Democratic Party of Jeff Davis County
Democratic Party of Jeff Davis County, TX
Our Main Office is located at 103 State St Fort Davis, TX 79734
LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN
Heather Cox Richardson
7-26-2024
You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians
Tonight, speaking to Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump made his plans to become a strongman clear:
“Get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians…. Get out, you’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”
GET TO KNOW OUR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES
JAMES TALARICO FOR U.S. SENATE
GINA HINOJOSA FOR GOVERNOR
A Governor for All Texans
Gina Hinojosa is a native Texan, born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley. A proud product of Brownsville public schools, Gina graduated from the University of Texas and received her law degree from George Washington University.
Gina began her career as an advocate for families and workers as a civil rights and union lawyer. She represented hard working Texans fighting to make sure they were treated fairly, got the wages and benefits they earned, and helped them support their families.
Gina never planned on running for office. But when her son’s elementary school was threatened for closure by state budget cuts, Gina rallied other parents, ran for Austin ISD School Board—and won. She kept her son’s school open, along with every other public school in the district. Her fellow trustees appointed her Board President in 2015.
But neighborhood schools kept closing across the state because Republican leaders kept diverting Texas tax dollars away from schools, so Gina ran for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives—and won. In 2019, she fought for and helped win an investment of more than $11 billion in Texas public schools. Inspired by her experience with her own kids, she led legislation that would reduce standardized testing and provide pay raises for every Texas teacher.
A fierce champion of working Texans, Gina has been fighting back against billionaires and corporate interests in the legislature for a decade, pushing the state to invest in neighborhood schools, expand health care access, and lower costs for Texans.
Gina knows healthcare is vitally important to every Texan. She was the House sponsor of a law that ensured almost $1 billion in federal funds to pay for indigent health care in Travis County.
Growing up in the Valley, Gina learned an important early lesson from her grandmother: ”No te dejes.” Fight back. Now, Gina is taking the fight directly to Greg Abbott, who for over a decade has helped the corrupt elite get rich while working Texans struggle to get by. Texans deserve a leader who puts people first, defends our values, and leads with courage—not one who is loyal to his campaign donors.
Join our team! Gina can only do this with a huge effort and we need your help!
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Katy Padilla Stout for Congress
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I am a lifelong Texan, a wife, a mother, an attorney, and a former public-school teacher. My life has been defined by a firm commitment to serving the children, families, and communities that make up Texas’ 23rd Congressional District.
My journey began with humble roots that shaped everything I believe about hard work and integrity. Raised by a single mother, I saw firsthand the challenges working families face every day. My father and grandparents were migrant farm workers from South Texas, and my great-grandfather spent years serving our community as a custodian at the Bexar County Courthouse. Their legacy of perseverance is the foundation upon which I stand.
A Career Built on Advocacy
After graduating from Lee High School in San Antonio, I earned my degree in Education from The University of Texas at Austin. Returning home to teach elementary school in Northside ISD was a pivotal chapter for me; I gained an intimate understanding of the struggles educators, parents, and students navigate.
Driven by a desire to advocate for our families on a larger scale, I went on to earn my law degree from South Texas College of Law. I built a practice focused on child welfare and education law, and today, I have the privilege of working alongside my father at our family firm based in Carrizo Springs. Together, we fight for children and families facing some of the most difficult circumstances imaginable.
Protecting the Vulnerable
My service extends beyond the courtroom. Since 2017, I have served as an appointed member of the Bexar County Child Welfare Board, where I work to strengthen the systems meant to protect vulnerable children. I also serve on the Board of Directors for Artvango Therapeutic Services, a non-profit dedicated to helping children heal from the cycles of abuse and trauma through expressive therapies.
Family and Community
At home in San Antonio, my husband, Austin—a career prosecutor—and I are raising four wonderful children, two of whom we were blessed to adopt through foster care. Whether I’m advocating for a child in the courtroom or working on a PTA project for my own children, I am constantly reminded of what is at stake for our future.
