Early voting in underway for the election in Collin County — and there’s more on the ballot than just the president and U.S. senator.
The county has several local elections on the ballot as well. Here’s what’s at stake.
Congressional District 3
Incumbent Congressman Keith Self faces Democratic challenger Sandeep Srivastava in this district, which includes most of Collin County.
Self defeated four opponents in his Republican primary with about 72% of the vote. He’s had a lot of support in Collin County. Self was elected with almost 60% of the vote in the 2022 general election. He was also the county judge for 12 years.
The congressman is known for being conservative — he was one of the Republicans who held up the election of former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. He’s also part of a group that voted no on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government. Self said the coalition refused to vote on the resolution because of the border.
Self has said he supports Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts at the border. He listed the border as one of his main priorities at the Prestonwood Baptist candidate forum.
“The border is so much more complex than it used to be,” Self said. “We now have the criminals. We now have the gangs.”
The Dallas Morning News’ editorial board recently endorsed Self’s Democratic opponent, Sandeep Srivastava. The board cited Self’s stance on immigration and refusal to vote on the continuing resolution as reasons for supporting his challenger.
“This is obstructionism at its worst,” the board said. “The 3rd Congressional District needs a representative who will show up to legislate, not grandstand.”
Srivastava a Collin County Realtor who immigrated from India to the United States 25 years ago was also the Democratic nominee in 2022.
Collin County is known for being Republican. Attorney General Ken Paxton calls it home. But the area is the third fastest growing county in the nation — and it’s diversifying as it grows. Srivastava told KERA in a previous interview that Self doesn’t represent the interests of the county’s diverse population.
“Keith Self represents only very few, 10 or 12%,” Srivastava said.
Collin County is about 20% Asian, 16% Hispanic and 12% Black according to U.S. Census data.
State Senate District 8
State Senator Angela Paxton, who’s married to embattled Attorney General Ken Paxton, is running for reelection against Democrat Rachel Mello. Paxton’s husband once held the same seat.
The Paxtons are members at Prestonwood Baptist Church. Sen. Paxton said at the forum her faith is a guiding force that led her to run for the Texas senate six years ago. She also cited her support for restricting abortion access. Paxton is listed as a co-author on SB 8, the 2021 law that banned abortion in Texas after six weeks of gestation. The law is known as the Texas Heartbeat Act.
Angela Paxton said she’ll continue to advocate against abortion if reelected.
“As an unexpected pregnancy myself, I’ve never taken life for granted,” Paxton said. “I’m so proud of the work that we did in the Senate last session and in the legislature to protect life.”
Paxton and other Republican candidates praised the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision. But Mello said at the Prestonwood Baptist forum that she had concerns about the ruling.
She was also concerned about protections for infertility treatments like in vitro fertilization. The Southern Baptist Convention recently voted to oppose IVF. Prestonwood Baptist Church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
“We are very close to saying that it is more ethical to conceive a pregnancy from rape than it is to conceive a pregnancy from IVF,” Mello said.
Mello, a former schoolteacher, said she would also prioritize public education if elected. Before she ran for the first time in 2018, Angela Paxton was a math teacher and school counselor for 20 years.
The Texas Tribune has reported multiple instances where Angela Paxton has stood by her husband despite his controversies. Those include his alleged extramarital affair, his impeachment and a number of criminal and civil investigations. The Tribune also reported she was driving the car when Paxton ducked a subpoena for an abortion case last year in McKinney.
She introduced legislation during her first term that would’ve legalized her husband’s securities fraud actions. The charges against the Attorney General were dropped earlier this year and the trial was canceled after he reached a deal with prosecutors. The deal requires Paxton to complete 100 hours of community service, take 15 hours of legal ethics courses and pay around $270,000 in restitution to his accusers.
If he fulfills the terms within 18 months, his charges will be dismissed. If not, a new trial date will be set and Paxton will face a jury. He is not admitting guilt by agreeing to a deal.
Sen. Paxton announced her intention to run for reelection at a Labor Day picnic hosted by the Collin County GOP. She attended the picnic with her husband, who was suspended at the time pending his impeachment trial.
AG Paxton was later acquitted of all charges in his impeachment trial.
Sen. Paxton was at her husband’s impeachment trial — but after a senate vote, she was banned from participating or having any say in the trial’s outcome. There was no indication that she had plans to recuse herself before the senate vote on the impeachment trial’s rules made that decision for her.
