Rep. Robby Cook III, D-Eagle Lake, says he won't run for reelection next year, ending a six-term tenure in the House and opening a seat in one of the few districts where Democrats and Republicans have equal competitive footing in a general election.
Cook is one of the House's WD-40s — White Democrats Over 40 — a group of relatively conservative rural legislators who managed to hang onto seats that GOP strategists had painted red. Cook and others managed to remain in office while their voters were supporting Republicans for other things. And they stuck with the Democrats once in the House, scurrying off to Ardmore to hinder Republican redistricting efforts, and voting to depose House Speaker Tom Craddick last year, an effort that fell short but that defines House politics at the moment.
Cook said there wasn't a particular trigger for his decision. He wants to spend some time working on his family farm and to take a break from politics. He was a city council member and a mayor before he ran for the House. He doesn't have a replacement in mind and says he wanted to make his announcement early enough so that others could decide whether to run. He's got a wish, though: "I've never been a very partisan person... and I hope whoever replaces me isn't a partisan person."Cook won his HD-17 post by 415 votes last year, netting under 49 percent in a contest with a Republican and a Libertarian. In 2004, after flirting with a party switch, thinking about quitting, and finally running for reelection as a Democrat, he got 53.7 percent of the vote, again in a three-way contest. He won with 56.4 percent in 2002, with 63.3 percent in 2000, with 64.6 in 1998, and with 54.9 percent in 1998. With the exception of that first race, it's gotten tighter each time. Most Republicans did a little better in Cook's House district than they did statewide, but there's an independent streak: Both Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman, running as Independents, did better in the district than statewide, and Rick Perry and Chris Bell — the Republican and Democrat in the governor's race — underperformed their statewide numbers.
Cook is the eighth state representative to call it quits this year. One — Anna Mowery, R-Fort Worth — quit this summer. And a half-dozen more have announced they won't seek reelection: Dianne White Delisi, R-Temple, HD-55; Fred Hill, R-Richardson, HD-112; Rick Noriega, D-Houston, HD-145; Mike O'Day, R-Pearland, HD-29; Robert Puente, D-San Antonio; and Robert Talton, R-Pasadena, HD-144. Noriega and Talton are running for federal offices. Everyone else on the list is, for now, hanging up their running shoes. If you're looking at this through the Tom Craddick lens, four of the nearly departed are supporters of the speaker, and four come from the opposition.