The State of Texas' Christian Nationalist End Game: Colonize Houston

Direct attacks on local control are about power, not policy.

The Christian Nationalist end game for Houston is not just to govern our city but to colonize it.

Last week, I wrote about the ties between Christian Nationalists and local Harris County politics. Essentially, oligarchs from outside Houston see our city as here for the taking and are doing everything they can to fund local candidates who will do the bidding of the State of Texas in our communities by brokering our rights and our property off for their own personal profit.

Thus far, grassroots movements in Houston have managed to keep Christian Nationalist extremists out of locally controlled seats. Yet as they attempt to squeeze their own puppets into Harris County offices and state-level swing seats in our own backyard, the Christian Nationalists still continue to chip away at our personal liberties and right to self-determination by stretching their talons into Houston through the chambers they already fully control in the state legislature and departments such as the Texas Education Agency.

Christian Nationalists have opened up their assault on multiple fronts. 

They have directly attacked the right to self-governance (home rule) in Harris County schools by replacing our democratically elected school board with an appropriately labeled corporatist “Board of Managers” comprising a crew that includes a standardized test lobbyist and a real estate tycoon. 

The board includes an energy consultant who lost her legitimate election to a sitting trustee. 

Per the Houston Chronicle:

“As a candidate, Garza Lindner raised $152,645 from July to November that year, with over one-third of all her funding coming from a single source: Leadership for Educational Equity, a nonprofit that donates to school board races around the country, powered by board member Arthur Rock, a California-based venture capitalist who also donated $15,000 individually to Garza Lindner.

She also received a $13,000 contribution from the Texas-based GPS Action PAC and $20,000 from David Weekley, whose brother Richard Weekley, a Houston-based developer, and megadonor, contributed $400,000 to Alexandra del Moral Mealer, last year’s GOP candidate for Harris County Judge.”

The Board of Managers is the clearest and most egregious example of the State of Texas’ coup in Harris County. It’s not the only one, though. House Bill 2127, AKA the Death Star Bill, is an attempt to legalize oppressive overriding of any local ordinance passed by Texas cities or counties.

Local policy positions blocked by the Death Star bill include but are not limited to:

• Requirements for water breaks for construction workers during punishing heat waves

• Paid sick leave

• Local fracking regulations

• Housing requirements that target monopolist landlords

• Local control over how police budgets are spent

• Air quality control ordinances

These maneuvers will immediately impact any laws or regulatory decisions made by locally elected officials supported by Christian Nationalist oligarchs in future elections. But the most egregious attacks on local control, much like the TEA takeover of Houston area schools, target our right to hold our own elections and choose who we want to represent us.

Texas has long suppressed the vote. In 2020, a study showed that Texas is the hardest state to vote in. It’s also difficult to register and contact voters here thanks to outdated restrictions on gathering and turning in ballots. Since then, the state legislature has passed even more restrictions on our right to choose our own elected leaders through anti-voter legislation such as Senate Bill 1.

Per Texas Tribune, new electoral restrictions imposed by Senate Bill 1 include:

• A ban on drive-thru voting

• New regulations for early voting hours, including a ban on 24-hour voting

• A ban on the distribution of mail-in ballot applications

• New ID requirements for voting by mail

• A correction process for mail-in voting

• Enhancing poll watcher protections

• Establishing monthly citizenship checks

• Creating new rules for voter assistance

These restrictions are not randomized or borne out of policy research. Many of them were implemented in 2020 by the Harris County Clerk’s Office to ensure more Houstonians could vote safely despite the pandemic, especially in Black, Latino, and Asian communities. These measures worked, hence the extremist opposition from the State of Texas.

Houstonians have been remarkably resilient despite these restrictions, showing up to reelect popular officials despite the state’s invasion. But the threat still looms, and it is real. Nine Republican election deniers are currently attempting to overturn the 2022 elections in court, a case that may well be on its way to the 9-0 Republican State of Texas Supreme Court.

If we cannot choose our own officials, we cannot hold them accountable when they make mistakes or take advantage of us. The State, led by Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and the State Legislature, is robbing us of our right to choose our destiny.

How to Fight Back

As one of the most active advocates of democracy in the City of Houston, since Trump was elected in 2016, I have been honored to be part of transforming our county. Once a Repo Party stronghold, America’s 4th largest city and 3rd largest county are beginning to shift from full control by good ol’ boy networks to a region where working families have begun to collect a historic amount of power in neighborhoods throughout.

The State of Texas is working hard to reverse that.

We have to stop them.

You may be wondering, “What can we do to fight back? It seems overwhelming.”

I am glad you asked. 

Here’s what you can do:

1. Assert yourself at the ballot box. Register voters, knock on doors, and flip local legislative house seats. Find the nearest swing seat and turn out voters. If geography makes that hard for you, turn out votes in your area or high dem/low turnout areas of Harris County. Every vote counts toward state and countywide totals.

2. If you really want to go the extra mile as an organizer, become a precinct chair (the most overlooked political office in the State of Texas). Precinct chairs organize their local communities for higher turnout. They also make decisions such as what resolutions pass or who the party chair is. On occasion, they select replacements for elected officials.

3. Exercise your right to protest at the weekly John Cornyn Tuesday protest from 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM at 5300 Memorial Drive. By asserting your right to protest, you are disrupting any attitudes of acceptance and making sure issues of democracy are front and center among the people of our city.

4. Follow the Houston Democracy Project, which seeks to hold city electeds accountable on democracy issues.

You can do plenty of other things: jam phone lines, knock on doors for causes, or, if you are prepared for it, commit civil disobedience.

The only thing you shouldn’t do is stand by while the State of Texas tries to break us.

Stay tuned to Lonestar Playbook and subscribe to Daniel’s Substack for more ways to make a positive change in your community.