TEXAS HOUSE DISTRICT 48
Three vie to win in swing district
Democratic incumbent, GOP rival differ on immigration, top priorities and Sarah Palin.
By Corrie MacLaggan
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, September 22, 2008
The two women running in Texas House District 48 — Republican Pam Waggoner and Democrat Donna Howard, the incumbent — are both former school board members who consider themselves advocates for public education, but the similarities may end there.
Waggoner's priorities are securing Texas' borders against illegal immigration and creating safer neighborhoods. Howard wants to ease the shortage of nurses in the state and invest more in higher education.
 Donna Howard  Pam Waggoner  Ben Easton |
Waggoner says the district needs her brand of conservatism to keep Texas business-friendly. Howard cites accomplishments such as spearheading a bipartisan air quality caucus to show that she is working hard for constituents.
They also part ways on whether Sarah Palin would make a good vice president.
Along with Libertarian Ben Easton, the women are vying to represent the swing district in northwestern Travis County. Lately, it has leaned Democratic.
Waggoner starts behind Howard financially, with $11,266 in the bank compared to Howard's $160,869 as of July 15. Also, Waggoner suffered a setback at the polls in May, when voters rejected her bid for re-election to the Leander school board.
Waggoner said the loss has not sapped her momentum in the House race and notes that Howard, a former Eanes school board member, lost a school board re-election bid in 1999.
Waggoner said advisers warned her not to run school board and state House races at the same time.
"I loved what I was doing, and I took on too much," she said. "It was a hard loss. A lot of soul-searching after that."
Waggoner said the experience taught her that she can't take grass-roots campaign work for granted. And she said she is confident that she can win District 48 votes despite the fundraising difference.
"Not all the time does the one with the most money win," said Waggoner, who says her experience as owner of an insurance agency, the Waggoner Group, has prepared her to tackle health insurance issues at the Capitol. "I hope to win people over with ideas" — such as offering flexible school hours to keep students from dropping out even if they must work to support their families.
Howard, a former nurse who was elected to the House in 2006, said she wants to continue using her experience in health care and education to address those issues at the Capitol.
The district was represented by Republican Todd Baxter before Howard's election and has shown other signs that it is turning blue. For example, District 48 voters picked Democrat Chris Bell for governor in 2006 over the incumbent, Republican Rick Perry, who was re-elected.
But Waggoner is painting Howard as out of touch with the district, which includes West Lake Hills, Rollingwood, Lost Creek, Lago Vista and parts of Northwest Austin.
Howard has "an extremely liberal record that does not reflect her constituency," said Waggoner, who lives in Steiner Ranch.
She warned that the more "liberal-minded people" who get into the Republican-controlled House, the more Texas risks becoming less business-friendly, less able to "push our conservative values" and more like California.
"People need to wake up," Waggoner said.
Specifically, Waggoner criticized Howard's vote against Jessica's Law, which would have permitted the state to execute child predators convicted of repeatedly sexually assaulting children. The Legislature overwhelmingly passed the measure, and Perry signed it. However, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that states cannot use the death penalty to punish child rapists if the victim is not killed.
"It was a bill to protect children," Waggoner said. "To vote against it was reckless."
Howard said that after talking to prosecutors and advocates who work to prevent domestic violence, she learned that because the majority of perpetrators are family members and friends, children may not be willing to report abuse if the death penalty is possible. And, she said, an abuser might be more likely to kill a child so he or she wouldn't be able to testify.
"In the long run, it was going to be more harmful than helpful," Howard said.
Waggoner said one of her top priorities is addressing illegal immigration by working to secure Texas' borders and giving employers tools to identify illegal immigrants.
"Most are not coming in to harm the U.S., but unfortunately, it only takes one," she said.
Howard said that immigration is not her constituents' top concern and that it's "basically a federal issue anyway."
Howard's top priorities include addressing the state's nursing shortage, something she did last year by working to create a program to train clinical nurses and nursing faculty through public-private partnerships.
The nursing shortage is closely tied to another of Howard's priorities — higher education — because a lack of nursing school faculty members is a main cause of the shortage.
"We haven't sufficiently invested as a state in higher education," said Howard, a member of the House Higher Education Committee.
As for Palin, Waggoner called the GOP vice presidential nominee her "new hero" and pointed out that she and the Alaska governor both trace their political careers back to PTAs and have bachelor's degrees in journalism.
Howard, who endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential contest and now backs the party's nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, said she worries about the policies that Palin could implement in Washington.
"I am somewhat offended by the fact the people would think that simply because (Palin) is a woman I would be supportive of her," Howard said.
As Waggoner focuses on her House campaign, she said she her strategy is to reach out to voters in West Lake Hills, "where I'm less known." Howard, who lives in West Lake Hills, has two TV ads running; Waggoner hasn't aired any.
In one ad, Howard said she wants to improve public schools, make property taxes affordable and health care accessible; in the other, she highlights that she is a native Austinite and says that she wants to "preserve the Austin we all know and love."
Meanwhile, Easton, the libertarian in the race, said he wants to privatize education "from top to bottom."
"For libertarians," he said, "the job of the government is to get out of the way."
Easton had not raised any money as of the latest finance reports. He said he does not expect to win but wants to give voters another choice.
And for the record, Easton said of Palin: "I think she's awesome."
cmaclaggan@statesman.com; 445-3548
Texas House District 48
Donna Howard
Residence: Austin
Party: Democrat
Age: 56
Occupation:Community advocate
Education:Bachelor's in nursing and master's in health education, both from the University of Texas
Experience: Former critical care nurse; member of Eanes school board, 1996-99; House member since 2006.
Worth noting: Member of the House Higher Education Committee; co-founder of the bipartisan Air Quality Caucus.
Web site: votedonna.com
Ben Easton
Residence:Austin
Party: Libertarian
Age: 48
Occupation:Software trainer
Education:Bachelor's degree, Washington and Lee University
Experience:Former elementary and middle school teacher
Worth noting: Ran for this seat in 2005 and 2006.
Web site:beneaston.net
Pam Waggoner
Residence:Austin
Party: Republican
Age: 46
Occupation: President, Waggoner Group
Education: Bachelor's degree, University of Texas
Experience: Former Leander school trustee; board member, Leander Excellence in Education Foundation
Worth noting: Says she wants to combat illegal immigration, find a fair way to pay for schools and protect Texans' property rights
Web site:pamwaggoner.com
