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Tag: Jon Rosenthal

  • Odus Evbagharu Hopes to Keep Texas House Seat Blue – Houston Press

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    A Cypress-Fairbanks ISD graduate who also served as the youngest chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party is taking his political ambitions to the next level. 

    Odus Evbagharu announced recently that he’s running for Texas House District 135, which covers northwest Houston, Cypress and Jersey Village. Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, who currently holds the seat, announced in September that he’s running for Texas railroad commissioner, a powerful position that oversees the state’s oil and gas industry. 

    Evbagharu was Rosenthal’s chief of staff and said he knows the district well, having been mentored by the man who held the office for four terms. “Our families spend Christmases together,” Evbagharu said. 

    With “unpopular Republicans” holding the highest-ranking state offices like governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, it’s a good time for a Democrat to run for a down-ballot statewide office, and Rosenthal, a mechanical engineer, is “the perfect guy” for railroad commissioner, Evbagharu said. Rosenthal has endorsed Evbagharu to be his successor in the House of Representatives. 

    If elected, the 33-year-old son of Nigerian immigrants would be the youngest and first Black person to represent District 135. Evbagharu was born in London and is therefore also an immigrant, but he attended elementary, middle school and high school in Cy-Fair ISD and graduated from the University of Houston. 

    “Folks are excited to see someone who is one of their own run for the legislature,” Evbagharu said. “Part of why we’re in this fight — it’s not just about having grown up in the area — when I’m talking to folks, I talk about how this campaign is powered by a simple idea: for us. I’m running to make sure that our schools are fully funded, that we expand Medicaid in the state that has the highest uninsured rates in the country, that we turn our minimum wage into a livable wage and that we don’t have government interfere in decisions that women and people have to make about their bodies.”

    “All of this is to protect the future that we’re trying to build right here in Texas,” he added. “We know that this movement and this moment isn’t about politics. It’s about people. It’s about me and you. It’s about ‘for us.’ Every family, every child, every dream deserves a fair and equitable shot.” 

    So far, Evbagharu hasn’t drawn a challenger for the Democratic primary, which will be held March 3, with the general election to follow in November 2026. The district has been blue since Rosenthal flipped it in 2018, with Evbagharu as his campaign manager. In 2020, Rosenthal spent millions of dollars in the area and won by 300 votes. After redistricting in 2021, District 135 is now considered a “safe blue seat,” 

    Democrat Kamala Harris won the district over Republican Donald Trump by about 8 percentage points in last year’s presidential election. 

    One Republican, Liz Ramos, has entered the race and already has an endorsement from Natalie Blasingame, a Cy-Fair ISD trustee who was ousted in last week’s election by Prairie View A&M professor Cleveland Lane Jr. Evbagharu block-walked and helped organize the campaigns of Lane and his two “teammates,” Lesley Guilmart and Kendra Camarena. All three secured victory. 

    Odus Evbagharu campaigned for three progressive Cypress-Fairbanks school board candidates who secured victory in the November 4 election.  Credit: Andrea Odom

    Jaime Martinez, treasurer of the Harris County Emergency Services District No. 9, is also rumored to be eyeing a bid for the GOP nomination for Texas House District 135. 

    Evbagharu said he’s confident but he’s still going to run “like it’s a flippable seat.” 

    “I’m a first-time candidate so you never know,” he said. “We’re going to spend money and we’re going to turn out. That’s important to me, particularly because I was the former chair of the party and the treasurer of the state party. I know what it means when we don’t have state Democrats working their areas. We have to do that and we have to get more people out to vote so we can flip statewide.” 

    While serving as Harris County Democratic Party Chair from 2021 to 2023, Evbagharu led the effort to flip the Commissioners Court to a Democratic majority. 

    “It was a great experience and we won,” he said. “I’ll forever be proud of that,” he said. Just 28 years old when elected, he was the youngest and first Black person to hold that position. 

    The candidate is a small business owner who operates a political and community consulting shop, Onward Strategy Group. 

    “This is what I know, and this is what I do,” he said. “When we get to the state legislature as a small business owner, we’ll know the needs and what it means to have access to capital and all that.” 

    He’s been working on Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee’s campaign for U.S. Congressional District 18. Menefee was the top vote-getter in the November 4 election and will be in a January runoff with former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards. 

    The Cy-Fair school board campaigns that Evbagharu worked on, although nonpartisan, were hailed as victories for Democrats in the debate over the separation of church and state in public schools.

    The race caught the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott, who attended a rally with the GOP-backed candidates, and the progressive wins were highlighted by Democrats at a recent rally featuring California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa. 

