Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Wendy Davis came to the Wichita Falls County Democrats headquarters Saturday afternoon to speak to supporters before they began door-to-door canvasing.
Davis spoke about Texas democrats’ push to register more voters in a state that is mostly republican.
“For the first time in years and years and years, we increased voter registration in a gubernatorial year over a presidential election year,” Davis said in her speech. “Between 2010 and 2014, we have 341,000 more voters than we did back in 2010, and most of them are ours because we registered them all.”
Magaly Rincon-Zachary, biology professor and director of undergraduate research, said she attended the political event to participate in the door-to-door “block walk” after Davis’ speech.
“It’s a part of it, the political process, and I’ve never done it before,” Rincon-Zachary said. “You get to meet people. It’s fun and good exercise.”
When asked about K-12 education playing a bigger role than higher education in the heated gubernatorial race, Davis said she would put the money republicans cut back into education.
“We know that so many of our students are suffering crushing student loan debt right now. The tuition cost in Texas universities has doubled in the last 10 years, and at the same time access to Texas grants has decreased dramatically,” Davis said. “In 2011 when I filibustered the cuts to public schools, I was also filibustering against the cuts to that financial aid program and I believe it’s time to restore those funds.”
Davis said the expected $5 billion revenue surplus in the next legislative session should go toward funding education.
“Our priority for that surplus ought to be to make sure that our public schools are funded and that our children have the ability to access college because our financial aid programs are fully funded for them,” Davis said.
Bethany Martinez, education senior, said she attended the event to take part in the canvasing and because she thinks Davis is the better candidate for teachers.
“Greg Abbott does not care about education. He feels that it’s not the state’s job to give education to all these kids,” Martinez said. “There’s so much work and they’re (teachers) not getting compensated nearly enough for what they do, and I think what they do is one of the most important things that you can do: Teach our children and give them education.”
Wendy Davis
Gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, a democrat, visited Wichita Falls Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014, four days before the mid-term election.
Bob Hampton • Nov 10, 2014 at 10:55 AM
I just responded to a survey for Greeks on MSU campus. The questions asked about size and space of facility and I wanted someone at MSU to do some research in the old Greek advisors files and find the wonderful work that Sophia Rodriquez did back in 2005. She had a complete set of architectural renderings that she went to the University of Houston and brought back for a full Greek presentation that we did together in May, 2005, for the Board of Regents. A great deal of work went into that presentation and it was completely ignored by all Regents and president, except Regent Pat Haywood who saw the long range possibilities. I would love to talk more about this if contacted, but bottom line is we already have a workable plan on file thanks to Dean Rodriquez.