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Hottest Open House Races Feature
Ex-Lawmaker and Lawman in 2022
Capitol Inside
December 22, 2021
Groesbeck Republican Dennis Wilson brings an extraordinary background as a veteran lawman to a campaign for the Texas House in an open race in a district that was conceived at the statehouse in Austin this fall.
Wilson emerged from one of the worst fiascoes in law enforcement history as a young deputy en route to an impressive career that spanned nearly four dozen years including two full decades as the Limestone County sheriff. A former Sheriffs Association of Texas president, Wilson has been an outspoken advocate for improvements in treatment for the mentally ill in the criminal justice system.
Dallas Democrat John Bryant has more experience in Texas politics than most incumbents as a former congressional member and state representative who's attempting a comeback bid with a bid for the Legislature's lower chamber in an open contest in 2022. Bryant, a 74-year-old lawyer who last served in elected office two dozen years ago, is competing against four other Democrats in a race for the House District 114 seat that the son of another former congressman, State Rep. John Turner of Dallas, is giving up.
Bryant and Wilson - despite stellar resumes on paper - both may be expecting to run as underdogs in the face of opposition that's imposing in the top two fights on the card in Capitol Inside's ranking of the Texas House Races to Watch next year in districts where there will be no incumbents on the primary ballot. Bryant's primary rivals include Dallas attorney Charles Gearing, who already has endorsements from former Texas Senate member Wendy Davis and ex-Dallas mayor and cabinet member Ron Kirk.
But Orr can top that as a longtime party activist who has GOP State Reps. Cody Harris of Palestine and DeWayne Burns of Cleburne from neighboring districts along with enthusiastic nods of support from U.S. Reps. Jake Ellzey, Bill Flores and Roger Williams. Orr served two terms on the local school board in her Hill County home base near Hillsboro before an eight-year stint as the district clerk there. She joined Harris' staff as the district director after his initial election to the House in 2018.
The GOP primary duel between Orr and Wilson crowns the watch list as one of the few open battles in round one in House races in fields with only two contenders. The Democratic showdown in HD 114 is close behind with a pack of candidates that also has Alexandra Guio, Chris Leal and Kendall Scudder in the competition with Gearing and Bryant.
The House battlefield has 26 open races on the slate for 2022 including 16 in districts that the Republicans currently control and expect to win again. Both parties have record numbers of candidates running for seats in the east wing of the Capitol in the primary election.
The third hottest open House race in the early stages has former Austin City Council Ellen Troxclair and local police officer Justin Berry in a field of four that includes Nubia Devine, whose husband is state Supreme Court Justice John Devine. Berry fell short in a bid for the House in a separate district in 2020 when he lost in a primary runoff by 1 percentage point. Troxclair had planned to run in an open Texas Senate race before shifting her sights to House District 19 after its inception on the new map that lawmakers approved this fall. The first round field in the new HD 19 gives it a timely twist with Perla Hopkins as late entrant as a conservative activist who's been a troop in the war over critical race theory.
HD 13 had been located to the south in a swath of rural Republican country between Austin and Houston. But House leaders moved it to a strip of East Texas that's just as red despite the shuffling of tens of thousands of minority voters in the Waco area in McLennan County into HD 13 in a move designed to weaken the Democrats' overall clout on the map.
The Republicans accomplished the same with the reconfiguration of House District 19 where Troxclair and Berry appear to be frontrunners with Devine in play for a spot in runoff that's likely there.
Wilson the candidate in HD 13 was the officer in charge as a deputy on the night in 1981 when three Black teenagers drowned in Lake Mexia after their arrests for minor marijuana possession at a Junetheenth celebration. The victims had been shuttled by three county employees including two of Wilson's fellow deputies into a boat that was overloaded wihout safety vests when it capsizied on a trip across a cove as a short cut around a traffic jam at the entrance to the gathering.
The three Limestone County employees were aquitted at a trial in Dallas almost a year after the drownings after three change of venues due to massive global publicity.
more to come ... |
