With John Ratcliffe stepping down, Texas’ 4th Congressional District has an opportunity to put a man in Congress who is one of the nation’s champions of election integrity.
That man is Aaron Harris.
I met Aaron Harris several years ago while investigating corruption at the Tarrant Regional Water District. Prior to the 2015 TRWD election, all polling and other data pointed to a sizable victory for insurgent candidates who would finally force the TRWD into transparency.
Yet somehow, the cronies held onto their seats. Harris was mystified. When asking colleagues about the strange reversal of fortune, they just chuckled and said, “Welcome to the Fort Worth Way”. The inference was that Fort Worth corruption always found its way to victory.
Aaron Harris began an exhaustive investigation and, sure enough, turned up evidence of widespread voter fraud via ballot harvesting. His work triggered the largest investigation of voter fraud in Texas history, which has since resulted in 10 convictions with five other cases still pending – including four from the TRWD election.
Aaron Harris also got SB 5 passed, the landmark legislation that makes it a felony to engage in most of the ballot harvesting techniques previously used in Texas.
With the United States now screaming headlong into a vote-by-mail presidential election, in which the exact same ballot harvesting tactics are available and which we are already seeing homes receiving multiple ballots, election integrity has become more important than ever.
The Republican Party of Texas just finished its 2020 convention and the legislative priority that received the most votes was election integrity.
The best choices for Congress are regular citizens who have an expertise, and can use that expertise to help craft policy. The worst choices are professional politicians whose only goal is to maintain their position.
Harris is a diehard conservative who has expertise in an area of critical importance, has proven he can make a difference, and is one of a handful of citizens I’ve met who simply sees a problem and knows he can fix it. Harris is a citizen activist who actually effects change.
He’s not a complete political newbie, either. Besides his experience in Texas, he served as Rep. Lance Gooden’s (R-TX-5) Chief of Staff for the past 18 months. He’s got just the right amount of experience to know how things work in Congress and can hit the ground running.
Most people who go to Congress want a sexy, high-profile committee job. The A-level and B-level committees get a lot of attention and therefore are good springboards for fundraising.
Harris wants to be on the committee that nobody wants, where people are frequently banished, and where fundraising potential is awful: the Committee on House Administration. It manages the administration of the House and how they conduct business.
However, the election subcommittee is housed there, and that’s where Harris wants to serve – along with the Committee on Oversight and Reform, so he can help drain the swamp.
TX-4 is a slam-dunk GOP seat, which went for President Trump by 30 points in 2016. As Rep. Ratcliffe stepped down after winning the GOP primary, the decision as to who will be the party’s district candidate falls to the precinct chairs. There is a very clear pro-Trump candidate in the 4th District. The president needs a man like Harris in Washington to assist his leadership on many issues, election integrity being one of the most vital.
They cannot do better than Aaron Harris.