parasite called the New World Screwworm<\/a> were recently detected\u00a0on South Texas cattle ranches\u00a0located in the 23rd Congressional District, which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso.\u00a0The flesh-eating larvae could wreak havoc on ranchers, and federal authorities are rushing to stop the spread.<\/p>\nAbbott hasn\u2019t said why he\u2019s delayed setting a special election, but the delicate balance of power in the U.S. House might explain the problem. Republicans hold a 4-seat majority, meaning just two Republican defections\u00a0can kill a bill.<\/p>\n
While the 23rd District has been held by Republicans for over 10 years, Democrats have been winning special elections all over the nation in recent months, even in districts where the GOP has dominated.<\/p>\n
As governor, Abbott has the sole discretion set the special election to fill the seat.<\/p>\n
Republican Brandon Herrera and Democrat Katy Padilla Stout are running in the Nov. 3 general election\u00a0to replace Gonzales, but the winner will not be sworn into Congress until January. That would mean the\u00a0seat would go vacant for more than 265 days – the second longest congressional vacancy since the beginning of 2025. The longest vacancy also came from Texas. Abbott waited so long to set a special election for the 18th Congressional District in Houston that it went 334 days without representation.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreg Abbott is leaving TX-23 vacant because he knows Democrats could win it in a special election,\u201d Menefee said on Tuesday. \u201cHe has no shame.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the same day Gonzales resigned, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., also stepped down. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has already set a special election in August.<\/p>\n
Padilla Stout said that because of the screwworm discoveries, Abbott should be moving faster to make sure the region has\u00a0a voice in Congress.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe leaving 800,000 constituents without representation is an emergency,\u201d Padilla Stout said in an interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Herrera hasn\u2019t pushed Abbott to call a special election, but on social media, he\u00a0has been pushing the federal government to do more to address the screwworm outbreak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe time to act was years ago,\u201d Herrera said on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Greg Abbott hasn\u2019t said when, or if, he will set a special election for a U.S. House…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-330645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}