Former Republican chairman running for state House
Jared Woodfill, a controversial Houston attorney and former chair of the Harris County Republican Party, announced he’s running in the March primary against incumbent Republican state Rep. Lacey Hull.
The race appears to bring District 138 — which includes parts of northwest Harris County such as Spring Branch and Jersey Village — into the statewide battle between opposing factions of the Texas GOP.
On his campaign website, Woodfill claims Hull “conspired” with current Republican House Speaker Dade Phelan to impeach Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“The entire episode was an example of why ‘RINOs’ in Austin must be voted out of office,” Woodfill writes, referring to Hull as a “Republican in name only.”
Among his many conservative credentials, Woodfill boasts of his work successfully defeating former Mayor Annise Parker’s HERO ordinance in 2015, which would have banned discrimination based on several factors including sexual orientation and gender identity.
Other activists on the right have argued Hull isn’t conservative enough. Though Hull has co-authored anti-abortion legislation, she faced criticism from the group Abolish Abortion Texas, which sent out mailers in 2022 saying she “betrayed Texas babies” by not supporting more extreme measures.
Woodfill has made headlines over the years as an attorney representing a number of Houston’s conservative figures, including GOP activist Steve Hotze, attorney and Harris County Department of Education Trustee Eric Dick and the right-wing blogger accused of attacking U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee’s campaign chair.
Woodfill was investigated by the Harris County District Attorney’s office in 2018 after being accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients. No charges were filed.
District 138 has trended more Republican at the polls in recent years. In 2018, incumbent Republican state Rep. Dwayne Bohac won re-election by just 47 votes. Hull took over the seat in 2020, winning 51.6% of the vote. She then was re-elected in 2022 with a wider margin, when she won 57.1% of the vote.
The candidate filing period in the March primary runs from Nov. 11 to Dec. 11.