Green Party Candidates In Texas For 2014

The Texas Green Party has put out its list of candidates for the 2014 election in Texas. The candidates listed above are the ones that are running for statewide office, or for the Texas legislature or the U.S. Congress. For a full list of the 51 Green Party candidates across the state, you can go to this website to access the list compiled by fellow Texas blogger Perry Dorrell. And for a discussion of some of the candidates, you can go to Perry's own blog, Brains and Eggs.

Of particular interest among the statewide candidates are Charles Waterbury (Supreme Court place 7), Judith Sanders-Castro (Court of Criminal Appeals place 4), and George Joseph Altgelt (Court of Criminal Appeals place 9). That is because there are no Democratic Party candidates in those races -- and that could give the Green Party candidates a chance to insure the party will be on the Texas ballot in 2016. To insure a position on the general election ballot, a political party must get more than 5% of the vote in a statewide race.

Also of interest is the race for Congressional District 13, currently represented by incompetent GOP incumbent Mac Thornberry. This is a very large district in area, which covers the entire Texas Panhandle and much of North Texas (and it is the district I live in). The Green Party candidate who has filed to run in that race is Don Cook. Mr. Cook is a resident of Houston, which is hundreds of miles from District 13.

I first thought that must be a misprint, because someone living in Houston would have little knowledge of the needs of the mostly rural 13th District. But it seems Mr. Cook does qualify to run there, since the qualifications for the office only say a candidate must be a resident of the state (and not necessarily the district). This would have to make him the longest of long shots though. It is hard enough to run as a Green in this reddest part of Texas, without living hundreds of miles outside the district.