People in U.S. House District 34 essentially will elect a new representative in the Nov. 8 election after Filemon Vela, who was elected to the seat in 2012, resigned earlier this year. Both major party candidates, however, are currently serving in Congress, and their performance suggests that both are active members of our national lawmaking body.
Thus, it will be up to voters to decide which of the two politically different legislators will defend their interests — Vicente Gonzalez, a moderate Democrat, or Mayra Flores, whom voters elected to serve out Vela’s term and has been linked to the more conservative side of the Republican Party. Gonzalez has served three terms representing House District 15, which runs from Hidalgo County to north of San Antonio. Post-census redistricting placed his McAllen-area home in District 34, and he now is running to represent that district, which largely follows the Gulf Coast parallel to District 15.
Flores assumed the seat on June 21 and has voted in all of the 179 House votes held since then. Gonzalez has missed 139 of 3,069 roll-call votes since he first took office in January 2017. That’s a 95.5% voting record, and a majority of his missed votes have taken place in mid 2020, during the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in recent months, which Gonzalez has attributed to a health issue without giving details.
Gonzalez has shown to be a moderate in an area that traditionally has been loyal to the Democratic Party but tends to be more conservative than other liberal strongholds. VoteTrack places Gonzalez ideologically in the center with regard to legislation sponsored and votes taken. He has supported law enforcement issues, authoring a bill that increased funding to help law enforcement identify remains and close cold cases. He also offered legislation to help find affordable housing for homeless veterans and to help protect foreign-born U.S. military veterans from deportation and help them attain citizenship. He has voted with Republicans on several issues including demanding greater accountability from the World Bank and in opposition to a federal assault weapons ban.
Flores has been linked to, and is supported by, Republican Party elements that some consider extreme. She has repeated and redistributed statements from the former president and right-leaning lawmakers, as well as groups such as QAnon. Like Gonzalez, however, Flores in Congress has shown a willingness to cross party lines in her brief legislative career. She joined Democrats in voting for improvements to violent crime investigations and in support of funding for medical marijuana and cannabinoid research.
Such votes suggest that both officials will weigh what’s best for the Rio Grande Valley against positions of their respective parties that might run counter to the needs and interests of this area.
Both Flores and Gonzalez have shown that they will be full participants in the legislative process. It will be up to voters, therefore, to determine that participation promotes the more liberal positions of the Democratic Party, or the more conservative views of the GOP.
Needless to say, every vote counts.
