Houston Grassroots Democratic Voter Guide for the May 2024 Elections (Part 1)
Get up to speed on the overlooked HCAD, school board, and special elections taking place in Houston on May 4th
So first of all, Houstonians vote a lot. In May of 2024, we’ll vote in TWO elections (May 4th AND May 28th), something a friend of mine has dubbed the Harris County Hustle.
I’ll be covering the May 28th Election in Part 2.
For now, let’s focus on one election at a time, and talk about the Houston area May 4th, 2024 elections. A lot of these races are going to be CRITICAL, but SUPER low turnout… which means We The People will have to work extra hard to tell our friends that these are even happening. Many regular voters will overlook these, and anything can happen… so get yourself to the polls! In fact, get your cousin and your friends to the polls! These races can break by a handful of votes.
Recommendations Summary
Harris County Appraisal District At-Large 1: Kathy Blueford-Daniels
Harris County Appraisal District At-Large 2: Melissa Noriega
Harris County Appraisal District At-Large 3: Pelumi Adeleke
Senate District 15 Special Election: Molly Cook
Fort Bend ISD Position 2: Rizvan Quadri
Fort Bend ISD Position 6: Ferrell Bonner
Katy ISD Position 6: Rebecca Fox
Katy ISD Position 7: Dawn Champagne
Spring Branch ISD Position 3: Ben Drews
Important Dates for the May 4th, 2024 Houston Area Elections
DEADLINE TO REGISTER: April 4th
EARLY VOTING: Monday, April 22, through Tuesday, April 30 (7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 12 noon – 7 p.m. on Sunday).
DEADLINE FOR MAIL BALLOT APPLICATION: April 23
ELECTION DAY: Saturday, May 4 (7 a.m. – 7 p.m).
You can always check harrisvotes.com for details, including polling locations and live wait time.
Important Resources for the May 4th, 2024 Houston Area Elections
Government Pages
Community Perspectives
Book-Loving Texan’s Guide to the May 2024 School Board Elections- This document helped me learn more about districts I already knew a little about, and explained the dynamics of several school board races across the state. Probably the best and most comprehensive guide on school board races.
Off the Kuff with Charles Kuffner- Kuffner did the early work on HCAD candidate discovery.
Harris County Hustle- Still getting situated, but this project exists so that people know that there are two elections in May in Harris County. Spread the word so people vote twice and do the Harris County (Vote) Hustle!
What’s on the Ballot?
May 4th will feature a Harris County Appraisal District (HCAD) election, a special election, and school board elections across Texas, including about five in and around Houston.
What’s HCAD?
If you are like the overwhelming majority of Houstonians (or people on Earth, for that matter), you don’t know what an HCAD is, or why it exists.
The HCAD seats are for the Harris County Appraisal District, a boring but powerful body that determines property value in Harris County to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
These elected seats did not exist prior to the last Texas legislative session, when Paul Bettencourt authored and passed a bill requiring at-large elections of appraisal district seats
The new bill requires Texas’ 50 largest counties to elect board members for their appraisal district in nonpartisan races.
Previously, these seats were appointed by Commissioners. Since the largest counties in Texas lean Democratic, those Commissioners tended to lean Democratic. This is a way to slip Republicans into power under a supposedly nonpartisan label.
HCAD Elections
Three At Large (Countywide) HCAD seats are on the ballot: At-Large Place 1, At-Large Place 3, and At-Large Place 3.
At-Large (AL) Place 1
AL 1 includes Kathy Blueford Daniels, Bill Frazer, and Ramsey Isa Ankar.
Kathy Blueford Daniels is a former HISD trustee, Texas legislative staffer, and advocate to end gun violence. She is active throughout various Houstonian communities.
The only thing I find when I type Ankar’s name and HCAD is this court filing. Maybe some nice lawyer will summarize it for us. I don’t like the look of a candidate who had legal action against the board, but I don’t want to overreact without learning the details. Charles Kuffner says research has shown him to be a Democrat.
