One of the down-ballot races on the Nov. 5 election includes the District 30 Texas House of Representatives office. Geannie Morrison held the office for 25 years, but chose not to run for re-election.
In the May primary, Republican AJ Louderback prevailed against Jeff Bauknight. Democrat Stephanie Bassham is on the ballot against Louderback. Bassham recently visited Cuero and answered questions of interest to De-Witt County voters.
The same questions have been shared with Louderback. His answers will be posted when they are received.
Q: What is your background and connection to this area?
Bassham was born in
West Virginia into a strong union and Dem- ocrat household. She and her husband have careers in the energy industry, which have taken them to positions in various northeastern states. They have two grown sons and have lived in Victoria since 2017.
“We got here in March of 2017 and then Harvey was our welcome,” Bassham said.
“I work in Community Outreach Development. I find high school students in CTE programs that are interested in the trades, and connect them with union apprenticeship.”
Q: What made you want to run for this office?
“My reason for running was the story of Kay Cox, when she had to leave Texas for reproductive healthcare. That was happening about the time the deadline was to run. So I literally got in an hour before the deadline closed.
“It wasn’t because I thought I would win because it’s a heavily Republican area. It’s because, since I’ve been here, we’ve not had full representation on the ballot on the Democrat side. There’s a narrative that gets played out, and that tends to be the narrative of the region. It’s not necessarily true; it’s just a narrative. So it was for balance and conversation. I want to be part of the conversation in my community. I don’t want everyone to think that everyone agrees with that line of thought.
“Debate is healthy, and disagreement doesn’t have to be hateful. AJ (Louderback) and I had one forum in Blessing, and he canceled all the rest. If we can’t get in front of voters and have them ask us questions together, then I think that’s a problem.”
Q: What do you see as the top three issues that DWC voters care about?
A: “I think what’s most important that people care about is public education. We are slowly strangling public education through a lack of funding and lack of teacher pay, and there’s money sitting there in Austin. There is a fund of money sitting there that could help alleviate a lot of these problems. But the idea is to use that for vouchers, and we know that in our rural communities there are not a lot of private-school options, so this money is going to be leaving our district for other kids to go to private schools. I’d like to see us fully fund public education, and then make decisions about what’s working and what’s not working.
“We also have STAAR testing that needs a lot of work. The writing component this year had a lot of schools scoring 0s and 1s, but it was graded by AI. That’s going to end up in litigation. So, we don’t have real numbers for how our students are performing, which is a problem.
“There’s a lot of money out there behind candidates supporting vouchers. To me, our children are our pipeline; they are our workforce. So when we’re not providing a proper education, then we’re doing a disservice to our communities.”
Bassham said rural healthcare was also a major issue. She said rural hospitals, like Cuero Regional, have a hard time getting doctors and nurses when they can make more money in larger areas.
“So incentives like loan forgiveness programs or some type of incentivized program is needed to get and keep doctors and nurses on staff fulltime,” Bassham said.
She said unfunded mandates like Gov. Abbott’s requirement to track undocumented people through the healthcare system will take already scarce resources away from hospitals.
Bassham also said opportunities for rural, local workforces to grow through trade programs in schools is key to drawing industry to areas.
Q: What would you do as a District 30 representative to improve those issues?
A: “That’s kind of what I do for a job. My job is connecting industry to workforce through education.” She said when industry comes in and requests some type of abatement, there should be a requirement to hire locally and invest in training. “That’s what we can do to secure jobs locally.”
She said for small businesses, the government has to help keep them from being eaten alive from taxes.
“I don’t come in with a lot of baggage. I find that building relationships that are community based is very important. I feel like a lot of things that come from the top down (like from TEA) feel punitive in nature.”
Bassham said there needs to be more input from the bottom up.
“We have a communication problem in the region and disconnected levels of government that are in the way for students to meet success. I think we need to be way more community based and less punitive from the top down.
“We’re a great location. House District 30 has it all: ports, airport, rail. We have all the infrastructure to really grow; we just have to get ourselves organized and work together.”
