| The Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus (TSDC) Executive Board voted to endorse openly gay former State Representative Glen Maxey for an open seat on the Democratic National Committee (DNC). If elected at the state convention in June, Maxey will succeed openly lesbian former Houston City Councilwoman Sue Lovell, who has held this seat for many years. Lovell announced earlier this year that she was not seeking re-election for another term on the DNC.
 Maxey is one of two candidates who have announced for this seat. The other candidate, Zephaniah "Zeph" Capo of Houston, is a current member of the State Democratic Executive Committee (SDEC) from Senate District 15. Like Maxey, Capo is openly gay and is a public school teacher who is actively involved with the labor union movement.
Both candidates were asked to complete a candidate questionnaire and to participate in separate telephone interviews with members of the TSDC Executive Board. Following the candidate interviews, Board members voted 19-3 to endorse Maxey.
There are ten (10) DNC seats from Texas that are elected by the delegates to the Texas Democratic Convention every four years. They are divided evenly by gender. Two of the seats are designated to represent African-Americans, two for Hispanics, one for non-urban areas of the state and one for labor. The other four (4) seats are considered "at large" seats, although one of them is generally regarded as a seat for youth, another for LGBT and the other two are divided by gender as at-large seats. The DNC Chair also has the discretion to appoint other Texans to the DNC.
Although the DNC seat currently held by Lovell is not "officially" designated an LGBT seat, Maxey intends to make that his goal if he is elected at the State Democratic Convention, which takes place on June 7-9 in Houston. Recently elected President of Stonewall Democrats of Austin, Maxey believes that "it is imperative that the DNC have openly gay, fearless leaders" and "I shall continue to be one". He is also committed to working with the newly elected State Democratic Party Chair to "rebuild the Texas Democratic Party from the ground up" and to focus on unregistered voters and registered voters who do not vote, because "those folks are our folks". Texas has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the nation.
The TSDC is the official LGBT Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party and has approximately 1,000 dues-paying members from Stonewall Democrats chapters in Austin, Dallas, Denton County, El Paso, Houston, the lower Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio and Tarrant County. |