Bill Frazer is a Republican candidate who has run for Houston controller in the past. He is exactly the kind of candidate Bettencourt was thinking of when he wrote his bill.
Analysis: Vote for Blueford Daniels. This is an easy call. Her experience in HISD and advocacy work make her the most connected and trustworthy person to do the job. I know someone she helped as a staffer, and they talk about how much they appreciated it. Blueford Daniels also knows how to run a solid campaign, so it makes sense to support her.
At-Large (AL) Place 2
AL 2 includes Janice Hines, Melissa Noriega, Kyle Scott, Jevon German, and Austin Pooley.
Melissa Noriega is a former state rep and at-large Houston city councilor. Noriega is a longtime member of the Democratic Party. She likes policy.
Kyle Scott is a former Republican candidate for county treasurer.
Jevon German is a Democratic precinct chair.
Austin Pooley reached out to Charles Kuffner and professes Democratic values. Based on his Twitter, he appears to be really into YIMBYism and free trade.
I can’t tell which Janice Hines is the Janice Hines running. Several come up. Some old news stories are weird, but again, I don’t know if it’s her and she does not appear to have a candidate website. But Charles Kuffner confirmed that she is a Democrat.
Analysis: If I were ranking candidates today, I would rank Noriega, German, Pooley. A debate for AL2 would be interesting.
I think we need to be very careful with a race of three Democrats, however. If we split the vote too much, we run the risk of letting Scott get the seat, which surrenders it to Harris County Republicans. Remember, Bettencourt designed this race to try to grab power in the counties.
That’s why I rank Noriega high here. I will still hear the others out on their pitch, but I take the defense side of this race seriously.
At-Large (AL) Place 3
AL 3 includes J. Bill, Amy Lacy, Mark Goloby, Erica McCrutheon, and Pelumi Adeleke.
Goloby, Lacy, and McCrutcheon are Republicans. Goloby has been an independent and Republican candidate before. McCrutheon was a two-time GOP city council candidate. Lacy has given money to some Republican candidates.
J. Bill is a young Democrat (28). I cannot really tell what he is running on, but he has a lot of energy.
Pelumi Adeleke is a corporate Democrat. She seems to be best prepared for the job, and might be movable on the issues based on the current engagement of grassroots Democrats, which is higher than it has been in quite some time.
Analysis: I’m probably voting for Adeleke. I would like to see more discussion of income inequality and how the office can be used to advocate for opportunities, but maybe she can be brought along on that issue. Adeleke was endorsed by labor.
Again, we can’t mess around here. We need to win the seat.
SD-15 Special Election
The May 4th Special Election is for Senate District 15. The seat is currently empty because John Whitmire vacated it. This election will fill the seat between now and the end of the term Whitmire started. These candidates will face off again later in the month for the May 28th runoff election.
Basically, Molly Cook and Jarvis Johnson are the only candidates left in Senate District 15, because they are the only candidates who made the runoff in March. It does not make sense to run for the seat if you didn’t have the votes in early March, even if you could win (highly unlikely in the first place), because your whole term would be spent as a lame duck who never sees the inside of the Capitol.
Analysis: I endorse Molly Cook! You can find my writeup explaining why here. I encourage y’all in SD-15 to support her in both May elections.
Houston Area May 4, 2024 School Board Races
There are five Houston area school board races this May: FBISD, Katy, Spring Branch, Galena Park, Clear Creek.
I was able to find a lot more information on the first three than the last two, but I wrote at least a little about all five to help as much as I can for voters across the area.
Fort Bend ISD: 3 year terms, 2 Seats up for Election, 7 Total Seats
Fort Bend is located just south of Harris County, and recently flipped blue. It’s known as one of the most proportionally diverse counties in the country, and makes up a growing fire wall against rightwing extremism in Southeast Texas.
However, one trustee in the district has begun to call in favors from people outside of the county to drive in and attack books and librarians at board meetings.
Fort Bend is part of the ten counties making up the same intermediate court districts representing Harris County. It needs to be organized to help slow the onslaught of authoritarian bills coming out of the legislature.
