Democratic Texas state Rep. Jolanda Jones doesn’t wait for permission to speak her mind. A trial lawyer, former track-and-field champion, and the first Black out LGBTQ+ member of the Texas legislature, she’s running for Congress in a crowded field.
“I was inspired to run because my constituents asked me to,” Jones told The Advocate in an interview.
If she wins Tuesday’s special election in Houston’s 18th Congressional District, Jones would make history as the first Black out lesbian elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She’s proud of that milestone but impatient with the fact that it’s still a milestone at all. “It’s 2025,” she said. “It makes no damn sense that we’re still having firsts.”
A life built on defiance and purpose
Jones has long been a force of nature in Texas politics. A four-time NCAA heptathlon champion at the University of Houston, she brought her competitive instincts into law and public service. “I’m the only person in this race who’s drafted legislation, filed it, whipped votes, and gotten bills passed in a Republican-controlled legislature,” she said. “That shows commitment. I don’t talk about fighting for people — I do it.” She was first elected to the Texas House in 2022.
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Her personal story reads like a primer on resilience. She was raised in Houston’s Third Ward, survived the loss of her father to suicide, and built a career representing clients the system overlooks — “regular, everyday people,” she said. “People who’ve been bullied, discriminated against, or denied justice. That’s who I am. I’m the people’s champ, not the ivory tower champ.”
Calling out bias — even within her own movement
At the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund’s Black Leaders Caucus Reception in Washington, D.C., in September, Jones stood before a room of donors and activists and delivered a characteristically unvarnished critique. “When Black LGBTQ+ people run, we don’t get the same support as white LGBTQ+ people,” she said. “If you want your money to go to a white gay person and not a Black gay person, ask yourself why.”
Her speech — alternately funny, furious, and deeply personal — challenged progressive donors to reckon with racial inequities inside their own movement. “Black people fight for everybody,” she said. “My question is, when are y’all going to start fighting for us?”
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For Jones, representation isn’t a side note. It’s the point. “I’m the first Black openly LGBTQ+ person in the Texas legislature,” she said. “When I win, I’ll be the first Black openly lesbian person in the U.S. Congress. Let that marinate.”
Jolanda Jones speaks during an endorsement screening with the Editorial Board on October 1.
Jones speaks during an endorsement screening with the Editorial Board on October 1.Sharon Steinmann/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
A crowded race in a high-stakes district
The race Jones has entered is anything but simple. Sixteen candidates are vying to fill the seat left vacant by the death of longtime Congressman Sylvester Turner. Under Texas’s special-election rules, all candidates appear on the same ballot, and if no one reaches 50 percent of the vote, the top two advance to a runoff.
That scenario looks increasingly likely. According to PBS NewsHour’s live results tracker, turnout has been steady but fragmented across Houston’s sprawling, majority-minority district, which stretches from the city’s inner core to its northern suburbs. No candidate is expected to clear the 50 percent threshold.
Polling from the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs in mid-October showed Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee leading with 27 percent, followed by former City Council member Amanda Edwards at 23 percent and Jones at 15 percent. About 13 percent of voters remain undecided.
The platform: voting rights, housing, and unions
Jones’s campaign is anchored in the same populist ideals that have defined her legislative career. “If we don’t have the right to vote for people who understand us, Republicans are going to control everything,” she said. “Voting rights are the foundation of every other freedom.”
She is also focused on affordable housing and economic stability. “The most fundamental need any human has is housing,” she said. “If you don’t have a safe, affordable place to live, your life is going to be hard.”
Describing herself as a dues-paying member of the Texas State Employees Union, Jones has made labor solidarity a cornerstone of her political identity. “I’m a lawyer. I don’t have to be in a union,” she said. “But I pay my dues because unions are as strong as their dues-paying members.”
Earlier this year, she boycotted a Democratic fundraiser at a nonunion hotel in Houston, saying she wouldn’t “pick an annual fundraiser over the workers.”
‘I figured out who the hell I am’
Jones came out publicly at 50, a moment that, she says, reshaped her understanding of what it means to be courageous. “The strong person you see now was terrified to come out,” she said. “I spent a lot of my life becoming who I thought people wanted me to be. Now I’ve figured out who the hell I am, and I’ve embraced me — all the bells and whistles included.”
Her humor remains undiminished. “People think I go to a makeup artist,” she said, laughing. “No — I watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. That’s how I learned.”
The fight ahead
The 18th District’s demographics, including 43 percent Hispanic and 32 percent Black residents, make it one of the most diverse districts in the country. That diversity, Jones says, is both a strength and a challenge: a coalition that must be nurtured, not assumed.
“I’m not running for the establishment,” she said. “I’m running for the people, not the powerful.”
If her political history is any guide, she won’t back down easily. Jones has survived political attacks, courtroom battles, and a lifetime of breaking barriers. Now she’s asking voters to help her break one more.
“It’s not business as usual for me,” she said. “It’s the people as usual.”
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Lesbian Texas state rep running for Congress says she’s ‘running for the people, not the powerful’
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