Texas voters approve all propositions

Democrat Taylor Rehmet advanced to a runoff against Republican Leigh Wambsganss in the special election to fill the Texas Senate District 9 seat, left and, In one of the most closely watched and controversial elections across the country, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani won the race for mayor of New York City

DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com

Voter turnout in this week’s off-year elections swelled in some places to record numbers, creating a “blue wave” that carried a number of Democratic candidates to victory in what many see as a referendum on the Trump administration.

Texas ballot propositions
Texas voters approved all 17 constitutional amendments that were on the ballot for statewide voting. Ten of those propositions related to taxes: The homestead exemption will increase to $140,000 and the exemption for seniors will increase to $200,000.

Most of the property tax paid supports public schools. The propositions didn’t address how school districts will replace lost income. Most will have to increase the tax rate.
One of the property tax amendments exempts residences destroyed by fire from paying taxes if the home was uninhabitable for a month.

Proposition 14, which will fund research into Parkinson’s Disease and other brain disorders, passed easily. The only surprise is that a majority of Texas voters opted to trust science, even if new vaccines are found to be part of the prevention.

Texans banned non-citizens from voting in the state. Non-citizens are already prevented from voting in Texas. And Prop 3 allows judges to deny bail to those accused of murder and other violent crimes if the defendant is deemed dangerous.

A parental rights amendment passed. This gives Texas parents the right to raise their children without government interference. The big question here is whether this means parents may support their trans kids. The proposition didn’t have a transgender exception.

Governors
Only two states hold gubernatorial elections the year after presidential elections — Virginia and New Jersey. Virginia elected its first woman governor — but that was going to happen no matter who won. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former member of Congress, beat Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears with 57 percent of the vote. The commonwealth usually elects a governor from the party not in the White House.

In New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherrill beat Republican Jack Ciattarelli with 56 percent of the vote, not surprising in this heavily Democratic state. This is the first election cycle where all (two) governors elected were women.
California redistricting

After Texas redistricted its congressional seats earlier this year in the middle of the decade, rather than waiting for new census numbers, California responded with its own redistricting plan. The Texas plan adds five new Republican majority districts. The California plan also adds five Democratic majority districts.

While the Texas Legislature has the authority to redistrict at will, California’s constitution requires such an unusual measure to be approved by the voters. The proposition passed with 63 percent of the vote.

President Trump denounced the vote, calling it illegal and unconstitutional despite the fact it was his demand that Texas redraw its districts that led to California’s response.

New York mayor
In a nine-way primary, Zohran Mamdani won more than 50 percent of the vote. Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo came in second with more than 40 percent of the vote.

Mamdani, a charismatic, two-term New York assemblyman, beat out the city’s comptroller, two other assemblymen, a couple of state senators and the speaker of the city council.

From the beginning, Mamdani has been controversial. Rather than identifying simply as a Democrat, he labels himself as a Democratic socialist campaigning for free buses and childcare and a rent freeze in a city with some of the highest cost of living in the country. Those policies have had Fox News and other conservative media working overtime to derail his campaign, while his popularity among working class New Yorkers has steadily climbed.

Religious bigotry has been part of the campaign as well. Mamdani is Muslim, running in a city that in many ways is still recovering from the September 11 attacks.

Mamdani is married to Rama Duwaji, who was born in Houston and lived there until she was 9.

Cuomo received 42 percent.

State senate special election
The Democratic tide carried over into local elections in Texas. Two Republicans and a Democrat were vying for a state senate seat based in Tarrant County. The Democrat has mostly sat back through the campaign while the two Republicans ran a barrage of attack ads against each other.

Leigh Wambsganss, a vice president of Patriot Mobile which funds a number of conservative

causes, has the endorsement of President Trump. John Huffman, a real estate developer, served as mayor of Southlake for three years.

Taylor Rehmet, an aircraft mechanic for Lockheed Martin, a union organizer and the sole Democrat in the race, is a first-time candidate.

After running no TV ads, Rehmet won 47 percent of the vote. Wambsganss, who began her barrage of attack ads only after Huffman began attacking her, came in second with 36 percent. Rehmet and Wambsganss now head to a runoff, while Huffman, with the best financed of the campaigns, placed third and is out of the running.

House special election
Former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner died just months after he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Because the 18th district is heavily Democratic, Gov. Greg Abbott scheduled the special election to name a replacement as late as possible. But that race was held this week on Election Day.

Sixteen candidates were on the ballot to replace Turner, incuding lesbian state Rep. Jolanda Jones. Also running were Amanda Edwards, who had run for the seat in two earlier elections and Isaiah Martin, a former staffer of Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. and acting Harris County attorney Christian Menefee as well as several Republicans.

Menefee received 29 percent and Edwards received 26 percent of the vote. They will face each other in a runoff. Jones came in third with 19 percent and will continue to represent her district in the state Legislature. n