. Redistricting led Congressman Vicente Gonzalez to run in TX 34 instead of TX 15 where he was the incumbent. On March 19, 2022, Vicente Gonzalez won the primary for his new and solidly Democratic district. On November 1, 2021, Rochelle Garza announced her switch to run for Attorney General. She led in the March 1 Democratic primary and won the May 24 run off. Her prize is the opportunity to take on the notorious Ken Paxton.
In her website, Rochelle Garza describes herself as the daughter of two school teachers. Her mother was the daughter of a World War II veteran father and a mother who worked managing a credit union, but only after her children were grown. Rochelle Garza’s father was the descendent of five generations of farmers in Texas. He left the farm, got a teaching degree and taught high school. Next he went to law school and began practicing in 1979. Six years later, he was elected a district judge. Rochelle Garza’s father served as a judge for 20 years, retiring in 2005 two years before she graduated from Brown. He created his law firm, built a practice as a former judge, and brought his son and daughter into the firm.
Rochelle Garza has been endorsed by newspapers in Austin, San Antonio, and Fort Worth. I love the organizations that endorsed her. The most colorful is Mothers Against Greg Abbott. Others are progressive, but more conventional — Progress Texas, Annie’s List working to elect women in Texas, AVOW which advocates for unrestricted access to abortion. Local politicians, neighboring Members of Congress, attorneys she defeated in the primary have endorsed her. That’s a start.
Rochelle Garza outlines five issues in her campaign to be Texas’s Attorney General.
Health care — high prescription drug costs and Covid.
Consumer Protection — Texas’s failed power grid and insufficient clean water
Immigration and the border – We should welcome immigrants at the border
Legalize cannabis
Civil rights for workers, for women, for voters, and for the LGBTQ+ community.
That’s also a start. Her endorsement and her advocacy appeal to some Texans, not those who are comfortable voting for Governor Greg Abbott, Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Most Texans know the Attorney General is under indictment for stock fraud and they don’t seem to care. They didn’t care in 2018 when Paxton was first elected. If he is ever convicted Texans might care.
Rochelle Garza is not so well known as Ken Paxton, but she has earned some notoriety. She is known for putting up a good fight and winning – qualities that are valued in Texas. Her lawsuit was Azar v Garza. Azar was Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. Rochelle Garza is Garza.
In 2017, Rochelle Garza was the “guardian ad litem” for an eight-weeks pregnant seventeen-year old “Jane Doe” who had entered the United States illegally and unaccompanied by an adult. In an Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelter, “Jane Doe” decided she wanted an abortion. The national ORR director forbad taking any action to support an abortion and the ORR shelter would not allow “Jane Doe” to leave the shelter. Rochelle Garza sued the acting head of HHS. A federal district court judge ordered the US government to let “Jane Doe” leave the shelter for pre-abortion counseling and an abortion if that was what she still desired after counseling. Circuit Court Appeals judges Brett Kavanaugh and Karen Henderson allowed the ORR to prevent “Jane Doe” from leaving. Within days, the entire DC Circuit Court, meeting en banc, allowed “Jane Doe” to leave the shelter. Judge Tanya Chutkan, another district court judge, then allowed “Jane Doe” to leave immediately to have her abortion.
The abortion was not the end of the story. The Solicitor General appealed to the US Supreme Court to vacate the Circuit Court’s ruling and to sanction “Jane Doe’s” lawyer for not informing the Court that “Jane Doe’s” abortion had been rescheduled to an earlier date than had been anticipated. The US Supreme Court vacated the order on the grounds that there was no longer a need for an injunction and refused to sanction “Jane Doe’s” lawyer.
Persisting throughout this process, Rochelle Garza became a figure among some Texans and the nation’s pro-choice community. Judge Chutkan allowed two more pregnant girls in ORR shelters to leave to obtain abortions and, recognizing those two girls as part of a class action, ordered ORR to provide access to abortions to all girls in their custody.
Let’s help Rochelle Garza translate her persistence and her eye for achieving success into something that Texans admire. Let’s make Rochelle Garza Texas’s Attorney General. That will require some money. Donate.
Candidates for Attorney General and Secretary of State worth noting
Democratic Attorney General candidates
Arizona Kris Mayes (Political Note #470)
Arkansas Litigator Jesse Joe Gibson
Georgia State Senator Jen Jordan (Political Note #441)
Idaho Attorney and national health figure Steven Scanlin
Kansas Attorney Chris Mann (Political Note #425)
Michigan Incumbent Dana Nessel (Political Note #415)
Minnesota Incumbent Keith Ellison (Political Note #442)
Nevada Incumbent Aaron Ford (Political Note #360)
New Mexico County DA Raul Torrez
Ohio Ex City Counselor Jeff Crossman
Texas Attorney Rochelle Garza. (Political Note #472)
Wisconsin Incumbent Josh Kaul (Political Note #367)
Secretary of State candidates
Arizona Reginald Boulding (Political Note #437)
Georgia State Rep Bee Nguyen (Political Note #409)
Michigan Incumbent Jocelyn Benson (Political Note #435)
Minnesota Incumbent Steve Simon
Nevada Attorney and ex Boxing Commissioner Cisco Aguilar (Political Note #436)
New Mexico Incumbent Maggie Toulouse Oliver
Ohio City Counselor Chelsea Clark (Political Note #471)
CFO/State Treasurer/Comptroller
Florida Ex State Rep Adam Hattersley (Political Note #299)
Minnesota Incumbent Julie Blaha
Lt. Governor
Texas Ex CFO and schools advocate Democrat Mike Collier
New York Incumbent Antonio Delgado (Political Note #232)
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