Ft. Bend’s school board election will determine the post Judy Dae Era in Ft. Bend.
Who is Dae? She’s the outgoing school board president who spearheaded the controversial sudden firing of the superintendent of the district, which one school board member called “lacked due process.”
Dae retiring opens up Position 2 on the school board.
FBISD Position 2
The candidates for FBISD Position 2 include Marie Baptiste, Manisha Gandhi, Rizvan Quadri, and Adam Schoof.
I know Quadri. He’s an especially good candidate with 21 years of experience in education and a successful track record as a school principal. Riz is principled and has the right mentality to shepard the school district forward. He can bring people together.
Schoof and Gandhi lean more conservative according to one of my sources in Fort Bend.
Baptiste is a Democrat with the American Caribbean Chamber of Commerce. I do not know her, but I really like Riz, and believe in him as a leader.
Analysis: Vote for Riz! And engage in Fort Bend, where a Democratic majority has emerged, but still has plenty of fault lines along ideology and demographics. This is a great area to get people engaged for statewide turnout. Organizers there have done amazing things to increase statewide turnout.
FBISD Position 6
The candidates for FBISD Position 6 are Kristen Davison Malone, Kristin Tassin, Simran Patel, and Ferrel Bonner.
Bonner is the only known Democrat in the race. Angel Hicks runs with a fringe right faction that has encouraged cruel, zealous, anti speech bullies to storm public comment at board meetings.
Malone, the incumbent, has opposed Dae and others who fired the superintendent, accusing them of a walking quorum in violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act. She is seemingly somewhat more amenable to the conservatives in the district, but she gets some credit for opposing Dae.
Kristin Tassin primaried Joan Huffman for state senate from the right, which did not go particularly well for Tassin.
Simran Patel is an investor and realtor. It is difficult to tell her politics based only on her site.
Analysis: Based on my current knowledge, I'd vote for Bonner, who previously ran for Fort Bend Democratic Party Chair.
Katy ISD: 3 year terms, 2 Seats up for Election, 7 Total Seats
Katy is split between Fort Bend and Harris County. It’s a consistently diversifying area that was a key part of Lizzie Fletcher’s original victory coalition in the old version of TX-07.
Basically the Katy ISD school board race is an election between traditional Bush style GOP incumbents and Trump GOP fascists.
The board is run by an authoritarian majority, but two Liz Cheney type board members tend to be more likely to oppose book bans and anti trans measures.
You can read more about this district and many others in the Book Lover’s Guide to School Board Elections in the area. I can’t really beat the author’s writeup.
Katy provides a good exercise in turnout of Katy area Democrats and independents for the HCAD election and late May runoff. The area has real issues worth fighting for: civil rights, constitutional liberties, democratic values, and counter attacks against racism. Katy is banning a lot of book. The board president has gone after books, attacked LGBTQ rights, and aligned with anti-public ed groups.
But Katy is a huge opportunity for countywide votes, and a testing ground for Harris County turnout. Real turnout efforts in specific precincts may yield positive long term results.
Katy also has some strong organizers, including recent candidates with growing coalitions across the Democratic Party, such as Coach Cam, Gion Thomas, and Indivisible Katy Huddle.
KISD Position 6
The candidates for KISD Position 6 are Rebecca Fox and Donovan Campbell. Think of Fox as Susan Collins: she’s a hard no on anti-trans legislation because that promotes bullying. She voted for highly restrictive book policies but is now having some doubts about it.
Campbell is supported strongly by the board president.
KISD Position 7
The candidates for KISD Position 7 are Dawn Champagne and David Olson. Champagne is like Fox: she voted for restrictive library policies but with bureaucratic concerns, and opposed the restrictive district gender policy on grounds that it could hurt kids.
Analysis: Vote Fox and Champagne.
Elections aside, it’s worth engaging on the issues and talking in Katy. There is a moderate bipartisan coalition that has organized to block some of the worst forms of extremism in the area, and there is a growing number of Democrats there, too. Organize and grow the movement for civil rights across the county, and use this as an opportunity to engage people for a better community.
