Boot the absentee congressman. Here’s our pick for Texas District 38 | Endorsement

By The Editorial Board, Opinions from the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board
Sep 23, 2024

The world needs more candidates like Melissa McDonough. Not only is the moderate Democrat willing to wage an uphill battle for a congressional seat tailor-made for a Republican and currently represented by a Trump-endorsed Iraq War veteran elected in 2022 by 28 points. She assembled a focus group of Republicans, including her own pastor, to learn what exactly they were looking for in a politician.

The answers surprised her. They didn’t want all the talk about her background or qualifications or policy platform. They didn’t want talk about Hunt’s missteps, including those that have led to a formal ethics investigation. They wanted action.

“What we discovered in our Republican focus group is just: ‘Tell me you’re gonna get it done and go do it,'” McDonough told the editorial board. “‘Just tell me you’re going to fix this. You’re going to work diligently on it, and it’s going to be your full-time job.'”

With that simplified message, McDonough, 52, a Realtor from Tomball, says she has attracted many Republicans to volunteer for her in a district gerrymandered to include urban neighborhoods within the 610 Loop such as River Oaks and cities on the outskirts of Harris County such as Cypress. It’s a “purple” coalition bound by commonsense positions on issues such as reducing gun violence by passing legislation to supply safes to gun owners; improving access to health care by using federal dollars to fund health clinics in public schools; and even — to her surprise — abortion, where she’s appealed to voters who care about bodily autonomy and understand that the procedure is sometimes necessary to save the life of a mother.

McDonough says her pastor told her: “‘Melissa, this is a needle and a little hole you’re trying to thread. And I’m like, ‘I know, but we can do it, and it can happen, and it is happening.’ So I love that we’re able to bring these purple solutions and just keep going with it.”

It helps McDonough that Hunt, 42, has had a rocky first term in office. While he’s an active surrogate for Donald Trump, crisscrossing the nation to appear at his rallies and even getting a coveted speaking slot at the Republican National Convention, he appears to be less active as a legislator. According to GovTrack, a nonpartisan database that monitors Congress, Hunt has missed more than 16% of roll call votes, far worse than the median of 2% among current representatives. Hunt, who did not meet with the editorial board, occasionally reaches across the aisle — he and Democratic U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher have joined forces to push the Army Corps of Engineers to complete the study of an underground drainage tunnel system in Houston — but despite being a “rising star” in the House majority, only one of the eight bills he’s sponsored even made it to the floor for a vote. That one legislation — a technical bill regarding royalties on oil and gas production — was signed into law this month.

Most concerning is that Hunt is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegedly spending $74,000 in campaign funds at the Post Oak Hotel’s exclusive Oak Room social club, which is owned by Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta. While Hunt insisted in a written response that those payments were “exclusively for campaign-related purposes,” the Board of the Office of Congressional Ethics’ investigation found that “there is substantial reason to believe” Hunt used campaign funds for personal use. The board noted that Hunt did not cooperate with the investigation, and recommended in June that the House Ethics Committee issue subpoenas to several people, including Hunt and his wife.

“Most people do not know who their representative is,” McDonough said.

We don’t believe that would be a problem with McDonough, whose extracurricular activities as a private citizen have included trips to Austin and Washington to lobby for the National Association of Realtors. She also organizes working groups where bankers and mortgage lenders connect with low-income renters to help set them on a path toward home ownership.

McDonough’s indefatigable nature is the stuff that good representatives are made of. For instance, she made several recent trips to the U.S.-Mexico border, meeting with Border Patrol and Customs agents and National Guard members to better understand illegal immigration. She came away convinced that Congress missed a real opportunity to improve border security and give those enforcement agencies the resources they needed. She said she would’ve enthusiastically voted for a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year, which ultimately failed to pass the House — a vote that Hunt missed — after Trump reportedly instructed Republican lawmakers to vote it down.

We prefer representatives who show up for the job voters elected them for. We have no doubt McDonough would clear that bar and be a stellar representative for the 38th Congressional District.