Why I Am Running
I am running for Congress because I believe our families deserve leadership grounded in integrity, service, and compassion—not political games. My family’s story is a testament to the Texas dream, and I want to ensure that future is available to everyone. I will fight for:
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Affordable healthcare that families can rely on.
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Strong public schools that empower the next generation.
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A future where opportunity is not determined by your ZIP code.
I am ready to take our values to Washington and fight for the opportunity of every Texan to thrive.
Meet Katy
I’m a mom on a mission to restore honesty and integrity to TX-23
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Vikki Goodwin for Lt. Govenor
Biography
Representative Vikki Goodwin has served four terms in the Texas House of Representatives, representing District 47 in western Travis County. She has built a strong reputation as a responsive, thoughtful legislator committed to the well-being of her constituents and the state of Texas.
A native Texan, Goodwin earned her Bachelor of Business Administration and her Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a small business owner and real estate broker with private-sector experience and a problem-solving mindset. Actively involved in local boards, commissions, and volunteer initiatives, she has witnessed firsthand the everyday challenges facing Texas families—medical debt, housing costs, education gaps, and public safety.
In the Texas legislature, Rep. Goodwin has sponsored impactful legislation, including improving safety in child care centers, strengthening responses to domestic violence, expanding support for mental health services, and formation of a food security council to ensure more stable and accessible food in Texas.
Rep. Goodwin has been a strong advocate for public school funding, gun safety reforms, environmental protection, and affordable housing. She co-authored legislation to raise salaries for state employees and to provide cost-of-living adjustments for retired teachers. In the 89th Session of the Texas Legislature (2025), she introduced the Fair Rent Incentive Act, aimed at improving housing affordability for working families.
Goodwin’s legislative work is grounded in community input. She has regularly met with constituents, listened to their concerns, and taken their voices to the Capitol. She believes that good governance requires both fiscal responsibility and compassion—balancing a sound budget with smart investments in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and natural resources. Her leadership is guided by the belief that Texas can be both economically strong and socially responsible—and that government should work for everyone, not just the well-connected.
Goals: What Texans Deserve
Throughout her life, Vikki has strived to build a better Texas for her family, her clients and her constituents. Now, as a candidate for Lt. Governor, her sights are set on returning sanity to Texas government and restoring a collaborative and cooperative spirit. As Lt. Governor, she would put aside things that divide us, and focus on real issues, not distractions.
WHY RUN FOR LT. GOVERNOR?
Because Texans Deserve …
Well-Funded Neighborhood Schools
Texans deserve a well-supported, efficient system of free PUBLIC schools, not vouchers for the wealthy to send their kids to unaccountable private schools.
Clean Water and Energy
Texans deserve clean and healthy water for their families to drink, and energy to power their homes. Corporations should take a back seat to Texas families.
Housing Affordability
Texans deserve an affordable place to live. Increasing home supply, keeping rents down and limiting tax increases will help all Texans achieve this goal.
Comprehensive Healthcare
Texans deserve access to affordable and comprehensive health care. And Texas doctors need the freedom to do their jobs without fear of prosecution.
A Senate Leader
Under single-party rule for the past decades, Texas is going in the wrong direction in so many ways. Texans deserve a Senate leader who respects and solicits ideas and solutions from the entire body, instead of treating it like a legislative playground for an ideological demagogue wielding a defacto "veto power."
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Nathan Johnson for Attorney General
Nathan Johnson is a seasoned litigator and a Texas State Senator, with a proven record of effective public service. He brings to the Attorney General’s race both policy depth and legal expertise, along with a reputation for taking on the most difficult problems, asking the hard questions, and working to fix what’s wrong no matter who or what stands in the way. Through his four sessions in office there runs a thread of defending constitutional principles, advocating for responsible, responsive government, and insisting on fairness and consistency in the law.
First elected in 2018, Senator Nathan Johnson has built a reputation for tackling the hard issues, bringing thoughtful leadership and practical solutions to complex problems. He holds a B.S. in physics from the University of Arizona and a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin. A litigator and mediator in the Dallas office of Thompson Coburn LLP, he is the proud father of three adult children, and enjoys swimming, reading boring books, and making peanut butter.
