“This decision is for one reason alone: my conclusion that another campaign and another full legislative session are not compatible with the time I need to devote at this stage in life to being a father and husband,” Turner said in a press release.
He continued, “Serving in the Legislature requires being away from home and in Austin for a significant portion of each two-year term. Campaigning also takes up many evenings and weekends. This is in addition to one’s regular job, which in my case is my law practice.”
With two young children, aged 14 and 11, Turner stated the missed time at home was too much to continue.
The son of former Congressman Jim Turner, Turner first won election to House District 114 in 2018 — flipping the seat from red to blue after incumbent Republican Jason Villalba lost his primary to Lisa Luby Ryan.
Turner knocked off Ryan by 11 points to secure the seat.
This past session, Turner served on the County Affairs and Higher Education Committees and was often among those Democrats levying pointed lines of questioning at GOP bill authors on contentious issues.
Turner’s re-election win in 2020 was still wide but regressed back toward the mean from his 2018 margin. He beat Republican challenger Luisa Del Rosal by 7 points.
House District 114 was one of the 12 seats flipped by Democrats in the “Beto Wave” of 2018. During the 2020 session, Turner was rated the 31st-most liberal member of the Texas House — basically the middle of the pack in the Democratic caucus.
“I hope I will have other opportunities to be involved in politics again a few years down the road. In the meantime, I am committed to fully representing this district for the rest of my current term,” he concluded.
Through the rest of that term are at least two special sessions, the first of which begins July 8 and will feature election reform legislation — the casualty of the Democrat walkout in which Turner participated.
Turner is the second state representative to announce he won’t seek re-election since the conclusion of the 87th Regular Session. State Rep. James White (R-Hillister), chair of the Homeland Security & Public Safety Committee, made that announcement earlier this month and hinted at a run for higher office.
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Brad Johnson
Brad Johnson is a senior reporter for The Texan and an Ohio native who graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2017. He is an avid sports fan who most enjoys watching his favorite teams continue their title drought throughout his cognizant lifetime. In his free time, you may find Brad quoting Monty Python productions and trying to calculate the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
