Published January 18, 2022

In anticipation of the upcoming Texas primary election, FARFA has developed a candidate questionnaire for individuals running for the Texas State House and Senate. We’ve created an accompanying list of our priority issues for the state’s next legislative session in 2023 (note: the priority list may change somewhat over the coming year).

With your help, we can identify which candidates care about independent family farmers and local foods. We’ve sent the questionnaire to the Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, and Independent candidates for whom we could find email addresses. However, they are far more likely to take the time to respond to our questionnaire if they receive a request from someone in their district … in other words, someone who might vote for them in the election!

Here’s what we’re asking you to do:

A. Find out who the candidates for state legislature are in your district. If you have time, please contact EACH candidate from all the parties – this is not a partisan effort. If you do not have time, then focus on the candidates in the primary that you plan to vote in.

1. Your district number may have changed since the last election, thanks to redistricting, so first look up your district number. The easiest way is to go to the Texas Tribune’s redistricting page. Enter your address then scroll down past the Congressional district information – you want to find your new State House and State Senate Districts.
2. To find the candidates’ email addresses, we’ve posted a spreadsheet on the FARFA website of all the candidates for the Texas House and Senate – Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, and Independent. The information is drawn from the Secretary of State’s website (and we owe a thank you to Independent Texans for their help in finding and compiling it!). Some of the candidates didn’t file an email address, or their address has changed – but you should be able to find any missing ones by doing an online search with their names.

B. Copy the email address for the candidate(s) for your House and Senate districts and send them an email using language similar to the following:

“My name is _____________ and I am a resident of the district in which you are running for the Texas Legislature. I am __[a farmer/a supporter of local foods and farmers/etc.]__ and am interested in knowing more about your support for local foods and family farmers in Texas.

I _[follow the work/am a member] _ of Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, an organization that has compiled a list of priority issues for the 2023 Legislative Session. The organization is conducting a survey of candidates on issues that are important to them and to me, and I would appreciate your participation by filling out a brief questionnaire.

You can read about FARFA’s priority issues here: https://farmandranchfreedom.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Priority-bills-for-2023-Jan-2022.pdf.

The link to the Candidate Questionnaire is https://forms.gle/25JYJpb346gTRp6RA. Thank you for your participation.”

We will share the responses on our website prior to the Primary Election and will let you know when those are available. And don’t forget to vote on March 1!

Thank you so much for helping us gather this important information for Texas voters.

Alert on Significant Congressional Race

Our candidate questionnaire is aimed at the people running for the Texas State Legislature.  We also want to alert you to one of the candidates running for Congress. Eddie Rodriguez, currently a State Representative, is running for the 35^th Congressional District of Texas.

We have endorsed Eddie Rodriguez in multiple elections in the past because of his consistent championing of sustainable agriculture and local foods in the Texas Legislature. Eddie sponsored one of the original cottage food bills in 2011 and sponsored the expansion of the law in 2013 and 2019.

He fought for property tax reform for small farmers and supported our efforts to pass numerous other bills, including the bills to cap fees on farmers’ market vendors and to allow farmers to sell ungraded eggs at restaurants and retailers. He founded and led the Farm-to-Table Caucus in the Texas Legislature, encouraging state legislators from both parties to support small farmers, ranchers, and other food producers while increasing access to healthy, local food for all Texans.

Check out Eddie Rodriguez’s website and consider supporting him in whatever way you can in his run for Congress. We would all benefit from his voice in DC when it comes to regenerative agriculture and local foods!