House District 71 Race: Here are top issues for incumbent Lambert, challenger Goolsbee

Politics is personal for both incumbent and challenger seeking to represent four Big Country counties, including the city of Abilene, in the next Texas Legislature.

In the race for District 71 in the Texas House of Representatives, Republican Stan Lambert, 69, aspires to a fourth term. In November 2020, he won re-election with 79% of the vote over his Democrat opponent, Sam Hatton.

Democrat Linda Goolsbee, 80, in her first race for public office, hopes to turn the district blue for the first time in decades.

Due to redistricting, House District 71 has grown from Jones, Nolan and Taylor counties to include Callahan.

In-person early voting for the Nov. 8 elections begins Monday.

Given the unparalleled views of their political parties, the candidates' divergent stances on today's hot-button issues of abortion and health care are expected. Different issues, too, fill out their top priorities lists.

On one facet of public education, however, there is agreement.

More: Abilene, Taylor County early voting schedule for Nov. 8 election

MORE ABOUT LINDA GOOLSBEE: How she got here

Goolsbee is an Abilene native, one of four children. Her father, T.W. "Jack" Dean, was on the music faculty at Hardin-Simmons University.

"When I was a child, it was in the '50s. My father, who came from East Tennessee, was a Republican. And so was my mother. He was actually a Christian conservative. A real one," Goolsbee said.

At Baylor University, Goolsbee majored in political science when few women were in public office.

"It never occurred to me that a woman could run. So at Baylor I picked out the man that I thought would go into politics," Goolsbee said. "And he didn't."

She chuckled at the recollection. She was married to Arthur Goolsbee for 58 years.

As one of her friends told her, "That's like buying a box of Cracker Jack for the toy and discovering you like the Cracker Jacks," she said.

His influence, however, led to her becoming a Democrat.

After Arthur Goolsbee earned a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin, the couple and their son, Austan, moved to Los Angeles.

Austan became a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. It's where he met future U.S. President Barack Obama, leading to serving as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the first Obama Administration and a member of Obama's cabinet.

While in California for 33 years, Goolsbee worked at Pacific Bell for 20 years.

Abilene became her home again when the couple retired in 2004 to be closer to her family. She has since been involved in Abilene Community Theatre, Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, Abilene Interfaith Council and Abilene Woman's Club.

In 2021, Arthur's health deteriorated due to heart issues. His death July 19, 2021, prompted Goolsbee to run for state representative.

Her four main concerns: 1-Health care

"At the end of that summer, I became really aware of the fact that being on Medicare was a total blessing because at no point in that process was I thinking, 'Oh, dear, I'm going to go bankrupt,'" Goolsbee told attendees of a meet-and-great Sept. 29 at Abilene Woman's Club.

She then realized that younger Texans do not have such security in health care for themselves and their children.

When she filed for office, the plan was to focus on reversing the Texas Legislature's past refusals to expand Medicaid coverage.

"I have talked to young people, young families especially, who are just going on pure luck. And with children, something is going to happen for sure," Goolsbee said.

2-Abortion ruling

Her platform expanded after the U.S. Supreme Court 6-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that overturned the idea of a constitutional right to abortion based on the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

"I have known situations where a safe and legal abortion could save a family that would be crumbling," if the procedure was not available, Goolsbee said.

On the abortion debate, Goolsbee said I think that "Roe v. Wade was a real good balancing act between a human and a possible human. The first trimester was strictly nobody's business in the state at all."

Under Roe v. Wade, states had measured interest in pregnancies in the second and third trimesters, she said.

"I just basically think it has to be the choice of the woman, the family, the people who know the situation because half the people who get abortions are under the poverty line. And, 70% already have children," Goolsbee said.

3-Guns safety vs. gun rights

Gun safety became an important third issue for Goolsbee after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24, leaving 19 children and two teachers dead.

More: How a false tale of police heroism in Uvalde spread and unraveled

Goolsbee advocates raising the state's minimum age for buying a gun, which currently is 18, expanding universal background checks and creating red flag laws, a provision enacted in several other states.

Red flag laws would enable a family member or the police to petition a court to confiscate firearms from individuals considered threatening to themselves or others. They also would be prevented from buying new ones.

She also wants a law requiring safe storage of guns in the home, in part to guard against accidental shootings by children.

"People say that the Second Amendment is absolutely sacrosanct, no matter what," Goolsbee said. "None of our amendments are."

She cited examples of restrictions on free speech.

