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ANALYSIS:
Texas Republicans thought they'd be able to hang
on to Texas House District 11 in East Texas after
Todd Staples claimed the seat
in a 1995 special election and held it until winning
a high-stakes race for an open state Senate seat
five years later. While Staples was in the process
of defeating two formidable primary opponents
en route to a resounding victory over a well-armed
trial lawyer in the 2000 general election for
state Senate, Jacksonville pharmacist Chuck
Hopson was busy wrestling the open House
seat back for Democrats with 53 percent of the
vote in a general election battle with Palestine
banker Paul S. Woodard Jr. With
Hopson's victory as the lead frame on the highlight
reel, Democrats stopped the GOP from gaining ground
in the state House for the first election cycle
in 25 years. While Hopson's general election triumph
was significant in a number of ways, the former
city councilman and school board member arguably
encountered his toughest competition in his debut
bid for the Legislature that year in a Democratic
primary bout with JoAl Cannon Sheridan
- a Jacksonville
attorney whose father had been an influential
state House member from Mexia in the early 1960s.
But in a part of the state where the state lawmakers
have always been men, Hopson captured the nomination
with 51 percent the vote. Across the aisle, the
battle for Staples' seat in 2000 was even closer
as Woodard edged Kenneth Durrett
of Jacksonville by 57 votes with support from
50.4 percent of the Republicans who cast ballots
in the primary election. Staples had
won the seat initially when two special election
opponents split the Democratic vote after Elton
Bomer resigned from the HD 11 post when
Governor George W. Bush tapped
him to be insurance commissioner. A Democratic
House member from Palestine, Bomer had represented
the East Texas district for two four-year stints
in the early 1980s and early 1990s - and Palestine
Democrats Cliff Johnson and Dick
Swift each held it for three years from
1985 to 1991. The district appeared to be growing
more Republican each year by the time Staples
picked up 56 percent of the vote when
defending the seat against Democrat Doug
Lowe in a 1996 re-election bid. Despite
the fact that Democrats such as John Sharp
and Paul Hobby had come close
to breaking even in HD 11 in statewide races in
1998, Republicans expected Woodard to win in 2000
with coattails from Bush at the top of the ticket.
But Hopson proved to be a top-flight campaigner
- and despite being outspent by about $100,000
- he still had more than a quarter-million dollars
for his first race. The GOP thought it could take
the seat back after moving heavily Republican
Rusk County into HD 11 along with Houston and
Panola counties during a 2001 redistricting process
that removed Anderson, Leon and Robertson counties
from the district and paired Hopson with former
Democratic House member Paul Sadler.
Woodard no longer lived in the district - and
Durrett had clear sailing for the Republican nomination
and right to face Hopson in the redesigned district
in the fall of 2002. Sadler decided to retire
from the Legislature - and Hopson was unopposed
in the primary that year. But Durrett, who'd been
elected Jacksonville mayor in 2001, pulled the
plug on his campaign for the House three months
after the primary vote when he decided that his
leadership was needed more at the local level
at a time when the city manager had just left
while several major projects were under way. After
the free pass in 2002, Hopson met minimal resistance
two years ago in a bid for a third term against
Republican challenger Mike Alberts,
a Troup teacher whose campaign had little support
from deep-pocket GOP forces despite the incumbent's
apparent vulnerability in a district where Bush
received more than 71 percent of the November
2004 vote. The GOP appeared to have missed a golden
opportunity when Hopson - despite having the advantage
of incumbency and 15 times more money than Alberts
for the fall campaign - won re-election with less
than 52 percent of the vote. After letting Hopson
off the hook for the most part during his two
re-election bids, Republicans now are pinning
their hopes once again on a candidate named Durrett.
But this time around the GOP's nominee is Larry
K. Durrett, the father of the candidate
who dropped out of the HD 11 contest four years
ago. Durrett - like his son - has been the mayor
of Jacksonville and served on the city council
there as well. The elder Durrett's resume includes
stints as a former Texas Restaurant Association
president who's been on the board of directors
for the East Texas Medical Center Regional Healthcare
System and the Nan Travis Hospital Foundation.
The Durretts run Southern Multi-Foods, Inc., which
owns and operates Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and other
chain restaurants in
East Texas and other parts of the state. The current
HD 11 candidate is the president and chief executive
officer of the company - and he's been a director
for Texas Mutual Insurance Company as well. At
age 61, Durrett is about three years younger than
Hopson. Durrett and Hopson and both married with
two and three grown children respectively - and
both have five grandchildren. Both candidates
attend the same Methodist church. Hopson and Durrett
hold similar positions on many of the race's high-priority
issues - even though Republicans will no doubt
attempt to associate the incumbent as much as
they can with liberal Democrats in Austin and
Washington while framing the challenger as the
conservative choice in the race. That won't be
as easy to do with Hopson as it would with some
Democrats in the Legislature. For starters, Hopson
had support in 2004 from the powerful organization
Texans for Lawsuit Reform and its top donor, Houston
homebuilder Bob Perry, who's
been the top contributor to Republican candidates
and committees at the state and federal levels
during the past few years. Hopson has voted with
the Republican leadership on key issues as much
or more as he has with House Democratic Caucus
leaders - and he's toed the conservative East
Texas line on hot button topics like gay marriage
while receiving A+ grades from the Texas State
Rifle Association and the NRA. While Durrett touts
illegal immigration as a top priority issue like
many Republicans around the state and nation are
doing this year, Hopson might have found a way
to neutralize its impact in HD 11 as the first
Democrat to sign an immigration reform and border
security compact that a Texas group is pushing.
