For 2nd District
Democrats should support Todd Litton in this uphill race for Poe’s seat.
If the primary race in the 7th Congressional District is the major-league showdown for Houston-area Democrats, then consider this election to be the Triple-A minor league version. In a contest between five exciting candidates, we encourage Democrats to back Todd Litton in the primary for the 2nd Congressional District.
Money isn’t everything in politics, but there’s something undeniably impressive about Litton’s ability to make headlines for out-raising incumbent U.S. Rep. Ted Poe last year. It was a sign that this oft-unchallenged district was, for the first time in years, facing a real political competition. Now Poe has announced that he won’t run for reelection, and Democrats will face a rookie candidate on the Republican side. If they hope to win, Democrats will need someone who can do the hard work of running a serious campaign in this sprawling, gerrymandered district that stretches from Montrose through Spring, Kingwood and Humble, and Litton has proven that he’s got what it takes.
While some candidates talk in Republican or Democratic soundbites, Litton speaks the language of Houston. He can rattle off specific statistics about flooding at the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, and passionately discusses our city’s diversity as both an opportunity and a challenge, name-dropping Rice University sociologist Stephen Klineberg in the process.
An education nonprofit director with a law degree from the University of Texas and MBA from Rice University, Litton embodies a moderate style of groups like the Greater Houston Partnership, promoting issues such as education, job opportunities and health care — although he doesn’t support Medicare for All. He told the Houston Chronicle editorial board that he hopes to bridge the partisan divide and is running under a motto of “Common Sense and Common Decency.”
But that doesn’t stop Litton, 47, from pointing out that the Republican politicians who represent the areas around the Addicks and Barker dams — Poe and his colleague U.S. Rep. John Culberson — failed to ensure that the Army Corps of Engineers repaired and maintained the important flood prevention infrastructure in the years before Hurricane Harvey.
Also impressive is Silky Malik, 34, a self-styled millennial candidate with a deep earnestness about her generation’s desire for honest, straightforward politicians who will work to improve the material conditions of the middle class in the model of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“It feels almost out of date to think that our government can do things for this country that aren’t self-serving,” Malik said.
The other candidates are Ali A. Khorasani, 28, a young scientist with a master’s degree in chemistry who has been endorsed by the Houston Democratic Socialists of America, and H.P. Parvizian, 40, a local businessman. J. Darnell Jones, a retired naval veteran, did not meet with the editorial board.
Early voting runs from Tuesday, Feb. 20 through Friday, March 2. Election Day is March 6.