Texas holds special elections on January 6 to fill four vacant legislative seats. Texas special elections do not have party nominees. All candidates who pay the filing fee appear on the ballot, with the party label of their own choice. If no one gets 50%, there is a run-off.
Five candidates are on the ballot for the 17th House district race: two Democrats, two Republicans, and an independent candidate, Linda Curtis, who founded the group IndyTexans. See this story.
Six candidates are on the ballot for the 123rd House district race, including Libertarian Roger Gary and Green Party member Paul Ingmundson. That race also includes three Democrats and a Republican.
To see a list of all candidates in all four races, see this page from the Texas Secretary of State’s web page.
why are there so many special elections when we just had an election 9 weeks ago?
The incumbent senator in SD-26, Leticia Van De Putte, and incumbent representative in HD-123, Mike Villareal, are running for mayor of San Antonio. That election is in May. They don’t have to resign their legislative seats, but are doing so for practical reasons.
The regular session of the legislature is January through May of odd years. Since it only happens every two years, it is quite intense. In addition, legislators may not accept campaign contributions while the legislature is in session. Being in the legislature would crimp their campaigning, and legislative absences must be excused. If they weren’t active in the legislature, their opponents could use that against them.
Because a Texas special election can be completed in 21 days, it will be possible to elect replacements before the legislature is very far into the session.
The mayoral race is wide open because the former mayor Julian Castro, resigned to become HUD Secretary. If he had run for re-election there would have been no serious opponent.
Mike Villareal was re-elected in November. Texas makes it pretty hard to replace party nominees. Death or debilitating illness are not attractive options, and moving out of the district unwise for someone who plans for running for mayor of their city. So Villareal was re-elected and then resigned.
Leticia Van de Putte senate seat was not up for election in 2014, but she was running for Lieutenant Governor. She could have resigned her senate seat, claiming that she was doing that so she could server as Lieutenant Governor. But that would be seen as a sham, and she possibly had not decided to run for mayor until after she lost the Lieutenant Governor race.
It is quite likely that the SD-23 special election will trigger another special election since the two leading candidates are state representatives.
HD-17 is caused by its recently re-elected representative going to work for the newly elected Ag Commissioner (who was a former House member).
In HD-13, the special election, which is January 13, is because the incumbent was elected to the senate in a special election in December. The senate election was caused by its former senator being elected state comptroller in November, and then resigning his senate seat.