Incumbent is in touch with redrawn area
Penny Morales Shaw, a native Houstonian and longtime Heights resident, has hit the ground running since elected to represent the 148th district in the Texas House last year. Morales Shaw, 56, put her impressive two-decade career as a private practice attorney to good use during her freshman term, working hard on bipartisan legislation to raise the age at which young people can be arrested, as well as supporting bills to cap insulin costs, expand broadband access and protect renters by requiring flood-risk disclosure.
When she’s not legislating in Austin, the Democratic incumbent can be found listening to constituents passionately protest the expansion of a local landfill at TCEQ meetings, attending a maternal health panel or handing out backpacks to Cy-Fair schoolchildren. She can also — on occasion — be found in Washington, D.C., breaking quorum alongside fellow Democrats in the name of protecting voter rights.
It’s no surprise Morales Shaw has distinguished herself as a tireless multitasker. A working mom of four who lost her husband just after graduating law school in 2000, she managed to maintain a local business and a successful multi-state law practice. Somehow she still found the time to expand her legislative advocacy work, volunteering in the NAACP’s free legal clinics and working with the international nonprofit CARE to improve maternal health, access to microloans and other necessities.
With a deep commitment to protecting the health, rights and wellbeing of working families and children, Morales Shaw hasn’t been afraid to play politics when she feels it’s necessary — such as to oppose voting restrictions and the criminalization of election workers in Senate Bill 1. Yet, she also knows when it’s time to come to the negotiating table, she told us. One example: working across the aisle with Rep. Travis Clardy on amending a “cleanup bill” that facilitated the mail-in and in-person voting procedure.
The 148th district, once representing many Heights residents, was redrawn in the last session to now stretch past Beltway 8 into northwest Harris County, taking in parts of Jersey Village and nearby suburbs. We believe Morales Shaw will serve as a powerful, cleareyed advocate for a constituency that’s set to include more workingclass families with bread-and-butter concerns than partisan battles to pick. These concerns, Morales Shaw told us, include housing affordability, school safety and environmental protections — issues right in her wheelhouse to tackle.
For example, she told us she hopes to use tax exemptions to help Houstonians get relief, a strategy recommended to her by the author of the property tax code. She will argue to use the Legislature’s $27 billion surplus to lessen taxpayers’ burdens by buying down homeowners’ property taxes — a short-term solution but one we can get behind.
Raised by an Air Force dad who taught her to shoot guns safely, Morales Shaw plans to prioritize school safety by introducing responsible gun ownership laws, including raising the purchasing age to 21, and increasing mental health funding for schools.
Despite our doubts about what Democrats can truly achieve in a Republican-majority House, Morales Shaw remains undaunted, arguing that she has also served an important watchdog role, such as in opposing the inappropriate criminalization of asylum-seekers through Operation Lone Star.
“For me every day is a day of hope, even if you’re the underdog and you’re outnumbered. We still have people in need in every arena, and they need a voice,” she told us. “And I’m hopeful that we can clear some of this divisiveness and get stuff done that really helps our communities and improves the quality of life for people.”
Morales Shaw’s Republican opponent, Kay Smith, has not persuaded us her priorities are anything but talking points. Pledging to “fight critical race theory” and to “secure the border” by superseding federal responsibility, Smith’s campaign seems more concerned with pleasing the party faithful than addressing the concerns of all wouldbe constituents. Although we made initial contact with Smith, she had technical difficulties during the screening and did not respond to a follow-up.
We strongly recommend voters give Morales Shaw another term.