Squaring off again
Experience and accessibility win top marks for incumbent’s challenger this time around.
The district changes, but the candidates stay mostly the same.
Two years ago, Lacey Hull defeated Josh Flynn in the Republican primary for House District 138. Hull went on to win in November, and now they’re squaring off again. Through redistricting, HD 138 now includes more of Jersey Village and moved from Biden + 4.4 to Trump + 5.4.
We endorsed Flynn in 2020, and we’re doing so again. The 56-year-old has been a Harris County Republican precinct chair since 1997, and the county party’s secretary since 2020. He served in the Marine Corps and has been a mentor in the Boy Scouts. In 2018, he was elected to the board of trustees of the Harris County Department of Education.
He wants to use his experience engaging with legislators to find ways to ease regulations and licensing requirements on small businesses, especially in agriculture. He said the Legislature didn’t do enough to address the power grid, and he’d push for more reforms.
“I think it's important that we have a conservative, knowledgeable representative representing this district — and I believe I can bring that to the table,” Flynn said.
Flynn told us he’d engage regularly both with his political opposition and with media, striving as often as possible to find common ground.
His opponent, Hull, didn’t meet with us in 2020 or this time. We will say that a bright spot in Hull’s first House session was her work to pass “John and Joseph’s Law,” which requires law enforcement and medical examiners to enter case details, including forensic information, into a national database. Hull, 35, worked with Democratic Sen. Carol Alvarado to pass the legislation.
Otherwise, she’s mostly contributed to our ever-deeper partisan rancor. The second “issue” listed on Hull’s website is “stopping Joe Biden’s policies,” typed in all caps and bold font. She was front and center for the passage of the anti-trans sports bill and is part of the crusade to rid schools of critical race theory. In the past, she’s testified in Austin for parents who opt out their children from mandatory vaccines, and a “parental rights” group she cofounded wants to dismantle Child Protective Services.
A third candidate, 54-year-old Christine Kalmbach, told us she’s a realtor running off of small donations to abolish property taxes, protect parental rights and limit government overreach.
Both Hull and Flynn have a history of admirable civic engagement and market themselves as fierce conservatives. Hull has out-raised Flynn and has racked up key endorsements, most notably from Gov. Greg Abbott. But Flynn has proven more accessible and has signaled he’s not afraid to engage with a range of ideas — something the Legislature could use more of. Despite Hull’s incumbency, we think Flynn has the political experience and grasp on policy that Republican voters in HD 138 seek.