State Rep. Jessica González, left and State Rep.Venton Jones, right
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
Early voting for the Nov. 3 election begins on Monday, Oct. 19. Voters may vote at any early voting location in the county in which they’re registered.
The confusion about where to vote sometimes occurs among those who live in the city of Dallas but live in Collin, Denton, Kaufman or Rockwall county. Likewise, Fort Worth creeps over the county lines into Denton, Johnson, Parker and Wise counties.
Where you vote is determined by what county, not what city, you live in.
LGBTQ+ voters got the bad news about our representation in Congress when Rep. Julie Johnson lost her primary bid for re-election. Johnson is the first out U.S. representative ever elected not just from Texas but from the South as a whole.
State races
About 10 LGBTQ state reps and one state senator are up for re-election. Two of those state representatives’ districts are in Dallas.
State Rep. Jessica Gonzalez’s district includes portions of Oak Cliff and Grand Prairie. In the Texas Legislature, she chairs the LGBTQ Caucus and is running unopposed for her fifth term in office.
Newlywed state Rep. Venton Jones is vice chair of the LGBTQ Caucus and serves as House Minority Whip. He is the first black Texas legislator who is out and the first openly HIV-positive member of the Texas Legislature. He made quite a stir when he proposed to his now-husband on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Jones’ district includes the Design District and parts of West Dallas, East Dallas and South Dallas. His opponent in the race is Jordan Hoffnagle.
Among Dallas area lawmakers who are straight allies and members of the LGBTQ Caucus is Rafael Anchia who represents LGBTQ neighborhoods in Oak Lawn and North Oak Cliff as well as portions of Farmers Branch and Carrollton. For the first time in recent memory, he has an opponent, Melanie Medley-Thomas.
Other allied caucus members from the Dallas area up for reelection to the Texas House are Rhetta Bowers, John Bryant and Toni Rose. Fort Worth Rep. Nicole Collier is running unopposed.
Local races
Four other LGBTQ candidates are on the ballot and running unopposed. Sara Martinez and Omar Narvaez are running for justice of the peace in precinct 5. Martinez is seeking re-election to Place 1 and former Dallas councilman Narvaez will be elected to Place 2.
Also on the ballot and facing opponents are allies County Treasurer Pauline Medrano, County Commissioner Elba Garcia and District Clerk Felicia Pitre.
Judges who are running unopposed in Dallas County will be grouped together on the ballot. Among those out candidates without opponents is District Judge Tonya Parker and criminal district judge candidate Stephanie Hudson. The ballot allows you to vote for all of them or none of them, but no picking and choosing.
State and congressional races
U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa and lieutenant governor nominee Vikki Goodwin currently serve in the House and are also all LGBTQ Caucus members as allies.
Candidate warnings: Ken Paxton
When you think of terrible candidates in Texas, the name Ken Paxton usually floats to the top. In 2015, he was charged with defrauding investors, a first-degree felony.
The case was filed in Collin County, and the county kept delaying the trial, intimating it would be an expensive burden on taxpayers. Ten years later, the charges were dismissed after Paxton agreed to serve 100 hours of community service, take 15 hours of legal ethics courses and pay $271,000 in restitution to investors he defrauded.
While that fine might have cut into ordinary people’s travel and entertainment budgets, Paxton somehow acquired 15 properties on a salary of $150,000. On one of them, a house in Hawaii, Paxton’s overdue paying his property taxes.
When conservative whistleblowers who worked in his office turned him in for abusing the powers of his office, he fired them. They sued him, eventually settling the case for a $3.3 million payment.
But Paxton never paid. In fact, he asked the state Legislature to approve using taxpayer funds to pay the settlement — a request that sparked an investigation in May 2023 that eventually led to Paxton being impeached by the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives. The Senate, also controlled by the GOP, voted not to convict him.
When lawmakers refused to approve the funds, the settlement agreement fell through, sending the case back to court with a Travis County district judge eventually awarding a judgment of roughly $6.67 million against Paxton and the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
Paxton appealed, but dropped his appeal in July 2025. Funding for that award also requires approval from state lawmakers — something that has yet to happen.
But it’s not just his financial shenanigans that have people questioning his ethics, it also the things he says. On the Uvalde shooting which left 19 children and two teachers dead, he called the shooting a “plan” by “God” and commented “life is short.”
Or maybe it’s his work ethic that you question. Since being sworn into office in 2015, Paxton has left 730 work days blank on his official calendar and taken 275 out-of-state trips. That includes his well-publicized Fourth of July trip to London with his latest girlfriend.
Candidate warning: Bo French
Less well known and possibly more terrible is another candidate who will be on the ballot statewide — Bo French who is running for railroad commissioner.
French isn’t just homophobic, racist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, anti-women, ableist and generally against anything that isn’t far-right, Christian and white male, he’s also unqualified for the position he’s running.
The Railroad Commission is a three-person board that regulates the oil and gas industry.
French has no experience in oil and gas. His opponent has spent his entire career in the oil industry.
But what truly distinguishes French is his bigotry.
When French was chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party, he thought it would be ok to find out who people hated more. So he posted a questionnaire on his X page that asked “Who is a bigger threat to America?” The choices were Jews or Muslims.
As he deleted the post, he wrote, “Let me be clear: antisemitism has no place in the Republican Party, and if you disagree with me, get out.”
And let us be clear: Anti-Muslim hate speech is not ok either.
During the primary, Gov. Greg Abbott classified French as unqualified for the position and said, “His agenda would wreck the miracle that we have in producing more oil and gas than ever before.”
Once French won the primary, Abbott endorsed him.
But French is not only unqualified, and he doesn’t just hate Jews and Muslims. Among his homophobic rants is this one referring to a Democratic Party ad: “Guarantee every one of these ‘dudes’ is a homo. There is literally nothing manly about any of them.”
In another online poll during the last presidential election, he asked his followers: “If you believe Harris’ policies are better for Americans than Trumps’ policies, you are: “Ignorant,” “A liar,” “Retarded” or “Gay.”
In response to an ad campaign asking voters to trust women with healthcare decisions for themselves, French posted, “There are just some things where you can’t trust women.”
As Tarrant County Republican Chair, he wanted to make the county more Republican — by driving out the gays, non-Christians and anyone else who wasn’t a white, Christian male.
Women could stay if they understood their place. A drive to remove him failed.
Most recently, French posted on X a photo of University of Texas students — most of who were of South Asian descent — celebrating a Longhorn football victory, saying, “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
Right-wing Republican strategist Karl Rove, a primary architect of George W. Bush’s presidency, has endorsed French’s Democratic opponent in the race, Jon Rosenthal.
Rosenthal has spent his career as an oil and gas engineer. And he is Jewish, which would make his win extra disturbing to French.