    “On [November 4], all across this country, Americans held [Republican leadership] accountable,” Hinojosa said. “Texas was no different. Right next door in Cy-Fair, y’all flipped three school board seats for the pro-public education candidates who went up against big, mighty vote-getters, and you won.”

    Evbagharu said he encouraged the Cy-Fair school board candidates to raise money and campaign vigorously, especially because it would be a low-turnout election. 

    “We put a coalition together of not just Democrats but Republicans, independents and pro-public education folks,” he said. “As soon as the 2023 elections happened, we got to work. We had some hard conversations and we said if we’re going to win, we’ve got to be able to raise money, and we did.” 

    Fundraising is key in any race, Evbagharu said. 

    “You can’t do this without money,” he said. “Candidates should be honest about that. I told the Cy-Fair slate that we created that it’s not enough to just say [the opposition] is terrible on the school board. You’ve got to raise money. I’m the same way, constantly on the phone and building out events. The other thing is getting support and making sure the community knows who I am, that I grew up with them; I graduated from public schools here. I want the same things that they want.” 

    Texas Democrats should stop referring to themselves as the minority party and instead use the term “opposition party,” Evbagharu said. 

    “Yes, we can get things done. We have to,” he said. “In the state House, it’s 88-62, so you have to find 16 Republicans to vote for your legislation. We can still fight for our values. We’ve got to start putting the Republicans in conflict. We’ve got to get people to vote. If you want change, you’ve got to win elections. We’ve got to get better messengers. We’ve got to make sure we’re meeting the moment. The message resonates better when it comes from someone who looks like you or is the same age as you.” 

    The representatives in the Texas House got a national platform when they walked out of the state Capitol over the summer and broke quorum to avoid voting on a mid-decade redistricting proposal orchestrated by Donald Trump to secure five GOP seats in the U.S. Congress. Among the Democrats who fled the state was Rosenthal, who was appointed to serve as vice chair of the Select Committee on Redistricting and spoke to the Houston Press in August from Chicago while breaking quorum. 

    The Democrats eventually returned and the map ultimately passed and is now being challenged in federal court, but California passed Proposition 50 last week which will allow state legislators to redistrict their own Congressional seats to counter what they say are racially gerrymandered lines in Texas. 

    Evbagharu said he hopes the recent re-energizing of Texas Democrats will influence good policy nationally. 

    “We have an administration now in D.C. that is failing people,” he said. “The government is shut down right now and instead of helping the people who will lose SNAP benefits, their social security is being delayed. Medicaid and Medicare services are being delayed. These folks are sending $40 billion to Argentina, and you have federal employees that are furloughed right now.” 

    “To make matters worse, leadership here in Texas isn’t helping,” he added. “We used to be a state that didn’t capitulate and answer to every whim of D.C., but that’s what they’re doing. You saw it with redistricting. Donald Trump called the state of Texas and said, ‘Hey, give me five more seats,’ and these guys did.” 

    Evbagharu said  Governor Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton have neglected to fully fund schools and create an affordable pathway for Texans.

    “Instead they focused on culture wars,” he said. “A big part of this for me is that I want to serve the people. When working families are thriving, Texas is thriving. We need leadership in Texas. We’ve been 30 years in the wilderness and enough is enough. So I put my name in the ring to make sure we win, finally, in Texas.” 

    This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2025.

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    April Towery

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  • Texas House Approves Redistricting Map Amid Fierce Democratic Opposition

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    The Texas House on Wednesday approved a new redistricting map designed to pick up five additional GOP Congressional seats over vocal opposition and last-minute stall tactics from the minority Democratic party, representing a significant hurdle before Gov. Greg Abbott signs it into law.

    The measure passed 88-52. Texas Democrats say the effort is unnecessary, illegal, and racist. After a two-week quorum break where more than 50 lawmakers fled the state to avoid voting on the redistricting bill, they returned to the Capitol on Monday, prepared to vote against the map and vowing to challenge it in court.

    Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, who authored House Bill 4, said the districts were drawn “primarily on the basis of political performance.”

    “This plan includes political considerations, public testimony, recognition of population growth, and recent changes in voter trends,” Hunter said. “Thirty-seven of the 38 congressional districts have changed to some degree. The primary changes are focused on only five districts for partisan purposes.”

    “Four of the five new districts are majority-minority Hispanic,” he added. “Each of these newly-drawn districts now trend Republican in political performance. While there’s no guarantee in electorate success, Republicans will now have an opportunity to potentially win these districts.”

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    The Texas House of Representatives approved new congressional districts on Wednesday, with Democrats vowing to challenge the map in court.

    Texas Legislative Council

    More than two dozen Democrats spoke against the map during a lengthy floor debate that began at 10 a.m. and ended around 5:30 p.m., saying they wanted to establish a record that could be used in a legal challenge. Some encouraged their Republican colleagues to save their emails and text messages because the courts would be coming for them.

