Posted on 02/05/2005 11:01:03 PM PST by LdSentinal
SAN ANTONIO - Republican businessman Joe Straus III easily defeated three opponents late Saturday in the special election to fill a Texas House seat in District 121.
Straus won with 64 percent of the vote. His closest competitor was Democrat Rose Spector, a former Texas Supreme Court justice, who got 32 percent.
"It was a very strong signal that the voters in District 121 want consistent and conservative leadership," Straus, 45, said from his victory party. He served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations.
The San Antonio seat was vacated last month by Elizabeth Ames Jones, a Republican appointed to the Texas Railroad Commission.
Spector, 71, told the San Antonio Express-News she had hoped to appeal to a broad swath of voters, but was unable to break through party politics in the conservative district.
Spector was an attorney in the so-called Edgewood case, which eventually led to the state's share-the-wealth school finance system.
Independent candidate Paul Silber, 80, trailed a distant third with 401 votes. A fourth candidate on the ballot, Glen S. Starnes, got about 192 votes, despite his withdrawal from the race last week.
The seat is one of two Republican-held House seats in Bexar County, which has 10 House seats.
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