In the latest episode of the Bluebonnet News Headlines and Heartlines podcast, Alexandra “Alex” Mealer — a Republican candidate for Texas’ newly created U.S. Congressional District 9 — discusses her vision for the region, which includes Liberty County and portions of east Harris County.
Mealer, a wife, mother, combat veteran, and Harvard graduate, said she believes the new district presents both opportunities and challenges.
“I think it’s an exciting. It’s a very gerrymandered district. You can tell it’s not cohesive. You’ve got numerous cities. It’s also a bit rural, but you have this big ship channel. It’s also a lot of city of Houston. It’s majority of Hispanic, it’s blue collar, middle class,” Mealer said. “The biggest challenge is this is a district that has very significant infrastructure needs and it is set up to be a very strong industrial logistics hub, but to do that, it’s going to need really good federal support. And that’s why the top issue, obviously, the supporting America First agenda, but right behind that, [is] protecting the economic engine.”
Mealer, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, served as an explosive ordnance disposal officer before earning both her law and business degrees from Harvard. After her military service, she built a career in energy finance, advising companies on large-scale mergers, acquisitions and capital market transactions.
“In looking at the district, what are those things that are going to benefit the full district and how do you do that responsibly?” she said. “Because you could look at this and just say, ‘hey, this is something that somebody in Austin just drew,’ which there’s some truth to that. But these problems are interrelated and there’s ways to benefit. I mean, the water from Liberty County flows down into Lake Houston and then out to East Harris County. The roadway network, the port, these things are they don’t stop on these artificial borders. These are regional problems.”
She said her previous run for Harris County judge gave her a broader understanding of those interlocking issues.
“So what I like about it is that I think the fact that Liberty County is attached to the port is an ability for Liberty to have a very big voice, because you’re not just any rural county. Now you’re attached to a trillion in GDP,” she said.
When asked about protecting East Texas’s water, Mealer said her priority is ensuring local access.
“I obviously want to make sure that your farmers here, first and foremost, have their water supply rights and I think in general, there’s been a lot of instances where Liberty [County] has been forgotten or kind of left with the short end of the stick. … we need to make sure that the water that is meant for this area is able to go to its residents first and foremost,” she said.
She also discussed her efforts after the 2022 Harris County judge race, noting that she worked on a white paper that helped form the concept for the Gulf Coast Resiliency District.
“When I ran for county judge, when we lost, what most people don’t know the next day, I was in a lawyer’s office, and I wrote the white paper with former county department heads to create the Gulf Coast Resiliency District and the idea was to have a regional approach to drainage, and roadways, and that’s what I see with this,” Mealer said. “When you’re planning drainage, when you’re planning roadways, they don’t stop at county lines. You see that with the expansion and Gulf Inland [Industrial Park in Dayton] is a great example of the fact that, listen, how do we preserve, keep Liberty [County], Liberty [County], and rural, but get some of the good benefit with the industrial growth, because you’re getting a lot of the negative. What I want to do is make sure that you have that good backbone, because with the rail that you have – the proximity, you shouldn’t just get the negative of being close to Houston. You should be getting some of the benefit of the good industrial tax base.”
She added that issues like crime and infrastructure don’t stop at county borders.
“When you have a dysfunctional Harris County, that bleeds into Liberty County. I’m very sorry. I tried to do my best to fix that,” she said.
When asked about the role of the energy sector, Mealer highlighted the Port of Houston’s importance to the district’s economy.
“It’s the health of the port. The port is balanced – equal export-imports. It’s about $100 million a year, it needs just for dredging, just all of the silt that’s running down from San Jacinto [River], just to keep it at neutral… If you were not getting cargo out…if that port’s getting jammed up with the container cargo, well, then you’re going to start backing up stuff in West Texas at the wellhead. Everything is very complicated – the logistic lines, and what’s nice is if you kind of do those fundamentals right, it all works together,” she said.
Mealer also said she is encouraged by the federal government’s recent efforts to remove some of the regulatory barriers to large-scale infrastructure and industrial projects.
Listeners can hear the full interview with Alexandra “Alex” Mealer on the Bluebonnet News Headlines and Heartlines podcast, by clicking here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0UXuQpjQh4ypOrDVevSmIQ?si=5h9JRLstQ5O6SGLsZ08QBA
Be sure to watch for next week’s episode featuring LinMarie Garsee, a private investigator who has written several books about high profile crimes in Liberty and Chambers counties. Garsee will detail her book on Chambers County crimes next week, and in a podcast the following week, she will talk about her upcoming book on Liberty County crimes.
Get the Third World out of Liberty County.