Texas House District 98 candidates in Republican primary March 1
Mitchell T. Ryan
Occupation: Wastewater Treatment
Age: 34
Campaign website: ryanfortexas.com
Best way for voters to reach you: call or text: (817) 415-9988
Education: West Texas A&M University, BA
Have you run for or held elected office before? n/a
Please list highlights of your civic involvement (for example, service on boards/commissions or leadership positions held): Co-founder of GCISD Parents - a parent’s rights advocacy group, parent in Southlake Families trying to get a handle on my child’s schools, volunteer for True Texas Project for 7 years
Have you ever been arrested, charged with a crime or otherwise been part of a criminal proceeding? If yes, please explain. No n/a
Have you been involved in a civil lawsuit or bankruptcy proceeding? If yes, please explain. I am suing Grapevine-Colleyville ISD and the school board President in federal court for repeatedly violating the First Amendment rights of myself and other conservative parents at the board’s open meetings.
Who are your top three campaign contributors? I am equally thankful to every contributor, large or small.
Why are you seeking this office? To stop the scams in Austin and secure the border (0 crossings), end the virus hysteria and mandates, and enable public schools to properly educate children again by doing things like eliminating critical theory, figuring out why we have sexual groomer books in the libraries, etc.
What are the biggest challenges facing the area you’re seeking to represent? Families and the institution of marriage are in crisis, and many of the biggest problems they face have been caused or exacerbated by the chaos by the government via inaction (like the border) or overreach (covid). The problems have stacked up so high that many people feel it’s hopeless.
What would your top 3 policy priorities be?
1. Zero illegal border crossings per year
2. Give parents the tools to neutralize critical social justice in their schools
3. End the virus hysteria and the stop the related power-grab agendas
Why should voters choose you over your opponents?
I have a record of being the tip of the spear on conservative issues at the local level and my opponent is bought by special interests.
What should the Legislature do to reduce local property taxes? *
Pass actual tax cuts instead of fake ones to campaign on.
Is the Texas power grid prepared for another winter storm? What further measures should the state take to address electricity generation, weatherization and the long-term energy needs of the state? The grid is not prepared for a number of threats and myself and other conservatives who follow the legislature closely laud lawmakers like Senator Bob Hall who has been trying mightily to pass bills to harden and study the grid for vulnerabilities, only to find no support from moderates like opponent who only care about big business and making sure CRT gets funded in the schools.
Should Texas be building a border wall? Should more or fewer state resources be dedicated to the border? I now believe the money spent by the State on border security is being wasted or otherwise lost in some form of corruption as the invasion of America through Texas is showing the highest numbers ever recorded in the last 12 months. I support securing the border by any means necessary to achieve zero illegal crossings a year.
What should the state do to improve access to healthcare and make it more affordable? Usually the best way to improve access and lower costs is to get government out of the way.
Texas’ urban areas continue to grow rapidly, what can the Legislature do to reduce the time Texans spend in traffic and address infrastructure needs that come with a booming population? Mandate e-verify and I bet we see a very quick reduction in traffic. Or, like my opponent, you could support the economy decimating “350 days to flatten the curve” virus restrictions. That really helped traffic for a bit.
How can state government help ensure Texas has enough affordable housing to accommodate its growth? Deport illegal aliens and stop paying Democrat-supporting, vaccine mandating companies taxpayer money to move to Texas so they can turn around and donate money to Democrats. My opponent has been supporting this artificial stress on the housing supply of cash incentives to companies that censor Republican voters, push anti-family values, many other negative things. It’s not good for young families especially!
If the Supreme Court opens the door to new abortion restrictions, what should Texas’ policy be? Should abortions be allowed, and under what circumstances? By what level of fetal development, if any, should abortion be permitted? We should never kill babies and we should be talking about how Roe v. Wade is a joke and not a serious interpretation of the constitution.
What further changes, if any, in Texas election law do you support? We need to undo some of the changes passed by my opponent like letting the Democrat Party (or R’s) send out unsolicited mail-in-ballot requests, and then we need to update the voter rolls as often as possible (yearly) and having each ballot cast in triplicate.
Should Texas legalize marijuana? Why or why not and to what extent should the state’s marijuana laws be changed, if at all? More Texans using marijuana will not make Texas families stronger. I am open to learning more about this topic but I am skeptical.
What steps should Texas take to continue to address COVID-19 in Texas, including North Texas? Stop testing and monetarily incentivizing finding “cases,” which includes clicks for newspapers with boring opinions.
Giovanni Capriglione
Occupation: Private Equity
Age: 48
Campaign website: http://www.votegiovanni.com
Best way for voters to reach you: gio@votegiovanni.com
Education: BS Physics Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MBA Santa Clara University
Have you run for or held elected office before?
Texas State Representative House District 98: 2013 - present
Please list highlights of your civic involvement (for example, service on boards/commissions or leadership positions held): I serve as Chairman of Article II Subcommittee House Appropriations, Chairman of House Innovation & Technology Caucus
Have you ever been arrested, charged with a crime or otherwise been part of a criminal proceeding? If yes, please explain. No
Have you been involved in a civil lawsuit or bankruptcy proceeding? If yes, please explain. No
Who are your top three campaign contributors? Since the beginning of the filing period: Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC, the Dade Phelan Campaign, and Gary Blake.