Spring Branch ISD: 3 year terms, 2 Seats up for Election (one unopposed), 7 Total Seats
Like Katy, Spring Branch is a diverse area (nearly 70% Latino, and 27% white) that can trend Democratic.
They’ve been fighting along the same kinds of free speech library issues and inclusivity challenges as we have seen in other ISDs. The district has laid off all librarians, and gotten into a pissing match by threatening to take someone’s name off of a building in retaliation to an editorial. People are rightfully pissed about closing schools including Treasure Forest, Panda Path (highest rated learning center) right across from a working class community at Hollister and Pittner. The grounds were that the costs were too high… but closing a great school over costs doesn’t make any sense, because it takes years to grow the kind of support system that they had.
Spring Branch’s at-large election model grants power over all nine seats to the entire district, including the more populated and conservative north side of Spring Branch, engaging in a form of reverse gerrymandering that dilutes the voice of the community.
SBISD Position 3
The candidates for SBISD Position 3 include Mathew Cone, David Slattery, Ben Drews, and Ronald Hansen.
Mathew Cone is running on protecting the at large system and receives support from the Spring Branch book banning brigade. He is endorsed by the extremist school board president who holds a super majority for his ideology on council.
David Slattery wants to uphold “conservative values” and the at large system.
Ben Drews has been open about supporting LGBTQ students and spoke out about the firing of librarians. He also has questioned the transparency and financial decision making of the district, and has the endorsement of Commissioner Leslie Briones.
Ronald Hansen is not running an active or clear campaign.
Analysis: Vote for Drews.
Also, donate money to Somos Spring Branch.
Clear Creek ISD
Clear Creek ISD let their superintendent Eric Williams go in 2022 under pressure from Puritanical anti-CRT types who were basically falsifying attacks against him. The whole affair feels like deja vu from the Red Scare period, when a similar incident pushed a superintendent named George Eby out of HISD over nothing but hysteria.
Two incumbents are safe. One of those incumbents, Jay Cunningham, seems to have defended Williams’ reputation during the debacle.
The only contested Clear Creek Race is Jeff Larson (incumbent) vs. Albert Wittliff. I can’t tell a lot about either one based on their websites and online presence. I did not see a website at all for Larson. See what you think.
Galena Park ISD
Galena Park news searches don’t reveal a ton of district-specific news… only cases of Galena Park ISD employees acting poorly. These instances don’t tell us much about the district.
Galena Park’s only contested race is between Amanda Erebia, a retail group executive, and Wanda Heath Johnson, the longtime incumbent who does not seem to make a ton of news either way.
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About the Author
Daniel J. Cohen is an advocate in Houston, Texas who has led multiple successful grassroots campaigns for both issues and candidates. As one of the most active pro-democracy Houstonians since November of 2016 and the founder of Indivisible Houston, he has grown a volunteer army of more than 2,000 democracy advocates across the Houston area; led successful grassroots communications efforts to flip federal, state, and county seats (TX-07, HD-134, County Judge); secured earned media through traditional and social media channels estimated at more than $100,000 million in value with an all volunteer staff and an annual budget of less than $25,000; built coalitions with organizations, independent community leaders, and media at the local, state, and national level; and organized, promoted, and led some of the largest marches in the history of Houston.
Cohen has been published or quoted by Houston Chronicle, Texas Tribune, Texas Monthly, Houston Public Media, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, Washington Post, and other major media.
The Ankar case is about a property appraisal. The parties entered into an agreed judgment in 2012.
J. Bill has a vision for the future of Harris County that is rooted in accountability and integrity. He will work to create a more equitable system that benefits all residents of Harris County. With his dedication to advocacy and his commitment to fighting for the rights of homeowners,by promoting policies that streamline processes, and increase efficiency. J. Bill will work to ensure that the Harris County Appraisal District operates with transparency and accuracy. His commitment to upholding ethical standards sets a strong example for others in government and demonstrates his dedication to serving the public interest.