Burnt Orange Report

Mary Beth Harrell Announces Run for TX-31

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Taking on Republican John Carter of Round Rock, Mary Beth Harrell has announced her campaign against him as a Democrat in Congressional District 31, which covers all or part of 8 Central Texas counties just north of Austin. The Killeen Daily Herald picked up coverage of her kick off...

Mary Beth Harrell of Kempner threw her name into the ring Tuesday, stopping in Killeen and Round Rock to announce her candidacy.

“A lot of us do think the country is headed in the wrong direction,” she said. “We need to turn that around.”

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Concerns about why the war started, when it will end and how to avoid a similar conflict in the future were some of the issues the military wife and mother talked about.

She also expressed interest in helping create an affordable health care program, lessening the pressure of gas prices and questioning the tax breaks that major corporations are allowed.

“We pay our taxes. They need to pay theirs,” she said.

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Harrell’s call to politics started early, she said.

“If you go to my Web site, you’ll see my dad shaking hands with Bobby Kennedy when he was running for the Senate,” she said. “It’s been a family tradition. And it’s never changed.”

Harrell’s husband retired from the military after 23 years in the Army as a chief warrant officer 3. Her two sons are also in the military, one here at Fort Hood as a staff sergeant and the younger son is stationed in Arizona as a sergeant.

Harrell and her husband also operate the nonprofit St. Francis Animal Sanctuary and Assisi Animal Refuge.

Out of her 20 years in the Killeen community, Harrell has spent the last seven as a criminal law attorney, doing additional work as a prosecutor in Nolanville and interim prosecutor in Temple.

This district went 65/33/2 last November when Jon Porter ran against Carter, but it looks like Harrell will have more support and organization this go round. This is a race on one of those areas where we should be running Democrats for our longer term strategy of building back out base in the state, spreading our message, and helping those down the ballot. This district covers Williamson and Bell counties, high growth areas, one in which we need to regain some level of competition. Plus, I hope Harrell's efforts will aid some of the House seats that sit in her district, such as the Williamson County challenges of Karen Felthauser and John Stauber. I'd keep an Eye on Williamson County (blog) for more updates from those races.