Friday, April 26, 2024
Candidates are queing up to replace the retiring Mike Conaway, R-Midland, as District 11’s representative in Congress.
One of them, San Angelo Democrat Jon Mark Hogg (pronounced “Hogue”), came to Granbury this week to speak to Thursday night’s gathering of the Hood County Democrats.
The attorney and former San Angelo councilman formally announced his candidacy in that city on Tuesday.
According to ballotpedia.org, six Republicans and one Independent are “potential or declared candidates” for that seat. That was as of press time on Friday.
The Republicans listed on that site are Richard Bartlett, Wacey Alpha Cody, J. Ross Lacy, August Pfluger, Ross Schumann and Wesley Virdell.
The Independent candidate is Jeffery Cady.
Conaway, who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2005, announced in late July that he will serve out the remainder of his term but will not seek another. His term will end in January 2021.
Twenty-nine-county District 11 is ruby-red but there has been much speculation since the 2018 midterm election as to whether Texas could possibly turn purple or even blue in 2020, which will be a presidential election year.
Tarrant County, long considered a bellwether county, cast more votes in 2018 for Democrat Beto O’Rourke than Republican incumbent Ted Cruz in the U.S. Senate race. This led some to say that the county officially turned blue, though others claim that the O’Rourke victory was a fluke.
Cruz did win in the statewide vote but by a narrow margin, which fueled speculation that the red state might be turning.
Conaway is among five Texas Republicans thus far who have announced that they are leaving Congress, a mass exodus that has been dubbed “Texodus.”
Hogg spoke to the HCN this week ahead of his visit to Hood County and just hours before making his formal announcement.
Here is what Hogg had to say about various issues:
A GRIDLOCKED CONGRESS
The Tyler native said that Congress has been arguing about health insurance, gun violence and immigration reform for 20 years.
“Congress is literally no longer fulfilling its function as an equal branch of government,” he said.
“Gridlock from both Democrats and Republicans is what’s strangling it. We need to fix our political culture because it’s gone off the rails.”
Because members of Congress can no longer achieve consensus on policy measures, “presidents have no alternative but to issue executive orders,” he said. “So we have policies being set by one man, or a handful of people.”
Hogg also noted that there is only a “handful of very powerful people who can control what gets to the floor and what gets heard” and that there needs to be a more “democratic process” in Congress.
“Our government is not functioning, and it has become a reality TV show,” he said.
Hogg outlined three initial steps to build a “movement” that he feels will “fix” Congress:
■ Only adding his name to bills that have bipartisan support;
■ Not accepting any campaign contributions from corporate Political Action Committees (PACs); and
■ Promoting a lifetime ban on lobbying for all members of Congress.
GUN VIOLENCE
“I like guns. I have guns. I like to shoot,” Hogg said. “I’ve shot an AR-15 before. I don’t want to take anybody’s guns away, and that’s not going to happen. There are common sense things that we can do with gun control.
“Gun control advocates and Democrats have proposed for years reasonable measures that have never met any approval. They’re always opposed. The (National Rifle Association) opposes every gun control measure no matter how reasonable it is.”
Background checks have bi-partisan support and would be “simply closing a loophole on private sales,” he said.
Still, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mc-Connell “will not let it come to floor and is waiting for the president to tell him what to do. That’s not the way Congress is supposed to operate.”
CULTURE OF VIOLENCE
Hogg said he has “no idea” how to remedy our culture of violence, which is “a complex problem,” but said, “The idea of having guns anywhere, any time has led us in the wrong direction. Now it’s not any different than carrying a cell phone. I do not support open carry.”
IMMIGRATION
Hogg said that Congress needs to address immigration reform.
“I disagree with family separations, putting kids in cages,” he said. “I do agree that our immigration laws need to be enforced.”
Current immigration laws “are so outdated and don’t work in the modern world,” he stated. “We need comprehensive immigration reform. Most people don’t realize that it could take 20 years to get a visa to come to the U.S. as a resident. We need to make it easier for people who want to come to the U.S. to work to (be able) to do that. We need to create an easier path.
“We have a tendency to forget that a lot of the conditions that exist in Central American countries and in Mexico are a result of policy choices in the United States,” which cut back on aid to Central America.
“None of these are simple issues that can be solved by saying let’s build a wall,” he said.
“I think (the wall) is a huge waste of money and resources that could be better spent on other things like border patrol, law enforcement, technology. We do need tighter controls to make sure that guns and drugs and criminals aren’t infiltrating our country.”
POLITICAL COURAGE
“I would have spoken out against (migrant children in cages), at the very least,” Hogg said about how he would have reacted as a congressman to the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies.
“I would have done what I could with the members of Congress. Obviously, one person can’t do that by themselves, but I was very disappointed in Mr. Con-away and in other Republican members of Congress who essentially said nothing. Somebody has to start speaking out on this, and it might as well be me and it might as well be this district.”
CAN YOU WIN?
Whether a blue party candidate has a shot at winning in a deep-red county “is the question everybody wants to know,” Hogg said. “Conventional wisdom is that District 11 will never elect a Democrat to Congress.
“It’s a very gerrymandered district – gerrymandered for the purpose of making it a Republican seat. I have no illusions, but I also don’t fear it. I wouldn’t have signed up for this if I thought I couldn’t (win).
“We have a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and, best we can tell right now, that’s not going to change in 2021. The district needs a voice in the majority party.”
