Upcoming midterm elections will bring new leadership to Cy-Fair with dozens of county, state and federal government positions on the ballot this March for primaries followed by the general election in November.

The last midterm election in 2018 brought out 57.9% of registered voters in Cy-Fair—up from 37.2% four years earlier in November 2014, according to the Harris County Elections Administrator’s Office.

Frances Romero, vice chair for Cy-Fair ISD’s Community Leadership Committee, said it is important for residents to be civically engaged because the decisions elected officials make ultimately affect them.

“We don’t want to find out when it’s too late, ‘Oh no, I should have voted,’ or ‘I probably should have read up more on this candidate before voting for them. I should not have gone just by party affiliation,’” she said. “I think every [candidate] needs to be evaluated for what the person stands for and what the person has to give back for the community.”

Of the Cy-Fair voters who cast straight-party tickets in 2014, 72.6% voted exclusively for Republicans while 26.6% supported Democrats. By 2018, political trends had shifted for a less stark gap with 58.7% favoring Republicans and 40.8% voting for Democrats, according to the Harris County Elections Administrator’s Office.

The Texas Legislature eliminated the option for voters to select every candidate from one political party with the push of a single button in 2017, and straight-ticket voting was officially removed in 2020.

Jersey Village, a community that leans Republican based on recent election trends, had the highest levels of voter turnout in both elections while residents in the more liberal Willowbrook area consistently had the lowest, according to county data.

Harris County has piloted new initiatives in recent elections to make voting more convenient and accessible, such as drive-thru voting and 24-hour voting on select days. However, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1 in September, prohibiting these strategies and enforcing additional voter ID requirements for those voting by mail.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law after making “election integrity” an emergency item in the 87th Legislature following delays due to Democrat lawmakers breaking quorum earlier in the year.

“Senate Bill 1 ensures trust and confidence in our elections system—and most importantly, it makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” Abbott said in a statement.

Despite these changes, community leaders are expecting strong voter turnout in 2022.

Justin Ray, the former Jersey Village mayor who made an unsuccessful run to represent Texas House District 135 in 2020, planned to run again in 2022 until redistricting moved him into a district with a Republican incumbent. He said he did not want to run against someone in his own party. Ray predicts 2022 elections will be values-based rather than issues-based.

“There’s terms that are being thrown out all the time, whether it be wokeness or [critical race theory] or whatever the case may be, there’s just this gut feeling and concern with all the voters that we’re losing our hold on our national identity, our culture and our values. That’s what’s going to drive a lot of people to the polls,” Ray said.

Partisan politics

Nearly four years ago, Harris County and Texas saw what Ray called a “wave election” for Democrats.

Several elected official positions at the county level held by Republicans flipped to Democratic candidates, and two state representatives, Jon Rosenthal and Gina Calanni, flipped red seats blue in the Cy-Fair community.

“In 2020, obviously in Harris County, even statewide, Democrats wanted to expand on those gains [from] 2018, but it didn’t happen. Donald Trump was on the ballot again, and so even though Democrats were highly energized to vote, Republicans were highly motivated to vote as well,” said Bryan Henry, who ran as a Democrat challenger to state Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, in 2020.

Henry earned 31% of voters’ support. He said he believes the election outcome was not a reflection of his campaign, but rather a reflection of how red District 130 is. In the same election, Calanni lost her seat to former incumbent Mike Schofield, R-Katy, and Ray lost District 135 to Rosenthal by just 300 votes.

Henry said he believes candidates such as Oliverson and state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, are repeatedly re-elected to the state Legislature because they serve strongly Republican districts. Moreover, Oliverson, Bettencourt and state Rep. Sam Harless, R-Spring, are all running for re-election with no challengers from either party in 2022, according to the secretary of state.

Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Tom Ramsey said he believes County Judge Lina Hidalgo would not have unseated longtime Republican incumbent Ed Emmett in 2018 without straight-ticket voting.

“It’s not an ideological shift in the way people think,” Ramsey said. “That was an unfortunate process. Fortunately, we’ve done away with straight-ticket voting, and I feel real optimistic ... in terms of what 2022’s going to hold for those people running on a conservative platform.”

Ray said despite northwest Harris County’s growth bringing different political dynamics, he believes Cy-Fair is still a Republican-leaning community overall. He said he is expecting a “Republican surge” nationwide and locally in upcoming elections.

Political ideologies typically do not play a significant role in elections for smaller governing bodies such as school boards and city councils. However, the three new CFISD school board trustees elected in November ran as openly conservative, Christian Republicans.

“School board races are supposed to be nonpartisan. They are one of the last areas of our politics that is not completely tainted by the partisanship of national politics—the culture wars, the ongoing resentment between Democrats and Republicans,” said Henry, who founded the Cy-Fair Civic Alliance as a direct response to that election.

The nonpartisan alliance of parents, students, educators and community members was formed to hold the school board accountable and to express to trustees that their job is to represent the entire community and not just one particular political party or religious group, Henry said.

Local issues

Natalie Blasingame, Scott Henry and Lucas Scanlon were sworn into their new roles on the CFISD board in late 2021, replacing incumbents of more than 15 years John Ogletree, Don Ryan and Bob Covey. Blasingame said at the Dec. 13 board meeting one of her priorities is ensuring curriculum “[is] better for our community values, honors parents and our nation.”

She also expressed her opposition to the board’s resolution condemning racism, which was signed in fall 2020.

“I do not support the resolution of equity, which calls our district—and by virtue, the staff and students—systemically racist,” Blasingame said. “I don’t support theories that divide us.”

President Tom Jackson noted the board could revisit the resolution in 2022 with the new trustees.

Resident participation at CFISD board meetings increased during the pandemic with many parents challenging COVID-19 protocols and state-mandated character education curriculum. CFISD announced in October the district was cutting ties with the No Place for Hate anti-bullying program after more than 20 years and developing its own curriculum instead.

Romero said the CLC could have used the same energy from parents during the legislative session when the group advocated legislators make the state’s accountability rating system more fair and urged the state to release federal funding to help public schools recover from the pandemic. She said she hopes, despite political differences, the community can unite in support of what is best for its children.

“Partisanship has not been relevant to any of these accomplishments that our district can brag about,” Romero said. “It doesn’t matter your background, who you’re affiliated with. It’s the one thing that unites us all ... that we all want the best for our students and their education.”

Ramsey, who is Cy-Fair’s primary county commissioner based on the newly redistricted maps, said in 2022 he would like to advocate for more law enforcement officers and that even more money be spent on infrastructure, including looking into flood tunnels to mitigate the county’s drainage issues. Ramsey said he believes the court overall has been too distracted by social service programs, and he wants to “stick to the basics.”

“It seems like every meeting we come up with a new program. Many of them are well-meaning, many of those are social programs, and I’m not opposed to that in every case, but I’m telling you every dollar that’s spent on a new program [is] a dollar that’s• •not spent on infrastructure,” he said.