The Republican Party successfully flipped the District 2 seat on the State Board of Education, where L.J. Francis, an advocate for prohibiting the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” won a tight election over the Democratic candidate Victor Perez.
Francis won election with 194,792 votes, or 50.2%, to 193,127 votes, or 49.8%, for Perez, with all precincts reporting and 100% of the vote counted, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s office.
All 15 seats on the State Board of Education were open in the recently concluded midterm election because of redistricting that took place last year. The board is responsible for deciding what Texas’ 5 1/2 million students are required to learn in the state’s public schools. There will be 10 Republicans and five Democrats on the board starting in January.
District 2 runs from the Rio Grande Valley along the Coastal Bend toward Corpus Christi.
Ruben Cortez, D-Brownsville, has represented the district since 2012. Cortez did not run for re-election, instead running for District 37 in the Texas House of Representatives, where he lost the Democratic primary to Luis Villarreal Jr. of Harlingen, who eventually lost in the general election to Janie Lopez of San Benito by a margin of 51.8% to 48.2%
On his official website Francis thanks voters for supporting him and promises to “Stand up to ‘Woke’ Liberals.”
Francis, of Corpus Christi, states that he is a former educator with hands-on experience in the classroom, a proud Texan and U.S. citizen after immigrating legally from Jamaica, a professional engineer after completing his PhD at Texas A&M-Kingsville and a “community servant and advocate for students, parents, and teachers.”
“Our schools are becoming a government experiment, and our children are suffering. Parents should have full decision-making power to determine their child’s education. The government and its political agenda should not decide our children’s future,” Francis states on the website.
Cortez said he wishes Francis would have spent more time worrying about the 5 1/2 million students in Texas public schools than in tearing down the state’s public education system. He also expressed regret that Perez had not fought a more vigorous campaign.
“Democrats need to continue to fight like hell for our community. If not these are the types of outcomes that we get. I don’t believe that the nominee fought like hell to win this seat and this is the outcome that we got,” Cortez said Friday.
“The State Board of Education should be first and foremost prioritizing the needs of the 5 1/2 million students that we have in our Texas public schools. I know that for me that was a very serious responsibility and that was my focus. But unfortunately, their needs were never mentioned by LJ Francis, the Republican who won.”
An online forum was to have taken place Sept. 17 via Futuro RGV, a McAllen-based civic engagement organization. On the day of the forum Nedra Kinerk, its organizer, announced that Perez had canceled his appearance saying he was under doctor’s care for an illness.
Cortez said he hopes that once Francis is in office “he will set aside all of his crazy conspiracy theories and actually work to lift up our students instead of putting them down. Instead of putting teachers down, which he did so much of, he should be building up our educators. Our teachers are the backbone of the state … the nation. Nobody can go into any career path without having first being taught by a teacher. It’s disturbing how much time he spent disparaging public education.”
The Herald reached out to Francis for comment, but he had not responded by press time.
