Meet the candidates for Texas House District 64 in the Nov. 5 general election
READ MORE
2024 Tarrant County and Texas voter guide
Read about the Tarrant County, Texas and federal races before you head to the polls on Election Day.
Expand All
After beating a Republican incumbent in the March primary, Republican Andy Hopper will take on Democrat Angela Brewer in the Nov. 5 general election.
Hopper, a software engineer, did not respond to the Star-Telegram’s candidate questionnaire. In his primary questionnaire responses, he listed the border, protecting election integrity and abolishing property taxes as top policy priorities.
Brewer, an adjunct professor, lists protecting public education from “the private school voucher scheme,” fighting for reproductive justice and abortion access and Medicaid expansion as top priorities.
House District 64 includes Wise County and parts of northeast and central Denton County.
Andy Hopper
Political Party: Republican
Did not respond to candidate questionnaire.
Angela Brewer
Political Party: Democrat
Age: 50
Campaign website: https://www.facebook.com/angelafortexas
Best way for voters to reach you: angbrewer@gmail.com
Occupation: Adjunct Professor
Education: MS in Communication Studies & MEd in Curriculum & Instruction
Have you run for elected office before?
I ran for Texas House District 64 in 2020 and for Denton County Clerk in 2022
Please list the highlights of your civic involvement/activism.
I currently serve on the Board of Directors for Interfaith Ministries, on the City of Denton Charter Review Committee, as a facilitator for 100 Dentonites Who Give a Damn, as a PTA mom, as the Destination Imagination Team Manager for my kiddo’s team, and on the Children’s Ministry and Church & Society Committees at First United Methodist Church Denton.
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?
I have collected a few $25 donations from local voters this election cycle.
Why are you seeking this office?
I was raised in House District 64 and am a product of both the Denton Independent School District and the University of North Texas. I want to serve in Austin because HD64 believes in public education and deserves a representative ready to fight to protect our public schools from the threat of private school vouchers and to strengthen our public schools by supporting students and teachers. My son is in third grade and I often work as a substitute teacher at his school. I’ve seen first hand the extraordinary work teachers are doing in classrooms all over HD64 and I want to be the ally they deserve in Austin.
State government is a place we can gather together to set our community priorities and enact laws that help us all thrive. I want to be a representative for all because I know that great ideas for building our communities come from diverse places: young and old, wealthy and working class, PhDs, GEDs and kiddos, suburbanites and country folks, and Denton and Wise Counties.
What are your top 3 policy priorities?
1. Protect public education from the private school voucher scheme.
2. Fight for reproductive justice and restore abortion access for Texas women.
3. Claim the $10 billion per year in federal funds for Medicaid expansion that Texas has willingly given up every year since 2014. Accepting these funds would empower Texas to insure an additional 1.5 million Texans and would help shore up struggling rural hospitals.
Why should voters choose you over your opponent(s)?
I want to take care of business in Austin for the people of HD64. I am ready to work with anyone, Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, to pass policies that improve the health, education, economics, and happiness of my district’s citizens. With me in the seat for HD64, partisan politics and blind allegiance to party leadership will be left behind in favor of pragmatism and hard work. Lawmaking is a team sport and does not allow space for ideological zealots. I want to build bridges with colleagues of all political strips to get the job done for the folks of Denton and Wise Counties.
What is the biggest challenge facing the district where you’re running, and what is your plan to address it?
The biggest challenge we face in HD64 is protecting public education. I will stand with Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature to defeat Governor Abbott’s private school voucher scheme and keep public funds in public education. We cannot allow the Governor’s political agenda to derail the educational opportunities our students need and the good jobs our schools provide.The school districts in Denton and Wise Counties are some of the largest employers in our communities and have already experienced staffing cuts due to budget shortages in recent years. But stopping private school vouchers from stealing public school funds is just the beginning of the work I want to do to fight for Texas students and Texas Teachers. I will fight for legislation to expand innovative curriculum options, increase recess time, support mental health, pay teachers as the professionals they are, honor our commitments to retired teachers through annual cost of living adjustments, and keep schools safe.
