Texas primary elections: These Tarrant County legislative races have open seats
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2022 Texas primaries
Early voting begins Monday in Texas, with races for top county and state officials on the Republican and Democratic primary tickets.
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Tarrant County will have at least three new lawmakers in the Texas Legislature after this year’s election.
Retiring, redistricting and the prospect of new leadership roles have left two open seats in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate. Voters on March 1 will pick their top Republican and Democratic candidates for the three seats.
Tarrant County has open seats in Senate District 12, which has long been held by Republican Sen. Jane Nelson of Flower Mound. Nelson, who’s in her 10th term, announced her retirement from the upper chamber in July. Freshman Rep. Jeff Cason, R-Bedford, announced he wouldn’t run for House District 92 after it was reconfigured in the latest redistricting cycle. Rep. Matt Krause, a Fort Worth Republican, is vacating his House District 93 seat once his term wraps to pursue Tarrant County district attorney.
TCU Political Science Professor Jim Riddlesperger said it’s not uncommon to have three open seats. Redistricting years can also contribute to turnover for a variety of reasons, he said.
“Open seats are always the opportunity to get new views represented in the Legislature,” he said, adding that “voices in the Democratic and Republican party can have influence in the Legislature” if they become allies with other lawmakers.
Early voting starts Monday.
Here’s what to know about the state races in Tarrant County with no incumbent on the ballot.
Texas Senate District 12
Senate District 12, which includes Wise County, about half of Denton County and a small portion of Tarrant County, will have its first new senator in nearly three decades. Four candidates are bidding to replace Nelson, who held a key leadership role as chair of the finance committee — two Republicans and two Democrats, meaning neither race will head into a runoff.
Flower Mound State Rep. Tan Parker and security and fire alarm company owner Chris Russell of Carrollton are running as Republicans. Court coordinator Francine Ly of Irving and Lantana real estate agent Ferdi Mongo are running as Democrats.
The candidates’ campaign finance reports covering Jan. 1- Jan. 20 show Parker with more than $623,000 on hand. He received about $12,000 in contributions, including $10,000 from billionaire Robert Rowling, who owns Omni Hotels, and reported more than $490,000 in expenditures. Russell reported $17,550 on hand, $16,000 in contributions, including $15,000 from the Texas Burglar & Fire Alarm Association, and $1,643 in expenditures.
Parker has represented House District 63 since 2007. The district included the southwest portion of Denton County under the previous maps and was shifted more south-central during the latest redistricting cycle.
His top priorities include pushing back on federal overreach, securing the border, supporting law enforcement, property tax relief and transparency in appraisals, according to a candidate questionnaire submitted to the Star-Telegram.
Russell’s priories include limiting “out-of-control property tax,” term limits for legislators, and giving a voice to “those that are being mistreated, ignored, or overlooked in our society,” namely children, seniors and the disabled.
Ly reported $14,726 on hand for the 20-day period in January, as well as $18,529 in contributions and $8,834 in expenditures. Mongo reported $245 on hand and in contributions, and $3,619 in contributions.
For Ly, top issues include jobs and education, rural broadband access other infrastructure issues and healthcare funding to “maintain meaningful and quality rural hospital services including maternity ward accessibility.”
Mongo cited fighting for “Democracy as an ideal,” higher wages and “free vocational training and college education to build a strong working class,” as his top three priorities.
House District 92
Cason announced he wouldn’t seek reelection in December. Every 10 years, lawmakers are tasked with redrawing House district boundaries. This cycle, House District 92 was drawn in a way that makes it lean Democratic, a flip from its previous boundaries.
“It doesn’t make sense to run in a dark blue Democrat district where GOP leadership and the Tarrant County delegation decided to put me and my neighbors,” Cason said in a statement at the time.
The election for HD-92, which had been represented by Republicans in the past with Rep. Jonathan Stickland preceding Cason, could be an opportunity for Democrats to flip the seat. The Democrat who in March will face unopposed Republican Joe Livingston, a real estate agent, in the general election.
Three Democrats have filed to run for the seat: Salman Bhojani, Tracy Scott and Dinesh Sharma.
Bhojani, an attorney and former Euless city council member, reported nearly $60,000 on hand, $30,585 in expenditures and $7,960 in contributions. His priorities include Medicaid expansion, protecting reproductive rights, according to his candidate questionnaire.
Scott, the founder and president of the Black Women’s PAC in Texas, reported $5,472 on hand, $8,845 in contributions and $12,681 in expenditures. She did not return a candidate questionnaire to the Star-Telegram.
Sharma, a solution architect, reported $5,096 on hand and in contributions and $4,433 in expenditures. His priorities include women’s reproductive rights, such as repealing Texas’ new abortion law, improving social justice and improving public education.
House District 93
The vacancy in House District 93 will lead to new representatives at a state and city level.
Krause originally announced he wouldn’t seek reelection to run for Texas attorney general, but later switched races to run for Tarrant County district attorney.
Fort Worth city council member Cary Moon, eyeing the Texas House seat that includes part of north and central Tarrant County, faces former Southlake Mayor Laura Hill and former pastor Nate Schatzline in the Republican primary.
The race has made headlines related to Moon’s October 2020 DWI arrest and a complaint filed against Hill accusing her of not living in the district.
Moon reported in January $112,076 on hand. He received $1,200 in contributions, $1,000 of which was from a single donor, and $6,956 in expenditures. Hill has $85,405 on hand. She reported $22,036 in contributions and $63,660 in expenditures. Both candidates have made significant loans to themselves, prior campaign finance reports show. Moon reported a $92,000 loan and Hill a $100,000 loan.
Schatzline reported $43,862 on hand, $11,912 in contributions and expenditures of $9,891.
In his questionnaire, Moon listed “individual freedoms and the Rule of Law,” reducing taxes and improving education as his priorities. Hill said she’d like to allow cities to increase the the homestead exemption to 25% from the current max of 20%, propose a “gradual rollback of school property taxes for seniors” and address human trafficking. Schatzline’s priorities include fighting “CRT/Marxism in schools,” securing the border and defending liberties: “No more closed churches and business — No mandates,” he wrote.
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
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