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Hi Friend,
Few states in this country have undermined democracy as severely as Texas. In 2013, mere hours after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act with its Shelby County v. Holder ruling, Texas moved to implement SB 14, the strictest voter ID law in the nation. A federal court eventually stopped SB 14 in 2015 for discriminating against minority voters, and the GOP-led legislature responded by passing a new restrictive voter ID law in 2017. That law, SB 5, remains in effect today as does Texas’s other attack on democracy: its racially gerrymandered electoral map.
These anti-democracy practices are why the Texas House is one of the most important chambers to flip in 2020. Texas has the third-most congressional seats in the nation, and it’s expected to add up to three more during apportionment following the census.* Redistricting, which begins in 2021, will determine who votes in each of these districts. But instead of establishing guardrails for fair elections and maps, the Supreme Court’s rulings in Shelby and Rucho v. Common Cause have made it easier for the GOP to suppress the vote and gerrymander maps. Flipping the state House will ensure that Democrats play an important role in the drawing of Texas’s new congressional districts.
We no longer have to wait until 2020 to make inroads in Texas. Last month, the popular GOP state representative for House District 28 vacated his seat and triggered a special election, which is set for November 5.
 Dr. Eliz Markowitz (center, holding sign) at an event
We’re proud to support Dr. Eliz Markowitz as she runs to represent Texas House District 28 and bring the Texas House one seat closer to flipping blue. As a state representative, Dr. Eliz will fight to remove Texas’s notorious barriers to voting and push the Texas legislature to adopt an independent redistricting commission. Dr. Eliz is also committed to strengthening public schools, expanding access to health care—an urgent need given that Texas has the nation’s largest uninsured population**—and bolstering the state’s disaster management efforts.
Although HD 28 has voted Republican historically, the GOP’s margin of victory in federal races has diminished significantly over the last seven years: in 2012, President Obama lost the district by 29%; in 2016, Hillary Clinton lost by 10%, and in 2018, Beto O’Rourke lost by 3%. These decreasing margins indicate that HD 28 has significant potential to flip blue, and a successful flip here would give Democrats invaluable momentum for flipping the entire state House in 2020.
Help Dr. Eliz flip Texas HD 28. Your contribution can help Dr. Eliz win this highly competitive race and move Texas one seat closer to fair maps and elections.
*Source, Brennan Center for Justice
**Source, Texas Tribune 
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