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Welcome toTexas-VoGue

..A voter's guide for criminal justice and prison reform

Welcome toTexas-VoGue

..A voter's guide for criminal justice and prison reform

About Texas-VoGue

The Texas VoGue Your Vote project is a coalition of seven Texas advocacy groups (Link to their websites) representing hundreds of thousands of Texas voters who have friends and family members gravely impacted by the state's broken and crumbling criminal justice system. We desire long-overdue reform.

Did you know that statistics show more than half of American adults have had a family member incarcerated? This doesn’t even take the children into account... the children who get fed into the cycle of crime. It’s even worse in Texas where we have the distinction of being in the top 5 in the U.S. for the percentage of people behind bars.

We are tired of being ignored. We are a large voter group who show up at the polls. We are not happy with the way Texas leaders ignored and/or stonewalled efforts to make reforms to the Texas prison system and criminal justice system in the 87th Texas Legislature and for many years prior to that.

We have created specific surveys for the positions of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, state senator, state representative and district attorney.

Candidate responses (or lack thereof) are reported in these pages and shared with various media outlets across the state.

Voting in November 2022

Early voting starts Monday, October 24. If you live in Texas House of Representatives Districts 48 or 136 in the Austin area, or in Districts 100 and 107 in the Dallas area, all the candidates for State Rep in your district completed the Texas-VoGue candidate survey and you can read their responses as you decide who to vote for…who will best represent the criminal justice and prison reform issues that are important to you!

If you don’t live in one of those four districts, you might find that at least one candidate in your district responded. You can get an idea of how that person might represent your reform interests. There is still time to ask unresponsive candidates to weigh in on our survey. You can message them on Facebook, Tweet, or email them. Some of them give a phone number with their Facebook pages.

Texas-VoGue founders and sponsors also urge you to notice which candidates chose NOT to respond. That can be a BIG statement of how that person feels about criminal justice and prison reforms. Do you want to vote for someone who couldn’t be bothered to comment on injustice in the system and inhumane treatment in the prisons? All the candidates in contested races received multiple, multiple invitations to complete the candidate surveys tailored for the office they are running for, based on the kind of interaction their office can be expected to have with our issues.

Texas-VoGue directors and sponsors urge you to be an educated voter and to vote for the “reform party,” instead of any other labels you are used to using for your politics.

Here are the candidates on the November ballot for the offices of

Governor: Incumbent Greg Abbott (R), Beto O'Rourke (D), Delilah Barrios (Green), and Mark Tippetts (Libertarian). Jacqueline Abernathy (American Solidarity Party) and Mark Goloby (Independent) are write-in candidates who have met state requirements to have their votes counted and reported.
Lt. Governor: Incumbent Dan Patrick (R), Mike Collier (D), and Shanna Steele (Libertarian)
Attorney General: Incumbent Ken Paxton (R), Rochelle Garza (D) and Mark Ash (Libertarian)

Of these candidates for top state offices, Governor candidates Barrios, Tippetts, and Goloby have completed the VoGue Voter Guide candidate survey. Lt. Governor candidate Steele also completed the survey. See their responses. Both Rochelle Garza and Mark Ash, candidates for AG responded. See their responses.

Please ask other candidates listed here to complete the VoGue survey for their office.

What's Next? Where do we go after November 8, 2022?

The Texas-VoGue voter guide for justice and reform advocates has completed our inaugural year. As the 88th session of the Texas legislature begins in January 2023, we hope justice and reform advocates will continue to use the candidate surveys on our website to call lawmakers to account on issues of criminal justice reform and prison reform.

If a person completed the VoGue survey for their office, you now have statements from them to refer to as you ask for their help and support of various issues. Even if a lawmaker did not complete the survey for their office while a candidate, you can use information from the surveys to ask for support on issues important to you. You will find a lot of background information on the surveys themselves and also links to information from other sources. One of our goals is to educate Texas leaders on justice and reform issues they might actually be unaware of if these issues are not subjects they have been studying already.

As a brand-new initiative for the elections of 2022, VoGue staff were a little disappointed in the number of candidate surveys completed, but when we look at the numbers as percentages of candidates for contested elections in November, we are proud to claim the responses were not bad for a start-up!

We heard from 3 of 6 candidates for Governor...50%; 1 of 3 candidates for Lt. Gov...33%; 2 of 3 candidates for Attorney General...66%; 1 of 14 candidates in District Attorney races...7%; 7 of 46 candidates for State Senator...15%; and 46 of 197 candidates for State Representative...23%.

When we gear up to contact candidates for the 2024 primary elections, will you help? Email info3@texas-vogue.com

Sponsors of the VoGue Your Vote Project

TIFA...Texas Inmate Families Association

Providing support, education, and advocacy for prison families and their incarcerated loved ones for 25 years.

TIFA.ORG

TCJE...Texas Center for Justice & Equity

Advocating throughout Texas to end mass incarceration, shift funding towards community supports, and reduce racial inequities in the criminal legal system.

TCJE

The Prison Show

A live radio program airing Fridays from 9 - 11 pm Central on KPFT FM, Houston. In the first hour, hosts and guests discuss issues of interest to convicts and the second hour is devoted to shout-outs to your family and friends behind the bars.

The Prison show

Texas Voices

Promoting a more balanced, effective, and rational criminal justice system, TVRJ advocates for common sense, research-based laws and policies through education, legislation, litigation, and support for persons required to register for sex related offenses and their families.

Texas Voices

TPCA...TEXAS PRISONS COMMUNITY ADVOCATES

Educating and supporting family members, incarcerated individuals, and others...connecting them to organizational resources, encouraging awareness, and advocating for the advancement of humane conditions within the Texas Prisons.

TPCA

IPFC... International Prisoner's Family Conference

Featuring dynamic, knowledgeable speakers; providing opportunities to learn best practice approaches and exchange creative ideas; offering amazing opportunities to network and exchange encouragement and support.

IPFC

Ignite Justice

Ignite Justice’s mission is to foster community awareness and engagement to overcome the issues facing the justice system, incarcerated people, families, and the community, through education, support, and advocacy.

Ignite Justice

Join Us

If you are a prison family support group or justice advocacy group working in Texas and would like to join us with your support for this project, please click the button below to contact us.

Join Us

Welcome toTexas-VoGue

Welcome toTexas-VoGue

About Texas-VoGue

Voting in November 2022

What's Next? Where do we go after November 8, 2022?

Go on record with reform topics most important to you

VoGue Vision for Justice Blog