Parties have a stranglehold on Texas elections. Here’s how you can help break it | Opinion

With the election just days away, Texans — like people across the country — are being inundated with ads, mailers, texts, phone calls and social media posts. Much of the messaging is along party lines, with Republicans and Democrats warning us about the dangers of the other. So, millions of people get the message that we have to choose a “side.”

We don’t. There’s a much better, more effective way to face this year’s election. My race is an example.

I’m running for district attorney of the 143rd Judicial District in far West Texas as a Republican. But I have openly called out the dangers of today’s GOP, and wrote a column for Newsweek about why so many conservative women like me are fed up with the party. The New York Times recently described me as “an unusual candidate: a Trump-hating lawyer who’s spent years battling over oil wells.”

You might wonder why I’m running as a Republican then. The reality of our political structures makes it the only real option. I’m not alone. Across Texas, candidates looking to effect change are running from within an established party without trying to represent everything the party stands for.

I know a lot of conservatives who are supporting Colin Allred for the Senate. It’s not that he’s a Democrat, it’s that the Democratic ticket was his way into the race. They recognize him to be a much better candidate than Ted Cruz, who has let Texans down over and over for years. Cruz is among the many prominent Republicans who have shown profound weakness, eating their own words to support Donald Trump — a man who has repeatedly disdained them and rejects fundamentals of democracy.

One of the latest Texas Republicans to support Allred is former state Rep. Jason Villalba. It’s similar to the growing list of prominent Republicans nationwide supporting Kamala Harris for the presidency.

Meanwhile, at the Texas Railroad Commission, I’m glad to see Hawk Dunlap challenge the duopoly. As the candidate of the Libertarian Party, he has a chance to simultaneously stand up to the corruption of the current commission that I have railed against for years (including as a former candidate myself), and demand action on abandoned wells.

Candidates are unique individuals. But you might not know that until you look past the big party messaging and learn about who they really are. There’s a reason this is so tough: ballot access. “For third-party U.S. presidential candidates, getting on state ballots is challenging and expensive, thanks to a patchwork of U.S. laws designed by Republicans and Democrats, the dominant parties which control statehouses nationwide,” Reuters reported this year.

So, to even make ourselves an option on Election Day, we have to join with parties that have ballot access. Otherwise, it requires gathering tens of thousands of voters’ signatures to earn a spot on the ballot.

Having briefly considered a run for Railroad Commission with a party that does not have ballot access in Texas, I know how difficult it is. The upshot is that being a candidate at all means running with an established party.

The only way to fix this is for people to turn out and vote outside of party lines. When voters put more focus on the individuals and less on the parties, third-party candidates will get more votes. That increase in support will, in turn, help open up ballot access to more parties, giving Texans more choices.

I also hope it will lead the parties to change and move away from the extremists in their base. As a lifelong Republican, I would love to have a GOP that’s actually committed to small government.

Learning about the individuals may also help inspire people who usually sit out elections to show up to the polls. This is an especially big problem in Texas, which has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the nation.

If you haven’t voted yet or are torn about whether to do so at all, I encourage you to take a close look at each race. Set aside party identities, and focus on what the candidates are offering. We’ll only improve our government when we reduce the centralized power of the parties — and that will only happen when we show them that we’re voting for individuals.