How would you measure your success as a state legislator?
Success should be measured by how well I meet the needs of my constituents. There are a variety of measures that I will consider when assessing success, including response rate and speed addressing constituents’ problems, effectiveness and frequency of meetings with local leaders, like city council members, school district officials, and local organizations and activists, holding bimonthly listening meetings with constituents, moving legislative priorities through committees and into consideration of the full House, forming productive partnerships with other legislators to advance legislative priorities, and effectiveness of getting my legislative priorities to the top of the House agenda.
Do you support vouchers or voucher-like programs, such as education savings accounts? Why or why not?
“Education savings accounts” and “school choice” are the reasonable sounding labels used to hide the grave impact private school vouchers would have on Texas school children and Texas teachers. I oppose any effort to remove funding from Texas public schools and any effort to use public funds to pay for private education because I believe in public education. Texas schools serve 5.4 million kids and our tax money and policy solutions should work to serve those children by strengthening the public school system, not divert precious resources into unregulated private schools. I believe the innovative educational programs families want should be made available in public schools, accessed by all students. We are Texans- we can dream big. With continued public commitment to developing curriculum, training educators, and engaging communities in building schools that serve all needs, we can keep public dollars in public education and provide all kids with an education that works for them.
What is your plan to fund Texas public schools?
Our local school boards have become experts in doing more with less. Our districts face rising inflation, cuts in federal funds, shrinking enrollment, and increased costs for school safety while planning their budgets. In fact, these cost increases mean our districts are currently operating with about $1,300 less per student than they were five years ago and leave Texas in the bottom 10 states in school funding, a full $4,000 per student behind the national average. Texas must do better. The Legislature must increase the state’s current basic allotment from $6,160 per student to $7,500 per student to adjust for inflation. That increase will be paid for with the savings Texas has realized due to local property value growth- a total of an $8 billion savings during the last legislative session alone. The Governor’s plan to use that savings to fund private school tuition is a plan to rob our public schools. I will fight to reinvest these funds in public education- where they belong.
Has the state done enough to ensure a steady supply of electricity, even in tight grid conditions? What more should be done?
The winter storm catastrophe in February 2021 revealed a long standing problem with ERCOT and the Texas electricity grid. While steps have been taken to likely prevent the kind of crisis we faced in 2021, we are not fully protected from outages and there’s more to do to strengthen our grid. If elected, I will work to add and winterize grid infrastructure, give incentives for energy producers to increase stability of production, offer incentives for Texans to increase energy efficiency in their homes, and educate the public about how we can all work together to be smart energy consumers.
What should the state do in the coming legislative session to address road infrastructure?
Road infrastructure is an issue that impacts a wide swath of our lives as Texans. Our economy is connected to effective road infrastructure, our safety is connected to effective road infrastructure, and our quality of life and love of community is connected to effective road infrastructure. As the Legislature prepares for the continued population growth in our state, I want road infrastructure development to focus on engineering strategies to increase safety, developing road plans that include public transportation as a part of the initial planning instead of being added as an afterthought, and better coordination between state highway projects and local road maintenance projects to increase efficiency and decrease inconvenience as our road infrastructure grows.
What should the state do in the coming legislative session to address the supply of water in Texas?
Texas is woefully behind in water resource development and the next Legislature must take bold action to avert a water crisis in our growing state. We know that increasing water infrastructure, such as building new reservoirs, is a long process, and we are behind in that development. We must act now with future-growth focused development of new reservoirs. While we construct the new reservoirs that are needed and wait for them to fill, we must capitalize on new water technologies, like aquifer storage and desalination, and implement bold public education campaigns about water conservation to improve management of the water we already have. Conservation efforts should include small action activities, like local government incentives for water efficiency practices in residents’ homes and business and encouragement of native plants and drought-resistant lawns, and large-scale activities, like state protection of wetlands and habitats that help existing water resources flourish.
