Stefani Carter (born February 15, 1978) is a former member of the Texas House of Representatives from the 102nd District, which included parts of Dallas, and the northern Dallas County suburbs of Garland, and Richardson, Texas.^[2] First elected in 2010, Carter made history by becoming the first Republican African-American woman to serve in the Texas House when she unseated the Democratic incumbent Carol Kent.^[3][4]

Early life

Carter was born in Dallas. She is a practicing Roman Catholic and was baptized in Richardson, Texas. Her mother was an elementary school teacher, and her father is an engineer turned entrepreneur, the owner of a small lawn-care company.

Carter excelled academically in school; her parents told her she would have to work her way through college. She graduated in 1996 from Plano East Senior High School and earned a full scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin, where she graduated with highest honors with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism. During Carter's undergraduate years at UT she interned at the White House during the Clinton administration.

After UT, Carter graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School. She also obtained a master's degree in Public Policy from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. During Carter's years at Harvard, she became a Republican and contributed articles to USA Today. After law school, she returned to Dallas and served Collin County as an assistant district attorney.

Political career

Carter decided to run for office in the 102nd House District in Texas, taking on Democrat Carol Kent. Carter won by simply pointing to Kent's record as being far too liberal for her area of Dallas and that voters in the district were far more conservative than the person who was representing them.

Carter won in 2010 with 54.63 percent of the vote, having unseated Kent by a ten-point margin of victory.

In 2012, the Texas State Teachers Association said, "Rep. Carter voted for the worst, anti-school bill of the year. That was HB1, the budget, passed in May 2011 during the regular session, which slashed $5.4 billion from public education and, with it, 25,000 school jobs. That bill failed to pay for school enrollment growth, cut funding for pre-kindergarten and other dropout prevention programs, resulted in thousands of overcrowded classrooms and led to the closure of neighborhood schools, including several in Dallas."^[5]

In 2014, D Magazine said, "Carter sponsored a House resolution to issue an official commendation for a guy she was dating named Kris Butler." They also reported, "between November 2010 and January 2013, Butler was paid $9,300 by the Carter campaign, mostly for “campaign services” and work with yard sign distribution." Here is House Resolution 750, commending Kris Butler. In part, it thanks him “for serving as a volunteer for House District 102 and extend[s] to this public-spirited individual sincere best wishes for the future.” ^[6]

On November 29, 2016, Carter was named as a Transition Landing Team member ^[7] for the newly elected President Donald Trump in the Department of Justice.

Election of 2014

Carter had announced on July 9, 2013 that she would be a candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission in the Place 1 seat vacated by the outgoing incumbent, Barry Smitherman, who ran instead for Texas Attorney General in 2014 to replace the three-term incumbent, Greg Abbott, the 2014 gubernatorial nominee who seeks to succeed the retiring Governor Rick Perry.

However, on October 22, 2013, Carter announced that she was ending her bid for the Railroad Commission and would instead seek reelection to a third two-year term to her state House seat.^[8]

References