Since taking office in 2019, Senator Johnson has authored approximately 433 bills and passed 134 into law. His legislative portfolio affects virtually every aspect of public policy in Texas, including electrical power and grid growth, workforce development, banking, construction, housing, artificial intelligence, environmental issues, water supply and quality, public education, physical and mental healthcare, as well as law enforcement and criminal justice.
NATHAN JOHNSON CAMPAIGN: NATIONFORTEXAS.COM
From Nathan Johnson Home Page:
Texas stands among the most powerful and important governments in the world. We ought to have a good lawyer. We don’t. I’m running to be Texas’s next Attorney General to change that.
Attorney General Ken Paxton has abused the office for his own personal and political interests. Under his control, the office has been corrupted and abused and debased, while its powers to do good have been wasted.
I’m sick of it. And I’m betting that the people of Texas are, too. They do not want more of the same.
Texas needs an attorney general who can meet the moment – with strength, independence, and a genuine commitment to serve the people of Texas instead of partisan ideology. The current Attorney General cannot and will not. His aspiring successors cannot and would not. I can and will.
As a senator, I’ve been able to get important things done.
Seeing Texas’s worst-in-the-nation uninsured rate, I became the state’s leading voice on Medicaid expansion. When the Legislature wouldn’t act, I reformed the Texas marketplace to enable hundreds of thousands of Texans to buy private health insurance. After Winter Storm Uri, I played a central role in fortifying the Texas power grid, restructuring energy markets, and preserving our vital renewable energy resources. When the Legislature revisited tax incentives, I made it harder for businesses to take advantage of taxpayers, and promoted opportunity in overlooked communities.
The need for change in the OAG is urgent. Texas needs and deserves an attorney general who won’t take orders from Washington DC or from mega-donors, but who will take on market abuse and political corruption; who isn’t driven by party shot-callers or political ambition, but by a commitment to serving the people of this state; who will uphold our freedoms and protect our rights, and who respects and understands the law.
I look forward to traveling across this state, listening and talking and working with Texans everywhere, to ensure that we meet this moment together.
NATHAN JOHNSON CAMPAIGN: NATIONFORTEXAS.COM
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Learn more about our Democratic candidates in the November General Election
Here are links to access important Democratic websites:
We will add more links shortly.
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American Bridge 21st Century, the largest research, tracking, and rapid response operation in the Democratic Party, is focused on holding Republicans accountable and helping deliver Democratic victories. American Bridge 21st Century not only brings to light what Republicans are saying behind closed doors, but also runs large-scale paid media programs that center storytellers and utilize a data-driven approach to achieve the greatest impact.
This cycle, American Bridge 21st Century is tracking Republicans’ anti-abortion positions, protecting democracy by focusing on extremist down-ballot Republicans threatening our elections, and touting the Biden administration and Democrats’ record of results for families and businesses.
American Bridge has developed a robust Donald Trump Opposition Research Hub that should be highly useful to Democratic Party organizations and pro-Democracy groups this election year. Originally launched before the 2020 election, this website exists to help allies find the research needed to defeat Donald Trump. It's organized into multiple reports designed to help you tell the full story about Trump's failed presidency and make the case against his 2024 campaign.
Another essential tool in this upcoming election is American Bridge’s Repro-files, a mechanism for holding anti-abortion Republicans accountable. This site is meant to serve as a centralized research hub, containing tracking footage and information on Republicans who have taken positions to end abortion access and restrict reproductive rights and health care options. Repro-files.com will be a resource for allies in the fight to protect abortion access and reproductive health care by exposing anti-choice legislators in order to hold them accountable at the ballot box.
Another feature of the American Bridge 21st Century website is Republicans We’re Watching, an online database that allows the user to target Republicans by selecting a state, a political office, and an issue. We tried it on Ted Cruz, and this tool returned a wealth of information: Lyin’ Ted on IVF, abortion, and LGBTQ+ issues.
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Note: We can only hope that heartfelt, well-meaning letters to the editor like these two will stimulate some of us to try our hand at a letter or two!
