Austin Democrats emerge to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith

In 2014, no Democrat ran against Lamar Smith, the San Antonio-based congressman who was first elected in 1986.

Last year, two Democrats squared off for the right to challenge Smith; the winner of that primary was a first-time congressional candidate who lost to the Republican by 21 percentage points.

But in a sign of the general frustration of Democrats chafing under the presidency of Donald Trump, at least a half-dozen Democrats, most of them South Austinites, have signaled they will vie to run against Smith. And the primary is still nine months away.

Smith — who has been a staunch supporter of Trump’s and who has called for the dismissal of government scientists, long vilified the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency and has called climate science “wishy-washy” — helms the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, where earlier this year he convened a panel titled “Making EPA Great Again.”

Read more: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/austin-democrats-emerge-challenge-republican-rep-lamar-smith/Q8wbQrnYkMlYubWZkwdmaP/