    “We should have been debating a bill to restore flood relief to many Texans who lost their lives in the Kerr County historic flooding, but instead the first bill that we’re taking up is a racially gerrymandered House Bill 4, mid-decade redistricting that is totally unnecessary,” said Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City.

    The legislator was one of many who alleged that the redistricting effort involves “packing and cracking,” or widening the GOP advantage by unconstitutionally compressing people of color into some districts while spreading them throughout others to reduce their ability to elect who they want to represent them.

    Congressional districts that were approved in 2021 based on new Census data, with population growth largely driven by Black and Hispanic voters, were hailed by those who voted for them, including Republicans, as “race blind.” The state’s current congressional districts are currently being challenged in federal court.

    “I challenge you, when you look in the mirror, where were you?” Reynolds said. “Were you on the right side of history, in favor of voting rights for all, or were you on the wrong side of history, upholding discrimination with this racially gerrymandered map?”

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    Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, accused Republicans pushing the redistricting effort of racism.

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    Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, said the effort is clearly racist.

    “Let’s talk about cowardice and cheats,” she said. “If you knew you could win this next election, you wouldn’t be taking this effort to try to steal five seats from elected officials that people of color elected to represent them in Washington, D.C. You shield your racism with your party. You think that people will give you grace on ignorance and arrogance around the party because you can’t admit that the root of all of this is about racism and power.”

    The Texas Legislature’s second special session began on August 15 after the conclusion of a 25-day first session in which very little was accomplished because of the quorum break. At least 69 bills were read into the record and referred to committees when the Democrats returned earlier this week, most dealing with emergency management and disaster response related to the July 4 Hill Country floods.

    And yet the only item before the House for a vote on Wednesday was redistricting, a point made by many who oppose it.

    The second special session has had its share of theatrics. Those who fled the state were assigned DPS surveillance officers to monitor their movement and ensure they returned to the Capitol for floor sessions such as the one held Wednesday. Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, declined to sign a permission slip and spent two nights locked in the Texas House.

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    Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, questions HB 4 author Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, on Wednesday.

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    Collier, a seven-term state representative and attorney, was later joined by other Democrats who ripped up their permission slips as a sign of solidarity. The state rep filed a petition earlier this week alleging that restraining her in the House is illegal. Republican lawmakers have criticized Collier’s actions as a “sit-in protest” and publicity stunt that had no effect on the outcome of redistricting maps.

    Several Democratic lawmakers wore green on Wednesday in support of Collier, who has been wearing a green blazer since she got locked in the House on Monday morning.

    The Texas Legislature’s redistricting fight has drawn national attention and prompted California Gov. Gavin Newsom to propose new maps in his state that would add Democratic seats, countering the effort in Texas to preserve President Donald Trump’s narrow GOP majority in the U.S. Congress.

    Several amendments were introduced on Wednesday in attempts to establish an independent redistricting commission, get a federal court opinion on the legality of the map, and ensure that the new Congressional districts would not become effective until after the May 2026 elections.

    Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, chair of the Democratic Caucus, asked to delay the vote until the Epstein files were released. He was denied and told that his amendment was “not even remotely related” to congressional redistricting.

    Democrats also attempted to table redistricting altogether and instead discuss flood bills. They brought up the matter of disaster response by making “parliamentary inquiries” so their statements would be included in the record.

    “Why was House Bill 1, the flood relief bill that is the House’s answer to the deadly July 4 flooding that killed over 135 people, not the first order of business of this special session for the Texas House?” asked Rep. Gina Hinojosa, R-Austin. Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows declined to answer, saying that it wasn’t a proper parliamentary inquiry.

    Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, said an unfair process was employed to “ram this gerrymandered piece of work down the throats of the people of our state.”

    “The whole process for this has been a sham from the beginning,” he said. “Any member in here, any leader in this state, who tries to tell you that there were public hearings on this map, that is simply a lie. That is not true.”

    “What we have before us today is a committee substitute that was voted out in a formal meeting. They did not hold hearings on this bill. They did not hold hearings on this map.”

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    Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, urged Democrats and officials from other states to stay vigilant in the redistricting fight.

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    Wu urged Texas Democrats and officials in other states to remain vigilant.

    “My fellow Americans, if you want to take your country back, if you want to go back to a nation where education actually provided a pathway to success, where hard work and following the rules actually meant something, where just because you were rich and powerful does not mean you get to evade justice, then start fighting,” he said. “Start here.”

    “Texas will have to go to the courts, but California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, and many other states, look at what’s happening here,” he added. “Look carefully. This is the future, right here, if you do not act now.”