“Strongman” Letter to the Editor
L.P. Martin in the Big Bend Sentinel
This year we have a presidential election as we are all aware. One presidential candidate in particular has been telling his audiences that he will “Be a dictator for one day.” And, he ends his speeches with the statement that he will be a “Strongman.” On its face value, being a strong leader sounds like a good thing, one who would not bend with the wind.
The term STRONGMAN is explained in Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s book, Strongmen, as a person who, as president, asserts executive power at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches of government. History gives us many examples of Strongmen, such as Hitler, Mussolini, Putin, Pinochet and Franco, who have destroyed democracies and become dictators.
In this election cycle it behooves each and every one of us, if we value the world we have grown up in, where we have the freedom to gather, the freedom to travel, the freedom to voice our opinion, the freedom to worship according to our own conscience, and education for all our children, then, we MUST vote to secure the continuation of this democracy we have inherited.
L. P. Martin
Fort Davis, TX
"Christian America" Letter to the Editor
L.P. Martin in the Alpine Avalanche
The historian Kevin M. Kruse wrote One Nation Under God in 2015. Recently, I ran across a term new to me. “Christian America”. It was coined in the 1930’s when businessmen enlisted religious activists in their fight against FDR’s New Deal.
Big corporations paid conservative clergy “to attack the New Deal as a program of ‘pagan statism’ that perverted the central principle of Christianity: the sanctity and salvation of the individual”. They were able to get Dwight D. Eisenhower elected president in 1952. But President Eisenhower started a religious movement and religion moved in with government. The phrase “Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” became our official motto.
Historically, we are a nation forged from the experiences of immigrants fleeing religious persecution. Immigrants were coming from countries with a State sanctioned religion. They simply wanted to worship according to their own beliefs since they were persecuted for it in their mother country. So, it’s not surprising that as the Founding Fathers fashioned the rules for our nation, they separated church from state. That has worked in our favor throughout the course of our history. So, it defies reason to learn that there is a movement afoot to recreate our nation as a “Christian America” and ignore the rights of other religions.
L. P. Martin
Fort Davis
What We Stand For
Our Jeff Davis County Democratic Party stands for the rule of law, the right to vote, separation of Church and State, a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, and our children’s right to be free of gun violence. We support quality public education and teacher salaries commensurate with other states, affordable health care and much improved rural health care, common sense reforms to ensure clean air and water, a strong US as a leader of a community of nations, and equal opportunity for everyone to reach their potential. These values we hold dear!
We want a fairer, more honest government for Texas. One way is to encourage a clean slate of leaders without partisan agendas, without law breakers, and without those beholden to special interests. We want leaders we can be proud of – leaders we can trust to represent us.
Our Core Values
■ An economy focused on the middle class and small businesses, not the super-wealthy and large corporations.
■ Equal opportunity and justice under the law for everyone.
■ Available and affordable healthcare for everyone.
■ The right to privacy in reproductive health and other personal decisions.
■ Support for essential industries while protecting our health and the environment.
■ Advancements in public and higher education for our children's futures.
■ Respect and care for our Veterans.
■ Security, safety, and health for our nation and people.
■ Honesty and transparency in leadership.
Acknowledgments
Our website is dedicated to John Bane, our website guru and WIX expert, who corrected our mistakes and taught us just enough to get the site up and running. He has been invaluable to our efforts. John lives in Alpine and is a member of the Brewster County Democrats, but we consider him one of us.
Before constructing this site, we reviewed many other county party websites, both in-state and out of-state, as well as the Texas Democratic Party site. Websites are an evolving process, but many of these Democratic county sites are exemplary in both content and design, and really speak well of our party’s grassroots efforts. In both content and design, we borrowed shamelessly from others, and we would like to especially acknowledge the following:
• Presidio County Democrats
• Kendall County Democrats
• Travis County Democrats
• Parker County Democrats
• Bexar County Democrats
• Harris County Democrats
In addition, we accessed and linked to many extremely helpful resources (especially VAN, and other database and training resources) offered by the Texas Democratic Party, the Democratic National Committee, and the Biden administration.
Our gratitude to all. THANKS!