Texas already allows parents to opt out of vaccination requirements for school entry on philosophical as well as religious and medical grounds. | Getty Images Houston district becomes unlikely battleground for vaccine policy fight

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas House District 134 in southwest Houston, with its teeming 50 million-square-foot medical complex that includes Baylor College of Medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center and 100,000 health workers, seems an improbable battleground for a political fight over vaccines.

Yet it's the latest front in the war over vaccination requirements — and a proxy for the broader struggle between social conservatives and moderates for the soul of the Texas Republican Party.


Texans for Vaccine Choice, a political action committee that favors expanding parents' ability to claim exemptions from childhood vaccination requirements, is backing a primary challenge to moderate GOP state Rep. Sarah Davis, who last year joined with Democrats and a handful of Republicans to unsuccessfully oppose a proposal barring doctors from inoculating children in foster care.

The issue resonates in a solidly conservative state that has also seen measles and mumps outbreaks in recent years and five pediatric deaths from the flu this season. It's also providing an early test of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's increasingly confrontational approach of challenging state lawmakers he's clashed with over legislation on ethics, abortion and other issues.

“There’s a movement towards political purity, and that’s not what makes sense for this public,” said George Santos, president of the Harris County Medical Society. “There are no rational physicians that feel that vaccinations are a bad idea.”

Texans for Vaccine Choice’s involvement coincides with simmering tensions in a state Republican Party that’s sharply divided over a host of health-related issues, from how to pay for the health care safety net to vaccine policy. It has found allies in far-right Republicans who frame the issue as promoting parental rights over government involvement.

Texas already allows parents to opt out of vaccination requirements for school entry on philosophical as well as religious and medical grounds. The group, which formed in 2015 and now has about 1,300 members, according to its website, aims to preserve the broad philosophical exemption and opposes legislation to promote transparency around vaccination rates.

In District 134, it's backing political neophyte Susanna Dokupil, one of the challengers to sitting Republicans that Abbott is bankrolling in the March 6 GOP primary. The group has donated $2,500 to her campaign and organized several block walking parties for Dokupil, providing pamphlets, signs, T-shirts and training to volunteers. Four more are scheduled the next two weekends.

“When Sarah Davis pushed to have state law allow doctors to vaccinate children against the wishes of their parents and even themselves, it made her one of the top priorities of ours this cycle,” Texans for Vaccine Choice Executive Director Jackie Schlegel said in a text message, referring to a failed amendment that would have allowed doctors to give HPV vaccine to kids in foster care.

But the group’s efforts could backfire in the highly educated district, which has nearly 12,000 working and retired physicians and medical residents — more than any other in the state. Santos said a group of medical students asked him last week about setting up a voter registration station inside Texas Medical Center. Hillary Clinton carried the district by 15 points in the 2016 presidential race.

Davis, who has represented the area since 2010, said that she believes Texans for Vaccine Choice’s involvement is encouraging more people to become engaged in the primary than in years past — but not for her challenger.

“When people find out about my opponent’s strong ties to the anti-vaccine movement, they become very nervous,” Davis said. Last week, “we had a [campaign] event at a pediatrician’s home and she was spurred to action because she has seen how powerful these anti-vaxxers have become.”

Dokupil, who was assistant solicitor general during part of Abbott's tenure as AG, now runs a Houston consulting firm. Her campaign did not respond to multiple calls and emails requesting comment.

Vaccine policy is not the only divisive health care issue separating the candidates: Davis is the single GOP House member who supports abortion rights; Dokupil does not. The anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life donated $35,000 to Dokupil's campaign.

Dokupil supports cutting government spending, but has remained silent on how to pay for the county's indigent safety net. She has also prioritized limiting what local governments can raise in property taxes, which fund county hospitals and other public services. About 25 percent of the residents of Harris County, which includes Houston, lack health insurance.

Davis, a breast cancer survivor, has supported boosting funding for mental health, women’s health and cancer research. Those issues, along with her stance on vaccinations, have won her the endorsement of Ed Emmett, the popular Republican head of Harris County.

“In this race, we have one candidate that is up on the issues and understands the medical community,” Emmett said. “Then we have another candidate that is, at least, ignorant and at worst is actively working against sound medicine.”

While Davis has comfortably won the district's general election contest since 2010, a Dokupil victory on March 6 could turn the moderate district over to a Democrat — either Allison Lami Sawyer or Lloyd Wayne Oliver — in November.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated the date of the Texas GOP primary. It is March 6.

This article tagged under: Health Care