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Doug Peterson (Texas)
Doug Peterson (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Texas House of Representatives to represent District 129. He lost in the general election on November 5, 2024.
Peterson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Doug Peterson was born in Davenport, Iowa. Peterson's career experience includes working as a communications consultant. At NASA Johnson Space Center External Relations, He was on senior staff as a communications strategist, in addition to serving as branch chief for Communications and Outreach. Prior to those positions he was lead for Astronaut Media Relations and Appearances. Peterson also worked at NASA Headquarters in D.C. in HR agency and as a NASA representative for the U.S. House of Representatives, Space Sub-Committee for Space Exploration Initiative. He earned a bachelor's degree and a graduate degree from the University of Iowa. Peterson has been affiliated with Exploration Green Conservancy and statewide Sierra Club.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Texas House of Representatives elections, 2024
General election
General election for Texas House of Representatives District 129
Incumbent Dennis Paul defeated Doug Peterson in the general election for Texas House of Representatives District 129 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Dennis Paul (R) | 60.8 | 52,419 |
 | Doug Peterson (D)  | 39.2 | 33,758 | |
| Total votes: 86,177 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Texas House of Representatives District 129
Doug Peterson advanced from the Democratic primary for Texas House of Representatives District 129 on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Doug Peterson | 100.0 | 6,175 |
| Total votes: 6,175 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Republican primary election
Republican primary for Texas House of Representatives District 129
Incumbent Dennis Paul advanced from the Republican primary for Texas House of Representatives District 129 on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Dennis Paul | 100.0 | 12,449 |
| Total votes: 12,449 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Campaign finance
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Peterson in this election.
2015
- See also: Houston, Texas municipal elections, 2015
The city of Houston, Texas, held elections for mayor and city council on November 3, 2015. The filing deadline for candidates who wished to run in this election was August 24, 2015.[2] In the race for At-Large Position 3, incumbent Michael Kubosh defeated John LaRue, Joseph McElligott and Doug Peterson.[3][4]
| Houston City Council At-large Position 3, General election, 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Michael Kubosh Incumbent |
60.2% | 108,322 |
| Doug Peterson | 25.5% | 45,772 |
| John LaRue | 8.0% | 14,410 |
| Joseph McElligott | 6.3% | 11,346 |
| Write-in votes | 0% | 0 |
| Total Votes (100% of precincts reporting) | 179,850 | |
| Source: Harris County Texas, "Official general election results," accessed November 16, 2015 | ||
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Doug Peterson completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Peterson's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
I worked at Nasa for 34 years in Communications, Public Affairs, and External Relations. I've also worked in Harris County Precinct 2 with Commissioner Adrian Garcia addressing resident concerns regarding a wide variety of issues, including flooding infrastructure concerns and managing community relations.
I have always been interested in addressing community challenges that affect the safety, health, and conservation of the Bay Area and its residents. And, in order to raise community awareness, I have held community forums specific to the vulnerabilities of the community and sought partnerships to address those issues.
One of the most successful efforts, I've been involved in, is the creation of Exploration Green in Clear Lake. Before retiring from NASA, I jumped into the very early phases of planning and funding the project to turn 200 acres, in the center of Clear Lake, into a world class green space/flood mitigation nature park. I learned that by organizing and coordinating community and political stakeholders and an army of dedicated volunteers, big and necessary tasks can be accomplished for our community.- It seems that Texas State Representatives have forgotten, the only job they have is to represent the needs of the constituents that voted for them. Over the years, we have seen proof that legislation proposed and passed by our current Bay Area representative has been decidedly in favor of extreme conservative and corporate interests that represent a small portion of the electorate. I strong the health and welfare and safety of our community. Corporations CAN become good corporate neighbors.
- It's time to stand up for health. Recent legislation is intimidating doctors and medical facilities from providing needed abortion healthcare. Infant mortality has increased by 13% and infant birth defects are up by 23%. Further, the medical needs of the working poor could be addressed by expanding Medicaid. It would return an additional 5.4 billion dollars of federal tax dollars to Texas, reduce taxpayer burden, and stop the closure of rural healthcare facilities in Texas. Yet, legislators have failed to vote for it. Lax pollution enforcement has allowed industry to pollute our air and water. During Hurricane Harvey, industry released 5.96 million pounds of pollutants of which 1 million pounds were deadly.
- Public education is the foundation of a safe community, will produce future leaders for our state, and must be fully funded. Current efforts to approve school vouchers will ultimately result in a drain on public education funding, a profound decline in the quality of learning (private schools are not required to meet Texas academic standards) and only provide a "school choice" for families that already afford private schools, as vouchers, for most, will not cover the full cost of tuition. Furthermore, vouchers do not truly convey school choice as private schools are not required to educate whoever appears at their door. Unlike public education, they can arbitrarily refuse to accept a student.
- Against laws that restrict and deny access to birth control.
- For allowing doctors to practice medicine and returning privacy laws that allows patients and doctors to make the best medical decisions in the moment of a health crisis.
- For keeping taxpayer dollars in public schools. Against school vouchers.
- For increasing the State's contribution to public school funding.
- Against blanket censorship of library books. Against book bans.
- For keeping education secular.
- For taking action to stop air, water, and noise pollution.
- For gun safety measures that protect our children in schools and our neighbors in public places.
Thus, I believe, the characteristics and principles that are most important for an elected official is a belief that the sole purpose of his/her job is to listen to his/her constituents, provide transparency in the legislative process and to alert the community to issues requiring advocacy. In addition, I believe elected officials cannot stand by and wait for things to happen. They must be proactive and seek to empower a community to reach for solutions.
2. A bill to return reproductive rights.
3. A bill to accept Medicaid expansion.
4. A bill to fully fund public education and against school vouchers.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
2015
Peterson's website highlighted the following campaign themes:[5]
Equality
- Excerpt: "Houston’s diversity powers our economy, and all our people need to equal treatment. I support the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance."
Economy
- Excerpt: "Houston needs to triple its Economic Development function to facilitate efforts in dozens of commercial communities where local leaders need help to grow local economies."
Transportation
- Excerpt: "Take action to fix ReBuild Houston: review, prioritize and accelerate street/flooding projects. Stimulate “city center” walkable communities across Houston, leverage on local efforts."
Environment
- Excerpt: "Houston needs to push for legal methods of controlling pollution in its region, and to negotiate with specific companies to find and agree on practical improvements. Reinvigorate programs to inform Houstonians about importance of cleaning up our waterways by reducing fertilizer use and litter that ends up in our lakes and bay."
Public safety
- Excerpt: "More community policing with foot and bicycle patrols, more school programs to help kids know police, and opportunities for the community to know officers personally. Include hiring only from those who live or will live in Houston."
Budget
- Excerpt: "Review all city programs to identify programs that no longer work and can be terminated for budget reductions or enable new, innovative programs."
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Texas House of Representatives District 129 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on August 20, 2024
- ↑ Harris County, "Important 2015 Election Dates," accessed January 12, 2015
- ↑ City of Houston website, "November 3, 2015 General Election Candidates," accessed August 27, 2015
- ↑ Harris County Texas, "Unofficial general election results," accessed November 3, 2015
- ↑ Doug Peterson campaign website, "Issues," accessed September 16, 2015