Why are you seeking this office? Over the past ten years, I have had the privilege of visiting thousands of voters at their homes and meeting with many thousands more. Our office has provided continuous constituent services, helping our residents with the services they deserve. In that process, I have listened and learned, and I hope to have the honor of taking once again what they told me down to Austin.
I will continue to pass the conservative legislation supported by my constituents. I’ve found ways for the government to work more like a private business. On the House Appropriations Committee, I worked to root out waste, fraud, and abuse in the state government, saving Texas taxpayers millions of dollars.
I intend to continue my work on transparency; taxpayers deserve to know how their tax dollars are being used. I will continue to focus on the state’s technology issues, modernizing our systems to improve and streamline citizen services and upgrading our cybersecurity defenses down to the local level.
What are the biggest challenges facing the area you’re seeking to represent? Some of the biggest challenges facing HD98 include ever-increasing property taxes, maintaining appropriate workforce development, and continuing our tradition of having the state’s best public schools.
What would your top 3 policy priorities be? We must fight for parents concerned about education issues, protect taxpayers, and secure our border.
Why should voters choose you over your opponents? I am an effective, conservative legislator with the experience to represent House District 98. I have passed numerous laws that range from improving the open records request process to improving the way the state invests its assets to improving security at the Dallas Fort Worth Airport. I have been endorsed by a wide variety of folks, including conservative groups, business organizations, and law enforcement associations.
What should the Legislature do to reduce local property taxes? In the past legislative sessions, I have supported laws that limit the growth rate of property tax increases, provide more transparency in the property tax process and raise the homestead exemption. In the next biennium, our budget surplus will allow for significant property tax reductions. In addition, lowering the maximum increase in property taxes will provide immediate substantive reductions in future payments.
Is the Texas power grid prepared for another winter storm? What further measures should the state take to address electricity generation, weatherization and the long-term energy needs of the state? During the past legislative session, we passed 14 laws addressing the energy grid and changed the governance structures of both the PUC and ERCOT, implemented required weatherization standards, instituted a system to check for compliance (with significant penalties for failures), improved the process of tagging critical infrastructure systems, and created methods to improve communication. In an effort to work on that communication I have held multiple townhalls, sent emails and newsletters, and recently held an open to the public virtual town hall with ERCOT, Senator Hancock and Commissioner Fickes. I’m interested in working on innovative ways to increase our reserve capacity. Texas is more prepared than ever for another winter storm.
Should Texas be building a border wall? Should more or fewer state resources be dedicated to the border? As a member of the House Appropriations Committee, I worked to make sure that we increase funding for border security to nearly $3 billion and that a portion of those dollars be dedicated to a border wall. We should continue to do so until the Federal government does its job.
What should the state do to improve access to healthcare and make it more affordable? In this past legislative session, I helped increase funding for healthcare services (including an extra four months of postpartum Medicaid coverage, funding for a new state hospital in the metroplex, and increases for behavioral and mental health programs). Absent a real federal fix which would include a Medicaid block grant, the state should work towards price transparency and rate adjustments. Finally, something not mentioned enough: we need to deliberately, and with an eye on long term needs, work on filling necessary but vacant medical professional positions.
Texas’ urban areas continue to grow rapidly, what can the Legislature do to reduce the time Texans spend in traffic and address infrastructure needs that come with a booming population? As more employers and employees have found benefits to working remotely, the state should find ways to make this an easier choice.
We have passed some legislation, but there are more things we can do to make sure that Texas is a leader in autonomous vehicle technology/production – doing so, long term will provide significant traffic reductions.
In the short term, Texas should prioritize additional funding for transportation infrastructure improvements.
How can state government help ensure Texas has enough affordable housing to accommodate its growth? Reducing overbearing regulations and lowering property taxes on non-homestead properties will help reduce the costs of housing.
If the Supreme Court opens the door to new abortion restrictions, what should Texas’ policy be? Should abortions be allowed, and under what circumstances? By what level of fetal development, if any, should abortion be permitted? In the last legislative session, I authored and passed the Human Life Protection Act that places into state law an abortion ban contingent on the Supreme Court’s expected summer ruling on Mississippi’s abortion law.
What further changes, if any, in Texas election law do you support? I support any changes that reduce the potential for fraud in Texas elections. In addition, I believe that we must significantly increase resources to make sure that our election administrations across Texas are protected from cyber-attacks and other electronic interferences.
Should Texas legalize marijuana? Why or why not and to what extent should the state’s marijuana laws be changed, if at all? I do not support legalizing marijuana.
What steps should Texas take to continue to address COVID-19 in Texas, including North Texas? We need to continue supporting our hospitals, nursing homes, etc., ability to maintain necessary levels of qualified professional staff. We need to communicate accurate data and information about the disease. We also have to be cognizant of the real damage done to our economy and our children’s education as a result of some of the responses to this disease and prevent those from reoccurring.
