Over the years, Cecil Bell has repeatedly shown himself to be a big spender with unconstitutional values.
Most of Americans would agree, right now we are at a precipice in American life. We currently have the most corrupt president in history sitting in the White House, while simultaneously dealing with an openly corrupt governor in Texas. When our state representatives fall in line with these two, it’s clear that change is needed at a local level. Which is why State House District 3 needs to dump their old garbage.
Cecil Bell JR has been the State House Representative in District 3 since 2013. For someone that has been in office that long, he really has done very little. (More on his record below)
Who’s running against Cecil Bell JR?
Running against Bell this year is Martin Shupp. Although somewhat unknown, Shupp has a lot of great ideas, which include an uphaul of the area’s poorly managed water district, improving infrastructure in flood areas, and keeping district 3 safe during the coronavirus.
Here is a breakdown at some of the biggest issues right now and what we can learn from each candidate’s social media accounts:
| Position | Martin Shupp | Cecil Bell JR |
|---|---|---|
| Coronavirus | It’s very real and dangerous. | Thinks we only have more cases, because of more testing. The economy should come before health and life. |
| Donald Trump | “Donald Trump does more harm than good, tells more lies than truth, has gone out of his way to Divide this country along Racial lines.” | Rabid Trump supporter, listens, repeats, and retweets nearly his every word. |
| Black Lives Matter | Black lives matter. | Never said Black lives matter and called protesters evil (screenshot below). |
Finding information on each candidate.
While Martin Shupp doesn’t have a candidate website, he does have a Twitter, which he is very active on.
Cecil Bell JR does have a website, although it doesn’t really get into who he is or what he’s done for District 3. However, thanks to the power of the internet, I was able to pull all of that information together for you right here.
If you live in State House District 3, you may already know that Cecil Bell is a one-tracked minded guy, with his main focus being on preventing the LGBT community from receiving equal rights.
In fact his obsession with regulating people’s bedroom habits got him voted The Worst Legislator in 2015 by Texas Monthly.
However, even for the voters that support this position and don’t want the LGBT community to have equal rights, this is something that the Supreme Court decided years ago, no one state representative can do anything about that.
How has each candidate of State House District 3 responded to the coronavirus?
Take a look at the difference. (Warning: Cecil Bell’s posts are long and stupid, I’ll give a TLDR version at the bottom of each one) This one is kind of long, but important to demonstrate both character and leadership qualities. If you want to know about other issues besides coronavirus, feel free to scroll down.
Cecil Bell JR
Martin Shupp
State House District 3 encompasses Montgomery and Waller County.
As of yesterday, 6/28/2020; Montgomery County has had 1,952 coronavirus cases and 36 deaths.
Waller County has had 145 cases.
“Cecil Bell is a serious nutcase,” should be a “just stating the obvious,” however it hasn’t been obvious to many of the State House District 3 constituents. At least the ones who voted.
But who voted?
The 2010 state census determined there were 120,00 eligible voters in State House District 3. (Although this number is higher now, due to population growth.)
In 2012, Bell ran unopposed, bringing in just over 46,000 votes. 74,000 didn’t vote, but he was unopposed, so maybe they just didn’t want to.
In 2014, Bell received almost 29,000 votes and his Libertarian candidate almost 3,000. That left this district with 88,000 eligible non-voters.
2016 was an election year in Trump country, which gave Bell 56,000 votes. He was also unopposed then, though more than half of eligible voters did not vote.
In 2018, Bell did have a Democratic opponent, Lisa Seger. However Bell got 48,000 votes, while Seger only got 15,000. But at least 57,000 eligible voters in State House District 3 did not vote.
How is 2020 different?
The economy is in the tank, Black lives matter has woken a lot of people up, and the coronavirus is raging out of control. Here is a reason to be hopeful that change is coming:
In the 2018 primary, Seger only got 2,762 votes, and Bell only got 15,029 votes. Although, I’ve noticed in Texas, Republicans vote more in general elections than primaries.
This year, Martin Shupp got 5,349 votes in the primary, opposed to Cecil Bell’s 19,774. The Democratic primary turn out in 2020 is nearly double what it was in 2018. However, the Republican turn out is only 0.31% higher.
The primaries happened on March 3, before the big impact on the economy before the coronavirus. Trump’s numbers are in the toilet, so are Abbott’s. Is it a long shot? Maybe. The odds are in Cecil Bell’s favor, but it is 2020 and stranger things have happened. Getting the voters to turn out is key.
Waller County
In 2015 the Christian Science Monitor asked, “Is Waller County the most racist county in Texas?” Aside from Waller County being where Sandra Bland was pulled over, arrested, jailed, and died; Waller County has had a long history of racism. The repeated efforts of Waller County to stop black voters at Prairie View A&M from casting a ballot in elections is well documented and goes back decades.
The fight to allow black students to vote in Waller County is still raging on. Right now, we just don’t know if they will be disenfranchised again in the 2020 elections. While we hope they won’t, if it was up to Cecil Bell JR, they definitely would. He has had a personal hand in voting suppression in his time in office.
He voted for congressional gerrymandering, for state senate gerrymandering, and for state house gerrymandering. Each one of these votes were made for the sole purpose of voter suppression. In 2017, he also voted against straight-ticket voting in order to hurt down-ballot democrats.
Then there is the whole gun sanctuary thing.
In 2019, Waller County declared themselves a gun sanctuary. Yeah, stupid. Especially considering only a few years earlier, they were sued for not letting firearms in the court house. Now Waller County residents are free to bring their pistols and long guns into their divorce hearings, civil suits with neighbors, and to fight citations. I’m sure nothing bad will come from that.
Cecil Bell is another one of Texas’ gun nuts and has voted for some pretty extreme bills. Like to reduce the amount of hours for training needed to get a concealed handgun license. And to allow armed people to stroll on college campuses with guns. He also voted to prohibit enforcement of federal laws related to guns and voted against using state funds to enforce federal laws related to guns.
Cecil Bell wants shooters to not raise suspicion when bringing guns in church, while in an elementary school parking lot, or anyone at anytime, anywhere.
The only thing Cecil Bell seems to care about more than guns and gays is regulating women.
Which is why he voted against equal pay for women. Does that matter to the 100,000 women in State House District 3? He put in a no-vote to expand healthcare coverage for postpartum depression. Cecil Bell doesn’t care about that too much, though. As he thinks women should be forced to have babies they can’t afford or take care of.
That’s why he co-authored and voted for a bill that would require anyone under the age of 18 to get parental consent to obtain an abortion, an increase on costs related to abortions, and to prevent discrimination of fetuses.
But that doesn’t mean he cares about children.
Cecil Bell voted against free breakfast for children in poverty. He voted against a bill which would prohibit texting and driving. Bell voted against a bill which would amend education standards and standards for public school recess.
He also voted against a bill which would require incidents of domestic violence to be reported to DPS. But, surely that was only to make sure that guns weren’t taken away from domestic abusers.
In 2020, it’s time to get out there and vote them all out.
Here is Martin Shupp’s actblue account.
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