5 candidates vie for Texas House seat
Field is set in special election to fill district that covers swath of West, Northwest sides
Five candidates are vying to become San Antonio’s newest state representative in a special election next month, filling a vacancy that has left the region short a lawmaker as Texas’ 86th legislative session gets underway.
Four Democrats and one Republican will appear on the ballot in House District 125, which covers a swath of the West and Northwest sides. The seat in the Texas House was left vacant when Justin Rodriguez accepted an appointment to the Bexar County Commissioners Court, replacing the late Paul Elizondo.
The candidates, who had until 5 p.m. Monday to declare, will now set off on a frenzied, four-week race that will be defined by the low voter turnout often associated with special elections. Election day will be Feb. 12, with early voting beginning Jan. 28.
The candidates are:
• Steve Huerta, the last candidate to enter the fray, said he wants to become an “activist lawmaker.”
Huerta, 51, said he has worked for 15 years as a social justice policy adviser with the grassroots organization “All of Us or None,” which works to restore rights for people who were arrested or incarcerated.
The Democratic candidate said he was incarcerated after a 1999 arrest for possession of a controlled substance and driving while intoxicated. He was in prison for three months, he said.
The candidate thinks that experience will provide a fresh perspective in Austin.
“That’s what the state really needs, is leadership that won’t just talk about change that will impact our communities, but will actually do it,” Huerta said.
His top priority would be injecting more state funds into the school system. The state’s share of the cost has declined from about 50 percent to 38 percent in the last decade, deferring some of the burden to local property-tax payers.
He would also seek to protect San Antonio from state infringements on local control.
• Ray Lopez, a retired AT&T marketing director, served the West Side on the City Council for eight years. He was term-limited out of office in 2017.
The Democrat said he would bring expertise in two areas critical for San Antonio during the leg-
islative session: transportation and education. Lopez is working with the San Antonio Mobility Coalition, advocating for transportation needs at the Legislature. He also served on — and then chaired — the Northside Independent School District board of trustees in the ’90s.
Lopez, 69, hopes that familiarity with voters will now propel him into the Texas House.
Lopez said the solution to the state’s broken school finance system will include three things: finding new revenue without raising taxes, maximizing the revenue that the state already has and fixing the formula used to allocate funding.
While other candidates and members of the delegation have said the state needs to return its funding to roughly 50 percent of the cost, Lopez said he didn’t want to commit to one number.
• Republican Fred Rangel owns two small businesses — Adco Professional Services and Adco Master Builders — and has run unsuccessfully in the past for City Council.
He said he wanted to run to bring that business angle to the state’s problems. “The businessman looks for efficiencies and efficient systems,” he said.
Rangel, 63, said that will be needed during this legislative session, as lawmakers work to find funding for meaningful reform in school finance.
He agreed that the state must increase its funding, but he said lawmakers have to be careful to do so in a way that doesn’t overburden the budget. Rangel said he would also look at consolidating administrative costs in some areas.
Rangel is the lone Republican in the race, and he will face an uphill battle in the Democratic stronghold; Democrats have held the district since it was redrawn to include more West Side voters in 1992.
Last September, Republican Pete Flores won a state Senate seat that had been held by Democrats since the Reconstruction era. Flores’ campaign manager, Matt Mackowiak, is now running Rangel’s campaign.
• Coda Rayo-Garza is the only woman in the race and the youngest candidate.
The 33-year-old senior coordinator for the San Antonio Independent School District said the session’s focus on public education helped nudge her into the race.
“I have the expertise to have those discussions,” the Democrat said.
Before her gig with SAISD, Rayo-Garza was a policy advocate for a local nonprofit that worked in education, she said. She also spent about three years as a policy staffer on the City Council, first for then-Councilman Ron Nirenberg and then for Councilwoman Shirley Gonzales.
Rayo-Garza said the state needs to find a stable, permanent source for education funding. The rainy day fund and excess revenue are just temporary solutions, she said.
At her campaign kickoff Sunday, she had a compelling guest speaker: Rosie Castro, who one day earlier introduced her son, former Mayor Julián Castro, at his presidential announcement.
• Democrat Art Reyna brings one unique strength to his candidacy: He’s been there before.
The Leon Valley attorney held the seat from 1996 to 2002, when he lost a lopsided Democratic primary to a newcomer named Joaquín Castro. Reyna, 62, would get to keep those six years of seniority if he wins the special election.
“If you already know how it works when you get there, you know how to get something done,” he said.
The lawyer said he wants to run again to champion the same issues he advocated for during his first stint, listing public education, health care and women’s rights as some of his priorities.
He said the arguments surrounding school finance would be complex, and he wouldn’t provide details about his ideal solution until he can assess that discussion.
“That requires me to be in there and look at the solutions that are being offered,” he said. But Reyna did echo the need for a more permanent solution than the rainy day fund.