Texas House District 61
Keresa Richardson defeated incumbent Rep. Frederick Frazier in a primary runoff election with about 68% of the vote. Tony Adams, a local businessman, is running for the seat as a Democrat.
Frazier, along with the other four Republican statehouse representatives from Collin County, voted to impeach Paxton. At a debate hosted by the Collin County Patriots ahead of the primary election, Richardson said the impeachment highlighted a need for change at the legislature.
“I definitely believe the Paxton impeachment brought dysfunction and corruption to light,” Richardson said.
When asked about her priorities at the Prestonwood forum, Richardson listed her support for what Gov. Greg Abbott refers to as “school choice.” Abbott failed to pass an education savings account program that would have allowed parents to use state funding for private school tuition. He endorsed several primary challengers of incumbent Republicans who voted against the program.
Richardson said school choice is about educational freedom.
“I want every parent to be able to choose whether their child will succeed and grow and prosper and learn best in home school, public school, private school, charter school, whatever is best for that child,” Richardson said.
Adams, who wasn’t at the Prestonwood forum, has said he opposes school vouchers.
“I believe that education vouchers benefits only the rich and not the low and middle class families,” he said.
According to Adams’ website, the money that would be provided in education savings accounts isn’t enough to cover the full cost of private school tuition.
Texas House District 66
Matt Shaheen has represented this statehouse district since 2015. Before that, he was a Collin County commissioner. David W. Carstens, a Democrat, is running to unseat Shaheen.
Shaheen touted his conservative record at the Prestonwood forum, including his support for abortion restrictions and prohibiting “sexually oriented performances” in front of minors. He also wrote the bill that would become Texas’ age verification law, which requires pornographic websites to verify users’ ages.
The adult entertainment industry has challenged the law in court. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. Shaheen said at the forum he’s confident the court will uphold the law.
All of the candidates at the Prestonwood forum were asked about their stance on legalizing gambling in Texas. Shaheen said he opposes doing so.
“I am a big time no on gambling,” he said. “I’m actually leading the fight against the efforts.”
Carstens said making gambling legal could allow for more regulations.
“We can bring it back under our control and actually get it out of the hands of children because the current status quo is unconscionable,” he said at the forum.
Carstens, 25, is one of the youngest candidates on the ballot in Collin County. He told KERA in a previous interview that his youth is an advantage because voters are concerned about older politicians’ age. Shaheen is 58.
“Having exclusively people in their 40s, 50s, 60s at a mid to high state level inevitably results in presidents who are 80 years old,” Carstens said.
Texas House District 67
Rep. Jeff Leach is running for reelection against Makala Washington, the only Collin County Texas House Democrat with a primary opponent. She defeated Jefferson Nunn with about 66% of the vote. Leach won his primary with about 65% of the vote.
Known for being conservative, Leach coauthored the bill that would later become the state’s permitless carry law. He also wrote the bill that banned COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
But Leach has faced backlash for his role as an impeachment manager. He quoted Martin Luther King Jr. in his closing arguments at Paxton’s trial in the state senate.
“There comes a time when one must take a stand that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular,” Leach said. “But one must take it because it’s right.”
Leach has been called a RINO — a Republican in Name Only — for his involvement with Paxton’s impeachment.
Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said RINO once referred to Republicans who weren’t conservative enough. But he said the meaning has changed as allegiance to certain Republican politicians — like Paxton or President Donald Trump — has become more important to the party than loyalty to policy or ideology.
“The way that many people use it now is as an accusation of disloyalty,” Wilson said.
Leach has held the seat for six terms. Washington is running for office the first time. She owns “Personality on the Rocks,” a private bartending service, according to her LinkedIn page.
At the forum, Washington said her main priority in the House would be affordable housing.
“It’s very important to me and I have been that person that has worked four jobs in one time and still was struggling to keep a roof over my head,” she said.
Washington also lists reproductive rights and public education as priorities on her campaign website.
Texas House District 70
Rep. Mihaela Plesa was the first Democrat elected to the statehouse from Collin County in decades when she won this seat. Steve Kinard is the Republican candidate.
The House District 70 race is one of the few competitive statehouse races in the state. Plesa won by about 850 votes two years ago. But she said her experience in the legislature will make a difference to voters. Plesa was named freshman of the year by the Texas Legislative Study Group.
