Top 10 Reasons Texas Women Need to Vote in 2014

Lucy Stein

October 16, 2014

Your vote can make a difference.

Women have the power to decide elections, but only if you show up to vote. During midterm elections—when we elect our governor in Texas—too many women don’t show up at the polls to make their voices heard. Ten million single women who voted in 2008 didn’t vote in the 2010 midterm election. This is the first time in 12 years—yes, 12 long years—Rick Perry won’t be on the ballot for governor.

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There are no women on the statewide Republican ticket.

That’s right, zero. And to say that the GOP roster of good ol’ boys isn’t concerned with the interests of Texas women is a wild understatement. Each of these guys has a long track record of fighting against women’s rights.

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The dudes of the GOP ticket don’t think Texas women deserve equal pay for equal work.

It’s hard to believe that in 2014, Texas women make 79 cents—and African American and Hispanic women far less—for every dollar a man makes. And it’s even more outrageous that Republicans running for office in November don’t seem to care. Texas needs leaders who will fight for equal pay for equal work. Republicans on the ballot this November 4th will do the opposite.

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Your access to safe and legal abortion is at stake.

Republican politicians on the ballot are hell bent on forcing their dangerous anti-abortion ideology onto women’s bodies and eliminating access to safe and legal abortion care in Texas. Republicans running for office this November 4th are the same politicians who lied when they forced HB2 through under the guise of protecting women’s health and safety. These politicians designed HB2 to do one thing: ban abortion in Texas. As clinics across the state have shuttered as a result of this sham law, women are paying the price. But the fight against HB2—and other anti-woman laws that interfere with personal medical decisions—is far from over.

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Oh, and your access to affordable birth control.

In a direct attack on contraception access, not only did the same Republican politicians in Texas who talk about freedom eviscerate family-planning funding in 2011, but they also rejected $30 million in Medicaid funding for contraception and basic women’s healthcare services—money that can't be used for abortion. They are trying force all affordable family-planning clinics—like Planned Parenthoods—to shut down.

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The U.S. Senators you elect have the power to confirm or block nominations of federal court judges and Supreme Court justices.

Whether it be the Supreme Court’s decision allowing companies like Hobby Lobby to deny women access to contraceptives or the federal courts role in determining if millions of Texas women will have access to abortion care under HB2, federal judges will continue to have enormous impact on many issues of critical importance to women’s lives.

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Greg Abbott is leading the charge in the GOP's war on women.

Republican candidate for Governor Greg Abbott has taken up the torch of the Tea Party politicians who passed HB2, using the same lies to defend HB2 in court and shut down abortion clinics. He recently argued that the law posed a mere “manageable inconvenience” to the 900,000 women forced to travel at least 300 miles to access abortion care. These despicable comments should come as no surprise given Abbott’s pattern of endorsing dangerous anti-woman rhetoric, campaigning with notorious sexual predator Ted Nugent, paying women less than men for the exact same job, and opposing equal pay laws.

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Dan Patrick is scary.

Dan Patrick, Tea Party candidate for Lieutenant Governor, talks a lot about small government, but not when it comes to your most personal, private medical decisions. Patrick was not only a lead advocate for HB2 while in the Texas Senate, but also authored the bill requiring doctors to perform medically-unnecessary, transvaginal ultrasounds on women seeking abortion. On the flip side, saying he doesn’t think it’s the government’s role and doesn’t consider it a problem that women in Texas are paid less than men for the same job, Patrick also vowed to obstruct any future equal pay legislation.

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Ken Paxton, Glenn Hegar and Sid Miller are bad news for Texas women.

Anti-equal pay: Check. Anti-abortion: Check. Anti-contraception: Check, check , check. Ken Paxton, Republican candidate for Attorney General, and Glenn Hegar, Republican Comptroller candidate, both voted to make it easier for employers to pay Texas women less than men for the same job. Glenn Hegar—the primary sponsor of HB2—and Agriculture Commissioner candidate Sid Miller—who voted for HB 2 and coauthored the 2011 forced, transvaginal ultrasound bill—have made their extreme anti-abortion stances central platforms in their campaigns for offices charged with managing finances and protecting crops.

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Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte will fight for you.

This Election Day, these are the best women for the job.
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