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    April Towery

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  • Special Session No. 2 is Underway As Democrats Make Their Way Back to Texas

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    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the House Republicans are hoping to make up for lost time in a second special session that began Friday and includes all 18 items on the previous agenda, including redistricting, plus a new proposal for legislation to improve youth camp safety.

    Abbott’s first special session adjourned last week without signing any new bills into law, due to the absence of a quorum prompted by House Democrats who left the state to avoid voting on new U.S. Congressional boundary lines. The rare mid-decade redistricting initiative was ordered by President Donald Trump to pick up five Republican seats in U.S. Congress ahead of the 2026 primaries.

    The Democrats announced that they would return to Texas if the Legislature adjourned and if California introduced a redistricting plan that “would neutralize the Trump-Abbott voter suppression effort.” Both of those demands were met, and a quorum of lawmakers was expected to be in Austin by Monday, August 18.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom said his state will call a special election to seek voter approval for a new congressional map that would pick up more blue seats, countering the effort in Texas.

    The Democrats still think the proposed Texas redistricting maps are racist and illegal. Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, refiled House Bill 4 on Friday. Democrats say they’re preparing for a legal battle in court.

    “Under the advice of legal counsel, Democrats must return to Texas to build a strong public legislative record for the upcoming legal battle against a map that violates both the current Voting Rights Act and the Constitution,” officials with the Texas House Democratic Caucus said in a press release on August 14.

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    At least 50 Texas Democrats have been absent from the Capitol for about two weeks.

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    Speaker of the House Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, announced the adjournment of the first special session on Friday morning and told lawmakers not to stray far from the Capitol, as he expected the governor would call a second special session “very, very soon.” A second special session began two hours later, and a quorum was still not present.

    “I want to point out that today’s outcome may be a win for Texans and for the rest of the governor’s call,” Burrows said. “If our absent colleagues had shown up this morning, they could have used a few remaining days to stall, or possibly even block, the passage of critical legislation: property tax relief, protections for the unborn, safeguarding women’s private spaces, and reining in runaway local taxes.”

    “By following Governor Newsom’s lead, instead of the will of Texans, they have allowed us to reset the clock,” he said, adding that he hopes to accomplish every item on the agenda and adjourn the second special session before Labor Day weekend.

    A quorum of at least 100 state representatives and 21 senators — two-thirds of each elected body — is needed not just to pass redistricting legislation but to vote on disaster response, elimination of the STAAR test, THC reform and numerous other measures on Abbott’s special session call.

    Scott Braddock, editor of the nonpartisan Texas political newsletter Quorum Report, said on social media last week that the Democrats are “about to come home to lose here while rallying their party to maybe win nationally.”

    The Republican-majority Legislature has accused the Democrats of being cowardly and ducking their duties at the expense of important disaster response bills that would help families in the Texas Hill Country who are still recovering from deadly July 4 floods.

    The Democrats have said they wanted to consider flood legislation but Abbott pulled a fast one and instead made redistricting the top priority.

    “We do not believe stealing five seats to attempt to determine the outcome of the next election is the right thing to bring us back for,” said Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, in a Zoom livestream from Chicago last week. “Yes, we are in the position of breaking quorum, which is an extraordinary and exceptional act but it is the only tool that we have in our toolbox, as the minority, to try and defeat [redistricting].”

    The Dems would ultimately like Abbott to set aside redistricting, which technically doesn’t have to be taken up until the 2030 Census. Several have pushed for an independent redistricting commission to redraw the lines.

    “I’ll offer it again and if Governor Abbott wants to accept that bill and put it up for a hearing, we can find out if both sides are really willing to do this,” Johnson said. “I would love it if the solution to all of this is that the people rise up and say, ‘Hey, politicians, stop drawing your lines. We’re going to draw them for you.’ To me, that’s the ultimate win.”

    Rep. Jon Rosenthal, D-Houston, is also on board with an independent redistricting commission.

    “From my perspective, we should be doing what the people want us to do,” Rosenthal said, noting that about 99 percent of those who spoke at public hearings before the quorum break were against mid-decade redistricting. “I would love to see federal law enact a nonpartisan redistricting commission process.”

    The redistricting conversation isn’t just about Texas, the lawmakers said.

    “One of our big pushes, one of our big priorities, is for this to become a national conversation,” Rosenthal said. “Redistricting in Texas in the midterm just for the purpose of rigging an election will affect the entire country.”

    Representatives from both parties have indicated they’re not backing down.

    “Trump thought he could easily get his way in Texas with compliant Republicans, but Democrats fought back ferociously and took the fight to Trump across America,” Texas Dems said in a statement. “We will return to the House floor and to the courthouse with a clear message: the fight to protect voting rights has only just begun.”

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    April Towery

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