What should the state do in the coming legislative session to address border security along the Texas-Mexico border and immigration?
Security problems along our Mexican border are a direct result of our national immigration policies. Federal immigration policy reform is long overdue and as a Texas representative, I would work with federal representatives to act on immigration reform to take the pressure off our southern border and build a safe, orderly immigration system. While most solutions for this long standing problem lie with the federal government, there are actions Texas can take to improve security along our border with Mexico and to support our border communities in their management of migrants. Foremost, it is time to stop using immigration as fodder for politics, with endless stunts and inflammatory rhetoric. I will work with any colleague who wants to take real action to support border communities in protecting their citizens and humanitarian efforts for migrants. I will seek partnerships with border community leaders to get to the bottom of what they really need to govern their cities effectively.
What should the state legislature do to address property taxes and affordable housing for Texans in the coming legislative session?
Our current tax structure was created over a century ago when most wealth was in property instead of in earned pay. The property tax system has outlived its usefulness. Changes in our population and livelihoods over time compel the Legislature to have an honest discussion about the way we are taxed. We know that property taxes and sales taxes are regressive tax systems that do not serve most Texans. I support the Legislature convening a nonpartisan commission to examine the current tax system and compare it to an income tax system. We need a thoughtful investigation about our tax system and openness to reform if the investigation outcomes justify it.
Property tax relief will help, but real solutions for affordable housing combine efforts from federal, state, and local programs. I support review of the state’s current programs, such as the Texas Affordable Housing Corp & the Vets Land Board Housing Assistance Program, and more investment in the successful activities of those programs.
Should Texas make any changes to its current abortion laws. Why or why not, and what changes would you support?
Texas must end its draconian abortion ban that is killing and harming Texas women. Day one, I will introduce a bill to repeal the ban and replace it with a law protecting women’s health and autonomy. Using abortion care should be a decision women make in consultation with their health care providers and families, not with their government representatives. In addition to the tragic health harms and invasions of privacy Texas women have endured since the law went into effect in 2022, the ban has caused other unintended damage to healthcare access in our state, such as medical residents avoiding Texas for their training, which will lead to a shortage of ob/gyns in coming years, women with high risk pregnancies lacking providers to care for them, women forced to carry unviable pregnancies to term, suffering unmeasurable psychological harm, and women losing their uteruses and ability to have children in the future. We must end this heartless law and return health care decisions to women.
What’s an issue that doesn’t make as many headlines but is important to you? Why is it important?
Pre-K - 12 curriculum reform is a passion project for me. When it comes to legislation, I want to reshape the early childhood curriculum in our state to add public pre-kindergarten for every child, focus on the brain benefits of play and imagination in learning, increase recess time, and bring science and social studies back to the pre-K - 3 curriculum. For secondary students, I want to invest more state resources in career readiness programs and give attention and programing to non-college bound high school students. I want to introduce civics education as a core learning goal for pre-K - 12 grade education.
As an adjunct professor, I want Texas to lead the nation in reforming the ways higher education uses adjunct professor labor. Adjunct professors currently teach more than half of college courses in our state, but are woefully underpaid and often work without benefits. It is time to assess the real value of this workforce and treat them with professionalism in their employment.
What steps will you take to communicate with constituents about their concerns, needs and the actions of the state legislature?
Constituent communication is the part of the job I am most excited about. I am a democracy nerd who deeply believes in the ideal that our elected representatives are in office to channel the needs of wants of their constituents into policy making, thereby creating communities that serve everyone. To make sure I always know what’s on my constituents’ minds, I will hold bimonthly listening meetings in my district, attend community events and activities, visit local businesses and organizations, visit schools, do door-to-door canvassing to meet folks where they are, and make sure constituent phone calls and letters are a top priority in my office.
This story was originally published October 14, 2024 at 1:16 PM.
.jpg)