“I have a bipartisan record to run on, and I’m proud of that bipartisan record,” she said. “That’s what Texas should look like.”
Abbott has said the Republicans can flip the district. And Kinard agrees. He said that will have a ripple effect in the region.
“We’re really setting the tone not just for Collin County, but for Texas,” Kinard said.
Texas House District 89
Rep. Candy Noble is running for another term against Democrat Darrel Evans.
Noble, who attends Prestonwood Baptist, said at the church’s forum that she plans to carry a bill in the next legislative session that would put the Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms.
“It is important that we teach children to respect authority, respect others, to not steal, to not kill, to not lie, and to keep their promises,” she said.
Noble won her Republican primary against Abraham George with about 53% of the vote. George, who stepped down as the Collin County Republican party chair to run against Noble, is now the state party chair.
George called on Texas voters to “clean” the Texas House after Attorney General Ken Paxton was acquitted in the state senate during his impeachment trial. Noble and all of the other Collin County Republican representatives voted in favor of the impeachment.
In a previous interview with KERA, Evans said the infighting within the Texas GOP over Paxton’s impeachment will benefit Democrats.
“If you look and if you listen, anything that’s coming out of this Democratic Party in Collin County is about issues,” Evans said.
McKinney Charter
McKinney voters have four proposed city charter amendments on their ballots, including pay raises and term limit extensions for city council members.
The four proposed city charter amendments include a measure to increase council members’ term limits from two consecutive four-year terms to three. Another would increase council members’ pay to a monthly stipend of $750 and the mayor’s pay to a $1,000 a month if passed. The other two propositions would amend the charter to comply with new state laws that have been passed since the last charter amendment election in 2019 and remove provisions and policies the city no longer follows.
Right now, McKinney council members are paid $50 per meeting. The mayor is paid $100 per meeting.
Under current city charter rules, council members and the mayor can serve up to 16 nonconsecutive years in office. They can serve two consecutive terms in two positions, with a one-year waiting period before running for a second seat.
If the charter amendment passes, elected city officials in McKinney could serve as many as 24 nonconsecutive years.
McKinney voters elected Mayor George Fuller to his second term in 2021. Bridgette Wallis, who writes the McKinney Citizen to Citizen blog, criticized the proposal in a previous interview with KERA News.
“It is very self-serving to extend your own terms while you’re in office when no one in the public has said anything about wanting that,” Wallis said.
Fuller has denied ambitions to run for another term as mayor, although he has said he doesn’t agree with term limits because he thinks voters should decide.
Under the current charter rules, he could still run for an at-large or district position a year after he finishes his second term. But he said at a February city council meeting he isn’t interested.
“I’ve stated repeatedly that I don’t think I want to run again,” Fuller said.
Frisco ISD Bond Election
The Frisco ISD school board put $1.1 billion in bond funds and a voter-approved tax rate increase on the Nov. 5 ballot earlier this year.
Proposition A
Proposition A would increase the tax rate to $1.0569 per $100 of a home’s property value. The district said the tax rate is necessary to keep up with inflation.
Local property taxes create a lot of revenue. But Frisco ISD doesn’t get to keep all of that money – the state sets a certain amount of money districts get per student known as the basic allotment. The extra property tax dollars Frisco ISD collects get sent to the state, which redistributes the money to districts that don’t have as much property wealth.
The basic allotment, which is no more than $6,160, hasn’t gone up since 2019. There was a bill in the Texas House during the last legislative session that would’ve raised the basic allotment. But it didn’t move forward after the House passed amendment to remove school voucher funding from the bill. Abbott said he would veto any education funding legislation that doesn’t include money for vouchers.
Proposition B
The second proposition on voters’ ballots in Frisco ISD includes $986 million for campus improvements and a new Staley Middle School campus.
Frisco ISD has several campuses that are about 25 years old, including Staley Middle School, the district’s oldest campus. Proposition B’s funds would pay for updates to campus facilities and safety systems.
Proposition C
Proposition C would put $88.2 million toward technology infrastructure, including new devices for staff and students on a five-year rotation and upgrading the district’s internet network.
Proposition D
The final proposition includes $11.2 million for a new tennis facility.
Got a tip? Email Caroline Love at [email protected].
Caroline Love is a Report For America corps member for KERA News.
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