4-Education

Goolsbee also wants to see improvements in public education academics and safety, but not through the suggestion of vouchers that would enable parents to use taxpayers' money to enroll their children at a private school.

"Every dollar that goes to a voucher school comes away from the public schools. And that hits West Texas the most," Goolsbee said.

Despite the area's long history of being a Republican stronghold, Goolsbee said she expects the party's grip to slip, in part because of abortion.

"What I'm hoping for is that like prairie dogs, the Democrats will come out from their little holes and stand up and say, 'Here I am,'" Goolsbee said.

MORE ABOUT STAN LAMBERT: Education remains central

An Abilene Independent School District board member for 10 years, Lambert agrees that vouchers would be detrimental for rural schools.

"Each family has to decide what the best situation would be for their individual son or daughter, and so I'm all for school choice/ But I think some of those choices need to be borne financially by the parent, not by the Texas taxpayers," Lambert said.

Other education issues concern him more.

"We want to make sure that our active teachers understand that we do consider them professionals. They're not just babysitters that are taking care of our kids and grandkids, but that they do get the recognition and that we pay them on an equivalent basis to what other professionals in similar industries would be paid," Lambert said.

Like his opponent, Lambert is running for office because of family.

He and wife, Debbie, have been married for 43 years and have two sons. She is a retired teacher and school administrator.

"I've got two granddaughters and a grandson, and I want to make sure that we have good schools and good opportunities for them to be successful in whatever they decide to do in their personal lives and in their careers," Lambert said.

A desire to represent West Texas is equally motivating. He was educated in Abilene from kindergarten to college, earning a business degree from Abilene Christian University. After 36 years in banking, he retired in 2016.

"It's very important to me to have good representation in Austin, not just for our district, but for our state as well," he said.

The view from Austin on business and the border

In the last Legislature, Lambert served on two House committees: Business and Industry and Defense and Veterans' Affairs.

As in past campaigns, his top legislative issue is the economy.

"Texas has the ninth largest economy in the world, and we lead the nation in so many different categories in terms of job growth and in terms of unemployment rate," Lambert said.

Being an attractive state for business and work benefits all Texans, he said.

"Having a strong economy gives us the ability to generate resources where we can spend on education, spend on health care, continue to build infrastructure," Lambert said.

Another issue is securing the border, a topic commonly mentioned by constituents, he said.

"The weight of the additional immigrants that are coming across is putting pressure on our health care system, our education system. We're trying to deal with those issues, as well as all the illegal drug activity, the human trafficking that's coming in," Lambert said.

Immigration is a federal issue, but Texas is bearing the brunt of undocumented crossings at the international border, he said. Working with congressional representatives on long-term solutions such as immigration reform and guest worker programs remains important.

"But I think our No. 1 job right now is to try to do what we can to curtail and mitigate the negative ramifications that are occurring because we have an open border policy in Washington, D.C.," Lambert said.

The grid and health care

Another issue people discuss with him is the reliability of the state's electrical grid. Infrastructure improvements and reforms of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas and the Public Utility Commission of Texas have been made, but more can be done, he said.

"Whenever you have something that major, you can't get it all done in one session. It's going to take two or three sessions, I think, to come back and tweak and fine tune and make some additional changes," Lambert said.

One area of improvement, he suggested, is a tighter timetable for mandating weatherization at plants to ensure reliability and capacity.

Lambert said he also expects abortion to be revisited during the next legislative session. Senate Bill 8 passed during the last session, banning abortions as early as six weeks when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Lambert voted for the measure that went into effect Sept. 1, 2021.

"Any time you do a major reform bill like that, you're going to come back probably the next session or two and look at ways to either improve it or leave it as it is, if it's working," he said.

Lambert responded to his opponent's top issue of Medicaid expansion, saying it "is not something that we think is the right business decision for Texas."

Health care accessibility and affordability for those without insurance is important, he said, citing Indiana's strategy as a possible model instead of "full-blown expansion" of Medicaid.

In Indiana, "it was done with a lot of conservative principles as far as health care savings accounts, as far as a return-to-work provision. In other words, you just can't get on this program and stay on it forever," Lambert said.

The district's more pressing health- care issues are keeping rural hospitals open and attracting physicians and nurses to the area, he said.

As Lambert campaigns for re-election, his favorite part of the task is meeting people, he said.

"I love the Big Country, and just getting to meet people each and every day is just a great blessing in my life," Lambert said.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Lambert, Goolsbee contend to be state rep for Abilene, Big Country