Hopson even sponsored a resolution in this year's
special session urging Congress to crack down
on illegal immigration for the sake of national
and economic security. Hopson cast votes in the
spring special session for the leadership's property
tax reduction and dedication plans and new school
spending that includes a $2,000 annual pay raise
for teachers. He bucked GOP leaders with votes
against a business tax expansion and cigarette
tax increase that lawmakers approved in the special
session, but so did a number of the House's most
conservative Republican members. Hopson says he
voted no on the business tax plan to protect small
businesses in his district. Durrett - in contrast
- says he would have voted for the business tax
bill because it was a product of bipartisan consensus
at a time when House leaders and a majority of
members agreed that something had to be done with
the Legislature under the gun of a court deadline.
Republicans had the
chance two years ago to take Hopson to task for
his decision to join his fellow WD-40s - an informal
group of moderately conservative white Democrats
who with a few exceptions are over 40 years ago
- on the trip that Democratic state House members
took to Ardmore, Oklahoma to break a quorum in
order to block a vote on congressional redistricting
in 2003. But considering all the problems that
former Congressman Tom DeLay
has had since spearheading that effort, that may
have become a dead horse of an issue by now for
Republicans who'd hoped to exploit it in House
races. Durrett, who beat Tatum attorney Brian
Keith Walker in an April primary runoff
election with 61 percent of the vote, has Staples'
endorsement for the fall contest and financial
support from former Texas Transportation Commissioner
Robert Nichols, a Jacksonville
businessman who will be taking over the Senate
District 3 seat that Staples is giving up for
a statewide race for agriculture commissioner.
Nichols, who's unopposed in November after defeating
three formidable Republican primary opponents
without a runoff, isn't expected to offer an official
endorsement in the HD 11 race - possibly because
his wife is good friends with Hopson's wife in
the relatively small town where they live. With
Staples home base of Anderson County no longer
included in HD 11, the only turf that the House
and Senate districts share is Hopson's home county
of Cherokee where he won 58 percent and 55 percent
of the vote in 2000 and 2004 respectively. As
a successful local businessman and former city
leader in Jacksonville, Durrett appears to have
a better chance to make inroads into the incumbent's
hometown support than Hopson's other Republican
opponents who lived in other towns. Two years
ago, Hopson received 53 percent of the vote in
Panola County and 63 percent in Houston County
while having to settle for only 46 percent in
Rusk County. Cherokee and Rusk counties have about
the same number of voters and accounted for almost
two of every three votes cast in the HD 11 race
in 2004 after the lines had been changed. Durrett
has hired Republican consultant Kevin
Brannon of Allen for the general election
after enlisting Austin's Jason Johnson,
who's worked for Staples and Nichols, for the
primary campaign this year. Democratic consultant
Dean Rindy, who's advised Hopson
in his three House elections, will be on board
again for the fall race. Hopson expects his new
campaign finance report to show more than $200,000
in cash on hand for the fall battle against a
challenger who was forced to spend most of what
he raised earlier in the year on a primary election
and runoff campaign. But Durrett has money of
his own - and with some help from the GOP establishment
he's expected to have sufficient funds for a competitive
race. Durrett also appears to have political demographics
on his side in a district where three of the four
county judges and three of four sheriffs are Republican
as well. Republican Lieutenant Governor David
Dewhurst carried the two largest counties
in HD 11 in 2002 when Democratic opponent John
Sharp was faring well in other parts of East Texas
that year. Republican Governor Rick Perry
topped 60 percent in all but one HD 11 county
and carried the fourth with 58 percent of the
vote that same year. But this time around Hopson
won't have to worry about Bush at the top of the
GOP ticket - and he expects split-ticket voting
in a four-way governor's race to prevent the threat
of coattails from Perry or U.S. Senator Kay
Bailey Hutchison on the ballot above.
With votes cast during three terms as a legislator,
a record of winning on the campaign trail and
a war chest that could approach the $500,000 range,
Hopson thinks he can add a couple of points to
the share of votes he received against his first
two GOP challengers and win a return trip to Austin
with as much as 55 percent of the November vote.
Republicans, however, think Durrett has the potential
to prove Hopson wrong about that. The battle for
HD 11 has the potential to be the most competitive
race for the Texas Legislature this year - and
it's ranked number one on Capitol Inside's current
General
Election Races to Watch list for 2006. The
HD 11 lineup in November will also include a Libertarian
candidate - Paul (Blue) Story of
Henderson.
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