Connecting Dot
Out and out loud Spring resident Dot Nelson-Turnier hopes to unseat a right-wing incumbent and reach the Texas House of Representatives. By Brian Martinez Photo by John Conroy
It's hard not to notice Dot Nelson-Turnier. With her hearty laugh and razor-sharp wit, Nelson-Turnier is immediately charming and accessible, and she easily captures the attention of people nearby. It's that presence that she hopes will help her capture a seat in the Texas House of Representatives next month.
Nelson-Turnier is running for state representative from District 150, carved out of northern Harris County and encompassing Humble, Tomball, and Spring, as well as a large chunk of unincorporated area. A lifelong activist, Nelson-Turnier says she realized that the time was right to make a bid for public office. Backed by the support of her family, this publicly out candidate, who has been endorsed by the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, is working to unseat incumbent Republican Debbie Riddle, co-author of the state constitutional amendment blocking gay marriage. (Riddle is also notorious for stating in a 2003 legislative hearing, "Where did this idea come from that everybody deserves free education, free medical care, free whatever? It comes from Moscow, from Russia. It comes straight out of the pit of hell. And it's cleverly disguised as having a tender heart. It's not a tender heart. It's ripping the heart out of this country.")
A native of the Northeast, Nelson-Turnier has made her home with her family in Texas, the state she says she fell in love with years ago. Her background is in international banking, and she runs a consulting business.
As the fall campaign neared its most intense months, Nelson-Turnier--the first Democratic candidate to run in her district since 1990--visited Austin to meet with Democratic leaders and sat down for an interview.
Brian Martinez: It's really easy for people to sit back and complain about politics, but then do nothing. What made you decide that you would do something more and actually get into this race? Dot Nelson-Turnier: I'm 49. I have a four-year-old daughter. Things are really messed up right now. Bigotry is acceptable against non-white people. Texas passed an antigay constitutional amendment. People died in New Orleans. 250,000 kids were knocked off CHIPs [the state Children's Health Insurance Program]. You hear about the widening gaps in the classes all the time. The top 3 percent is getting richer and the rest of us . . . I'm not there. You're probably not there. I've been through a lot. I lost my business after 9/11. My home has been flooded. I'm in a wheelchair. But I have lots of energy and hope. I want to share that hope with other people. One day I noticed that there was a Republican running unopposed for two terms in my district. A Republican running unopposed! Not on my watch! I've always been an activist. I decided I had talked the talk. It was time to walk the walk.
What role did your sexual orientation play in your decision to run? I really don't have a gay agenda, as they say. I've been active since the '70s, and I've never seen a gay agenda. I am not any more concerned with GLBT rights than I am with the rights of other ethnicities. All rights need to be protected. My opponent co-authored the amendment to make gay marriage illegal. She's very conservative. I'm a Christian, but she is very right wing. If she tries to make this election about my being a lesbian, I'm going to ask her about all the other issues. Molly Ivins says something like, "With a 10 billion-dollar deficit, the Legislature decided to focus on an antigay marriage bill?" [Riddle is] concerned about my being a lesbian? What about health care? I'm not a lesbian that happens to be a Democrat. I'm a Democrat who happens to be a lesbian. I want to talk about what's really important. I want to change the things that can be changed, not the things that can't be changed. I can't control who I am. She can't control who I am. An antigay marriage act doesn't make people not gay. She can't change the fact that people are gay. But we can change things like education, the environment, the economy.
Tell me about the Killer EEEEEs, the five issues you highlight on your website, votedot.org. Well, I'm an Astros fan, so from the "Killer Bs" [the popular lineup that included players Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, and Lance Berkman] came the Killer EEEEEs. I call them that because they're killing us. There are five main areas I focus on: economy, education, environment, equity, and equality. But everything starts with the economy. Even the property-tax issue would not be an issue if people had enough money that the property taxes were not causing a burden. The economy drives everything. When people have good-paying jobs, other issues are easier to deal with. You combine small business development with a higher than average unemployment rate. Once you factor back in the unemployed who are no longer collecting unemployment, and provide job training, you get some results. In my district, we have a great opportunity for business growth--lots of retail space--and we can use job training to combine with those and improve the local economy. Education is important to me, too. After everything the legislature did, we did not get school reform. We have such a mess with state finance. The state has seriously mismanaged the budget. Spending has increased at a disproportionate rate, and we are taking from designated funds to pay other bills. We need to start over with a zero-base budget. You start from scratch and put your "must pays," your necessities, in one pile. You put the things you want to have in another, and then you have your income. And you start reorganizing, beginning with matching your income to your necessities and then moving on to the other things. When it comes to the environment, Houston is number-one or number-two in the country in pollution. Equity means health care for all to me.
Tell me about your district and why you think you would be the better choice to represent it. I understand diversity. I have had a lot of diversity in my background. I have been rich, I've been poor, I'm disabled, I'm a minority, I have an African-American child. I have the ability to pay more attention to turning this district into a community. The district is eclectic. It runs from middle to upper class to poor. There are 10,000 apartments, 100,000 eligible voters, 150,000 residents. There's a lot of work that can be done, not in only in Austin, but here in the community. A lot of people are just fed up. There's a lot of discontent, and I represent change for the better.
How are you going about mobilizing voters? We're going to do some town halls, some fundraisers, some block walking-- the standard stuff. We have a fundraiser in Montrose on Saturday, October 14 [see sidebar]. I was in the Pride Parade with the Texas Democrats. People were cheering. People were coming up and hugging me. It was really moving.
A lot of our readers are politically active as well. What would you like to say to them? On my way to a HGLBT [Houston Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Political Caucus PAC] event one night, I started thinking. I'm the only openly GLBT candidate running for office in Texas. I'm the first GLBT candidate ever from Houston [for the state legislature]. I thought that was a great thing, and then I thought, That's awful! Why aren't there more? There are 150 seats in the House, so we should have 15 people running--10 percent, right? I had two to three minutes in front of the group, so I used it to say that. We have to stand up and be counted. We cannot let them intimidate us into silence or else they have won. We are not fighting for our lifestyles here. We are fighting for our lives. We need to stand up and start being more visible. After the election, I'm coming back to you. I'm going to do what I can to bring up these issues.
Brian Martinez interviewed Glen Maxey, the openly gay former state legislator and executive director of the No Nonsense In November campaign to defeat the antigay marriage amendment, for our October 2005 issue. Martinez recently moved to Austin from Kingwood. ______________________________________
DOT SPOT On October 11, from 5–7 p.m., lieutenant governor candidate Maria Luisa Alvarado and former state representative Glen Maxey host a fundraiser for District 150 candidate Dot Nelson-Turnier at Rouge (812 Westheimer). The invited guest is District 141 rep Senfronia Thompson (attendance not confirmed by press time). $25 at the door, additional donations requested. The first drink is free, and light hors d’oeuvres will be served. Details: www.votedot.org, 832/286-3681.
